[Engineering Feature] You Got Game
Remember Pong? One of the first—and simplest—video games, Pong opened the door to a fascinating new frontier in gaming. Of course, it's now a dinosaur compared to games played on some of today's popular consoles, like Sony's PlayStation 2, Microsoft's X-Box, and Nintendo's GameCube. They use multihundred-megahertz 32- or 64-bit microprocessors with high-performance graphics engines and DVD/CD-ROM-based software to deliver realistic experiences that send Pong's little...
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Dave Bursky
[Technology Report] POL Power Supplies Come In Many Flavors
As per usual, the power-supply industry is feeling the heat from the semiconductor industry to meet upgraded requirements for voltage, current, power, and switching speed. That pressure is no more apparent than with point-of-load (POL) converters, which power most low-voltage loads. On the bright side, this challenge has spun out several new trends: Power-supply companies are developing their own POL ICs. New POL architectures promise better...
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Sam Davis
[Technology Report] Latest Scopes Look To Satisfy Engineer Wish Lists
Those 6- and 8-GHz digital storage oscilloscopes (DSOs) that were sufficient a year or two ago are now becoming overrun. Silicon and motherboard designers' scopes seemingly have lost the ability to handle the lightning-fast speeds of the latest and next-generation computer buses. For instance, new high-end PCs feature a Serial ATA (SATA) bus for drives and a PCI Express motherboard. As a result, they promise faster-than-ever speeds for chip-to-chip, graphics, and other I/O...
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Wayne Labs
[Design View / Design Solution] Optimize Timing Margins For Your High-Speed Interface
High-speed digital buses have evolved dramatically over the past decade. Not only are they faster, but they're also changing how systems clock data. To improve data throughput, emerging synchronous digital buses are sending data multiple times per cycle via an array of clocking schemes. This article presents a framework for understanding how source-synchronous clocking can optimize timing margins for high-speed interfaces. Timing budget is the account of timing requirements or...
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David Mahashin
, et al.
[Ideas For Design] PMBus Wins Friends
The Point Of Load Alliance (POLA) and the Distributed-power Open Standards Alliance (DOSA) have both endorsed Power Management Bus (PMBus), the brainchild of Artesyn and Astec Power. An open architecture for power systems, PMBus employs I2C for digital control and monitoring. Power-One's Z-One Digital IBA uses I2C with a proprietary chip that talks to Power-One's POLs over a custom interface. PMBus takes a different approach, envisioning an...
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Don Tuite
[Ideas For Design] LPT Port Drives Programmable Slewing-Voltage Control
This design modifies a simple first-order, low-pass filter into a slewing-voltage control that is programmable for its slope and amplitude through a PC's LPT port. These control parameters are typically required for metallurgy studies like corrosion of materials using a potentiostat. (A potentiostat, which is a standalone device, sets the required potential/second for the electrode under corrosion studies.) Figure 1 shows a circuit that supplies...
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J. Jayapandian
[Ideas For Design] Drive White LEDs Using A Boost Converter In Buck Mode
See associated figure Low-voltage halogen lighting for decorative and architectural use continues to gain in popularity. Due to the comparatively short lifetime and low reliability of halogen bulbs, however, high-power LEDs are emerging as the preferred solution. The circuit in the figure offers a novel approach to high-power white LED driving—using a standard boost-converter IC in a voltage-reducing or "buck" mode. This solution...
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Ho Wong
[Ideas For Design] Two Bipolar Transistors Form A Low-Cost Solar-Array Emulator
Polar-array systems are becoming a very important energy source. Today, they're being used in numerous applications where mains power isn't available or clean energy generation is preferred. To determine the electrical and physical characteristics of the whole system, it's a good idea to use an experimental setup. It comes in handy when defining the solar-panel model and checking the power-conditioning system while its main parameters are varied. The circuit...
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Jose A. Carrasco
, et al.
[Ideas For Design] 40.680-MHz FSK RF Transmitter Uses Two CMOS Inverters
Single-chip transmitters proposed by some IC manufacturers have good electrical performance, but they're often plagued by some drawbacks. For instance, they're hard to find in small quantities. Also, they become obsolete too fast. And, they rarely have a second source. For frequencies lower than 50 MHz, RF power of 10 mW, and a maximum frequency-shift-keying (FSK) data rate of 2 kbits/s, the circuit shown in the figure can be an attractive solution. The IC used is the...
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Olivier Chevalerias
, et al.
[Editorial] High-Tech Tracking Tools Secure Incoming Cargo
"You read about all these terrorists. Most of them came here legally, but they hung around on these expired visas, some for as long as 10 to 15 years. Now, compare that to Blockbuster. You're two days late with a video, and those people are all over you. Let's put Blockbuster in charge of immigration." I laughed at this observation in a "Life's Truths" e-mail from a friend. But despite the chuckle, its sentiments are pretty stale. First, Blockbuster's late-fee policies were...
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Mark David
[POV: Point Of View] IP Vendors Can Ease The Pain Of IP Reuse
Providing completely reusable IP that needs no modifications from design to design without overly constraining the IP integrator is not feasible, so IP developers use strategies to maximize "painless" IP reuse. These techniques include making the central IP cores as configurable as possible and providing multiple bus interfaces or easily modified system interfaces; standardizing specific IP feature sets, aiming for a high degree of direct reusability (80% to 90%); and providing well...
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Michael Kaskowitz
[Pease Porridge] Bob's Mailbox
Hello Bob: I am looking for professional opinions/experiences regarding pc-board assembly using eyelets. I was told by Sam Reaves that you had written on the subject and could probably offer some good information. The problem that I am facing is that we are using eyelets on some pc boards in an effort to make the joints stronger. But I have seen some failures that are due to the eyelets. I need information to lead me to the correct decision and to use to convince others....
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Bob Pease
[TechView: The Industry] Hiring Boom Is On For Security-Cleared Engineers
It's no secret there's a huge demand for technical professionals with security clearances, particularly EEs and computer scientists. The TechExpo Top Secret job fair recently listed 1459 open positions on its Web site, TechExpoUSA.com, 1239 of which require a security clearance. Dice.com currently lists more than 4500 technical openings, all requiring a security clearance. "There are thousands of jobs available for security-cleared professionals just in the...
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Ron Schneiderman
[TechView: Analog & Power] Speaker Amps Generate High Drive Voltages From 3-C Supplies
Ceramic and piezoelectric speakers feature very low dissipation losses and compact size. They're an attractive alternative to moving-coil speakers in applications ranging from flat-screen TVs and monitors to cell phones. Their low dissipation arises from the nature of the load they represent, which is essentially capacitive. Typical values (depending on speaker size) range from 20 to 3000 nF. Driving a piezoelectric speaker requires an amplifier that can handle such loads...
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Don Tuite
[TechView: Analog & Power] Class D Chips Shrink Footprint, Power, Noise
A filter-free stereo class D audio power amp from Texas Instruments maximizes cell-phone talk time and audio quality. With about two-thirds lower quiescent current and 80% lower noise floor than its nearest competitor, the TPA2012D2 is a 2.1-W stereo class D audio power amplifier housed in a 4- by 4-mm ThinQFN. It operates from a 3.3-V supply, draws 6 mA, and has a 27-mVRMS A-weighted noise floor. Available now, it costs $0.95 in quantities of 1000. A lead-free 2- by 2-mm...
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Don Tuite
[TechView: Analog & Power] Power Transistors Warm Up To Thermal-Sensing Diodes
High-fidelity audio amplifiers consistently encounter a major hurdle: maintaining output bias while achieving thermal stability within the AB output section over the amp's full operating temperature range. The usual approach mounts one or more bias transistors on the heatsink near the output devices. Yet there's always some lag time before reaching thermal equilibrium, sometimes as much as 30 minutes. To eliminate thermal lag and boost amp performance and reliability, ON...
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Don Tuite
[TechView: Embedded] Where Is Serial RapidIO?
It's coming, according to Iain Scott, executive director of the RapidIO Trade Association. Parallel RapidIO may have carried the RapidIO flag for the past year, but developers are waiting for Serial RapidIO. Interest was evident at last month's Bus & Board Conference in Long Beach, Calif. Serial RapidIO interfaces have been implemented in FPGAs, and a flood of native Serial RapidIO devices and switches are expected by year's end. That's when the fun...
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William Wong
[TechView: Communications] Home-Networking Scheme Takes Advantage Of Existing Installed Coax
Wireless is the hot ticket to home networking, but it's just one of many different methods out there. For instance, a new option uses the installed cable-TV coax in your home. It serves up probably the best wired arrangement, because coax has the broadest bandwidth of all—over 1 GHz. The c.LINK-270 created by Entropic Communications makes such a network possible. It can be used to implement set-top boxes for consumer electronics equipment, network interface cards for PCs,...
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Louis E. Frenzel
[TechView: Communications] SFP MSA Coax Transceiver Cuts Costs In Sonet/SDH Systems
A new small-form-factor pluggable (SFP) coax transceiver from ITT Industries, Cannon, conforms to standard multisource agreements (MSAs). This unit features the same size and layout of similar optical modules. Designated the SFP-155E, this transceiver uses 75-V coax cable with DIN 1.0/2.3 connectors (see the figure). It conforms to the synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) STM-1 standard (similar to Sonet OC-3), which delivers...
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Louis E. Frenzel
[TechView: Digital] SOI Drops The Capacitor, Doubles Embedded DRAM Density
For over two decades, manufacturers of dynamic RAMs have used a simple one-transistor/one-capacitor structure for the basis of each storage cell. But an alternative to that design based on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology may double the density of DRAMs by eliminating the capacitor. But if you eliminate the capacitor, where is the charge that represents the data bit stored? That's the magic of SOI. The active circuit layer is isolated from the substrate, so there's a...
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Dave Bursky
[TechView: Digital] Secure Comm Processors Push Throughput To New Levels
Up to 140 Mbits/s of IPsec virtual private network (VPN) performance. Firewall throughput reaching 200 Mbits/s. Over 100 IPsec Key Exchange (IKE) or secure socket layer (SSL) transactions per second. Though the numbers may seem somewhat lofty, they're attainable with the NITROX Soho CN220 and CN225 secure communication processors (SCPs). These Soho products, developed by Cavium Networks, deliver consistent performance for multitunnel VPNs and performance support for...
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Dave Bursky
[TechView: EDA] IP Begins Building In Yield-Enhancing Features
At 130 nm and below, it's essential that designers get a leg up on yield. IP providers have begun to understand that they're in a good position to help their customers do so by building process awareness into their products. To that end, Virage Logic has rolled out its Silicon Aware IP initiative to maximize yield and enhance time-to-volume. Silicon Aware IP is physical intellectual property (IP) such as memories, logic, and I/O that incorporates embedded infrastructure...
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David Maliniak
[TechView: EDA] Fast-Spice Simulator Zeroes In On Transients
Many nanometer-IC design issues have a transient, current-based nature: IR drop, leakage currents, electromigration, and cross-coupling effects. Nascim, a fast-Spice simulator from Nascentric, is the first in a suite of tools that will address the transient nature of the physical and electrical effects that degrade timing, power, and signal integrity. Nascim relies on current-based transistor models to accurately reflect the actual current flow in CMOS circuitry,...
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David Maliniak
[TechView: EDA] EDA Roundup
Analyzing both package and PC board, Optimal's PowerGrid power-integrity toolset performs IR-drop and ground-bounce analysis of power distribution networks. The tool is based on a model-based full-wave extraction engine that's 100 times faster than comparable field solvers. Comprising ac and dc modules, PowerGrid works with most CAD interfaces, including Cadence's Allegro, Synopsys' Encore BGA, Mentor Graphics' MCM Station, Zuken's CR-5000, or any Gerber file. The tool costs $70,000 for...
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David Maliniak
[TechScope] Organic Transistors, Photodiodes Create Scanner With No Moving Parts
An optical scanning array based on high-quality organic transistors and photodiodes on a clear plastic sheet could revolutionize scanning systems. Developed by the University of Tokyo's Quantum Phase Electronics Center and Center of Collaborative Research, such an array could replace electromechanical scanners while opening new applications that require a lightweight, flexible solution. Traditional scanners move an optical sensor across an object or an object across a...
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Dave Bursky
[Design FAQs] Clock Requirements For Data Converters Sponsored by: ANALOG DEVICES
What's the relationship between jitter, phase noise, and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in data converters? Clock jitter is a problem in data conversion because it introduces uncertainty (noise) into the conversion process. Jitter in the time domain is equivalent to phase noise in the frequency domain. Phase noise spreads some of the clock's power away from its fundamental frequency. This is significant because sampling can be equivalent to mixing or...
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Don Tuite
