636 results found for Engineering Feature, displaying items 1 - 20
November 16, 2009 Science Fiction Meets Science Fact In Today's Robot Research
Real robots have capturedthe imagination of young and old engineers, designers, and programmers alike. For example, techies can get their hands dirty with iRobot’s Roomba Create or take part in competitions like FIRST Robotics. Robots also are changing how war is waged and how we protect people on and off the battlefield. And, they’re working with doctors and patients. Though we’re far from the intelligent androids found in science fiction, robot deployment and...
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William Wong
November 16, 2009 Taking A Hand At Robot Control
Tele-operated and semi-autonomous robots are often handled by conventional joysticks and mice. This is fine for rolling robots with two degrees of freedom. But higher-complexity robots capable of more varied movements have led to everything from 3D mice to thought control (brainwaves), though that has yet to be used for precise control. The AcceleGlove from AnthroTronix uses Freescale’s 3D microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) accelerometers (...
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William Wong
November 5, 2009 A Bright Future For LED Illumination
Nearly all market forecasts paint a positive picture on LEDs being used for general illumination. Market research firm Databeans Inc. expects the market for LED lighting applications, including white LEDs, to grow an average of 23% over the next several years. Worldwide sales this year alone will total $500 million, and LED revenues will hit $1.8 billion by 2013 (see the figure). The vast majority of such sales will be for...
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Roger Allan
November 5, 2009 White LEDs Promise Green Illumination Domination
The lighting is on the wall: Solid state is threatening to dismantle the dominion of incandescent and compact fluorescent light (CFL) sources. Illumination applications based on solid-state lighting are slowly replacing those previously ruled by the older technologies. Though very expensive to use, solid-state lighting has proven more efficient and in sync in a world where government initiatives are calling for a greener environment and less energy consumption. ...
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Roger Allan
October 22, 2009 Engineers Give Back 2008 Gains In 2009
The news media is constantly hyping the latest poll. Whether it’s what people think about healthcare, Afghanistan, or the latest contestants on So You Think You Can Dance, someone somewhere is always telling us what somebody else is thinking. But here at Electronic Design, we know what really matters to you. That’s why we conduct our engineering salary and opinion survey every year. Our annual survey provides the industry’s most complete...
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Jay McSherry
October 22, 2009 Where Are All The Jobs?
Federal Reserve chairman Ben S. Bernanke caused a bit of a stir last month when he said that from a “technical perspective,” the recession is “very likely” over at this point. From a less technical perspective, he added that it could be months before unemployment rates dropped significantly. In fact, the Consumer Electronics Association’s U.S. Economic Forecast is projecting the unemployment rate for the country at 9.9% in 2010 and expects it to improve to only...
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Ron Schneiderman
October 9, 2009
The Outsourcing Reality
Outsourcing has become a way of life in the engineering community as most OEMs continue to farm out work both domestically and overseas. With years of experience in outsourcing now under their belts, companies seem to have a better sense of where they’re willing to take the risk of handing over design, development, and manufacturing to others.
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Jay McSherry
October 9, 2009
Who's Hiring?
Reflecting the realities of the current job market, only 10% of the respondents to our 2009 Salary Survey said they would be actively seeking a new position this year. About 60% said they would follow up if they heard about an interesting opportunity or were approached with an offer, while the remaining 30% couldn’t envision changing jobs in the foreseeable future. So, who's actually hiring?
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Jay McSherry
October 8, 2009 Automotive Networks Strive To Satisfy Safety And Bandwidth Needs
A quiet revolution is sweeping through automotive in-vehicle, vehicle-to-vehicle, and vehicleto- infrastructure communications and networking. Companies as well as standards organizations continue to successfully tackle major design challenges, such as the adoption of hardware and software approaches to meet demanding bandwidth, fault-tolerance, determinism, and reliability requirements. In fact, there’s marked improvement among a number of communications and control...
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Roger Allan
September 24, 2009 Military And Avionics Applications Demand Rugged Hardware
Not all military and avionic electronics need to be ruggedized, but unprotected systems would last only minutes in many of these environments. Thus, solutions such as rugged cases, conduction cooling, and highreliability connectors become mandatory design elements. Elma’s air transport rack (ATR) 6U VPX is a good example of the starting point for military rugged designs (Fig. 1). The...
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William Wong
September 10, 2009 A Word About RF Power Transistors
MOSFETs used in cellular and other PAs are virtually 100% discrete RF power transistors. The laterally diffused metal-on-silicon (LDMOS) FETs are the most popular type. Freescale Semiconductor is a leader here, with a wide range of devices. The company’s recent products include the MRF8S9100H/HS, which operates in the 920- to 960-MHz range. It’s designed for class AB or C operations in GSM/EDGE systems. It can deliver 45-W average power, a gain of 19.1 dB, and an...
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Louis E. Frenzel
September 10, 2009 Thinking In dBm
When you think of power, you think of watts. It’s a different story with RF PAs, though. Not only is the gain of the amplifier given in dB, but the power output also is normally quoted in dBm. Get used to it. Just as a reminder, the gain is computed with the familiar formula: dB = 10 log (Po/Pi) Power output is computed with a 1-mW reference: dBm = 10 log (Po/0.001) Po = 0.001...
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Louis E. Frenzel
September 10, 2009 Key Power-Amplifier Specifications
Adjacent-channel power ratio (ACPR): The ratio of the integrated signal interference power in an adjacent channel to the integrated power in the desired channel Error vector magnitude (EVM): A measure of the distortion in the I-Q constellation diagram of a signal due to phase or amplitude differences; it’s the length of the error vector drawn from the ends of the vector to the desired...
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Louis E. Frenzel
September 10, 2009 Leading-Edge Products Help Designers Put A Stopper In The Power Amp's Power Drain
Transmitter power amplifiers (PAs) consume more power than any other circuit in today’s wireless applications. In some cases, PAs swallow up more than 50% of the power budget. Also, their inefficiency produces excessive wasted power as heat. With cellular basestations joining the green trend and cell phones including ever more features and multiple radios that shorten battery life, the industry is turning its attention to the PA. One main factor causes the PA’s...
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Louis E. Frenzel
August 27, 2009 Expanding Telematics For The Masses
Its simple three-button interface has not changed since its earliest years, but OnStar is making changes to its services at a pace much like that of consumers upgrading their cell phones—and perhaps even quicker. Over time, OnStar has added infotainment system aspects including satellite radio, Bluetooth connectivity, turn-by-turn navigation, and Destination Download. These additional features as well as improved voice recognition, Stolen Vehicle Slowdown, tire pressure...
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Randy Frank
August 27, 2009 The Line Between Telematics And Infotainment Blurs Even Further
TTelematics and infotainment appear to be on a collision course within the automobile. The terms themselves have caused some confusion. Telematics refers to the combination of telecommunications and informatics, basically wireless communication. Infotainment indicates the combination of information and entertainment. Even the analysts can’t agree on what differentiates telematics and infotainment. “You call five different people, you are going...
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Randy Frank
August 13, 2009 What's So Special About The White Space And 700-MHz Bands?
The newly available spectrum lies in the UHF range (300 to 3000 MHz), which is prime territory for wireless. Most unlicensed spectrum is microwave (902 to 928 MHz, 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, 60 GHz). That spectrum works well, but doesn’t match the efficacy of bands below about 900 MHz. Why? Physics. The lower the frequency, the longer the potential range of a radio signal for a given power level, antenna gains, and other factors. Lower frequencies naturally travel farther given a direct...
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Louis E. Frenzel
July 23, 2009 Smarter Video Analysis Techniques Mine More Data
Several evolving technologies have combined to create new opportunities for video to serve as an information resource. Advances in image compression and broadband wireless communications along with falling costs for imaging sensors have made the installation of video cameras easier and cheaper for a widening range of locations. Now, users are looking for systems that can help them use these image streams effectively, by generating alerts and extracting ...
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Richard Quinnell
July 13, 2009
Bringing Privacy To Security
A world filled with cameras watching streets, stores, buildings, and hallways brings to mind two diverging images. One is of an ability to catch crime or detect emergencies as they happen, increasing security and safety.
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Richard Quinnell
July 9, 2009 Key Companies Shake Up This Year's Top Employers
IIt’s been a rocky year, with unprecedented layoffs and even company closures. Few employees, from executives down to entry-level engineers, feel secure in their jobs. But some companies did see success in 2008, as indicated by our annual survey of the Top 50 Employers in Electronic Design. For the sake of objectivity, our survey focused on available financial data of publicly traded companies. Our calculations drew from numbers like employee growth, sales...
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Lou Sosa
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