1111 results found for Test & Measurement, displaying items 1 - 20
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[Editorial] How Do We Get Out Of This Mess? Try New Ideas
Life if full of unassailable assumed truths, and it’s an often disturbing but always constructive exercise to challenge them. Let’s start by questioning an easy one from everyday life: are you a good driver? Your instinctive answer is undoubtedly yes, and you would receive the same answer from anyone else you ask. But there are obviously loads of hopeless drivers on the roads. It just so happens that you, or anyone that’s asked, isn’t one of...
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Joseph Desposito
June 9, 2009
[Testing the Limits] Generate Profits Through Test
Test is a necessary evil—at least, that’s the conventional lens through which it’s viewed. Your best opportunity to improve profitability, though, may be to improve your testing. Chances are you’re under-investing in technology, and as a result, you have a test strategy that isn’t optimized. There are at least three ways to generate additional profits through test: direct cost savings, cost avoidance, and enabling a premium price.
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Eric Starkloff
June 11, 2009[Technology Report] Latest Test Solutions Measure Up To Wireless Challenges
Demand for test solutions in the communications and wireless sector continues to soar. Not only has there been an explosion in the adoption rate of new wireless technologies, but couple that with tough standards, multiple radios per product, and millions of devices to test, and it quickly becomes evident that testing capability is critical to the success of any wireless device today. Not to fret, though. Test and measurement companies are on top of the situation. A...
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Louis E. Frenzel
June 11, 2009[Design View / Design Solution] Measuring Mains Current Doesn't Have To Be Difficult
Monitoring the current taken by a mains-powered appliance can be a challenge, particularly if the application demands an inexpensive solution that must provide galvanic isolation for user safety. Common solutions employ either a current-sense resistor or current-sense transformer to convert the line current to an ac voltage that’s then converted into a proportional dc voltage. The dc voltage may then be processed using various techniques to provide a...
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Anthony H. Smith
May 28, 2009
[POV: Point Of View] People, Process, And Technology Innovation
Technology innovation is often the first area of change test engineers and managers consider, and rightfully so, since it typically translates to major system improvements and cost savings. Yet it may not yield maximum benefits by itself. In fact, major innovations often lie in waiting within your test organization with respect to people and process changes as well. Hence, innovation in your company’s approach to test can be found in a combination of people, process, and technology changes.
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Richard McDonell
May 7, 2009[Ideas For Design] Monitor Transformer Winding's Temperature Without A Sensor
The use of a copper winding as a temperature sensor is not new. The traditional technique is to disconnect the ac power and the load and to quickly make the measurement using an ohmmeter. But the circuit presented here goes further. It can make the measurement in-circuit and in real time. The resistance value is derived by injecting a small dc current into the monitored winding and measuring the resulting dc potential. However, care must be taken to avoid...
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Louis Vlemincq
April 28, 2009
[Web Exclusive] Timing Jitter 101
In any system that uses voltage transitions to represent timing information, jitter is an unfortunate part of the equation. In essence, jitter is the deviation of timing edges from their intended locations.
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David Maliniak
April 23, 2009[Design View / Design Solution] Bandpass Sampling
If a signal is sampled, the spectrum is replicated at every harmonic of the sampling frequency (see the figure). For example, if the spectrum is sampled at 9.2 GHz, the spectrum will repeat at 9.2-GHz intervals, out to plus and minus infinity. As a consequence, the frequency at 4 GHz is indistinguishable from the signal at +13.2 GHz, +22.4 GHz, etc. The opposite is also true—signals at +13.2 GHz and +22.4 GHz, sampled at 9.2...
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Mike Groden
, et al.
March 24, 2009
[Technology In The News] Winners Of Live EDGE To Be Announced
Service distributor Premier Farnell plc and its companies Farnell, Newark, Premier Electronics, Farnell-Newark CPC, and MCM will announce the winners for the Live Electronic Design for the Global Environment (EDGE) during a special virtual communications technology conference on April 2.
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ED News Staff
March 26, 2009[Testing the Limits] Innovating Through Tough Times
What do Hewlett-Packard, FedEx, and CNN have in common? Believe it or not, these companies were founded during difficult economic times (1939, 1973, and 1980, respectively). What about product innovations like Nylon and the iPod? You guessed it. They were also developed and released in weak economies (1935 and 2001). It turns out that these examples aren’t anomalies. Adversity can help spur innovation. I’ve been researching this...
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Eric Starkloff
March 19, 2009
[TechView: Test] Comprehensive Test Suite Eases Transition To DDR3 Memory Architectures
To address the needs relative to DDR3 design and integration, Agilent is offering a comprehensive DDR3 protocol test package that will span probes and slot interposers, a high-speed logic analysis module, and compliance and analysis software tools. At the center of the offering is the 16962A logic analysis module, billed as the industry’s fastest with support for state speeds up to 2 Gtransfers/second. Timing speed is specified as up to 8 GHz (quarter channel; up to 400 Msamples deep).
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David Maliniak
February 24, 2009
[Product Report] Inline Error-Injection Tool Stress-Tests PCI Express Links
Along with this proliferation of PCI Express technology comes an increased need for tools with which to verify compliance to the standard. Even though a given device may be compliant, that device’s behavior will vary depending on the implementation, and even with the operating system and drivers associated with it for that matter. Handling this kind of testing in a deterministic manner is becoming more difficult over time.
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David Maliniak
February 20, 2009
[Technology In The News] Software/Training Grants Enable Faster Deployment Of Medical Devices
Offering software and training grants in 2009, National Instruments (NI) continues its investment to further medical-device development. The company is accepting applications for the 2009 Medical Device Grant Program, which provides start-up assistance for those interested in using its hardware as a component of their medical devices.
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ED News Staff
February 10, 2009
[Product Report] Jitter-Tolerance BERT Targets Forwarded-, Embedded-Clock Designs
Testing of the physical layer in high-speed digital devices is becoming more challenging daily. The next generation of such devices will require forward-clocking architectures for memory-to-CPU interfaces, which will incur new signal-integrity (SI) and jitter problems.
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David Maliniak
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