[Success Story] OnStar System Puts Telematics On The Map
When the concept of telematics began to emerge in the early '90s, engineers at General Motors had a far-reaching vision: an interactive communications system that would provide safety, security, roadside assistance, and convenience to drivers any time...
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Roger Allan
[Leapfrog: Industry First] PGA Streamlines Sensor System Design
Sensor outputs typically require some form of signal conditioning before analog-to-digital conversion. In a system with just a single sensor, an op amp with fixed resistors may be adequate. The op amp's output may be fed directly to a microcontroller...
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David G. Morrison
[Ideas For Design] LAN Switch Eliminates Redundant PHY Chip
Advances in notebook technology create a thirst for new features and increased functionality, culminating in greater cost and shrinking space. One solution to the cost/space issues is to use a wide-bandwidth analog local-area network (LAN) switch that...
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Seth Prentice
[Editorial] The Only Constant In The Electronics Industry Is Change
As our 50th Anniversary commemorative issue pointed out in late 2002, change—be it revolutionary or evolutionary—is the principal driving force of the electronics industry as the state of the art continues to advance. Similarly, careers...
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Dave Bursky
[POV: Point Of View] The Convergence Of Power And Packaging
Design engineers have traditionally treated power supplies as an afterthought. For years there was enough margin in power and cooling systems to let users continue this practice. Today, higher circuit speeds and density translate into higher power...
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Matt Tracewell
[TechView: The Industry] Multiservice Processors Keep Data Secure
On-chip IPsec data-encryption acceleration for 128-, 192-, and 256-bit keys, along with seamless wireless support for 802.11a, b, and g, are the key ingredients in a second generation of multiservice processors developed by Brecis Communications Corp....
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Dave Bursky
[TechView: The Industry] IP Socket Spec Sees Revision
Drawing on the collective experience of SoC designers and EDA tool vendors with the standard for IP core interfaces, or "sockets," the Open Core Protocol International Partnership has released version 2.0 of the OCP Specification. It includes a model...
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David Maliniak
[TechView: Analog & Power] Look Out, Here Comes The Sixteenth Brick
Though the eighth-brick format for dc-dc converters is only about a year old, one module vendor is already developing the next downsized version. Datel is planning a sixteenth-brick unit that will scale down the 2.3- by 0.9-in. eighth brick by shaving...
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David G. Morrison
[TechView: Analog & Power] Power ICs Shrink, Add Flexibility
• Maxim Integrated Products has further whittled away at low-dropout regulator packaging. The single-output MAX8532 and the dual MAX8530/31 linear regulators come in six-bump UCSPs that measure 1.63 by 1.12 mm. Their footprint is one-fifth that...
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David G. Morrison
[TechView: Analog & Power] More DC-DC Converter Developments
Despite their "eighth brick" designation, most eighth-brick dc-dc converters measure about 2.3 by 0.9 in., making them just 40% smaller than their quarter-brick ancestors. But with its 2.3- by 0.725-in. footprint, the Xena 50 eighth brick from...
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David G. Morrison
[TechView: Embedded] Failover Under 10 ms With CompactPCI
A novel Compact-PCI hardware/software combination from Performance Technologies can switch servers in less than 10 ms using VxWorks and only 2 ms with Linux. This is much faster than typical clustering solutions, suiting the system for applications...
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William Wong
[TechView: Embedded] News Clips
CUT PICMG 2.16 DEVELOPMENT TIME One-stop shopping can save lots of time and money. This is the approach taken by Level 7's FastPath 3.1 and PICMG 2.16 compatible hardware, when it's used to develop enterprise layer...
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William Wong
[TechView: Embedded] Partners Deliver 200-MIPS ARM9 Solution
ATMEL Corp. and Green Hills Software joined forces to bring a complete development package for the ARM920T platform from the AT91RM9200. The combination takes advantage of Atmel's hardware and Green Hills' software strengths, allowing developers to...
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William Wong
[TechView: Digital] DSP Advances Take Center Stage At GSPx Conference
On top of the 550-plus technical paper presentations at this week's Global Signal Processing Expo Conference (GSPx) on DSP technology at the Hotel Intercontinental in Addison, Texas, many firms will introduce products advancing the state of the art in...
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Dave Bursky
[TechView: Digital] System-On-A-Chip Delivers Low-Power x86 PC Solution
Offering a single-chip CPU and PC subsystem, the SiS55x LV family of highly integrated processors from Silicon Integrated Systems combines an x86/MMX CPU that can clock at up to 250 MHz (a 25% improvement over the previous family), a high-performance...
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Dave Bursky
[TechView: Digital] CMOS Imager Provides CCD Image Quality
A 1.3-Mpixel CMOS image sensor from Micron Technology gives users a progressive scan image that can meet the quality requirements of digital still and digital video cameras. The MI-1300 takes advantage of the company's expertise in low-leakage DRAM...
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Dave Bursky
[TechView: EDA] Debugging Gets Assertive
With an eye toward accommodating assertion-based verification flows, Novas Software's latest Verdi debugging platform was extended to support assertion languages and the results of assertion-based tools. Launched last year, Verdi provides...
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David Maliniak
[TechView: EDA] Hot Product
Starting life as a design services organization, ReShape Inc. has brought its secret sauce to market in the form of the GDS Builder tool. This hierarchical physical design system coaxes the tools within an existing back-end physical flow to take a...
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David Maliniak
[TechView: EDA] Standards Boost SoC Test
Demand for intellectual-property (IP) reuse is rising as the IP market grows. According to Dataquest, 80% of systems-on-a-chip (SoCs) will integrate reusable IP cores by 2005. Testing cores with sometimes questionable provenance is a...
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David Maliniak
