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ISSUE DATE: MARCH 20, 2000 OPTIONS
Rate-agile CDR chip, Network Communications, Optical comm test, Testing Rambus traces


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March 20, 2000 - In This Issue

[Technology Report]
Networking Worlds Collide As 10-Gbit Ethernet LAN Enters The WAN
Throughout their existence, the local-area network (LAN) and the wide-area network (WAN) have remained separate, complementary entities. Their distinct cost/performance structures were defined by the nature of their application. Broadly stated, the...  — Patrick Mannion

[Technology Report]
High-Speed Test Gear Sheds Light On Optical Communications Problems
It's not easy to satisfy a voracious appetite for bandwidth. But that's still the goal for designers of optical networks. Using cutting-edge technologies, such as dense and ultra-dense wavelength-division multiplexing, they're adding more and more...  — Joseph Desposito

[Product Innovation]
Rate-Independent CDR Chip Locks In At Up To 2.7 Gbits/s
One of the key indicators of a fiber system's performance is how far a signal can be transmitted before it must be regenerated. A lot goes into determining this, from the quality and power of the original signal, to connectors, to noise within the...  — Patrick Mannion

[Product Innovation]
Graphical Tools Inject A Healthy Dose Of Ease-Of-Use Into Text-Based Languages
A breakthrough in software technology adds graphical-programming capabilities to industry-standard tools like Visual Basic. Called SoftWIRE, the tools provide a way to combine the speed and ease-of-use of graphical programming with the flexibility...  — Joseph Desposito

[Design Application]
Accurate Measurements On High-Speed Rambus Traces Present Challenges
Making highly sensitive measurements on high-speed computer motherboards and memory boards is tough, especially when the traces are short. Such short traces (e.g., 1 to 2 in. in length) are common in the Rambus memory architecture, which uses 250-ps...  — Ben Chia , et al.

[Design Application]
Boost Performance By Vectorizing Your DSP Software
The high-performance computing arena still has an insatiable appetite for performance. The more processing power semiconductor vendors produce, the more developers try to squeeze out every drop of that performance. This demand is an upward spiral...  — Stephen Paavola

[Design Application]
Gain Confidence In Network Designs By Simulating The LAN Magnetics
Designers of networking equipment often request a model of the transformer and common-mode-choke module used in 10-/100Base-T applications. With that model, they can simulate the module's performance with the associated driver IC and other related...  — Dallas Dean

[Ideas For Design]
Acquire And Control Linear CCD Sensors Using EPP Protocol
A linear CCD camera is an essential component in many engineering and consumer applications. Usually, designers must contend with expensive commercial cameras supported with complex interfaces that can't be easily adapted for a wide range of...  — Radovan Stojanovic

[Ideas For Design]
Embed A Generator To Do Comm Test
When testing digital communication equipment, it's very useful to simulate the communication channel for various distortion effects, one of which is edge jitter. Instruments are available that will do this, but what if a simulator could be built...  — Tom Seim

[Editorial]
You Would Think They Could Finally Get It Right
Over the last few months I've been on the road meeting with many companies and travelling between Electronic Design's East and West-coast offices. The rough weather that the East coast suffered in late January brought home to me the issue of...  — Dave Bursky

[Pease Porridge]
Bob's Mailbox
TREKKING? Is anybody interested in joining us on our next TREK in Nepal? We had such good hiking on our LAST trek that we're planning to go back for 31 days this October (to the Everest/Kala Pattar/Gokyo region)....  — Bob Pease

[Editor's Notebook]
Industry Starts Building The Road To A Sun-Powered Future
The power efficiency of electronic components and systems just keeps getting better and better. Advanced CMOS processes, clever power-supply designs, and sophisticated power-management schemes have combined to produce higher performance for less...  — David G. Morrison

[Letters]
Letters
Back Up And Describe It Again The JFE Bernoulli Disk item in 40 Years Ago (Jan. 24, p. 54) was interesting. But it wasn't a "floppy disk," although the disk material is similar. Note the rotational speed, "up...  — Various

[The Design Factory]
The Best-Laid Plans Become The Enemy Of Vigilance
We've all seen it happen. A detailed plan is prepared for a project, and everything stays on track for the the first 80% of the schedule. That's when it hits the fan. Heroically, the engineers apply their fixes while going way over budget, and the...  — Don Reinertsen

[40 Years Ago]
Transistor's Planar Structure Reduces Reverse Leakage
Low reverse leakage current, high-voltage operation, high power dissipation—these are some of the outstanding characteristics claimed for the type 2N1613 transistor. The features result from the silicon unit's construction: both the...  — Steve Scrupski

[40 Years Ago]
Industry's First Solid Circuits Now Available
The first solid circuits are now commercially available, marking the beginning of a new era for the electronics industry. Texas Instruments, Inc., which developed the monolithic devices, has produced evaluation quantities of a binary multivibrator...  — Steve Scrupski

[Forefront]
Company Wire
The fiber-optic build-out continues with Charter Communications' award of a $2 million contract to International FiberCom's subsidiary, All Star Telecom. The 12-month project, which has already begun, will upgrade and install a portion of...  — Staff

[Forefront]
From The Labs
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), a biomedical research organization, is spending $8.05 million on the construction and operation of two superbend beamlines at the Advanced Light Source (ALS) facility of the U.S. Department of...  — Staff

[Forefront]
Ahoy! Software Pirates Are Sailing The Net
Online auctions may seem like a great place to find bargain software, but be careful. A recent survey found that most of these software auctions are illegitimate. SIIA, a trade association that protects the intellectual property of the...  — Richard Gawel

[Forefront]
Nanostructure Shows Promise For Use In ICs, Magnetic Storage Media
A collaborative effort between researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, IBM, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Athens has resulted in the creation of an intricate ceramic nanostructure (...  — Cheryl Ajluni

[Forefront]
Stamp-Sized Ferroelectric LCD Can Power 50-in. TV Screens
For many years, the Holy Grail of the display community has been the enabling of both very large-screen and very small-screen high-resolution displays with optimal clarity, field of view, and performance. That's because achieving these qualities...  — Cheryl Ajluni

[Forefront]
Image- And Video-Processing Board Tabbed By NIMA
VisiCom, an IT solution provider based in San Diego, better invest in some new cloaks and daggers. Some of its technology is going to be used in the spy business. The National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), which provides information...  — Richard Gawel

[Forefront]
Optical-Lithography Tools Drop Design Geometries To 0.05 μm
Design geometries continue to shrink. Of course, this should come as no surprise to anyone now that deep-submicron (DSM) design and nanotechnology have become part of every engineer's staple diet. But just how low can design geometries go? According...  — Cheryl Ajluni

[Forefront]
Cheers For The Red Light And Blue: CCD Delivers Star-Spangled Performance For Astronomy
In astronomy, charge-coupled devices (CCDs) record the light captured by the major telescopes of the world. CCDs provide greater sensitivity than photographic film, which was commonly used in the past. But film typically sacrifices sensitivity to...  — David G. Morrison

[Forefront]
FCC Roadblocks COFDM Petition
Finally, it could be over. By unanimous vote, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has denied the petition filed by Sinclair Broadcast Group requesting that the COFDM modulation standard be added to the U.S. digital TV (DTV)...  — Patrick Mannion

[Forefront]
Scalable Bus-Based Architecture Handles Multiple DSP Cores On-Chip
Emerging communication networks and broadband Internet access terminals have a voracious appetite for performance. They need powerful DSP engines that can handle billions of operations per second. Although the processing capability of DSP chips has...  — Ashok Bindra

[Forefront]
Joint Development Eyes Copper 0.13- to 0.10-μm Logic ICs
Three companies—IBM Inc., Armonk, N.Y.; Infineon Technologies AG, Munich, Germany; and UMC Inc., Hsinchu Science Park, Taiwan—will jointly develop advanced technologies for use in semiconductor production. They have agreed to work together...  — Roger Allan

[Forefront]
Fujitsu Opens Advanced Optical Research Laboratory In U.S.
Fujitsu Network Communications Inc. is opening a new research facility at its headquarters in Richardson, Texas. According to the company, the lab mirrors the Fujitsu Laboratories in Kawasaki, Japan. The new Photonics Networking Laboratory...  — Joseph Desposito

[Forefront]
Fast 16-Bit ADC Includes On-Board Programmable-Gain Amplifier
Leveraging its expertise and experience in the design of analog front-end ICs for data storage and communications, DataPath Systems has crafted a high-performance pipeline analog-to-digital converter (ADC) for data-acquisition applications. The...  — Ashok Bindra

[Forefront]
8051 Links To Industrial PCs With On-Chip (E)ISA/PC104 Bus
The workhorse 8051 microcontroller will have a new class of job opportunities open to it thanks to the integration of an (E)ISA/PC104-compatible interface on the chip. Developed by Cybernetic Micro Systems, the P-51 (peripheral 8051) provides an...  — Dave Bursky

[Forefront]
Offline PWM Switcher Improves Design Flexibility, Efficiency
The TOPSwitch-FX is the latest member of Power Integrations' family of integrated offline PWM switchers based on the company's proven TOPSwitch power-conversion topology. In addition to integrating many new features to improve design flexibility and...  — Ashok Bindra

[Forefront]
Free 0.15-μm Library Solution Now Available
Members of a line of advanced components are available for free to qualified OEMs. The eSilicon family of 0.15-µm embedded semiconductor components includes foundry-specific standard-cell libraries, advanced I/O pads, PLLs, and a broad choice...  — Richard Gawel

[Forefront]
NiMH Battery Shaves Millimeters Off Cell Thickness
With a thickness of less than 5 mm, the V450HR series NiMH battery is significantly thinner than other batteries of its kind. Until now, the thinnest prismatic NiMH batteries available measured 6 and 7 mm thick. The V450HR battery, which has a 34-...  — David G. Morrison

[Forefront]
Battery-Management Chip Is Space- And Cost-Conscious
The DS2438 Smart Battery Monitor stores battery-specific data and tracks battery parameters, including temperature, voltage, current, and remaining charge. It then provides battery data and measurements to the host system's processor, where charge...  — Richard Gawel

[Careers]
Don't Doubt Your Speaking Potential
Are you one of those engineers who dreads giving a public speech or presentation, be it a company talk or a technical paper at a conference? Take heart: Many of us are in the same boat. Yet the art of public speaking need not be all that difficult....  — Roger Allan

[New Products]

• Digital Speaker System Provides Deep Bass And Crisp Sound  — Richard Gawel

• Joystick Combines Compact Size With Functionality  — Richard Gawel

• High-Frequency Clock Timer Has ±25-ppm Stability, 5-ps RMS Jitter  — Richard Gawel

• Film Capacitor Saves Money And Space In DC Applications  — Richard Gawel

• Interface Links Origin And Mathematica Software  — Richard Gawel

• Single-Board Computers Support High Bandwidth While Freeing Slots  — Richard Gawel

• Windows CE Computer Has Wireless Internet Capability  — Richard Gawel

• Industrial Computer Series Eliminates Need For Hard Disks  — Richard Gawel

• Analog And Digital I/O Board Tackles Harsh Industrial Environments  — Richard Gawel

• Formal Verification Tool Targets Multimillion-Gate SoC Designs  — Richard Gawel

• Hosting Service Available For Product Solution Suite  — Richard Gawel

• Design Verification Environment Packed With Four Key Tools  — Richard Gawel

• Clock Oscillators Feature Low Jitter And Broad Operating Temperature  — Richard Gawel

• Low-Voltage 622-MHz BAW VCXO Combines Stability And Pullability  — Richard Gawel

• Programmable Oscillator Available From 340-kHz to 250 MHz  — Richard Gawel

• 12-Bit, 40-Msample/s ADC Dissipates 170 mW Of Power  — Richard Gawel

• Quad 10-Bit Rail-To-Rail VOUT DAC Consumes 60-μA  — Richard Gawel

• 24-Bit Stereo Audio DAC Targets Consumer Applications  — Richard Gawel

• Dual Analog Front End Designed For High-Speed Communications  — Richard Gawel

• Lockout-Action GFCI Protects Against Ground Faults  — Richard Gawel

• Diode Family Offers Lower Clamping Voltages Than MLVs  — Richard Gawel

• Low-Dropout Voltage Regulators Can Handle 1-A Currents  — Richard Gawel

• Modular Test Platform Designed For 10-Gbit/s SONET/SDH Analysis  — Richard Gawel





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