[Technology Report] Field Programmability Pervades Analog Design
Last year was a major turning point for the analog world. Like programmable logic devices (PLDs) and field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) in the digital domain, field programmability and in-system reconfigurability finally pervaded the analog...
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Ashok Bindra
[Product Innovation] Mobilize Your Multimedia With A PDA On A Chip
As handheld digital assistants and Internet appliances are asked to handle ever more complex tasks, designers face critical tradeoffs between cost, performance, power, and size. Additionally, displays on such devices are typically limited to simple...
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Dave Bursky
[Ideas For Design] Low-Cost, 24-V Industrial Controller Is ESD-Protected
To validate a new process before its full-scale deployment, developers first test it in a small-scale pilot plant. Although controlling this plant with programmable logic controllers (PLCs) would allow maximum flexibility, PLCs are too large and...
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Phill Leyva
[Editorial] The Internet: Are We Puppetmasters Or Puppets?
The demands of bringing products to market as quickly as possible have pushed many companies to globalize their development teams. By distributing teams around the globe, companies can parallelize some of the work and pass projects from time zone to...
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Dave Bursky
[Pease Porridge] What's All This Floobydust Stuff, Anyhow? (Part 10)
People have asked me about some good new books, such as those that I mentioned and recommended at the recent Linear Seminars. So here is a list. Most of these books are available at Amazon.com. But even if you decide not to buy a book there, you...
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Bob Pease
[Viewpoint] SoC Integration Will Drive The New Internet Era
The supreme dominance of Moore's Law in driving semiconductor technology is coming to an end. MOS transistor gate lengths have shrunk from several micrometers in the 1970s to below 0.1 µm (100 nm) today, while the number of transistors on a...
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Contributing Author
[Embedded in Electronic Design] Technical Sin
Technical sin is not without its own peculiarities. Of course, one attraction to sin is the delicious anticipation of being caught. But in technical sin, not only do you rarely get caught, but if you are caught, someone else pays the...
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Ray Weiss
[Embedded in Electronic Design] Hardware Products
How About A One- Or Two-Cycle, 25-MHz 8051? The 8051 just keeps on going like the Energizer Bunny. Architects continue tuning up the chip to keep it competitive. One of the latest riffs is Cygnal's c8051F2xx and 3xx...
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Ray Weiss
[Embedded in Electronic Design] Software Products
8- And 16-Bit Microprocessors Gain TCP/IP Stack Today's networked devices require TCP/IP. Compact Internet device designers can take advantage of low-cost processors with CMX-MicroNet TCP/IP stacks and TCP/IP-based...
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William Wong
[40 Years Ago] Advances Spur Thin-Film Computers
Several recent developments indicate that designers are advancing in their drive to miniaturize computers via thin films. At Hughes Aircraft Co., Culver City, Calif., tests are proceeding on an airborne computer in which thin-film capacitors and...
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Steve Scrupski
[40 Years Ago] Electronic Design's Ninth Annual Transistor Data Chart
This year's chart contains specifications for 1714 transistor types; last year, 1088 types were submitted for publication by semiconductor makers. With close to a 60% increase in the number of available types, the design engineer is now offered a...
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Steve Scrupski
[Forefront] MEMS RF Switch Designers Now Have 40-GHz Reference Platforms
MEMS software design tools are taking another step forward into the RF arena. Coventor Inc. of Cary, N.C., is offering a family of customizable low-power and low-loss RF MEMS switch design platforms for operation up to 40 GHz. Available in a variety...
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Roger Allan
[Forefront] Indium-Phosphide HBTs Speed Data At 40 Gbits/s And Higher
Historically, Vitesse Semiconductor of Camarillo, Calif., has used gallium-arsenide (GaAs) MESFET technology for its high-speed communication ICs. But increasing bandwidth and transmission data rates have forced the company to add a new weapon to...
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Ashok Bindra
[Forefront] Trio Of Online Design Tools Lets Users Test Their Ideas
Internet-based design services are all the rage lately, and for good reason. With design resources at a premium and time-to-market pressures unabating, the Internet brings immediacy and interactivity to the table. With that in mind, a newly launched...
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David Maliniak
[Forefront] IC Measures Time-Of-Flight With 125-ps Accuracy
Ken Condreva, an engineer at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, Calif., had a problem. He needed to accurately record critical timing signals in weapon test flights. But new telemetry systems required a compact, lightweight, low-power...
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Richard Gawel
[Forefront] Heat Convection Yields Integrated CMOS MEMS Accelerometer
Designers can use resistive IC-based thin-film microheating elements to manufacture relatively low-cost integrated MEMS accelerometers in a standard CMOS process. This novel method, developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology in...
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Roger Allan
[Forefront] Cell-Phone Makers Implement Swappable Instant Messaging
Four major cellular-phone manufacturers—LM Ericsson, Alcatel SA, Motorola Inc., and Siemens AG—have agreed to implement the Enhanced Messaging Service (EMS) standard to strengthen the messaging capabilities between their phones....
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Lisa Eccles
[Forefront] 3G Cell Phones Invade Tokyo
NTT DoCoMo has begun testing its 3G wireless phone service, rolling out 4500 handsets in the Tokyo area. Models available for early testing include an upgraded version of the Net-linking i-mode phone and a computer-card model for data transmission....
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Lisa Eccles
[Forefront] TCP/IP Stack For DSP Cuts Cost Of Internet Connectivity
New products with Internet connectivity often incorporate a DSP chip as well as an embedded controller whose primary function is to run the TCP/IP stack software for the Internet connection. Texas Instruments has eliminated that controller by...
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Louis E. Frenzel
[Forefront] PMOSFET Driver Delivers 1.5 A
Designed to drive p-channel MOSFETs at very high speeds, Linear Technology's LTC1693-5 MOSFET driver/buffer IC delivers a 1.5-A peak-to-peak output current. This device is rated with rise and fall times of 17.5 ns at a VCC of 12 V and 1...
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Roger Allan
[Forefront] Tester Characterizes Laser Diodes With 5-A Peak Pulses
The Model 2520 Pulsed Laser Diode Test System performs electrical characterization of laser diodes in either the chip/bar state or in finished products. According to its manufacturer, the 2520 is the only single-instrument system for testing laser...
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Lisa Eccles
