[Engineering Feature] Sound Check: Silicon MEMS Microphones Ready To Make Lots Of Noise
What’s that rumbling? It’s the ever-loudening boom expected to stand the silicon microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) microphone market on its collective ears. Forecasters say the market explosion will really unfold after 2009. Two years ago, only three or four dominant silicon MEMS microphone manufacturers existed. Knowles Acoustics had the lion’s share, followed by Akustica, Pulse Engineering’s Sonion MEMS Division, and Infineon Technologies. Now the list...
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Roger Allan
[Technology Report] Parallel Programming Is Here To Stay
It was easy to program applications in the days when one chip, one core were common. Single-chip solutions remain the target of many systems, especially for mobile applications. But these days, they’re likely to include more than one processing core. Programming these platforms can be a challenge. High-end server platforms like Intel’s six-core Xeon 7460 use lots of transistors for very large, complex architectures. Systems with even more cores on a single chip...
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William Wong
[Leapfrog: First Look] Universal Broadcast TV Is Heading For A Notebook Near You
People who watch broadcast TV on notebook computers typically do so via a USB stick or PC Card connected to an external antenna. Reception usually consists of a TV standard or two, such as ATSC. If this sounds cumbersome and limiting, it is. But this will change if a company called CrestaTech succeeds in convincing notebook manufacturers to include its mobile TV solution right on the motherboard. CrestaTech has created a combination of silicon...
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Joseph Desposito
[Design View / Design Solution] Powering The Signal Path
Power delivered to sensitive analog circuitry must be treated differently than power for digital circuitry. All circuits are affected by noise delivered through the power supply, yet analog loads tend to be more sensitive. The actual type of circuitry and application will determine the tolerable noise limits. Powering digital circuitry today is a fairly straightforward task and can be handled with available power design tools, such as ...
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Robert M. Hanrahan
[Ideas For Design] Isolated Receiver/Converter Uses Multichannel Opto-Isolator
The accurate transmission of analog signals over long distances in noisy industrial environments is a difficult design problem. One of the oldest solutions isolated current loops is still one of the best. This Idea For Design presents a simple optically isolated linear current loop receiver that uses generic parts. The receiver operates from a single non-isolated power rail (12 V) to generate a convenient analog 5-V voltage-mode output that’s ready for further...
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W. Stephen Woodward
[Ideas For Design] THD-Enhanced Bias Circuit Design Targets Class AB Buffers
Bias circuits for class AB buffers (Fig. 1a) can take several forms. One alternative (not necessarily the best) is usually called the “old VBE doubler” (Fig. 1b). The main purpose of these circuits is to provide VCC-independent (and very often thermally compensated) bias for output transistors, so every effort is made in this direction. But...
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Peter Demchenko
[Ideas For Design] Create Your Own Fan Driver Circuit For An Active Heatsink
Even robotic systems occasionally need a cooling fan. When they do, the cooling circuit must be an intelligent one that makes minimal demands on power consumption and space. The circuit described here is such a cooling fan driver for an active heatsink assembly. The driver uses readily available and inexpensive components, and it runs on a 12-V dc supply (see the figure). The circuit uses an LM35...
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T.K. Hareendran
[Editorial] Pointing Makes A Point In Consumer And Industrial Products
Apparently, the world isn’t satisfied with ordinary remote controls, game controllers, and even Nintendo’s Wii Remote. I say this because I saw pointing devices and controllers that break new ground at the 2009 International CES in Las Vegas last month. The most intriguing pointing device, I thought, was from a company called GestureTek (). CTO and cofounder Francis MacDougall demonstrated advanced gesture ...
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Joseph Desposito
[Pease Porridge] Bob's Mailbox
HI BOB, We know that the noise power generated in a resistor is proportional to temperature. If we have a resistor with a zero thermal coefficient so that the resistance is constant with the temperature, does the temperature of the resistor increase due to the thermal noise? (No, not even sub-infinitesimally! / rap) In other words, does the resistor noise create noise voltage or current in the resistor, which in turn heats the resistor to a ...
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Bob Pease
[TechView: Communications] Low-Power Equalizer/Driver Simplifies 10-Gbit/s Optical Links
Before you can transmit data at 10 Gbits/s over any optical or copper cable, you need equalization and careful retiming— and the Phyworks PHY1066 equalizer/driver/retimer IC provides these qualities (see the figure). It’s designed for use in 10-Gbit/s Ethernet SFP+ modules for direct attachment to passive twin-ax copper cables (up to 15 m long) and 10GBaseSR optical...
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Louis E. Frenzel
[TechView: Communications] Wireless Module Enables Wi-Fi Embedded I/O And Internet Access
How would you like to use Wi-Fi as the I/O port on your next 8-bit embedded design— and automatically access the Internet? The ZeroG Wire-less ZG2100 single-chip Wi-Fi transceiver chip lets designers add Wi-Fi to almost any electronic device. If you don’t want to develop the RF design, you can get the ZG2100M, a completely tested and pre-certified module you can add to almost any embedded control ler design (...
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Louis E. Frenzel
[Engineering Essentials] Can Home Networking Find A Happy Medium?
Do you need a home network? Many consumers seem to be wondering just that, with the prospect of a total home-networking solution hovering for more than a decade now. Many homes, in fact, already have some form of networking in place today. And there have been lots of advances in data speeds as well as new methods, products, and standards. So what’s the holdup? Right now, there are three basic networking functions: computer connections to the ...
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Louis E. Frenzel
[Electronic Design Products] Mature Display Technology Still Viable In Advancing Markets
When we think of displays these days, the first technologies that come to mind are LCDs, LEDs and organic LEDs (OLEDs), and touchscreens. These components, though not new, proliferate and evolve because of a number of factors. Constant research and development in the electrical, mechanical, and chemical/materials disciplines uncovers ways to make these displays cheaper, more functional and energy efficient, and easier to integrate into new...
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Mat Dirjish
[Electronic Design Products] Future-Proof Low-Profile 1U And 2U Systems With High-Speed Connectors
Choosing connectors that meet increased speed and density requirements for low-profile 1U and 2U rack-mountable systems is a complex task. Increases in signal-pin counts and power consumption have turned system packaging design for optimal airflow into an increasingly difficult challenge. Common to network interfaces, storage, and telecom equipment, these lowprofile systems require long-lasting connector configurations that can...
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Adam Stanczak
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[Lab Bench] Embedded C Bashing
I love C. I started using it on DEC PDPs and Intel 8080s ages ago. It has long since replaced assembler and, along with C++, remains the programming language of choice in the embedded tool space according to most surveys. My recent article, “Parallel Processing Zooms While Debugging Zags” (www.electronicdesign.com, ED Online ...
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William Wong
[Eye On Europe] Worldwide Projects Push Forward In Networking, Security, And VoIP
Europe is experiencing a flurry of technology developments as companies address the growing communications demands of the 21st century—networking technology, fiber-optic security, and power consumption in Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) applications. NETWORK TECHNOLOGY Belgium-based nanoelectronics research center IMEC and Panasonic Corp. have agreed to work together on advanced technologies in the semiconductor,...
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Paul Whytock
