[Engineering Feature] Lead-Free Means You're Still In The Game
Did your company make it? We're about a week past the July 1, 2006 deadline for compliance with the European Union's Restrictions on Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive. Yet some companies still are working to ensure their products are lead-free. Getting the lead out under the EU's demanding new environmental rules hasn't been easy, especially for OEMs, who have ultimate responsibility for RoHS compliance. "This is a big challenge for them because they're...
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Ron Schneiderman
[Technology Report] DAC: Let The Games Begin
As he surveys his audience of system architects, designers, and methodologists, former Cadence CEO Joe Costello will kick off the 43rd Design Automation Conference (July 24-28, Moscone Center, San Francisco) by asking a pointed question: Are you going in the right direction? At a time when the EDA industry continues to suffer from limited growth, who better than a voice from EDA's past to point it toward the future (Fig. 1)?...
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David Maliniak
[Leapfrog: First Look] Digital Signal Controller IC Features
30-MIPS core processor with 16-bit arithmetic logic unit, 16-by-16 multiplier-accumulator, dual 40-bit accumulators Push-pull 16-bit pulse-width modulator with 1-ns duty cycle resolution and phase-shiftable outputs 20-ns analog comparators with programmable references Analog comparator can terminate the PWM pulse early, enabling cycle-by-cycle current limiting 10-bit ADC with 2-Msample/s rate Sample...
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Sam Davis
[Leapfrog: First Look] ICs Boost Next-Generation Power-Supply Features, Flexibility
Hailed as the next generation of digitally controlled power-supply ICs, Microchip Technology's Digital Signal Controller (DSC) ICs give power supplies internal digital control. While they aren't the first ICs intended for this purpose, their price tag starts at $2.99 each in lots of 10,000, which is far below any of their predecessors. These devices are configured within the supply s feedback loop, so speed is critical. That's because the analog-to-digital...
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Sam Davis
[Design View / Design Solution] Save Those Watts With A Power-Aware Design Flow For SoCs
At a time when a single data center may consume more power than millions of homes1, it's easy to see that power consumption has become critically important for all designs—not just battery-powered products. Leakage power now dominates 90- and 65-nm devices, and high power consumption imposes ever more severe heat and performance penalties. Of course, the chip-or system-level power requirements are in addition to the perennial requirements of higher performance,...
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Mohit Bhatnagar
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[Ideas For Design] Drive Multiple Displays With A Single Microcontroller Port Line
Seven-segment displays are needed in many instrument designs. In conventional microcontroller-based designs, four output port lines are allocated for one seven-segment display. Figure 1 shows the conventional design for four seven-segment LED displays. In this case, two eight-bit output ports are needed for four seven-segment displays. Figure 2 shows another popular...
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R. Jayapal
[Ideas For Design] Turn Positive Buck/Boost Circuits Negative
Most common dc-dc power application circuits are designed for a positive buck or a boost circuit. However, certain designs may require a negative buck or boost topology. The problem usually arises because most board designers aren't accustomed to thinking in terms of negative voltages. The transfer function for a positive buck is VOUT/VIN = D, and interestingly, the transfer function for a negative buck is –VOUT/ ...
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Ajmal Godil
[POV: Point Of View] SystemVerilog: The Complete Solution
The electronics industry is constantly challenged by the ever-growing design and verification requirements for complex chips. With the IEEE-Std 1800-2005 System-Verilog standard, the industry has a complete, unified language capable of handling these challenges for today and tomorrow. The unprecedented level of vendor support, rapid adoption by hundreds of development teams worldwide, and dozens of tapeouts all attest that SystemVerilog is the right language at the...
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Manoj Gandhi
[Editorial] The World Is Ready For RoHS (Whether You Are Or Not)
The deadline for compliance with the EU's Restrictions on Hazardous Substances has arrived. Are your products RoHS ready? A survey of Electronic Design readers reveals a mixed bag (see the figure). The elimination of lead and other hazardous substances has created some significant challenges for both chipmakers and OEM manufacturers. The additional costs and efforts have been worth it, though, because the RoHS directive...
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Mark David
[Pease Porridge] What's All This Theft Stuff, Anyhow?
My wife got stung recently. Somebody stole her computer's battery charger from her checked bags at San Francisco International Airport. Then I got stung the same way. As I was leaving my hotel in Phoenix, Ariz., I tucked my computer's battery charger into the outside pocket of my unlocked suitcase and left to go to Sky Harbor International Airport. I didn't put the charger in my knapsack to carry it with me onto the plane as I usually do because the computer had a...
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Bob Pease
[TechView: The Industry] A Failure To Communicate? London Gets The Message
A recent report from the July 7 Review Committee of the London Assembly says the most serious failure during rescue operations following the terrorist bombings in the London subway last year was poor communications between emergency services. Police, fire, and ambulance personnel used different radio systems and couldn't coordinate their response. London is now upgrading its subway system communications. But it's going to take about two years to complete....
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Ron Schneiderman
[TechView: Analog & Power] Analog Signal Generator Sets Phase-Noise Record
The E8663B from Agilent Technologies isn't just another off-the-shelf analog signal generator with a wide frequency range. According to the company, it provides the best close-to-carrier phase-noise specification in its class. It offers a typical –130 dBc/Hz phase noise or lower at a 1-kHz offset from a 1-GHz carrier and up to 21 dBm of output power. Also, it can operate over 100 kHz to either 3.2 or 9 GHz. These specs make the E8663B ideal for design...
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Roger Allan
[TechView: Analog & Power] SAR ADC Conversion Rates Jump To 4 Msamples/s
The hottest battleground today among analog-to-digital converter (ADC) suppliers is the successive-approximation register (SAR) arena. SARs serve the medical/industrial market with zero latency and high linearity at modest conversion rates. New SAR products seem to notch up improved performance specifications every three to four months. The latest entry, Texas Instruments 16-bit ADS8422, raises the ante on speed by 33% (see the...
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Don Tuite
[TechView: Analog & Power] Mated To 0.13-µm CMOS, Foundry’s SiGe npns Match RFCMOS For Less Cost
How does an analog foundry reduce power consumption in an RF mixed-signal process while accommodating for the differences in scalability between logic and analog circuit elements? Jazz Semiconductor plans to do it with a 0.13-µm silicon-germanium (SiGe) biCMOS technology that combines 90-GHz SiGe transistors with the company s existing 1.2-V, 0.13-µm digital CMOS platform. A 2.8-µm thick top metal layer boosts inductor performance. Also part of...
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Don Tuite
[TechView: Communications] Carrier-Class Multiservice Gateway Brings Triple-Play Home
With the continued growth of broadband services, cable TV companies and traditional telecom carriers now can offer consumers triple-play service–Internet access, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone connections, and television–all covered by one bill. Quality of Service (QoS) is the key to success in triple-play products, though. Companies have to provide timely, uninterrupted service despite heavy traffic loads on the system. PMC-Sierra is...
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Louis E. Frenzel
[TechView: Digital] Welcome Dan Harris To Digital Overload
I'll be vacating this page so our new Digital ICs/DSP Editor, Daniel Harris, can fill the space with the latest digital delights in our July 20 issue. Tracking two technology areas has been a challenge, and I will be glad to reduce the information overload to just what fits into the embedded/systems/software sections of Electronic Design. I'd also like to take this opportunity to welcome Dan on board. I've had the opportunity to work with him for a...
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William Wong
[TechView: Test] Tiny, Low-Cost, 2.4-GHz Spectrum Analyzer Shines
The Wi-Spy is a 2.4-GHz spectrum analyzer that s about the size of a small USB flash drive. According to its manufacturer, MetaGeek LLC, it s the smallest such analyzer in the world and it only costs $99. That's about 40 times less than traditional spectrum analyzers. Designers can use it to troubleshoot Wi-Fi networks, microwave ovens, cordless phones, baby monitors, and Bluetooth devices. The instrument s radio receiver has a 90-dBm sensitivity and a top...
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Roger Allan
[TechView: Test] High-Performance Signal Analyzer Now Measures WCDMA/HSDPA Modulation Quality
Take the MS2781A Signature high-performance signal analyzer from Anritsu. Now, add the ability to measure WCDMA/ HSDPA (wideband code-division multiple-access/high-speed download packet access) modulation quality. Designers can do exactly that with Option 30, which is part of version 3.0 software enhancements to the analyzer. The MS2781A covers from 100 Hz to 8 GHz. It features more than 0.65-dB amplitude accuracy, 27-dBm intermodulation distortion, and a displayed average noise...
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Roger Allan
[TechView: EDA] Analog/Mixed-Signal Environment Creates And Debugs Models
Today's system-on-a-chip (SoC) designs contain more analog/mixed-signal (A/M-S) content than ever, but analog designers and device modelers continue to struggle with their development efforts. A/M-S models are developed with HDL-dependent (hardware description language) tools that are tied to proprietary EDA platforms. This limits productivity and impedes analog-IP reuse. Along comes Lynguent, a privately held startup, with its ModLyng integrated modeling...
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David Maliniak
[TechView: EDA] ESL Simulator Enables Rapid Software Iterations Through Validated Code
Almost all electronic-system-level (ESL) simulation environments contain models at various levels of abstraction and accuracy. These models can range from behavioral level through instruction level, transaction level, cycle-accurate level, and bus transactors on up to RTL. Developers trying to validate software on a system model must iterate through all their previously validated code when adding new functionality or debugging problems that may have shown up...
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David Maliniak
[Embedded in Electronic Design] Multicore MCU Manages Residential And Home Multimedia
Efficient and secure handling of network data like Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) or streaming video are second nature for Freescale s 266-MHz MPC8321. It combines a 64-bit PowerPC e300c2 core with the 32-bit QUICC II RISC engine, which manages communication chores. Hardware encryption further distributes the processing load. Its microcode packages running on the five unified communication controllers (UCCs) can deliver NAT, Firewall, IPSec, and Advanced Quality of...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] ARM9 Plugs Into ARM7 Socket
Atmel's 200-MIPS ARM926EJ-S-based AT91SAM9260 has the same pinouts as its ARM7 product line, providing developers with an upgrade path to this higher-performance platform. The chip sports an RC oscillator, a camera interface, seven USARTs, a 10/100 Ethernet MAC, a 12-Mbit/s USB device and host controller with on-chip transceivers, three synchronous serial controllers (SSC), two master/slave SPI, a three-channel 16-bit timer/counter, and a two-wire interface (TWI)....
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] Unintended Zigbee?
ZigBee remains a hot topic. Yet it was interesting to hear that 802.15.4, on which ZigBee is based, is the platform of choice for many wireless applications. Vendors expect 802.15.4 to be a major portion of chip sales, even as ZigBee continues to improve with a new set of standard profiles designed to facilitate vendor interoperability not just coexistence. The ZigBee Developers Conference and the Sensor and Expo Conference, both in Chicago, had plenty of...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] MCU Kit Delivers High-Endurance FRAM
Ramtron's 40-MHz VRS51L3074 8051-based microcontroller with DSP extensions includes an 8-kbyte FRAM along with 64 kbytes of flash and 16 kbytes of SRAM. Peripherals include two UARTs, SPI, I2C, eight pulse-width modulators, and an on-board oscillator. The kit includes a Versa-JTAG debugger. The IDE includes a C compiler. The board also includes an FM31256 Processor Companion, an FM25CL64 Serial SPI FRAM, and an FM24CL64 Serial I2C FRAM. The ...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] Expert Help Simplifies CAD Creation
SolidWorks 2007 introduces a host of new features that help typical users employ sophisticated 3D CAD features through the use of SolidWorks Intelligent Feature Technology (SWIFT). SWIFT FeatureXpert handles the proper ordering of production steps such as applying drafts and fillets. SWIFT SketchXpert resolves dimensional and relational conflicts. SWIFT MateXpert removes conflicts that arise between mated parts. Stylish surfaces can be created with the Freeform ...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] Graphical Tools Configure DSP In Dual-Core Audio System
Sophisticated audio processing is becoming more common and more complex. Texas Instruments (TI) has taken on the challenge to simplify things by splitting the processing chores in its TAS3108 between a 48-bit DSP and an 8-bit 8051-compatible microcontroller (Fig. 1). The 135-MHz DSP handles the flow of information between the input and output serial audio ports applying any number of filters, compression, or other...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] TinyOS Plus ZigBee Stack Targets Tiny Tasks
TinyOS is a compact operating system (OS) designed to support small wireless platforms like 8-bit ZigBeebased microcontroller solutions. It's an open-source project that was first developed at U.C. Berkeley by the likes of David Culler, now chairman, co-founder, and CTO of Arch Rock. The company announced its ZigBee support at the 2006 Sensors and Expo Conference in Chicago, where the company also showed off its TinyOS 2.0. Arch Rock also supports a range of...
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William Wong
[Component View] Optical Fiber Interconnect Is Easy To Maintain
ITT's Cannon PHD high-density optical interconnect systems are flexible, scalable, and easy to maintain. Based on an industry-standard 1.25-mm ceramic ferrule, the system enables a higher-density optical system than most traditional SC, ST, or MC ferrule technologies. The optical core connector bodies and structured cable systems have been engineered to support mission-critical applications within data-carrying networks. The system's design minimizes the...
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Lisa Maliniak
[Basics Of Design] Mix And Match T&M Buses With Hybrid Systems
T est & measurement (T&M) users face greater challenges in configuring their systems to optimally suit their testing needs. Contributing to these challenges has been the availability of a bewildering array of test equipment for a growing number of new applications, as well as the large number of buses available to interconnect their test gear. This is where software comes in to pull all the pieces together into a single "hybrid" system. It puts users in the...
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Roger Allan
