July 1, 2009
[TechScope] ZigBee Alliance Releases the Battery-Free, Energy-Harvesting Green Power Standard
ZigBee Green Power, introduced by the ZigBee Alliance, is an energy-harvesting, battery-free feature set designed to create a global, standard technology for self-powered devices. Without needing wires or batteries, according to the Alliance, these new devices are compatible with ZigBee and ZigBee PRO networks and can enable maintenance-free, environmentally friendly products.
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Staff
June 30, 2009
[Web Exclusive] eBook: Building Battery Arrays with Lithium-Ion Cells
Large scale arrays based on Li-ion batteries can provide the high voltage, current, and capacity required by many emerging portable markets; however, there are numerous problems facing the designers of larger battery packs, and this paper outlines the techniques for achieving high voltage or capacity by building high cell count arrays.
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ED News Staff
June 29, 2009
[Focus On Emerging Technologies] Imagine a World of “Internet Enabled” Applications
With widespread availability of WiFi access points, the internet is merely a click away from anyone or any application. Combine this with recent developments in compact, ultra-low-power WiFi modules, and the conditions are primed for a whole new class of “Internet Enabled” applications.
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Symmetry Electronics
June 29, 2009
[POV: Point Of View] Should Dual Rail Go Mainstream in Deep Nanometer Era?
Deep sub-nanometer designs are stressed with large process variability. SRAM-bits have the most aggressive design rules in the SoCs, and the most variability. A dual rail solution offsets some of the variability at the cost of additional design efforts. Dual rail solutions appear to be complex, but several area, power, and performance tradeoffs can be made to simplify the design.
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Vipin Tiwari
June 25, 2009
[Embedded in Electronic Design] COM Module Adds Atom
Kontron’s microETXexpress-DC Computer-on-Module features a 1.6-GHz N270 Intel Atom processor with the 945GSE and ICH7M chipsets. The 3D graphics accelerator handles dual independent displays with support for SVDO, LVDS, VGA, and TV-out.
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William Wong
June 25, 2009
[Embedded in Electronic Design] Atom Comes In A Tiny ECX Package
The Atom-based ML936-B16 fits into the 105- by 146-mm Embedded Compact Extended (ECX) form factor sponsored by Intel. This is a nice match with 3.5-in. form factors. The single-board computer includes a low-power, 1.6-GHz Z530P Intel Atom processor and a US15WP System Controller Hub (SCH).
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William Wong
June 25, 2009
[TechView: Communications] Programmable Clock Improves Gigabit Network Performance
As network speeds increase, the jitter performance of the timing clock becomes a major design factor. The best solution is to start with a quality clock with minimum jitter. Cypress Semiconductor’s FleXO family of programmable high-performance clock generators deliver ultra-low phase jitter as low as 0.6 ps typical from 12 kHz to 20 MHz.
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Louis E. Frenzel
June 25, 2009
[TechView: EDA] Accellera-SPIRIT Consortium Merger Boosts EDA Standards Efforts
Hoping to prove that two isn’t necessarily better than one, the EDA standards bodies Accellera and the SPIRIT Consortium have agreed to combine into a single organization. The combined entity, which will go forward as Accellera (with IP standards branded as SPIRIT IP-XACT), will seek to exploit synergies, and possible new opportunities, in the development of design and verification language-based and IP standards.
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David Maliniak
June 25, 2009
[Embedded in Electronic Design] Smallest MCU Hits 2- By 2-mm Form Factor
Silicon Laboratories continues to push down the size of 8-bit microcontrollers. Its C8051T606 mixed-signal microcontroller comes in a 2- by 2-mm, 10-pin mini small-outline package (MSOP). It is also available in 3- by 3-mm, 14-pin small-outline IC (SOIC) and 10-pin quad flat no-lead (QFN) packages.
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William Wong
June 25, 2009
[Embedded in Electronic Design] AdvancedTCA Board Supports Eight Cores
Diversified Technology’s ATC6239 Dual Quad-Core board is powered by 2.4-GHz AMD “Shanghia” Opteron processors with 6 Mbytes of L3 cache. The PICMG 3.1-compatible board supports up to 32 Gbytes of DRAM plus dual-port 10-Gbit Ethernet.
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William Wong
June 25, 2009
[Eye On Europe] Rugged Power Supplies Endure Hostile Economic Environments
Power supplies not only need to be powerful and efficient, they also must meet performance and reliability requirements for rugged and demanding environments, such as military and medical applications. Two European companies are rising to the occasion, with the SL Power Electronics MINT1110 series and the Powersolve Electronics PSL400BP.
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Paul Whytock
June 25, 2009[POV: Point Of View] VME And VPX—Moving Forward Together In Military/Aerospace Apps
As many designers familiar with military and aerospace applications know, VME has been the predominant form factor for more than 25 years. Because of its adaptability, ease of maintenance, and ruggedness, among other benefits, VME positioned itself extremely well against competing architectures years ago. Even today, in the face of upcoming VPX/VXS products, VME will have a significant role to play in the future of military and aerospace applications. ...
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Frank Phelan
June 25, 2009[Electronic Design Products] Converters Provide Crucial Help In EMI/RFI Shielding
Manufacturers of electronic devices employ electromagnetic interference (EMI) and radio-frequency interference (RFI) shielding to protect sensitive digital circuits from external emissions that can impair product performance, as well as to contain the potentially harmful emissions that come from their products (see “The Dark Force Of Evil In Electronics: Electromagnetic...
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Craig McClenachan
June 25, 2009[Engineering Essentials] Understanding Common-Mode And Differential-Mode Interference
When identifying and controlling electromagnetic interference (EMI), discussion of common-mode and differentialmode interference will likely dominate. Differential-mode interference is a signal that appears on two lines of a closed loop, but current flow is in opposite directions. This kind of interference essentially appears in series with the desired signal. The solution is an inductor in series with the high side (and/or low side) of the line and a...
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Louis E. Frenzel
June 25, 2009[Engineering Essentials] EMI/EMC Regulations
Almost all governments have very specific rules and regulations related to the control of electromagnetic interference (EMI). Most spell out the parameters of what is allowed and methods of testing. In the U.S., EMI guidelines for commercial equipment are handled by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) section 47 Parts 15, 18, and 68 contain relevant information that all engineers should be aware of when ...
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Louis E. Frenzel
June 25, 2009[Engineering Essentials] The Dark Force Of Evil In Electronics: Electromagnetic Interference
Is there an electronic product or circuit that’s not susceptible to electromagnetic interference (EMI)? For that matter, are any devices EMI-free? Simply put, no. EEs wish it wasn’t the case, of course, but it’s a fact of life in electrical engineering— and it’s one of those things they typically don’t teach you in school. Most engineers find out about EMI on the job, where expunging it often takes more time than the original design itself. And don’t...
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Louis E. Frenzel
June 25, 2009[Pease Porridge] Bob's Mailbox
HI BOB, I read your response to Arthur Williams in the April 23 column (“Bob’s Mailbox”). The answer as to whether or not to remove the ground plane underneath inductors is: it depends. If the inductors are cans or toroids, it does not matter as the fields are contained inside the inductor. If the inductors are air wound or chip inductors, it might be best to try...
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Bob Pease
June 25, 2009[Technology Report] Match Multicore With Multiprogramming
Across the embedded landscape, the design credo has become “more cores.” However, challenges remain when it comes to the software side. Some hardware architectures can deliver dozens of cores, while others hit thousands of cores. Unfortunately, applications don’t always port easily across different architectures. For the low end of the embedded space, single-core solutions will remain. It’s still possible to move up the power and performance curve by moving to...
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William Wong
June 25, 2009[Lab Bench] My E-mail Ate My Homework
I’m becoming more forgetful these days— or rather my e-mail is (Fig. 1). Like many of you, I work for a company that limits the lifetime of e-mail. At first, this seems reasonable. It saves space, even though hard-disk prices per terabyte are falling faster than a fully populated NAS box. It’s also a great way to eliminate evidence. This policy has some unintended consequences, though, for...
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William Wong
June 25, 2009[Leapfrog: First Look] Tool Automates Power Optimization Of Embedded SoC Memories
System-on-a-chip (SoC) design teams have long labored to optimize their creations for power, but doing so in the memory portions of the devices has lagged behind. Today’s memory-IP (intellectual property) providers build complex power-management schemes into their products, yet the design of the control logic to take maximum advantage of these schemes is daunting. Attempts to get a handle on dynamic power consumption using sleep modes are...
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David Maliniak
June 25, 2009[Leapfrog: First Look] Nonvolatile Storage Doesn't Require Transistors
The CMOx nonvolatile memory technology from Unity Semiconductor targets storage-class memory applications. CMOx is based on new materials in the semiconductor process called conductive metal oxides that use the movement of ionic charge carriers to store information. With 64-Gbit chip capacity on the horizon, it looks to be a challenger to NAND flash. The technology employs a multi-layer, multi-level cell (MLC) approach that gives...
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William Wong
June 25, 2009[TechView: Analog & Power] 50-MHz Op Amps Self-Calibrate Offset
The MCP65X 50-MHz rail-to-rail operational amplifiers from Microchip Technology include an on-chip “mCal” calibration circuit that calibrates offset voltage at powerup or on-command. An internal power on-reset detector or a signal on an external pin initiates calibration. Self-calibration provides a lower initial voltage offset than conventional op amps, along with a means to continually control drift over time and temperature, Microchip says (...
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Don Tuite
June 25, 2009[TechView: Analog & Power] USB Isolator Simplifies Safety In Medical, Industrial Apps
In embedded applications that use the PC architecture, the USB interface has supplanted RS-232 for remote control, diagnostics, firmware updates, configuration of operational settings, and data exchange. As with its predecessor, one drawback to USB in medical and certain industrial applications is the lack of a provision for isolation in the basic standard, though mains-powered patient monitors require it for safety cer tification, and...
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Don Tuite
June 25, 2009[Ideas For Design] Triple-Current-Modulation Delta VBE Thermometry Cancels Ohmic Error Sources
Delta VBE-based ( VBE) thermometry1,2,3,4 is based on this classic bipolar junction I/V/T relationship: For an ideal transistor, the VBE corresponding to ratiometric change in collector current (I2 / I1) is exactly proportional to absolute temperature: VBE = 198.4 µV * °K * LOG10(I2 / I1). Because cheap, common, and robust small-signal transistors conform closely to the ideal model, circuits that exploit the “PTAT (Proportional...
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W. Stephen Woodward
June 25, 2009[Ideas For Design] Logic-Level Signals Shifted To Dim ?48-V LED Driver
The main source of power in a telecommunications system is -48 V. This source’s negative polarity and its large magnitude with respect to ground pose a challenge when designers want to use low-power ICs in the telecom system’s application circuits. Fortunately, the emergence of high-voltage ICs—with operating voltages of 75 V and higher—has enabled the use of simple biasing techniques in designing circuits for -48-V systems. The technique described here provides...
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Ahmad Ayar
June 25, 2009[Ideas For Design] Seamless Power Switcher And Battery Charger Solution Targets Portable Devices
In today’s world, there are many applications for portable devices. These devices must have extremely low or no battery drain when turned off and need to charge their on-board batteries when connected to an external power supply, whether the device is turned on or not. This circuit provides seamless switching from batteries to external power and provides a simple charging solution. In addition, there are several output signals for a microcontroller (MCU). This...
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Jim Wilson
June 25, 2009[Editorial] Web 3.0 Promises New Ways To Analyze And Share Data
Just when you thought it was safe to navigate the social media seas of the Web, along comes the next big wave. Dubbed Web 3.0 or the Semantic Web, these ideas promise new ways to create, massage, analyze, and share data. At the recent Web 3.0 Conference in New York City, I got a taste of what’s to come and thought about how some of these ideas might be useful to the design engineering community. VISITING CALAIS During his...
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Joseph Desposito
June 25, 2009[Engineering Feature] Oscillators Face The Final Frontier
High-reliability oscillator design for satellite systems poses many challenges to the engineering community. The custom nature of the design efforts as well as the quality requirements tend to lead to large, complex specifications that drive cost, design cycle time, and overall product lead time. Materials utilized in design and construction are also limited by environmental constraints such as outgassing, radiation, the use of pure tin, and shock/vibration...
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David Bail
June 25, 2009[Design View / Design Solution] Take The Guesswork Out Of Debugging
In the classic board game Battleship, an adversary arranges a fleet of tiny, plastic combat vessels on a grid that’s hidden from view. After an analogous fleet is set up on a separate grid, the objective is to guess the locations of the opponent’s boats. Likewise, the opponent’s goal is to divine the whereabouts of your miniature ships. The game proceeds with ...
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Matthew Gordon
June 18, 2009
[New Products] Small Step-Down DC-DC Converter Sustains Up To 17 V
Designed for telecom and computing systems, the Texas Instruments TPS54620 SWIFT single-chip point-of-load device (POL) sustains up to 17 V. As an addition to its other power-management ICs, this 6-A synchronous switcher features integrated FETs. It’s 60% smaller than multi-chip converters, according to TI, takes up less than 195 mm², and is one-fourth the size of a postage stamp.
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Staff
June 18, 2009
[New Products] MEMS Accelerometer Offers Movement-Activated Features For Mobile Applications
STMicroelectronics’ LIS302DLH, a three-axis digital micro-electro-mechanical-systems (MEMS) accelerometer, is a 16-bit device measuring 0.75 mm high. According to ST, the product partakes in its Piccolo MEMS family’s 3- by 5-mm footprint and therefore is suitable for space-saving designs.
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Staff
June 18, 2009
[Editor's Notebook] Do You Need Wireless Video Transmission For Your HDTV? Maybe, Sort Of…
It has been possible to send HD video over wireless links for consumer electronic equipment connectivity for a long time. Wi-Fi and WiMedia UWB solutions have been around a few years, but both rely on compression techniques to bring the data load down into a range that the wireless data speeds can handle. But compressing and then decompressing video always leaves it just a bit less definitive than before compression.
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Louis E. Frenzel
June 18, 2009
[TechScope] Hybrid Auto Uses Nanotechnology To Improve Efficiency
XP Vehicles is ready to launch a new development in the automobile industry designed to reinvent the basics of car design. Its model, the Mini Utility Vehicle (MUV), is a battery/fuel- cell hybrid that utilizes new technology in an attempt to improve safety, reduce costs, and increase its range as an electric car (see the figure).
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Kelly Allegra
June 17, 2009
[Technology In The News] Germanium Gate-Stack Technology Provides High Carrier Mobility
Toshiba Corp. announced this week that it has made advancements in its development of a gate stack and interlayer with high carrier mobility that can be applied to metal-insulator-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MISFETs) in future generations of LSIs. The ultra-thin, high-k/Ge gate stack and strontium germanide (SrGex) interlayer can provide the high carrier mobility needed for application in MISFETs at the 16-nm node and beyond.
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ED News Staff
June 17, 2009
[TechView: Communications] IEEE 802.15.4 Transceiver Targets ZigBee, RF4CE Remote-Control, And Smart Energy Apps
The CC2530 from Texas Instruments is an 802.15.4 radio on a chip along with an 8051-compatible MCU and appropriate interfaces that should find its way into a variety of wireless applications. Recall that 802.15.4 transceivers operate in the worldwide unlicensed 2.4-GHz band with 16 channels of data using direct-sequence spread spectrum (DSSS). The data rate is 250 kbits/s. More and more, this standard is being adopted in industrial and commercial monitoring and control products.
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Louis E. Frenzel
June 17, 2009
[TechView: Communications] RS-485/RS-422 Serial Transceivers Now Can Hit 32 Mbits/s
The popular RS-485 and RS-422 serial data networks used in industrial automation can now be made better than ever thanks to Exar’s SP349x series of transceivers, which offer data rates to 32 Mbits/s and increased line protection. When designing new RS-485 and RS-422 hardware and next-generation industrial networks for process control, plant environmental control, and remote sensing and metering applications, you can get the extra speed often demanded.
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Louis E. Frenzel
June 17, 2009
[New Products] Common-Mode Choke EMI Filter Offers Integrated ESD Protection
ON Semiconductor’s NUC2401MN common-mode choke and electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection IC is designed for high-speed data line applications. According to the company, this device rids the low-voltage differential signaling (LVDS) interfaces of common mode noise, which becomes necessary when working with high bandwidth.
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Staff
June 18, 2009[Technology Report] Hot Cellular Market Can't Escape Icy Economic Winds
While nothing seems to be totally immune to the economic downturn, except perhaps government growth, the wireless industry is still performing better than most. Revenue is down, but the subscriber rate is up. U.S. carriers added 15 million new subscribers in 2008, boosting the total to more than 270 million by the end of the year. Just over 2.2 trillion minutes were used for voice calls alone in 2008. Total cellular revenue topped $148...
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Louis E. Frenzel
June 18, 2009[Technology Report] Beyond The "Great Recession"
If one looks at the last 50 years of engineering boom-and-bust cycles and correlates them with the “stealth” technologies that emerged during those periods, one can see an encouraging pattern: breakthrough technologies take root during the crises and eventually transform the industry. Often, few people initially grasp these technologies or their potential. It’s also regrettably demonstrable that the actual pioneers have rarely been the ones to reap the big...
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Don Tuite
June 18, 2009[Technology Report] Motor Control: More Than Just Switching MOSFETs
Enter “motion control” or “motor control” into your favorite search engine, and you’ll be rewarded with links to an ad-hoc encyclopedia of solid design information. Freescale’s site (www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/overview.jsp?nodeId=02M0zpbnQXGM0zpqCKS2&tid=tMCdr) is broad, deep, and far more than a product selection guide—which it...
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Don Tuite
June 18, 2009[Technology Report] Laptops, Netbooks, And E-books, Oh My!
You don’t need to wave a magic wand to capitalize on the hordes of mobile devices that are on the market these days. They’ve become bright spots in a wobbly consumer electronics industry as buyers look for new bargains. In many instances, the cutting edge, such as the iPhone and Kindle, still carries a premium price. But the potential of lower-cost alternatives as well as the functionality provided by these new platforms is driving interest. ...
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William Wong
June 18, 2009[Technology Report] Putting Robots In Harm's Way
Aremote-controlled landing craft approaches a beach and deploys its robotic cohorts, including a helicopter. The helicopter flies inland and deposits a set of tracked robots that split up to reconnoiter. They use laser designators to highlight targets for incoming robot fighter planes that will launch missiles as part of a coordinated attack. This futuristic scenario is years away, not decades. Odds are good that if you step on a battlefield, a...
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William Wong
June 18, 2009[Technology Report] White Goods See Significant Motor-Control Innovations
Cars are exciting, and appliances are boring, right? That depends. While you can’t take an air conditioner for test drives on a frozen lake to evaluate its dynamic response to regenerative braking in slippery conditions, as Greg Solberg did with the Tesla Roadster, there can still be challenges. For example, cultural and economic differences in regional markets for white goods influence motor-control design. On the cultural side, to cite one case, China and Japan present a...
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Don Tuite
June 18, 2009[Technology Report] Test Instruments Stay Ahead Of The Curve
Maintaining one’s competitive edge in this economic downturn often comes down to the tools used to get the job done. In terms of test instruments, this is especially true. Without oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, and other instruments with the speed and bandwidth to capture today’s high-speed serial bus traffic, it’s virtually impossible to verify the performance of many systems. On top of that, the same instruments are essential to...
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David Maliniak
June 18, 2009[Technology Report] Electronics Helps Foster Decentralized Healthcare
Rising healthcare costs, a stretched-thin number of medical providers, longer life expectancies, and a growing number of elderly and disabled patients are transforming the face of medical care. Decentralization—moving healthcare away from medical facilities and into the patient’s home—is fast becoming the new model. In 2008, Medicaid spending for long-term care cost $99.5 billion, according the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. ...
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Roger Allan
June 18, 2009[Technology Report] Auto Electronics Revs Up For "Greener" Pastures
The automobile and electronics industries are struggling mightily through this economic tumult. Straddling these two giants, however, is a shining beacon—auto electronics. At last year’s Convergence Conference, a panel of experts from General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Honda, and BMW suggested that the cost of electronics in a car will increase beyond the oft-quoted 20% figure and climb to 40% to 50%. Getting more extreme, Honda senior...
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Roger Allan
June 18, 2009[Technology Report] EDA Remains The Enabler Of Much-Needed Innovation
Some years ago, the electronic design Automation consortium (edAc) adopted the phrase â??where electronics Beginsâ?? as a tagline. coined by richard Goering during his EE Times days, the phrase remains more than apt for edA. As silicon integration grew more complex over the past three decades, the automation of otherwise manual and labor-intensive phases of the design cycle became ever more critical. one could scarcely imagine todayâ??s ...
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David Maliniak
