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How did you learn electronic test and measurement equipment and processes? If you’re like most engineers, you probably didn’t learn much of it in college since lab time was typically short or non-existent. Also, the emphasis then was on theoretical validation rather than instrument operation, application, specifications, and the importance of measurement methods. As a result, most of you probably learned how to use a scope, signal generator, spectrum analyzer, and other instruments on...

In one memorable scene in the 1951 movie The Day the Earth Stood Still, the giant robot Gort picks up the body of his companion Klaatu and cradles the alien visitor in his arms. The robot then carries Klaatu back to the safety of their flying saucer for life-restoring treatment. Now, life is imitating art. A giant mobile robot developed by Vecna Technologies is able to use its arms to rescue injured soldiers from the battlefield. "I am very excited about the...

Automotive and process control environments aren't the only homes for controller-area networking (CAN) these days. It can be found in everything from printers to robots. Topping out at 1 MHz, CAN uses a differential bus architecture (Fig. 1). Its packet data size is only 8 bytes, but this is often more than enough for embedded applications. In fact, the identifier is frequently used to indicate an event or value when there are no...

ESD Electronics brings CAN to PCI with its CAN-PCIe/2000 adapter. The interface supports one or two ports that comply with the ISO 11898 and CAN 2.0B standards. It provides a way for a PC to control or be part of a CAN network. Opto-isolation is standard. Software drivers are available for Windows, Linux, and QNX. They support an extensive programming interface. A free CAN monitoring and analyzing program is also provided. The CAN-PCIe/2000 costs $570. ESD...

Hitex's $49 USB-based STR9-comStick contains a 96-MHz STMicroelectronics STR912 microcontroller that uses an ARM966E core and has 544 kbytes of flash and 96 kbytes of RAM. The USB stick also includes a 10-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC), a 10/100 Ethernet media access controller (MAC), and CAN and UART interfaces. The package includes the Hitex HiTOP integrated development environment (IDE) and debugger, which supports the HiSIM Instruction Set Simulator. The system uses the...

Developers can take NetBurner's $299 PK70 Product Kit and quickly turn their designs into networked devices (see the figure). At its core is the 147-MHz ColdFire 5270 32-bit processor plus 4 Mbytes of flash, 8 Mbytes of SDRAM, an SD flash card interface, an RS-232 serial port, and a 10/100 Ethernet interface. The system accepts a single Personality Blade that has access to the processor's I2C, SPI, and GPIO, plus two...

Freescale's Flexis line spans the company's 50-MHz 8- and 32-bit cores, starting with the MC9S08QE128-based S08 core and MCF51QE128-based ColdFire V1 core. Flexis microcontrollers have common peripherals and pinouts and represent Freescale's idea of a Controller Continuum, enabling easy migration between 8- and 32-bit platforms. With Freescale's $99 Demoqe development board from PE Micro, developers can quickly start development with the two chips (...

Even just a few years ago, robotic doctors seemed decades away. But many physicians now use a remotely controlled robot with a built-in video conference system to provide medical care. The RP-7 from InTouch Health provides a "remote presence" that allows physicians to interact with patients regardless of their physical location (see the figure). Such developments could revolutionize the way diagnostics are delivered, especially when...

One of the most popular exhibits at the "old" Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, N.J., was the "touch tunnel," where little hands felt their way through a lightless maze. After a two-year renovation, the center has emerged from the dark ages. Now, little hands take surveys and browse news stories on touchscreen interfaces. The $109 million redesign reinvents the science museum concept, as its digital exhibits are interactive and visitors use personal technology to stay...

Given the range of digital and analog interfaces available, just about anything can be a microcontroller peripheral. However, most devices for storage, displays, and communication tend to use standard interfaces, such as Serial ATA (SATA) or USB. In general, microcontrollers rarely address all of these interfaces. Knowing what devices and interfaces are available is half the job of choosing a microcontroller platform. SOFT PERIPHERAL...

After years of working for tech companies like California Micro Devices and Motorola, Gerald Smith wanted to spend the rest of his analog engineering career involved in independent, hands-on tinkering. He found a cause in the growing need for analog chip design services and set up a small design services company—Analog Design Consortium—in San Jose, Calif., with three other analog engineers last year. "We just don't have the number of analog engineers we need...

When it's time to produce the electronic portion of your product, do you go to a design firm or an independent contractor? Both are good solutions, but they meet different needs. If you need your lawn mowed, you hire the kid next door. But if you want someone who knows what fertilizer to use and when to trim the trees, you hire a landscaper. Outsourcing began as a cost-effective manufacturing solution. In the 1990s, it expanded to include full-service product design. Today,...

It's still a bit early to start expounding on Freescale's new multicore Power architecture-based communications platform (see the figure). But with the help of Virtutech's Simics development platform, Freescale developers can access functional platforms well in advance of silicon. SIMULATION ADVANTAGES Virtutech has worked with Freescale on platform simulation for some time, including ...

Healthcare solutions need to be affordable as well as effective. That's what a team of engineering students from ITESO graduate school at the Universidad Jesuita de Guadalajara in Guadalajara, Mexico, decided when they entered their latest project in Freescale Semiconductor's Black Widow $10,000 Design Challenge. The team's myoelectric prosthetic hand not only maintains user comfort and functionality, it also minimizes costs (see...

There's no shortage of the number of networking protocols available for automotive infotainment and control functions, and the list keeps expanding. Some of these protocols augment each other, while they're incompatible in other cases, raising the issue of which network protocol will win out. The answer isn't that straightforward, since each protocol has specific critical functions not offered by others. Complicating the issue is the fact that automotive makers...

The increasing complexity of automotive infotainment systems continually challenges operating-system (OS) software providers to come up with the right platform, no matter what ICs or bus protocols are used. "Many operating systems do not have the right reliability and diagnostic capabilities needed for present and future automotive infotainment systems," says Andrew Poliak, automotive segment manager for QNX Software. "Software will be the key...

These days, drivers and passengers want—and tend to expect—all of the technological comforts of home out on the road. But consumer demand for traditional in-vehicle infotainment systems like CD players is giving way to products that support downloadable content. Nowadays, cars better be compatible with cell phones, MP3 players, GPS devices, and other portable media platforms. PORTABLE AND WIRELESS CONNECTIVITY The...

There's no question that FPGAs make the ideal platform for prototyping most digital systems. In some cases, FPGAs are available at a price point that makes sense in production volumes. On top of that, FPGA vendors have made significant strides in creating easier-to-use FPGAs by continuously improving their low-cost software tools and predominately free intellectual-property (IP) libraries. However, there are compelling cases where FPGA prototypes must be converted...

Once upon a time, designers could throw FPGA migration over the fence and wash their hands of it. Sure, they may have worked out a few details like optimal pinout along the way. But chances are they didn't lose any sleep over the process. Nowadays, heads might roll if the migration caused downstream board spins and product delays, especially if the migration was planned from the beginning. Planned or not, migrating FPGAs to structured ASICs, ASICs, or ASSPs can be smooth...

Sure, designers of embedded computer systems know digital techniques. But they may not be intimately familiar with the digital management of the power supplies used by their systems. Two methods reign when it comes to implementing digital power management. Yet it's not clear which method will win the favor of system designers—or the favor of the courts. Power-One's proprietary Z-One system was the first method to arrive. Then came the open-standard Power...