[Leapfrog: First Look] Assertions Stand Guard Over SoC Clock Domains
In the simulation and verification world, particularly with regard to system-on-a-chip (SoC) design closure, certain fault types have made their way to silicon with greater frequency. Many of today's SoCs contain multiple asynchronous clocks, passing...
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David Maliniak
[Editorial] Volunteering Goes Beyond Emergencies And Holidays
People volunteer for many reasons, but tragedies such as the destruction of the World Trade Center and storms like tornadoes and hurricanes bring out the best in us. We cannot say enough about the rescuers who exhaust themselves pulling survivors from...
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Dave Bursky
[POV: Point Of View] Several Paths Lead To Passive Integration
A quiet revolution is occurring in passive component integration. The advanced electronic systems being designed and built today require greater component density for increased functionality. They also demand lower equivalent series inductance for...
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Robert Heistand II
[Pease Porridge] What's All This K2-W Stuff, Anyhow? (Part 2)
Here are some additional comments on the K2-W that did not fit in last month's column (Electronic Design, Jan. 6, p. 20). The K2-W had adequate gain and dc stability, and it was fast enough for many analog computing...
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Bob Pease
[TechView: The Industry] 90-nm Flows Readied
Pure-play silicon foundries are joining hands with EDA vendors to offer libraries that are verified in silicon and validated on tools. In this way, foundries can ease their customers' path into system-on-a-chip (SoC) design at geometries of 150 mm and...
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Staff
[TechView: The Industry] Headphone Amp Bridges Low Power And Distortion
As multimedia becomes ubiquitous, personal electronic devices now require a driver for audio outputs. Fairchild Semiconductor has introduced the FAN7005 headphone amplifier to fill the conflicting requirements for high fidelity and low power...
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Staff
[TechView: The Industry] Code|Lab For .Net
Microsoft's Visual Studio .Net (www.microsoft.com) gained additional support with the integration of the code|lab Embedded Development Environment (EDE) from Accelerated Technology, Embedded Systems Division of Mentor Graphics. The EDE is...
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Staff
[TechView: Analog & Power] Light Sensor Sees Like We Do
Light sensors are important in power management, as they control the dimming of display backlights. Yet typical semiconductor-based light sensors are too sensitive to infrared energy, causing them to trigger dimming circuits inaccurately....
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David G. Morrison
[TechView: Analog & Power] Low-Power Delta-Sigma ADC
Low-power delta-sigma ADC embedded systems requiring low-power analog functions can turn to the low-power ADS1244 24-bit, delta-sigma analog-to-digital converter (ADC). Developed by Texas Instruments' Burr-Brown division in Tucson, Ariz., this ADC is...
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David G. Morrison
[TechView: Communications] Cable Modem Gets DOCSIS 2.0 Okay
Cable modem gets DOCSIS 2.0 okay. Cable Television Laboratories (www.CableLabs.com) has certified Texas Instruments' DOCSIS 2.0 cable modem. Called waves, the tests ensure modems meet Data Over Cable Service Interface Standard (DOCSIS) 2.0....
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Louis E. Frenzel
[TechView: Communications] IPsec On The Motherboard
With network security becoming more critical and companies demanding faster and easier security solutions, security chips are emerging on PC motherboards. Crypto chip manufacturer Cavium Networks and motherboard maker ABIT Computer have announced...
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Louis E. Frenzel
[TechView: Components & Test] Electronic Circuit Breaker Limits Downtime
Electronic circuit breaker limits downtime. In factory-automation settings where 24-V switching supplies power multiple loads, the fault on a single load circuit can shut down the power supply, disabling all loads. The ESS20 electronic circuit breaker...
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Roger Allan
[Embedded in Electronic Design] PC/104+SBC Packs Pentium
Joining an 850-MHz Pentium III to a PC/104Plus system actually takes two boards, so placing it at the top of a PC/104Plus stack makes the most sense. The Jaguar sports a Socket 370 that handles Celeron and Pentium III processors, starting with a...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] IDE RAID Storage Fits On CompactPCI Blade
The pair of hot-swappable 40-Gbyte drives on the Adtron IC6M CompactPCI card are configured in a RAID 1 mirror configuration. The automatic rebuild function is invoked when a new drive is installed. Real-time system status is monitored using a PICMG...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] Do µP Compilers Measure Up?
Many DSP, 8-, or 16-bit microcontroller developers continue to cling to assembler while their colleagues dealing with 32- or 64-bit processors work exclusively with high-level languages like C, C++, and Java. This is often due to the myth that...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] MISRA C: Safer Is Better
Vehicle software design outside the entertainment realm is tougher than most system designs. Reliability and safety usually hold greater significance than features or maximum performance. On the whole, hardware and software designs tend to be very...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] 64-Bit CPU Draws A Mere 0.6 W
Operating at 300 MHz, Toshiba's 64-bit MIPS-based TMPR4955-BFG-300 processor uses 0.6 W of power running at full speed. The chip is built using 0.13-µm CMOS technology. It uses a 32-bit SysAD bus, and it has a IEEE754-compatible floating point...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] Keep The Database Secure
Sleepy Cat Software's Berkeley DB High Availability 4.1 adds new high availability and encryption features. Database failover is handled by replication in multiple processor environments. The encryption support uses the Advanced Encryption Standard...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] Xray Supports Symbian OS
Accelerated Technology, the Embedded Systems Division of Mentor Graphics Corp., has released its Xray debugger for Symbian OS v6. The debugger was validated using Texas Instruments' OMAP ARM/DSP-based system-on-a-chip. Prices for licenses start at...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] Trace Tool Detects RTOS Faults
The graphical QNX Systems Analysis Tool offers event visualization, making it easier to pinpoint problems due to synchronization, logic faults, and hot spots. Available to users of the QNX Momentics Professional Edition, which runs on the Eclipse...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] Low-Cost 8051 For Networking
Starting at under $9, the Dallas Semiconductor DS80C400 integrates a 75-MHz 8051, three 18.75-Mbit/s serial ports, a CAN 2.0 controller, a one-Wire master, 64 GPIO, and a 10/100-Mbit/s Ethernet MAC. A TCP IPv4/v6 stack is built in. Development can...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] Analog Core Minimizes EMI
The RCM3400 analog RabbitCore module's low-EMI features, including a clock spectrum spreader, reduce EMI problems and make it easier to pass CE and regulatory RF emissions tests. Based on a 29.4-MHz Rabbit 3000-based CPU, the subsystem includes an...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] Field Monitoring Made Simple
Serial or networked devices can be easily monitored using FieldServicePro from FieldServicePro Inc. The Windows-based application is designed for field technicians that need to monitor or troubleshoot embedded systems. Pricing starts at $129....
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] Standardized Embedded Linux
The Embedded Linux Consortium's Embedded Linux Consortium Platform Specification 1.0 (ELCPS), an application programming interface (API) specification, should allow developers to target any ELCPS conformant system. The ELCPS is modeled after the...
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William Wong
