November 10, 2003 Magazine Archive

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ISSUE DATE: NOVEMBER 10, 2003

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November 10, 2003 - In This Issue

New Products: More Digital ICs/DSP
Flash Memory For Wireless Systems Accesses In 60 ns Samples of a high-speed 64-Mbit flash memory are now available with random access times of just 60 ns and burst transfer frequency of 81 MHz. The MT28F644W18 targets mobile... — Dave Bursky

New Products: More Packaging/Interconnects
Combo D Subconnectors Add Power Contacts/Screw Terminals A series of power contacts now features screw terminals with wire protection for field installation. Designed for use with combo D subconnectors, the contacts can be easily... — Roger Allan

[Engineering Feature]
The PC: The Ultimate Tool For Today's Designers
Personal computers have resided on engineers' desktops for decades. But they weren't always the powerful, multifaceted tools that they are today. Once used solely for data processing, e-mail, and other mundane tasks, powerful hardware and... — Lisa Maliniak

[Leapfrog: Industry First]
RTL-Based Models Speed Pre-Silicon Software Checks
All too often, the success of a design project hinges on hitting a market window. And a key to hitting a market window is the delicate dance that goes on between the software and hardware design teams. How does the software team validate its work... — David Maliniak

[Leapfrog: First Look]
Switch-Chip Fuels Third-Generation InfiniBand
It's quite a feat: The tiny InfiniScale III MT47396 switch chip can support eight 30-Gbit/s 12x InfiniBand ports. On top of that, it can be configured as two dozen full-duplex, nonblocking, 10-Gbit/s 4x InfiniBand ports. That's less than $40 per... — William Wong

[Design View / Design Solution]
Leading-Edge Diagnostic Tools Help Ramp Up SoC Production
There’s a direct relationship between the quickest route to volume IC production and profitability. That said, today’s system-on-a-chip (SoC) designs demand more elaborate testing and application of more types of tests... — Robert Kovach , et al.

[Ideas For Design]
Expand Your I/O With The I²C Bus
In system applications where various input signals are monitored or several output signals are controlled, these lines are sometimes connected directly to the microprocessor pins. Such monitoring and controlling is done in software. However, this... — Emmanuel Tomdio Nana

[Ideas For Design]
Hot-Swap Controller Makes Adjustable Circuit Breaker
Medium- and high-voltage systems that range from 9 to 72 V often require one or more of the following circuit capabilities: hot-swap control, circuit-breaker fault protection, and inrush current limiting. Without R4, the circuit shown in ... — Mark Pearson

[Editorial]
Brain-Machine Interface Poses Electronics Challenge
Did you see the recent news from Duke University researchers who taught rhesus monkeys to move a robotic arm using only signals from their brains? While I'm an animal lover and have to think hard about these sorts of experiments, I commend Duke... — Mark David

[POV: Point Of View]
SFI Will Challenge, Reward Computer Designers
While switch-fabric interconnect (SFI) technology is common in communications applications, its recent migration to the computing environment is gaining a lot of attention. The design considerations in this more challenging arena are dramatically... — Michael Fowler

[Pease Porridge]
What's All This Three-Level Grader Stuff, Anyhow?
About 40 years ago, when I was at Philbrick, I worked a lot on operational-amplifier (we NEVER said op-amp) applications. Every once in a while, a customer would ask about a "zero-crossing detector," or more simply, just a "crossing detector." We... — Bob Pease

[Conference Preview]
What's Hot At Comdex
It's another show of refinements as novel technologies are combined to create products for the consumer. At Comdex, change is in the air for desktops with the announcement that VIA and Maxtor will enable Serial ATA/RAID integration with AMD's Athlon... — William Wong

[TechView: The Industry]
MEMS Gaining Acceptance Despite Technical Challenges
MEMS technology has made significant strides in commercialization. Yet it still faces tough technical hurdles, notably packaging and testing, in reaching the mainstream. That was the message conveyed at the 8th International Conference on the... — Roger Allan

[TechView: The Industry]
From Spintronics To Electronic Skin: The Future Is Here At IEDM
Electronic skin that gives robots the sense of touch... blazingly fast new transistor structures... circuits on transparent plastic films... microscopic machines combined with electronics. These and many other topics will be discussed at the 49th... — Dave Bursky

[TechView: Analog & Power]
Converters Roll Out For Intermediate Bus Designs
Recently introduced dc-dc bus converters present further evidence that interest in intermediate voltage bus architectures is growing. These latest entries convert a nominal 48-V input (with restricted voltage variation) to an unregulated but... — David G. Morrison

[TechView: Analog & Power]
Second-Source License Hopes To Spur Adoption Of New Power Architecture
In a non-exclusive agreement, power-supply vendor Vicor has licensed Celestica to manufacture and sell Vicor's V*I Chip product family. The ball-grid-array-style V*I Chips are building blocks for Vicor's factorized power architecture (FPA).... — David G. Morrison

[TechView: Analog & Power]
Interleaved PWM Controllers Facilitate Brick Building
Two single-chip interleaved pulse-width-modulation (PWM) controllers from Texas Instruments simplify the design of isolated offline power supplies and dc-dc converters ("bricks") with 50 to 100 A of output. The UCC28220 and UCC28221 peak... — David G. Morrison

[TechView: Communications]
Quad Ethernet Transceiver Targets SOHO, Enterprise Applications
SOHO and enterprise designers have a new weapon in their arsenal. The National Semiconductor DP83864 four-port GigPHYTER quad Ethernet physical-layer (PHY) transceiver specifically targets multiport small-office/home-office (SOHO) switches,... — Louis E. Frenzel

[TechView: Communications]
UWB Development Continues Without Standard Consensus
The IEEE's 802.15.3a working group met again in Singapore the week of September 15 to arrive at a final standard for ultra-wideband (UWB) personal-area networks (PANs). Most members support the orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM)... — Louis E. Frenzel

[TechView: Communications]
WLAN Chip Set Hits New Lows In Size And Power Consumption
Less is more, and Philips Semiconductors' new wireless local-area-network (WLAN) chip set proves it. It offers not only the lowest standby power of 3 mW but also the smallest form factor and the highest integration of any Wi-Fi chip set available.... — Louis E. Frenzel

[TechView: Components & Test]
Standards-Based Test Automation Kit Shortens Setup/Coding Time
As companies trim their engineering staffs, engineers are burdened with connecting, verifying, and checking test setups. Such tasks, which can often take weeks, are "low-value" jobs and often relegated to non-engineering staff. As a result,... — Roger Allan

[TechView: Components & Test]
NI Week Spotlights HW/SW Breakthroughs
Hardware and software for the rapid prototyping and testing of mixed-signal devices and systems are the lastest offerings from National Instruments. HARDWARE Based on a new common architecture that... — Roger Allan

[TechView: Components & Test]
Advanced Hardware/Software Team Up For High-Resolution/Wide-Band TDR
High-resolution, wide-bandwidth time-domain reflectometry (TDR) signal analysis often requires high-pricetag vector signal analyzers. But that cost problem should become a nonfactor thanks to Picosecond Pulse Lab's (PSPL's) fast-rise-time TDR module... — Roger Allan

[TechView: Digital]
Organic Inks Promise Printable Electronic Circuits
Imagine being able to place a sheet of plastic in an ink-jet-like printer, and using an organic ink, printing the transistor-based circuits you need. Although seemingly a bit far-fetched, this capability is actually emerging from the research labs... — Dave Bursky

[TechView: Digital]
Breaking News: Enhanced Xeon Processor
According to the company, Intel's enhanced Xeon processor for dual-processor servers and workstations delivers the highest performance and operates at the fastest clock speed to date. The CPU also offers drop-in compatibility with previous members... — Dave Bursky

[TechView: Digital]
Breaking News: Second-Generation Reduced-Latency DRAM
First samples of the second-generation Reduced-Latency DRAM are being released by Micron Technology Inc. These 288-Mbit devices operate at 400 MHz and use double-data-rate signaling for data transfers. The RLDRAM II chips also offer fast random... — Dave Bursky

[TechView: Digital]
Digital Music Chip Plays MP3, WMA, And AAC Audio Files
By implementing an extended software stack, austriamicrosystems' AS3520 music decoder IC becomes a self-contained digital audio player that's small enough to fit in a mobile phone. It requires just one-third the component count of any competitor,... — Dave Bursky

[TechView: EDA]
Rosetta Design Language On Road To Standardization
Designers who've been awaiting the next quantum jump in hardware abstraction should take heart: The Rosetta system-level design language is being readied for entrance into the standardization stream. According to Perry Alexander of the... — David Maliniak

[TechView: EDA]
IC Package Design Tool Tied To Field Solver
By melding an existing IC package design and signal-integrity analysis tool with a 3D field solver, designers now have a means for early exploration, implementation, and validation of IC package designs. Cadence's Advanced Packaging Engineer (APE)... — David Maliniak

[TechView: EDA]
EDA Update: Advanced Switching Interconnect Standard Support
EDA support for the advanced switching interconnect standard is coming from Synopsys, which will participate in the Advanced Switching Interconnect Special Interest Group (ASI-SIG). The Advanced Switching technology is a scalable switched... — David Maliniak

[TechView: EDA]
EDA Update: TNI-Valiosys/TransEDA Merger
TNI-Valiosys and TransEDA have merged to create a ready-to-use structured verification environment. TNI-Valiosys has acquired TransEDA, and although the companies will continue to operate and support their respective product lines, those lines will... — David Maliniak

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
The Right Form Factor Means Everything
I have a bunch of M-System's USB-based DiskOnKey flash-memory devices. They're great for moving stuff between systems when a network isn't handy. I even have a 1-Gbyte version, in which I installed Linux, but it's tough finding a machine with a new... — William Wong

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
From Backplane To Chip
Moving a design from board to chip is easier with a multithreaded nonblocking interconnect. That's exactly the on-chip interconnect approach taken by Sonics. Its SiliconBackplane III is designed to work with any core that utilizes the Open Core... — William Wong

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
HyperTransport Streams Comm Packets
The HyperTransport 1.2 Specification welcomes a feature called DirectPacket. This enhancement adds four new capabilities to the HyperTransport technology, including native packet handling, robust error retry protocols, peer-to-peer routing, and the... — William Wong

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
Single-Board Computer Series: CoreModule 600
PC/104-Plus SBC Ampro Computers Inc.... — William Wong

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
Single-Board Computer Series: EBC-C3
EBX SBC WinSystems Inc.... — William Wong

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
Single-Board Computer Series: Jaguar
PC/104-Plus SBC VersaLogic Corp.... — William Wong

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
Single-Board Computer Series: eTX-Lx05
ETX SBC Diversified Technology Inc.... — William Wong

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
Single-Board Computer Series: AMC-cPCI 3000
CompactPCI System SBS Technologies Inc.... — William Wong

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
Single-Board Computer Series: Stratus/PMC
PMC Dual Graphics Controller Peritek/Curtiss-Wright Corp... — William Wong

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
Single-Board Computer Series: CPCI-695
CompactPCI SBC Force Computers... — William Wong

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
Single-Board Computer Series: Fingertip3
Portable SBC InHand Electronics Inc.... — William Wong

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
Single-Board Computer Series: IB4X-PCIX-2 InfiniBand HCA
PCI-X SBS Technologies Inc.... — William Wong

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
Single-Board Computer Series: Puma-CR
CompactPCI SBC Momentum Computer Inc.... — William Wong

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
Single-Board Computer Series: GEME-3000
PC/104+ System Adlink Inc.... — William Wong

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
Single-Board Computer Series: Linux Rocket
Modular SBC Data Design Corp.... — William Wong

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
Single-Board Computer Series: Model 4205
VME SBC Pentek Inc.www.pentek.com ... — William Wong

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
Single-Board Computer Series: Rhino MX
6U VME SBC Synergy Micro Inc.... — William Wong

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
Single-Board Computer Series: 855GM Industrial Controller
SBC Win Enterprises Inc.... — William Wong

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
Single-Board Computer Series: PCM-3370
PC/104-Plus SBC Advantech Co. Ltd.... — William Wong

[TechScope]
IPv6 Races Across The Atlantic
The Internet is getting faster than ever. Scientists at the California Institute of Technology and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) have set a new Internet2 land speed record using IPv6, the next-generation Internet protocol.... — Richard Gawel

[TechScope]
Backpack Connects EMS Personnel In Hazardous Situations
Emergency personnel are going high-tech. Network Anatomy's Commander Series of integrated communications devices will keep rescue workers connected in even the most severe conditions. The Commander Pack is worn like a backpack, while the Commander... — Richard Gawel

[TechScope]
EE Unemployment Rises In The Third Quarter
The high-tech downturn isn't over yet, and it may have taken a step backward, based on the latest employment figures from IEEE-USA. According to the organization, unemployment among EEs rose from 6.4% in the second quarter to 6.7% in the third, for... — Richard Gawel

[Basics Of Design]
Digital-To-Analog Converters
Sponsored by: ANALOG DEVICES
Real-world analog signals such as temperature, pressure, sound, or images are routinely converted to a digital representation that can be more easily stored, processed, or transmitted. In many systems, however, digital information must be reconverted... — David G. Morrison

[New Products]

• Embedded: Wireless Web Server Serves Up Serial, Analog, And Digital I/O — William Wong

• Embedded: Complete System Created For Carrier-Grade Applications — William Wong

• Embedded: Arm MCU Can Handle Mixed Signals — William Wong

• Embedded: Integrated LIN Slave Makes MCU — William Wong

• Embedded: Low-Cost Codecs Spin Surroundsound For Receiver Apps — William Wong

• Embedded: USB Programmers Target HCS12 MCUs — William Wong

• Embedded: Analog PMC Module Supports Multicard Synchronization — William Wong

• New Products: More Embedded — William Wong

• Packaging/Interconnects: Matched-Impedance Connector Module Targets 0.5 To 3.2 Gbits/s — Roger Allan

• Packaging/Interconnects: Test Socket With RF Center Probe Eliminates Package-Lead Damage — Roger Allan

• Packaging/Interconnects: Classic 6U Backplanes Designed For VME64X Applications — Roger Allan

• Digital ICs/DSP: 18-Mbit Dual-Port RAMs Offer Synchronous Or Asynchronous Ports — Dave Bursky

• Digital ICs/DSP: Chip Set Ups The Ante For DVD Drives, Allowing 8X Reads, Writes — Dave Bursky

• Digital ICs/DSP: Low-Power x86 CPU Packs Crypto Engine And Dual RNGs — Dave Bursky

• Digital ICs/DSP: Budget-Priced High-Speed DSP Delivers 2000 MMACs At 500 MHz — Dave Bursky

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