[Technology Report] CES Keynotes Sport A New Look
I’m a big fan of keynote addresses at any tradeshow I go to. But my favorite ones by far are those of the International CES. This show invariably draws the top executives from consumer electronics and other companies around the globe. For example, Bill Gates of Microsoft provided the preshow keynote speech at CES for many years. The keynotes give engineers the lay of the land for consumer electronics for the rest of the year and then some, which can...
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Joseph Desposito
[Technology Report] CES Awards And CE Spotlights Salute Excellence And Inspiration
There are always tons of technology and products packed into CES, but perhaps the only way to be sure you catch the best products and designs is by scoping out the awards ceremonies and the CE Spotlights. This year, CES will open the floor to four awards programs: the International CES Innovations 2009 Design and Engineering Awards, the CNET Best of CES Awards, the esteemed Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards, and the Global Media Awards™. ...
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John Arkontaky
[Technology Report] Improve Your Knowledge And Know-How At The CES Sessions
The axiom “knowledge is power” certainly applies to the 2009 International CES. Boasting the consumer technology industry’s largest educational forum, this year’s program delivers more than 200 conference sessions with over 500 expert speakers, covering the hottest topics and trends shaping today’s design decisions. (This just in: the Industry Insider series will be returning. Check the CES site at CESweb.org for late-breaking news on who will be featured.) ...
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Roger Engelke
[Technology Report] When It Comes To Design, Get In The Zone—TechZone, That Is
All eyes are on Vegas when the International CES comes to town, and the 2009 show will be no different, with plenty of celebrities and all the hottest gadgets. But you’re a designer! You need the latest info to create the next wave of groundbreaking innovations—maybe in time for the 2010 event. Located throughout the entire show floor, this year’s CES TechZones will spotlight market-specific...
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Richard Gawel
[Technology Report] Robots Crowd The Aisles In Las Vegas
Just about everyone has heard about Spirit and Opportunity, the robots that keep on trucking across the surface of Mars. And of course, there was last summer’s hit movie WALL-E, about a lovable little waste-collecting robot. Well, you don’t have to go to Mars or the multiplex to meet a real robot. Just keep your eyes open in the aisles of the Robotics TechZone, sponsored by Robotics Trends, at the Sands. Robots may not be everywhere, but...
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William Wong
[Technology Report] Cut The Cord With WiMedia
If you’re anxious to see the latest in wireless technologies and find out how you can use them in your next design, then the International CES is the place to be—especially for the latest in Ultra-Wideband (UWB) products. This short-range technology provides speeds up to 480 Mbits/s at up to 10 m. UWB has been around a few years, but it hasn’t gotten much traction as a widespread wireless technology yet. It has taken a while to firm up the standard...
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Louis E. Frenzel
[Technology Report] Wi-Fi Chips Stand Out In A Sea Of Wireless Products
Most of the ICs we cover in Electronic Design are new products that really have something to offer. With hundreds of new chips announced annually, it’s a challenge to identify those that push the speed, power, and size boundaries or have unique features. We look for innovation. You wouldn’t think, then, that the Wi-Fi radio chips I selected as the Best Communications/ Wireless products would be, well, the winners. Yet these new chips do offer...
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Louis E. Frenzel
[Technology Report] 2008 Analog Prologue: Innovation In All Directions
When I report on new products, I usually avoid claims that chips are “so many percent” better in some way than their competitors. That’s because specsmanship is a constant game of leapfrog. Sometimes a focus on specs can lead to an awkward situation. For example, Texas Instruments and National Semiconductor demonstrated the perils of dueling specifications last January by announcing new analog-todigital converters (ADCs) for the same application...
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Don Tuite
[Technology Report] Diverse Component Trio Represents This Year's Best
The components market always seems to be in a state of accommodation, creating products to support every other sector’s designs. Whether it’s a power source that fits an oddly shaped printed-circuit board (PCB) or a motor that can deliver massive torque levels in a space the width of a finger, component makers innovate for innovators. Over the past year, for example, OmniVision gave digital-camera designers a leg up in their work with its BSI CMOS...
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Mat Dirjish
[Technology Report] USB Thinks Inside The Box
USB is the de facto peripheral interconnect outside the box. Inside, though, it’s been a different story. This year, USB has been internalized with a range of products and platforms becoming more popular. My two choices for “best” reflects this change, with Stackable- USB and the MicroBlade standards. StackableUSB (www.stackableusb.org) has its own organization behind it, and the MicroBlade...
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William Wong
[Technology Report] Industrial's Best Devices Save Space In New Designs
Representing this year’s best in the industrial category are an eight-channel, digital-input serializer from Texas Instruments and a six-degree-of-freedom (DoF) inertial sensor from Analog Devices. Both devices bring advanced functionality to industrial designs while saving significant space compared to similar solutions on the market. EIGHT-CHANNEL CONVERSION Designing high-density industrial automation systems that fit in...
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Joseph Desposito
[Technology Report] Multicore Mania Sweeps Through Computer Design
Today’s computers are going multicore where performance matters. Whether it’s for a desktop or server, more cores are showing up in the compute engine and graphics rendering, providing users with everything from more lifelike video to solutions for computationally complex problems. This year, three products stood out. Intel’s six-core Xeon pushes the envelope for the typical operating platforms such as Linux and Windows. The Tesla C1060 opens...
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William Wong
[Technology Report] Pressure-Sensor System Is A Mini Medical Marvel
The medical industry needed an implantable pressure- sensing system that had to meet very harsh requirements. Its must-haves included ultra-miniature size, wireless operation, the lowest power consumption for battery operation, precision low drift and temperature stability, and isolation from media such as blood, tissue, and saline solutions. Such were the very difficult challenges that Tronics Microsystems met with a two-chip microelectromechanical system ...
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Roger Allan
[Technology Report] Best Scope Merges Style, Substance
If looks were the only criterion for choosing the best test instrument of the year, the LeCroy WavePro 7 Zi oscilloscope line would win hands down. Its 15.3-in. WXGA LCD touchscreen can display all sorts of useful data simultaneously (see the figure). But the real breakthrough is what’s inside—its new hardware and software. The series includes five basic models with maximum bandwidths of 1.5,...
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Louis E. Frenzel
[Technology Report] Low Stored Charge Separates Diode From The Pack
I n an idealized diode, no reverse current flows from cathode to anode when the device is reverse-biased. However, with real-world diodes, large amounts of stored charge can flow from the cathode—back through the anode— before the diode enters its blocking state. That stored charge is QRR, and it causes the reverse recovery current (IRR) that flows as the diode transitions from forward to reverse bias. For example, a...
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Sam Davis
[Technology Report] Top FPGAs Excel While Best Chips Simplify Design
For design flexibility, FPGAs are unsurpassed. But they have typically suffered performance or power penalties to achieve that distinction. Now, those penalties exist no more. This year’s best FPGAs can take a leading role in highvolume and high-performance designs. The structures that typical FPGAs use to provide their configurability add overhead to their internal design. To achieve functional density and performance levels comparable to those...
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Richard Quinnell
[Technology Report] Networking Invigorates The Home Multimedia Blitz
The continually morphing home-entertainment arena has turned to local-area networks (LANs) to tie things together. This year we chose three products, two fixed and one portable, as the first or best in their categories. One of the offerings supports the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA), and you can count on DLNA becoming more of a force within this realm. These days, you can select from a range of NAS devices that are DLNA media servers. For example,...
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William Wong
[Technology Report] In EDA, A Year Of Mergers, Failed And Otherwise
For the EDA industry, 2008 was dominated not so much by technology breakthroughs but rather by corporate intrigue. Cadence Design Systems’ attempt to take over Mentor Graphics had the electronics industry at large holding its collective breath for a few months. In the wake of the effort’s failure, one need only look at the subsequent ouster of most of Cadence’s senior management, including CEO Mike Fister, to know how profound the failure was. ...
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David Maliniak
[Technology Report] Automotive Imaging ICs Keep An "Eye" On The Road
In the quest to make driving more enjoyable and safer, designers are relying on the most advanced video sensors and processors for greater driver assistance and comfort (see “Semi ICs Drive Auto Safety And Control Innovation,” Electronic Design, Oct. 9, 2008, p. 28). Intelligent video systems have proven essential, spurring on the need for the design and manufacture of cost-effective vision-system ICs. As part of this trend, STMicroelectronics’ and...
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Roger Allan
[Technology Report] Military Systems Bolstered By Building-Block Breakthroughs
Technological advances lead to tactical advantages. That’s why investments in electronic technology for military applications traditionally run high. Yet those investments can often yield useful breakthroughs as well as dramatic improvements in existing technologies. Military systems such as electronic warfare (EW), signal intelligence (SIGINT), and radar systems receive the most funding. Still, electronic building blocks such as amplifiers, display...
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Jack Browne
[Leapfrog: First Look] MEMS Inclinometer Spawns Wide Application Range
When Analog Devices introduced its ADIS16209 dual-axis MEMS inclinometer and accelerometer as part of its iMEMS family late last year for industrial applications (â??Tiny Dual-Axis MEMS Inclinometer Simplifies Industrial Measurements,â?? Nov. 15, 2007, p. 34; ED Online 17442), it became an instant hit. In fact, our readers called it the Best Leapfrog of the year....
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Roger Allan
[Editorial] International CES Takes Center Stage In January
The second week of January is a special time for the consumer electronics (CE) industry. This is when the International CES®, the largest tradeshow of its kind, rolls into Las Vegas with more than 130,000 attendees, including 6000 or so engineers. If youâ??ve attended this spectacle before, you probably listened to Bill Gates of Microsoft give the preshow keynote on a Sunday night at The Venetian. International CES will start on a Thursday this...
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Joseph Desposito
[Editorial] As 2008 Comes To A Close, We Salute The Industry's Best
Selecting the best OEM products and technologies of the year can be a daunting task, given the wealth of innovations that this industry produces. But a few always stick out in an editor’s mind, somehow making their way to the top of the list. For this issue, the Electronic Design staff and contributors wrote about these products and technologies. The editors made their selections entirely on their own, without any voting from readers or advertisers,...
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Joseph Desposito
[Pease Porridge] What's All This "Adjustable Slew Rate Stuff," Anyhow?
The other day, a guy wrote in requesting help. “How can I make an amplifier with adjustable positive and negative slew rates?” he asked. I instantly replied, “Easily,” and I drew this up. As soon as I got to work, I scanned and sent him the basic circuit (Fig. 1). You turn the P1 pot until the available current through R1 is adequate to give the desired maximum negative slew rate. Likewise, turn...
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Bob Pease
[Hall Of Fame] Robotics Move From Industry To Space To Elder Care
Retirement isn’t coming easy to 83-year-old Joseph Engelberger, widely known as the Father of Robotics. “There’s a lot that can still be done,” he says wistfully, despite already accomplishing so much in the robotic field. In fact, Engelberger and George Devol produced Unimate, the first industrial robot. While studying for his MS degree at Columbia University, Engelberger worked for Manning Maxwell & Moore as a physicist designing control systems for...
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Doris Kilbane
[Hall Of Fame] In AI, Robotics, And Any Field, Stand Alone To Stand Apart
If you want to make a difference, don’t follow the crowd, Marvin Minsky advises today’s students. Don’t go into the most popular field. “That could be a disaster. When I started to work on artificial neural networks, only four other researchers were involved with this field. But today, there are many thousands of them. Interesting discoveries come only every few years—so each researcher has less than one chance in 1000 of making significant contributions,” Minsky...
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Doris Kilbane
[Hall Of Fame] RAM Innovator Took A New Career—And Education—By The Horns
His pioneering work in digital computer technology gave the world reliable random-access magnetic-core memory that revolutionized computer speed and power. Nevertheless, Jay Forrester says his work today is “much more important.” “In 1956, I thought the pioneering days of computer innovation were pretty much over,” Forrester said. “The biggest multiple in improvements in computer speed, reliability, and logical design were from 1946 to ’56. Rapid...
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Doris Kilbane
[Hall Of Fame] Family Need Leads To A Better Hearing Aid And A New Industry
George Frye was happily working at Tektronix on high-speed sampling oscilloscopes in 1970 when his hearing-impaired mom needed some help. “Her old Zenith hearing aid was getting a little cranky, ” said Frye. She took him up on an offer to build her one. “Transistors had just come onto the market, so I believed I could build it using transistors.” Although it turned out to be a little more complicated than he anticipated, Frye persisted and eventually...
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Doris Kilbane
[Hall Of Fame] From Sneaking Into Computer Labs To Sneaking Out Java
James Gosling, inventor of the Java programming language and the virtual machine, skipped many of his high school math and physics classes. His teachers knew it, but they still gave him A’s. That’s because, said Gosling, they knew why he was missing the classes. He was working for the physics department at the University of Calgary writing software for satellites. “That attitude was a huge influence on me,” said Gosling. “They understood that learning...
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Doris Kilbane
[Hall Of Fame] Computers—A Revolutionary Medium For Boosting Human Thought
The printing press was one of the most influential inventions in human history. Could universal personal computing and worldwide networking be just as significant to human thought? In the 1960s, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) established a research community to accomplish that grand goal. Quite a bit of this dream was realized in the 1970s by the extension of this community at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) sparked by ideas from...
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Doris Kilbane
