[Technology Report] Analog Front Ends Max Out Performance
Once regarded as more of a custom chip, the analog front end (AFE) has come into its own as a standard offering, whether the application is specific or general-purpose. Today, designers can select from multiple AFE configurations, satisfying a...
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Don Tuite
[Leapfrog: First Look] Instrument Advances Help Communications Design
Last month's International Microwave Symposium (IMS), sponsored annually by the Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT-S), unveiled some of the latest and greatest in microwave and radio-frequency (RF) circuit design. MTT-S promotes the...
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Roger Allan
[Leapfrog: First Look] Low-Cost FPGAs Spin Out High Performance
Diminishing lifetimes of consumer and other mass-market electronics have pushed system developers beyond just creating an ASIC to meet system needs. FPGAs tend to cost more than an ASIC at the component level when you consider...
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Dave Bursky
[Ideas For Design] Power-Saving Pedometer Also Measures Speed
A pedometer is a device that counts the number of steps taken by a person and calculates the distance traveled by multiplying the number of steps by the length of the step. Here's a design solution for building a pedometer using the AVR MCU. The...
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Varun Aggarwal
[Ideas For Design] MOSFET Circuit Forms Reliable Switch Debouncer
Mechanical switches can be noisy, generating multiple transient pulses that may cause faulty operation of fast digital circuits. In this design, a pair of MOSFETs are used in a monostable mode to quench the switch-bounce pulses. The switch...
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Henry Santana
[Editorial] Electronics On Vacation—You May Win A Prize!
Now that summer's here, it's time to plan your vacation. But what kinds of gadgets are you going to bring with you? A recent issue of a popular men's magazine made some recommendations. Of course, music players topped the magazine's must-take...
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Mark David
[POV: Point Of View] Setting IP Standards To Simplify SoC Design
Ninety percent of new intellectual property (IP) licensed in 2004 will use externally developed IP, according to Jerry Worchel, senior analyst of In-Stat/MDR Digital Engines Service. This is motivated by the fact that 85% of all chips in today's...
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Michael Kaskowitz
[Pease Porridge] Bob's Mailbox
Dear Bob: I have enjoyed your writings and presentations for years. Please keep up the good work. I've learned a lot from you even though my technicians have named me the SandMan for all the ICs I've returned to their native...
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Bob Pease
[Beyond Technology] U.S. Innovation Feels Competitive Global Heat
The Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA) recently published a "policy playbook" that seeks to turn attention from the political debate over offshore outsourcing toward global competitiveness. The EIA points out that the rest of the world is...
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Ron Schneiderman
[TechView: The Industry] Mobile-Phone OEMs Face New Demands
For years, the formula for success in the mobile-phone business was simple: Make products that are progressively cheaper and smaller with longer battery lives. But with the increasing segmentation of mobile-phone products into multiple tiers,...
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Dale Ford
[TechView: The Industry] Defense Drives Growth Of Rugged Computers
Demand for ruggedized/industrial computer systems in North America and Western Europe will grow to nearly $1.9 billion by 2006. That's a compound annual growth rate of 4.4% from 2003's level, about $1.648 billion, according to a report by...
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John Novellino
[TechView: Analog & Power] PoL Voltage Controllers Support Margining
To uncover voltage sensitivities on pre-production boards, engineers may evaluate design corners by independently varying dc-dc converter supply outputs. Summit Microelectronics says that most computer, industrial, communications, and datacom...
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Don Tuite
[TechView: Embedded] Daisy-Chain USB With Dual-Port USB Hubs
Dual-port usb 2.0 hubs are handy when a local usb device also has a downstream usb port. Most Systems that try to daisy-chain peripherals utilize two ports of a four-port hub. A four-port hub requires more space and uses more power than SMSC's...
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William Wong
[TechView: Embedded] Tools Streamline Power-Train Development
Microcontrollers like freescale's mpc5500 are ideal for power-train applications, but creating the appropriate applications takes a number of different development tools. Metrowerks' CodeWarrior Development Studio for the MPC5500 Family,...
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William Wong
[TechView: Embedded] AdvancedTCA System Delivers Complete Solution
AdvancedTCA continues to garner support with platforms like Force Computers' Centellis CO31KX. This NEBS level 3-capable AdvancedTCA system platform has 14 slots. The 19-in., 13U base system comes with a collection of pairs. This includes two...
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William Wong
[TechView: Digital] Processors Manage Enterprise Compute Needs
Pushing server and workstation performance up yet another notch, Intel's 3.6-GHz Xeon processor lets designers rapidly implement single- and dual-processor systems. It features an 800-MHz system bus and 1-Mbyte L2 cache, and it is supported by...
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Dave Bursky
[TechView: EDA] Physical-Synthesis Tool Augurs Second Generation
As system-on-a-chip block sizes stretch to well over 1 million gates, chips must be divided into so many blocks, assembly can become impractical. But by integrating silicon virtual prototyping and second-generation global physical synthesis in...
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David Maliniak
[TechView: EDA] Simulator Spices Up Analog/Mixed-Signal Design
In enhancing its HSpice simulator, Synopsys increases simulation speed, accuracy, and versatility. HSpice now offers runtime improvements of up to 203 for transient analysis. Also, a new harmonic-balance engine targets simulation of...
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David Maliniak
[TechView: EDA] EDA News
To accelerate adoption of amba axi technology, ARM and Synopsys are collaborating on applicable verification IP. AMBA AXI technology is a next-generation on-chip interface that supports multilayer interconnect designs and provides 1.6 Gbytes/s...
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David Maliniak
[TechScope] Students Construct Affordable Landmine Detector
More than 100 million land mines are deployed throughout 70 countries around the world, some dating back to World War II. According to the United Nations, these devices kill or maim more than 2000 people each month. In reaction to...
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Richard Gawel
[TechScope] ORNL Tabbed For Fastest Supercomputer Project
The Department of Energy granted $25 million to Oak Ridge National Laboratory to spearhead a partnership that will build the world's most powerful supercomputer. The plan will pool the partnership's resources for a sustained capacity of 50...
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Richard Gawel
[Design FAQs] Power-MOSFET Gate Drivers Sponsored by: NATIONAL SEMICONDUCTOR
What is a power-MOSFET gate driver? It is a power amplifier that accepts a low-power input from a controller IC and produces the appropriate high-current gate drive for a power MOSFET. A gate driver is used when a...
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Sam Davis
