[Technology Report] Fiber Comes Home
Fiber optical networks are what we would deploy today for combined telephone, TV, and Internet access if we were building a broadband communications system from scratch. Optical networks have the bandwidth to handle any current application and...
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Louis E. Frenzel
[Leapfrog: First Look] Network Search Engine Hums With Dual LA-1 Ports
Thanks to two LA-1-compatible interface ports, the Ayama 20000 network search engine (NSE) can break through tough data-transfer bottlenecks as well as expand network processor headroom. The NSEs support commercial network processors, including...
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Dave Bursky
[Leapfrog: First Look] Optical MEMS Powers WDM Spectrum Module
The increasing use of wave-division-multiplexing (WDM) optical communications is taxing the capability of conventional WDM optical monitors to faithfully measure the spectrum of transmitted light. This is key to meeting quality-of-service (QoS)...
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Roger Allan
[Ideas For Design] Gimmick Capacitor Stabilizes High-Frequency Op Amps
The stability of high-unity-gain-bandwidth op amps is susceptible to stray capacitances. Instability doesn't first show up as oscillation, but rather pronounced overshoot and ringing. Op amps such as the TLV278X, TLC08X, and TLC07X have...
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Ron Mancini
[Editorial] Big Brother In The Back Seat: TripSense Records Your Ride
It was inevitable that insurance agencies would figure out how to tap into the data buzzing around a car's CAN bus and start collecting it to monitor driving. Progressive Insurance's new program certainly allows for collecting some valuable...
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Mark David
[POV: Point Of View] ASIC Technology: Ready To Tackle Its Next Task
Ignore the propaganda. Reports of the ASIC market dying are greatly exaggerated. Suppliers of competitive IC solutions, led by the FPGA vendors, cite various reasons for this design platform's downfall: design starts are down, ASIC NRE costs are...
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Phillip LoPresti
[Pease Porridge] What's All This Input Impedance Stuff, Anyhow?
A young teacher went to Temple. Several priests and pharisees asked him questions. They asked trick questions to try to fool him. The teacher very sweetly and correctly answered their many tricky questions. All those present were amazed at the...
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Bob Pease
[TechView: The Industry] POL Converter Use On The Rise
The increasing need for multiple voltages at higher current levels is changing the way designers distribute power around their circuit boards. More and more, distributed bus architectures (DBAs) are the choice, according to market research firm...
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John Novellino
[TechView: Analog & Power] Dual 100-V Schottky Doubles Current Handling
With twice the current-handling ability (60 A) of typical dual-100-V Schottky rectifiers in the TO-220AB form factor, Vishay Intertechnology's MBR60100CT handles secondary rectification, freewheeling, and polarity protection tasks in 100- to 300-W...
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Don Tuite
[TechView: Digital] USB Keyfob Packs 2 Gbytes Of Nonvolatile Storage
With up to 2-Gbyte storage capacity, the latest DoK (Disk on Key) USB 2.0 flash storage devices from M-Systems deliver the highest capacity combined with the fastest read and write speeds. The embedded DoK T5 ARM processor runs the company's True...
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Dave Bursky
[TechView: Digital] 72-Bit Wide Dual-Port RAMs Deliver Data At 24 Gbits/s
Two additional density options are now available in the FLEx72 family of high-bandwidth dual-port RAMs. The CYD09S72V and CYD04S72V provide 4 and 9 Mbits of storage with dual 72-bit wide data ports. These two devices fill out the FLEx72 family,...
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Dave Bursky
[TechView: EDA] Constraint-Driven PC-Board Tool Boosts Productivity
As ever-evolving IC packages and multigigahertz signals present new pc-board design challenges, version 15.2 of Cadence's Allegro system interconnect design platform takes them on. With features that shorten the pc-board design cycle and enhance...
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David Maliniak
[TechView: EDA] EDA Roundup
Support for the LatticeECP-DSP and LaticeEC FPGA families is now included in version 4.1 of the ispLEVER design tools suite. The suite includes tools for design entry, project management, design fitting, place and route, floorplanning, device...
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David Maliniak
[Embedded in Electronic Design] Where Are Your Keys?
You're in the library. Panic sets in. They're missing. It might be your car keys or credit cards, but getting them back is imperative. Luckily, they're sitting on the last table you look at. Unless someone has you targeted for Mission:...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] 64-Bit Choices
A common 64-bit architecture provides 32-bit backward compatibility. Minor incompatibilities that exist can be addressed by compiler and operating-system implementations. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) took the lead with 64 bits and x86 compatibility...
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William Wong
[TechScope] Partnership Boosts NASA’s Supercomputing Power
NASA's supercomputing power is about to blast off. The agency will team with SGI and Intel to create the Space Exploration Simulator, a new machine that will be based at the NASA Ames Research Center. As part of Project Columbia, NASA will integrate...
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Richard Gawel
[TechScope] Stylish Jacket Sports MP3 Player And Cell-Phone Capability
For fashion with a high-tech edge, slip into the mp3blue. This jacket from Rosner GmbH & Co. and Infineon Technologies features a built-in MP3 player and cell-phone functionality. Its electrically conductive fabric connects a compact electronics...
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Richard Gawel
[TechScope] Nanoprobe Detects Single Molecules
Using a light-scattering technique, the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has developed a sensor that can theoretically identify single molecules of substances. This probe uses an optical fiber tapered to a 100-nm tip. It's coated...
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Richard Gawel
[Basics Of Design] ASIC Options Sponsored by: LSI LOGIC CORP.
Each new ASIC process generation doubles to quadruples the complexity of chips you can design versus the previous generation process. That higher complexity of today brings more complex design challenges and the increasing need to leverage available...
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Dave Bursky
