[Engineering Feature] 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
[Technology Report] The 4G Wireless Showdown: LTE Versus WiMAX
The development of Long-Term Evolution (LTE) and WiMAX has become, well, long term. Both technologies use advanced methods like orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) (see “All Hail OFDM”). They’re also fully IP-based (Internet Protocol), offering high-speed data capability to deliver fast Internet access and advanced...
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Louis E. Frenzel
[Leapfrog: First Look] Field-Programmable I/O Augments 8- And 32-Bit Microcontrollers
T hanks to its reconfigurable peripherals, the original programmable system-ona- chip (PSoC) from Cypress Semiconductor is one of the major microcontroller advances of the past decade. However, its proprietary 8-bit microcontroller limited its use in many higher-end applications. The release of the PSoC 3 (based on the 8051) and the PSoC 5 (based on the Cortex-M3), along with some major changes in the reconfigurable peripherals, revises the equation...
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William Wong
[Leapfrog: First Look] MEMS Digital Dual-Axis Gyro Improves Camera Stabilization
Addressing lower-cost opticalimage stabilization (OIS) as a major goal, InvenSense Inc. has unveiled the first digital dual-axis pitch and roll (X and Y) gyroscope for camera phones and digital still cameras. Its nextgeneration IDG-2000 family offers the smallest such devices on the market, housed in a 4- by 4- by 0.9-mm quad flat no-lead (QFN) package (Fig. 1). The chip is designed for OIS...
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Roger Allan
[Design View / Design Solution] Control Jitter And Interference During Clock Distribution
Several practical issues must be addressed when designing the clock tree for a system running synchronously at high speed. First is the signal integrity of the clock itself, i.e., maintaining low jitter and low distortion all the way to the receiver. Second is controlling clock interference with other parts of the system, as well as compliance with electromagnetic- interference (EMI) regulations. These issues are easy to understand, but hard to practice...
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Lin Wu
[Ideas For Design] Protect Current-Sense Amplifiers From Negative Overvoltage
A high-side current-sense amplifier typically amplifies the differential voltage across a sense resistor and provides an output voltage proportional to the current in that resistor. The amplifier rejects the common-mode voltage on which the sense-voltage rides. Such devices, therefore, can be used to detect overcurrent faults in a load or to make system power-management tradeoffs. Most high-side current-sense amplifiers are well suited for situations in which...
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Prashanth Holenarsipur
, et al.
[Ideas For Design] Improved Electronic Birthday Candles Provide Better "Blow Out" Simulation
An earlier Idea for Design described LED “candles” that you could blow out just like normal birthday candles (“Electronic Birthday Candles ‘Blow Out’ One At A Time”). A thermistor and heating resistor combination detected air blown over the thermistor. The control circuit incorporated an 8-bit shift register, a quad op amp, and driver transistors, allowing up to eight ...
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Dhananjay V. Gadre
, et al.
[Ideas For Design] Turn A Compensated Current Sink Into A Common Emitter (CE) Amplifier
By adding only a few components, you can turn a temperature- and beta-compensated current sink into a common-emitter (CE) amplifier that maintains a stable biased operating point. This architecture is useful for building stable and device-tolerant BJT Class A amplifiers. The circuit in Figure 1 sinks a constant current (ICE3) through Q3’s collector and emitter. This design is balanced so changes in Q3’s...
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Bill Reeve
[TechView: Analog & Power] Powerline Carrier Modem Chip Facilitates Design Beyond Remote-Reading Meters
On Semiconductor’s AMIS- 49587 powerline carrier (PLC) modem does more than remotely read smart electric automatic meters. It invites a closer look at street lighting control, smart power plugs, building automation, and other applications that are part of the Smart Grid, which is a potentially disruptive technology that may offer new opportunities for design engineers (see “...
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Don Tuite
[TechView: Communications] Man-Wearable Radio Implements Movable Tactical Mesh Network
Engineers in industrial environments probably have felt the need to connect some serial port device of interest to their Ethernet local-area network (LAN). Industrial devices still widely use RS-232 serial interfaces because of their robust nature. But making them accessible via your regular Ethernet LAN is tricky at best—at least, it used to be. The B&B Electronics Vlinx ESP211-232 mini serial server solves this problem (...
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Louis E. Frenzel
[Embedded in Electronic Design] I/O-Rich Form Factors Enable Innovation-Rich Designs
Developers can’ t get enough processing power, memory, and I/O ports. Of course, having them on-chip is just the start. Getting them connected to do useful work is another matter. Modular techniques have led to a range of form factors, from board-level systems such as VME to modules like COM Express. The VIA Technologies Em-ITX form factor is designed to bring lots of I/O ports to the outside world with dual I/O port coast lines. The EITX-3000,...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] A Plethora Of Board Form Factors Gives Designers A Range Of Options
Designing a new system from scratch? You can probably find a board form factor that can speed delivery time with expansion and enhancement options that a custom solution would lack. Board-level products are commonly used in a range of embedded systems, including rugged applications such as avionics and military (“Military And Avionics Applications Demand Rugged...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] VoIP BlackFin DIMM—Enough Said
Arcturus Networks’ uCBF54x system is a somewhat large small-outline dual-inline memory module (SODIMM) based on a 533- MHz Analog Devices ADSP-BF548 BlackFin processor. Able to handle up to six voice channels, the processor targets Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) applications. The matching kit includes a host board plus the open-source uClinux and Arcturus Voice and Management Middleware, which includes a complete session initiation protocol...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] Low-Power ZigBee Modules Reach 4 km
Jennic’s JN5148 wireless microcontroller modules bring low-power operation with a large available memory footprint for embedded applications running on the 32-bit MIPS processor. A 128-kbyte ROM includes the ZigBee stack. An optional uFI connector and power amplifier can extend 802.15.4 connections up to 4 km. All of the modules operate from –40°C to 85°C. JENNIC ...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] Homeplug AV Module Does 200 Mbits/s Over Powerlines
Bell Fuse has delivered its Powerline Communications (PLC) transceiver modules based on Intellon’s INT 6400. It’s designed to deliver data, voice, and video over powerlines at speeds up to 200 Mbits/s based on the HomePlug AV standard. The session initiation protocol (SIP) module supports 1024/256/64/16/8QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation), quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK), binary phase-shift keying (BPSK), and remote office/branch office (ROBO) modulation...
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William Wong
[Engineering Essentials] Don't Be Intimidated By Low-Power RF System Design
Adding wireless connectivity to any product has never been easy. However, even when a wireless solution doesn’t seem to make sense, the potential exists. The cost is reasonable, and you add unexpected value and flexibility to the product. But what if you aren’t a wireless engineer? Don’t worry, because in many cases, the wireless chip and module companies have made such connectivity a snap. SELECTING A TECHNOLOGY The...
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Louis E. Frenzel
[Lab Bench] Robot Athletes Have A Kick At Robocup 2009
Held this summer in Graz, Austria, Robocup 2009 hosted an array of robots, from Aldebaran’s Standard Platform Nao to the custom-built Middle Size Robot League, where Team T’n’T took first place with its BlackFin-based robot. Multiple robots hit the field in a variety of soccer team competitions. For example, the Middle Size Robot League uses a 70-cm ball and a field that’s 18 by 12 m. The teams have five autonomous robots. One is usually the...
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William Wong
