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3540 results found, displaying items 81 - 100
Six-Pin Micro Packs In Quad 8-Bit ADCs
Atmel’s 12 MIPS ATtiny10 six-pin microcontroller fits into a 2- by 3-mm SOT-23 package, but it additionally incorporates 1 kbyte of flash, 32 bytes of RAM, and four 8-bit analog to digital converters (ADCs). The chip also has a comparator and a 16-bit pulse-width modulation (PWM) timer. Pricing starts at only $0.35. ATMEL ...
Trees Speed Mobile Flash File System
Datalight’s Reliance Nitro implements a high-performance, extent-based flash file system that’s five times faster than FAT-based (file allocation table) systems. It additionally supports multiple file streams and atomic transaction points. The tree-based directory system provides the performance boost. Furthermore, it implements dynamic wear leveling to extend the flash lifetime. DATALIGHT ...
Dual PowerPC Micro Delivers Secure Processing Platform
Start with a two-core PowerPC. Add a secure boot microcontroller. That’s what CPU Technology did with its Acalis CPU872 secure, multicore microcontroller designed for applications needing hardware-based security (Fig. 1). There’s nothing special about the PowerPC cores used in the chip, which is good. They are stock cores with 256 kbytes of L2 cache and 64-bit floating-point support designed to...
Looking Over Your Shoulder At The Indy 500
The Indianapolis 500 has come a long way since its start on Memorial Day, May 30, 1911. The inaugural event marked the first time a rear-view mirror was used in a motor race, courtesy of Ray Harroun on the “Marmon Wasp” for Indianapolis automaker Marmon. Harroun also was the only driver in the race who didn’t bring along a mechanic in the passenger seat. Mechanics in those early races checked the oil pressure and also served as the rear-view mirror. Harroun...
Volunteers Wanted For A Fair Affair And Robots Everywhere
Student science and engineering competitions come to a boil in the spring. School programs often feed into regional events like the Mercer Science and Engineering Fair in Lawrenceville, N.J., which I help run (see the figure). In turn, our winners will compete in the annual Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in Reno, Nev., run by the Society for Science and the...
Supercool, Superconducting Digital Switches Extend DDR's Reach
Software-defined radio (SDR) replaces traditional radio circuitry like mixers, filters, and demodulators with software that runs on a DSP or with FPGAs. The secret to its success is its ability to sample the radio signal quickly enough so the DSP can do its job. However, the upper sampling speed of analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) has inhibited its capabilities. Modern chips can easily sample in the hundreds of megahertz and lower gigahertz ranges, but...
Fast ZigBee/802.15.4 Radio Offers Voice Capability
Several ZigBee and 802.15.4 transceiver modules are available for wireless sensor and mesh networks, but the MeshConnect ZICM2410P0 from California Eastern Laboratories (CEL) is unique (see the figure). Designed for the usual cable replacement, wireless point-to-point, multipoint-to-point, and mesh sensor applications, it is additionally useful in HVAC monitoring and control, lighting, remote...
VCSEL Driver And Limiting Amp IC Match 10GE, 8G Fibre Channel Apps
When designing multisource agreement (MSA) optical transceiver modules such as SFP and SFP+, you need a superior compact laser driver and a photo diode amplifier to provide the performance expected in 10-Gbit/s applications. Maxim Integrated Products’ MAX3798 gets the job done (see the figure). Expected uses include 1/2/4/8-Gbit/s Fibre Channel and 10G Ethernet (10GE) including 10GBaseSR,...
Mechatronics Means Motors
Simple electric motors turn when you apply power. They have been used this way since their inception. Yet today, a microcontroller may be sitting between the motor and the switch, and motors can be found everywhere from white goods to hybrid vehicles. Electric motors are key to almost all robotic work as well, with a couple hydraulic motors included for good measure. Most electric motors utilize magnetics for motive power. But at the low end of the spectrum, it...
Motor Terms
Technically, the term electric motor includes all motors, but it’s typically used to refer to rotational motors. In linear electric motors, movement is linear instead of rotational. The stator is the fixed part of the motor. The rotor, which is the part of the motor that moves, typically rotates. The armature is the rotor coil. The commutator connects brushes...
USB Flexes Its Industrial Strength
As PCs proliferate, their technologies become more affordable for a growing range of industrial applications. Programmable automation controllers, for example, are basically ruggedized PCs. Meanwhile, Ethernet has transformed from an office/home network to an industrial network that’s rapidly becoming the norm in factories. USB is also extending its industrial presence. Dataacquisition systems use it for easy connections and expansion. Robots employ USB for...
The USB 3.0 Speed Bump
The latest version of USB, completed last year, increases bandwidth up to 5 Gbits/s, moving 25 Gbytes in only 70 seconds. While most industrial applications won’t need that much speed for I/O applications, observers feel that USB 3.0 will eventually play a role in applications that move lots of data. Though the first CPUs supporting the standard won’t move into high volume until later this year, industrial designers are already speculating how engineers may use...
What Can You Build With Ethernet, USB, And An Arm?
Tucked away in a couple of smaller booths at January’s International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas was a pair of companies with an interesting approach to network attached storage (NAS). One was PogoPlug. The other was Ctera. They have slightly different business models, but the hardware looked similar. In fact, it looked a lot like Marvell Semiconductor’s SheevaPlug (Fig. 1). The...
Programming The CUDA Architecture: A Look At GPU Computing
Graphics processing units (GPUs) were originally designed to perform the highly parallel computations required for graphics rendering. But over the last couple of years, they’ve proven to be powerful computing workhorses across more than just graphics applications. Designed with more resources devoted to data processing rather than flow control and data caching, GPUs can be leveraged to significantly accelerate portions of codes traditionally run on CPUs,...
Visual Debugging Hooks Into Your Applications
Text-based programming has led to a host of text-based debugging tools, from command-line interface debuggers to graphical integrated development environments (IDEs) that are still essentially text-based. Arrays and structures may be displayed in windows, but they’re textbased at heart. This isn’t to say that graphics have been completely ignored, though. DSP data can be plotted with tools like Analog Devices’ VisualDSP+ and Texas Instruments’ Code Composer...
32-Bit Micro Fits In 5.5 mm2
Renesas fits its latest r32c/100 series 32-bit microcontroller into a 64-pin quad flat no-lead package (QFP), 80-pin QFP, and 100-pin, 5.5- by 5.5-mm land-grid array (LGA) package. the 50-MHz r32c/111 sips 600 µA/MHz. it has up to 512 kbytes of flash memory and 63 kbytes of rAM. A 32- by 32-bit multiply-accumulate (MAc) augments the floating-point unit. the chip has nine serial ports; a 26-channel, 10-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADc); and a...
Micro Has Touch Sense For All GPIO Pins
The STMicroelectronics 8-bit, 16-MHz stM8s10x and 8-bit, 24-MHz stM8s20x support serial, i2c, and serial peripheral interface (sPi). they also include a 10-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADc) and dual watchdog timers. the touch sensor support takes a digital approach, using internal timers to track the charge and discharge rates. An external resistor per touchpad is needed. All general- purpose i/o (GPio) pins are supported. About 2 kbytes of code are...
Cortex-M3 Micro Makes Great Gateway
Luminary Micro’s 130-nm, low-power LM3s9000 series features on-chip 10/100 Ethernet MAc/PHy with iEEE 1588 Precision time Protocol (PtP) support, usb on-the-Go MAc/PHy, and cAN 2.0 (controller Area Network), making it ideal as a gateway between networks in addition to handling a range of embedded chores such as motor control. the 100-MHz micro is based on ArM’s latest cortex-M3 core with 96 kbytes of rAM and 256 bytes of battery backed-up rAM. the external...
All-In-One: Capacitive Touch, Segmented Display, Low Power
Microchip’s 8-bit PIC18F87J90 incorporates a charge time measurement unit (Ctmu) for capacitive touch sensing or precise time measurement plus direct drive lCD support. the lCD controller delivers software-programmable contrast support. these 64- and 80-pin devices support up to 128 kbytes of flash, 4 kbytes of rAm, and a real-time clock/ calendar. pricing starts at $2.58. the pIC18F87J90 plug-In module costs $25. ...
Atom Mini-ITX Sports Dual Gigabit Ethernet Ports
The AIMB-210 from Advantech is a mini-ItX motherboard that hosts a 1.6-ghz N270 Atom processor and a pair of gigabit Ethernet ports, making it a great platform for gateways and firewalls. It also has six serial ports, eight uSb 2.0 ports, and a compact flash slot. It supports dual displays plus low-voltage differential signaling (LVDS) and tv-out support. there’s an internal compact flash slot as well. ...
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