December 8, 2004 Magazine Archive

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ISSUE DATE: DECEMBER 8, 2004

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Hardware-assisted verification, Multicore MCUs, Demodulate spread-spectrum clocks, Embedded in ED

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Browse Archived Articles By: Issue | Author | Department | Topic

December 8, 2004 - In This Issue

[Technology Report]
Speed Your Design Using Hardware-Assisted Verification
Engineers have always relied on hardware to speed up simulation. Initially, it was considered a luxury used only by elite verification teams. But with 90-nm processes soon to go mainstream and system-on-a-chip (SoC) gate counts closing in on 100... — David Maliniak

[Leapfrog: First Look]
Multicore MCUs Propel Performance To New Heights
Pushing the envelope? Get an extra shove by adding a few extra processor cores to that high-performance microcontroller (MCU). Just such an approach was taken by Broadcom, Freescale, and PMC-Sierra: Start with high-performance 64-bit processor... — William Wong

[Design View / Design Solution]
Advanced Scopes Demodulate Spread-Spectrum Clocks
Once again, oscilloscopes come to the rescue by applying sophisticated analysis techniques to instantaneous frequency-versus-time measurements. Faster clock and data signals, along with more closely spaced signal lines on board... — Mike Hertz

[Ideas For Design]
The Joy Of Tradeshows
Oh, the things you can learn trolling the aisles at tradeshows and talking to engineers! There was lots to check out last month at Power Systems World in Detroit. Tabtronics CTO Victor Quinn presented a seminar about evaluating... — Don Tuite

[Ideas For Design]
Drive Pyrotechnic Igniters From A Microprocessor Port
Certain irreversible operations (like releasing a parachute, cutting a rope, or starting a solid combustible missile engine) may be performed by pyrotechnic igniters. These devices generally consist of an electrically controlled igniter, some... — Giovanni Romeo

[Ideas For Design]
Microcontroller Handles LED Brightness Control
Usually, an MCU is considered a digital device. By default, its output voltage level can be either high or low and nothing in between. With the requirement to create an LED brightness control, the first idea that comes to mind is using a standard... — Evgeniy Freidlin , et al.

[Ideas For Design]
Double Your Output Current With Parallel Voltage Regulators
To improve efficiency in high-power applications, voltage regulators can be used in parallel to double output current capability—if a means of forcing current sharing is provided. One circuit approach uses sense resistors in... — Wayne Rewinkel

[Editorial]
I Turned The Lights Off, But What About Standby Power?
Preparing to leave my house for a Thanksgiving road trip, I followed my usual ritual of setting timers to control lamps, aiming for the right balance of lighting security and electricity conservation. But having just returned from the PowerSystems... — Mark David

[POV: Point Of View]
IPv6—It's Not Just About Software Anymore!
Discussions of the migration from Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) to version 6 (IPv6) have been lively and sometimes contradictory. Opinions vary widely as to why it is needed and what role stopgap measures, such as network address translation... — Scott Sarnikowski

[Pease Porridge]
What's All This Merit Badge Stuff, Anyhow?
Yes, I used to be a Boy Scout, and I think I earned about six Merit Badges. Did they have an Electricity or Electronics Merit Badge back in 1954? Probably, but I did not earn that one. I did pass swimming, though. So how can we get kids interested... — Bob Pease

[TechView: The Industry]
High-Performance Computing Gets Hot In Pittsburgh
he SC2004 Conference on supercomputing heated up Pittsburgh as the weather got a little chilly last month in the Iron City. It was definitely the show for big iron, although high-performance computing has moved to racks of blade servers connected... — William Wong

[TechView: Analog & Power]
Multigigabit Analog Equalizer Cleans Up After Backplane Messes
Aerial transmission over FR-4 backplanes of up to 6.25 Gbits/s, with trace lengths up to 30 in., is now possible for multigigabit switch, router, storage-area-network, and server backplanes. Slicing through the Gordian knot of jitter is the... — Don Tuite

[TechView: Analog & Power]
Platinum Doping Cuts Diode Leakage, Raises Operating Temps
Just like your credit cards, platinum trumps gold when it comes to ultra-fast high-voltage, medium-current diodes. The STTH series of diodes from STMicroelectronics is built with a planar, platinum-doped silicon process technology that helps... — Don Tuite

[TechView: Analog & Power]
Automotive ISM-Band Transmitter Meets Worldwide Standards
The AS3977, a novel multichannel narrow-band RF transmitter from Austria Microsystems, supports frequency-division multiple-access and time-division multiple-access modes for redundant data transmission over distances up to one mile for... — Don Tuite

[TechView: Communications]
SSL NIC Has A Knack For Instantly Securing Transactions
Secure-socket-layer (SSL) software ties up servers and slows transactions. But Britestream Networks' self-contained BN1010 PCI bus network interface card (NIC) can speed things up. SSL and transport layer security (TLS) are the de... — Louis E. Frenzel

[TechView: Communications]
Microwave Antenna Dishes Out More Performance In 6- To 8-GHz Apps
The HP8 microwave antenna comes equipped with a parabolic dish measuring eight feet in diameter, suiting it for point-to-point and back-haul applications from 6 to 8 GHz. Developed by Radio Waves Inc., a division of Smiths Interconnect, it produces... — Louis E. Frenzel

[TechView: Communications]
Communications: VoIP Solutions Combine Silicon, Software, And Reference Designs
A full set of voice-enabled solutions is available via the Z.Voice Voice over IP (VoIP) series. These include licensable ZSP processor cores, standard DSP products, industry-compliant vocoders, bundled device/software packages, and reference designs.... — Dave Bursky

[TechView: Components & Test]
Scalable ATE System Spins Out Two Developments For The Bargain Hunter
The world of test, always struggling with cost concerns, got a breather with two new advances in high-performance automatic test equipment (ATE). Both developments come from Agilent Technologies' expanded 93000 ATE system. At one end of the 93000... — Roger Allan

[TechView: Components & Test]
Serial Data Analyzers Add Total Jitter Measurement
With the ASDA-J jitter solution, LeCroy's SDA family of serial data analyzers can evaluate total as well as random (RJ) and deterministic (DJ) jitter using both reference-clock-based and non-clock-based methods.... — Roger Allan

[TechView: Components & Test]
Picture This: A PCI Express Image-Acquisition Board
Designed for Camera Link cameras, the NI PCIe-1429 PCI Express-based image-acquisition board specifically targets high-throughput vision applications like synchronized data and image acquisition, fault analysis, and advanced motion tracking.... — Roger Allan

[TechView: Digital]
Data Soars At 20 Gbits/s With Ethernet-Optimized Network Processor
It's not a spaceship. But Xelerated's X11 network processor lets Ethernet-based data take flight, traveling at up to 20 Gbits/s full duplex. The processor also enables Sonet/SDH data transfers at 10 Gbits/s full duplex. The... — Dave Bursky

[TechView: Digital]
DSP Speed Bump Helps Boost Channel Densities
By pushing max clock speed from 400 to 500 MHz, the MSC8122 and MSC8126 quad core DSP chips can implement higher channel densities in codecs for wireless basestations. At the higher clock speed, these quad-core devices from... — Dave Bursky

[TechView: Digital]
One-Time-Programming Storage Becomes Embeddable IP
One-time-programmable (OTP) nonvolatile storage arrays based on antifuse programming elements and floating-gate storage cells are now available as blocks of intellectual property (IP). The IP comes by way of Kilopass Technology Inc. and eMemory... — Dave Bursky

[TechView: EDA]
Startup Looks To Close The Gap Between Manufacturing And Design
With 90-nm semiconductor processes ramping up, foundries and integrated device manufacturers find themselves in a quandary. They've been relying on very aggressive resolution-enhancement technology (RET) to get by on 193-nm lithography. The... — David Maliniak

[TechView: EDA]
Tool Fosters Web-Based Collaborative Design
In the course of any system design project, pc-board and IC design files proliferate almost of their own volition. Any number of tools can create schematics, models, layouts, and other views of the design. But at any given moment, the design... — David Maliniak

[TechView: EDA]
EDA Roundup
Enhanced formal verification is the domain of Cadence's Encounter Conformal 5.0. The upgraded tool helps ensure that tapeouts accurately reflect design intent. The tool now extends equivalency checking to FPGA prototypes through the Synplicity... — David Maliniak

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
Who Do You Trust?
Secure communication comes down to a matter of trust. An authenticated message from an authenticated source can be used accordingly based upon the confidence level of the source. A source trusted to provide embedded-system updates can send new... — William Wong

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
Chip Handles Hovering Stylus
The W8002 controller chip crafted by Wacom supports the company's inductive pen-sensing technology. It can detect a pen that's hovering over a pad before it actually touches the pad, opening up new options for handheld- and tablet-based software. The... — William Wong

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
SBC Attacks Control And Data-Acquisition
The tiny 2- by 2.5-in. QCard sports a 16-MHz Freescale 68HC11F1 microprocessor with 512 kbytes of flash and 128 kbytes of RAM. The Mosaic Industries MCU has 320 bytes of EEPROM, eight lines of programmable digital I/O, 8-bit analog-to-digital... — William Wong

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
New C Plus Ethernet Module
Rabbit Semiconductor released version 9 of its Dynamic C compiler and development environment for the Rabbit 2000/3000 microprocessor. Dynamic C costs $210. When bundled with SSL, FAT, RabbitWeb, PPP, SNMP, and AES software modules, it goes for... — William Wong

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
Where Is Real-Time Linux?
Hard real-time Linux has been around for ages, or it may never appear. It all depends on who you talk to. It also depends on your requirements. A two-second interrupt latency may be acceptable for some applications, and even many Linux... — William Wong

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
Mixin' Linux And VxWorks
Wind River makes its largest announcement in years, and I have one paragraph to describe it. At the head of the list is Wind River Workbench 2.2, which is now based on Eclipse 3.0. It handles multicore and multilanguage development. It also... — William Wong

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
Reusable DO-178B RTOS
LynuxWorks LynxOS-178 2.0 is working toward Reusable Software Component (RSC) certification. RSC certification will find use in DO-178B projects without having to certify the RTOS, significantly streamlining software testing procedures. The 2.0... — William Wong

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
RTOS Gets Enhancements
FSMLabs' RTLinux 2.1 and RTCoreBSD 2.1 incorporate version 2.1 of RTCore with expanded processor support. This version also repartitions APIs and symbol references between RTCore and the Linux kernel services. And, RTCore extends its POSIX support... — William Wong

[TechScope]
Tiny Grates Reveal Super-Small Motion
Motion detectors just got 1000 times better, thanks to researchers' efforts at Sandia National Laboratories and a little-known optical property. Light diffracted from very small gratings that move very small lateral distances undergoes a... — Richard Gawel

[TechScope]
RFID Chip Helps Prevent Surgical Mixups
Despite protocols that include signatures, "time outs" for doctors, and identification wristbands, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations still receives five to eight new reports of wrong-site surgery each month. This is... — Richard Gawel

[Basics Of Design]
VoIP Requires DSP Algorithm And Telephony Standard Know-How
Sponsored by: FREESCALE SEMICONDUCTOR
It's very tempting to enter the impressive and growing voice-over-packet (VoP) market (voice over frame relay, voice over ATM, and Voice over Internet Protocol) by developing a product or service. But first, familiarize yourself and your staff with... — Dave Bursky

[Design FAQs]
New Industrial Analog Process Technologies
Sponsored by: ANALOG DEVICES
In the early days of analog ICs, chip designers had a large arsenal of circuit elements that let them create products with exceptionally high performance. Over time, to keep analog IC prices competitive, analog process technologies followed the... — Don Tuite

[Design FAQs]
Ultra-Low-Voltage DC-DC Converter ICs
Sponsored by: NATIONAL SEMICONDUCTOR
Why is it necessary to use ultra-low-voltage dc-dc converters? Published by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) projects lower operating... — Sam Davis

[Quick Facts]
Go Hybrid On AMS Verification
Sponsored by: CADENCE DESIGN SYSTEMS
Meet in the Middle Although top-down analog/mixed-signal (AMS) design methodologies have been promoted by academia for many years, few people use them, especially in the U.S. Analog-flavored HDLs like Verilog-AMS and... — David Maliniak

[New Products]

• Communications: Ethernet Adapter Delivers 10-Gbit/s Data With iWARP Enhancements — Dave Bursky

• Communications: Wireless Router, PC Card Adapter Supply Dual Concurrent Networks — Dave Bursky

• Communications: Bluetooth Profiles Ease Message, Image, Audio Transfers, And More — Dave Bursky

• Communications: Single-Chip Controllers Facilitate Resilient-Packet-Ring Systems — Dave Bursky

• Communications: Security Accelerator Cards Push SSL And IPsec Processing — Dave Bursky

• Digital ICs/DSPs: Reference Design Kit Helps Optimize Low-Power Systems — Dave Bursky

• Digital ICs/DSPs: PC Chip Set Adds PCIExpress I/O For AMD And 64-Bit CPU Family — Dave Bursky

• Digital ICs/DSPs: High-Bandwidth, Low-Voltage Operation Key To Bus-Switch Family — Dave Bursky

• Digital ICs/DSPs: Regsitered Buffers Take On DDR2 Loads Up To 450 MHz — Dave Bursky

• Digital ICs/DSPs: Fast-Cycle DRAM Targets Mobile Systems And Draws 10 µA Asleep — Dave Bursky

• Digital ICs/DSPs: FIR Filter Tool Generates Low-Or High-Pass Options At Up To 160 MHz — Dave Bursky

• Digital ICs/DSPs: On-Chip Viterbi Coprocessor Frees Up DSP For Additional Tasks — Dave Bursky

• Digital ICs/DSPs: Complete Digital/HDTV Decoder Block Meets All FCC TV Mandates — Dave Bursky

• Embedded: AdvancedTCA SBC Grinds Away At Real-Time Processing Chores — William Wong

• Embedded: Flash File System Sets Sights On Small Devices — William Wong

• Embedded: DSP Board Swims With Eight 600-MHz TigerSharcs — William Wong

• Embedded: VxWorks Welcomes InfiniBand Drivers — William Wong

• Embedded: 8-Bit MCU Kit Stacks Up With TCP/IP — William Wong

• AlGaAs Pin Diode Extends Bandwidth For New Applications — Louis E. Frenzel

• Component Specifier: Cooling Devices — Richard Gawel

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