Yes, Engineering Is A Woman's Job
As a woman engineer, I have worked for over 25 years to encourage more girls to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). I had to stifle my screams and overcome my first inclination to label both Larry Summers and Bob Pease as Neanderthals (or worse) after reading Mr. Pease's column in the April 14 issue of Electronic Design...
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Jill S. Tietjen
[Engineering Feature] Get In The Spirit Of IP Reuse
Anyone embarking on an SoC design knows that the job involves stitching together relatively large blocks of IP. That may sound like a relatively easy task, but anyone in-the-know will tell you it's not. Integrating IP unleashes a host of difficulties, not the least of which is coercing any given design methodology to seamlessly handle any given piece of IP. But an industry consortium, formed just two years ago, is making headway toward solving this difficult problem. Despite...
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David Maliniak
[Engineering Feature] Outpace Your Competitors With A Solid IP Plan
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY (IP) IS ESSENTIAL IN SYSTEM AND SYSTEM-ON-A-CHIP (SoC) DESIGN. It reduces design time, in turn accelerating time-to-market. This is particularly true in the SoC market, where IP is now the most valuable aspect of just about every chip manufactured today. IP takes many forms in the semiconductor industry, like basic manufacturing know-how (from silicon materials to packaged chips). It also involves the design of...
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Dave Bursky
[Technology Report] DRAM Advances Splinter To Meet Many System Needs
During its 30-plus years, the venerable dynamic RAM has undergone a series of facelifts to boost density and performance. And the nipping and tucking isn't over, with system designers demanding more performance and bits per chip. The DRAM market also has fragmented into a plethora of options at both the chip and the memory-module level. No longer does a single memory configuration or interface meet all system demands (see "Memory Granularity Issues" at www.elecdesign.com,...
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Dave Bursky
[Leapfrog: First Look] First Serial RapidIO Switch Arrives
The steadfast wait for Serial RapidIO to move into high gear is over. Enter the Tsi586i from Tundra Semiconductor. The switch can be configured with 4x or 1x ports, and it will handle up to eight 4x ports and 16 1x ports or any mix in between. It also can be used to build more complex switches (see the figure). Pricing for the Tsi586i runs less than $99. The Tsi586i is well-suited for switched backplanes, as well as for...
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William Wong
[Leapfrog: First Look] Audio DSP Perks Up Sound-Quality Perception
Perfecting the art of audio challenges the best of design engineers. Some help in that process may be in store with the SigmaDSP multichannel 28-bit audio processor. Developed by Analog Devices, the AD1940 chip performs equalization, multiband dynamics processing, delay compensation, speaker compensation, and image enhancement. By applying these algorithms with 28-bit resolution, the SigmaDSP can compensate for real-world limitations of speakers, amplifiers, and listening...
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Dave Bursky
[Design View / Design Solution] Adaptive Radios Abet Wireless Connectivity
Today, wireless communication relies on numerous independent devices, each employing its own protocols and operating within a fixed segment of the frequency spectrum. Because these devices can't communicate with each other, they have collectively created a highly inefficient climate. Moreover, there's a potential for interference and "jamming" of each other's transmission and reception, especially when a high-power transmission occurs simultaneously with highly sensitive reception....
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Larry Swanson
, et al.
[Ideas For Design] APEC 2005 Report
Read about one experience from the twentieth annual Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exhibition that took place in Austin, Texas, last month.
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Don Tuite
[Ideas For Design] Single Transistor Cuts LDO Noise By 46 dB
Some of the many low-dropout (LDO) regulators supplying voltage regulation for electronic systems are designed for low noise. For example, the IC in Figure 1 achieves an RMS noise voltage of about 115 µV by itself. However, some ultra-low-noise applications such as instrumentation and high-quality audio require even lower noise. For that purpose, the Figure 1 circuit includes an external transistor and simple low-pass RC filter. Together, they reduce the supply noise by more...
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Ken Yang
[Ideas For Design] Telephone Line-Feed Detector Meets FCC Regulations
According to FCC regulations, a telephone line in the on-hook state must not be dc loaded by less than 5 MV of resistance up to 100 V. Also, it must be galvanically isolated from the local ground. In the case of a standard dc line-feed of 48 V, this means that the dc load must be less then 10 µA. Furthermore, the tip and ring must be isolated by a transformer in case the telephone circuit must be locally ground referenced. The figure shows one way to detect the presence...
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Steve Iveges
[Ideas For Design] Simulate Lithium Batteries With A NiMH Cell
Lithium-based batteries are becoming standard in portable equipment. They have desirable characteristics, but lead times may be long unless you have a preferred-customer status with the battery manager. A backup alternative is desirable, especially for smaller companies. It should (ideally) provide the same performance, size, and cost as a lithium-type battery. Nickel-metal-hydride (NiMH) batteries are still in wide use. They're much cheaper than lithium batteries, and they...
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Robert Nicoletti
, et al.
[Editorial] Adidas Designs A Winner With "Smart" Running Shoes
I'm not a runner, and I typically wouldn't consider spending $250 on sports shoes. But I found myself at the mall yesterday in the hopes of testing out the new adidas_1 "smart" shoes. After three years in the laboratory, Adidas officially launched the electronics-enabled shoes this month. If first-wave sales are an indicator (my local stores are sold out and don't expect more shoes until May), the company has a major success on its hands. "Smart shoes" may sound gimmicky. But...
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Mark David
[POV: Point Of View] Features Drive Supply Complexity In Handhelds
Today's convergent devices--handhelds and smartphones--are surprisingly complex. They consist of one or more RF power amplifiers (PAs) and receivers, a digital baseband processor and microprocessor host, electronic memory, a high-resolution image sensor, at least one high-quality display, various lighting functions (white backlighting, camera flash, and even color fashion lighting), a lithium-ion battery, and a power-management system with integral battery-charging. In the last year, the...
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Richard K. Williams
[Pease Porridge] What's All This "Woman Scientist" Stuff, Anyhow?
After the president of Harvard, Dr. Lawrence Summers, got in hot water for questioning why so many women may not have the aptitudes for science, now it is my turn to put in my two-cents worth. The aptitude of women to be good at science, or engineering, is well documented to be at a lower rate than it is for men. This has been widely published by the Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation (www.jocrf.org), which has been studying aptitudes since 1922. If you take the...
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Bob Pease
[TechView: The Industry] IEEE Cites Outsourcing As Wages Drop And U.S. Loses 221,000 Jobs
The number of U.S. technical workers fell 221,000 in six major engineering and computer job classifications from 2000 to 2004, says the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Meanwhile, the IEEE reports the first drop in median income for U.S. IEEE members in 31 years. Industries reporting the largest income drop also reported the highest percentage of unemployment because of offshoring. And, the IEEE data shows a 2.5% drop in income in...
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Ron Schneiderman
[TechView: Analog & Power] PFC Controller Slashes External Parts Count
Power-supply designers tend to use discontinuous current mode (DCM) for power-factor correction (PFC) for power levels below 200 to 250 W. For higher power levels, they use continuous conduction mode (CCM). Although DCM is simpler to implement, the required electromagnetic-interference (EMI) filtering and other parts make it bulkier than CCM at the higher power levels. The IR1150 PFC controller from International Rectifier lets designers use CCM from the 75-W level...
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Don Tuite
[TechView: Analog & Power] PoE Tester Identifies PSE Type
IT administrators and system intrgators and installers can use Power Dsine's Power over Ethernet (PoE) Tester to find out if these jacks are hot. PoE Testers connected to an RJ-45 outlet check for the presence of electrical power. They also identify whether the power-sourcing equipment (PSE) is an endspan or PoE midspan device. And, the PoE Tester can detect operating electrical power originated by Cisco pre-803.3af standard in-line power switches. Available from PowerDsine's...
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Don Tuite
[TechView: Communications] Optical Reference Design And Chip Set Melt Away Time-Consuming Tasks
Thanks to a multisource agreement, the XFP pluggable optical transceiver module lets designers pack more standardized transceivers on a line card. This small-form-factor design targets 9.95- to 11.1-Gbit/s operation and is protocol-agnostic. So, it's compatible with most optical networking systems, such as 10-Gbit/s Ethernet, Sonet/SDH, and 4-Gbit/s Fibre Channel. Developed by Analog Devices, the XFP reference design and chip set lets designers cram lots of circuitry into...
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Louis E. Frenzel
[TechView: Communications] Triple-Play Broadband By DSL A No Go? CO Chip Set Says Not So
The broadband triple play via DSL isn't practical, but it is possible. That said, the Pharos chip set from Centillium Communications streamlines ADSL performance to bring voice, video, and data over the existing plain-old-telephone-service (POTS) structure. Designers can use it to upgrade most DSL central-office (CO) equipment. While current ADSL rates in the U.S. theoretically extend to 6 Mbits/s, rarely does the average consumer get more than the typical 1.5 Mbits/s. The...
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Louis E. Frenzel
[TechView: Digital] Scalable Vector Signal Processor IP Takes On HD Video—And High-End Audio
Processing high-quality video and audio data streams in real time requires plenty of compute horsepower. To meet that throughput demand, OnDemand's Vector Signal Processor (VSP) core offers a scalable, synthesizable compute engine that handles H.264 video compression up through the extended HDTV profile. The architecture can execute functions such as low-density parity-check (LDPC) coding, which is a subclass of forward-error-correction coding. Such algorithms help...
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Dave Bursky
[TechView: Test] Exercise And Analyze Your ASI Chip-Set Designs
The Advanced Switching Interconnect (ASI) switched-fabric interconnect standard links computer components such as CPU and I/O nodes in multiple topologies. Now, engineers working on ASI chip sets have the support needed to comprehensively verify their designs. The E2980A series ASI protocol test solution provides protocol analysis and exercising capability for ASI. Developed by Agilent Technologies, it offers complete test coverage of single or multiple ASI interfaces from...
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John Novellino
[TechView: Test] Compact Scopes Maintain Fast Acquisition Rates In Four-Channel Operation
The latest series of four-channel digital oscilloscopes from Yokogawa includes 1.0- and 1.5-GHz bandwidth models with powerful new acquisition, display, and analysis capabilities. The signalXplorer DL9000 series scopes come in a compact, lightweight package. The 1-GHz DL9140 and DL9140L offer maximum rates of 2.5 Gsamples/s on four channels or 5 Gsamples/s on two channels. The 1.5-GHz DL9240 and DL9240L have maximum rates of 5 Gsamples/s on four channels or 10 Gsamples/s...
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John Novellino
[TechView: Test] Digitizer Features Flexible Resolution
A universal measurement device for dynamic measurements can be found with the PXI-5922 flexible-resolution digitizer. It's part of the National Instruments modular instruments series. Used with NI LabView 7.1, it can function as an ac voltmeter, audio analyzer, frequency counter, spectrum analyzer, or I/Q analyzer. Key to the PXI-based device is the NI FlexII analog-to-digital converter (ADC), which can sample anywhere from 16 bits at 15 Msamples/s to 24 bits at 500...
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John Novellino
[TechView: EDA] Predictability Comes To An IC Implementation Flow
In the summer of 2001, Atrenta arrived on the scene with tools based on what the company calls "predictive analysis" technology, which used rule checking to produce cleaner RTL. Atrenta now envisions a much more ambitious scope, embodied in its 1Team:Implement trio of tools. The tools comprise a unified physical planning, design, and implementation suite that spans from RTL design to initial placement. The suite includes 1Team:Architect, 1Team:Create, and 1Team:Construct. The...
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David Maliniak
[TechView: EDA] Low-Power Design Techniques Drop 90-nm Consumption
Power management is fast becoming one of the most critical design constraints in the world of IC designers. New 90-nm processes deliver greater silicon performance and integration, but battery technology hasn't kept up. To compensate, new design techniques are being developed to address the need for low-power silicon. A collaboration between members of the Silicon Design Chain (Applied Materials, ARM, Cadence, and TSMC) has resulted in a demonstration of the ARM1136JF-S...
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David Maliniak
[Embedded in Electronic Design] PC/104 Board Packs GPS And Cell Modem
The PCM-GPS from WinSystems combines a global positioning system (GPS) receiver and a cellular modem on a single PC/104 module. The Trimble GPS interface provides position, velocity, and time information. The multiband modem supports GSM/GPRS and CDMA. An antenna connector links to an external antenna. The modem supports an AT command set along with alarm management and short message services (SMS). The 5-V board draws only 60 mA. Pricing starts at...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] MCU Targets Ultra-Low-Power Apps
Featuring 256 bytes of RAM, the 16-bit MSP430F42x0 series microcontrollers (MCUs) from Texas Instruments typically draw 1.1 uA in real-time clock standby mode and 300 uA in active mode. Flash programming of the 32-kbyte memory only requires 2.5 V, making it ideal for battery operation in devices like altimeters and portable instrumentation. The chip incorporates an LCD interface and charge pump to minimize the system's bill of materials. Other peripherals include a five-channel, 15-bit...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] AdvancedTCA In A Small Package
AdvancedTCA brings a host of new, high-performance switch fabrics into the communications market. But, it's designed for big racks with lots of cards. It comes as no surprise that a smaller version is in the works, namely MicroTCA, which uses the Advanced Mezzanine Cards (AMCs) designed to plug into AdvancedTCA carrier boards. A typical single-board computer (SBC) may have one or two AMC slots, while a full-size carrier board can handle eight single-wide or four double-wide...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] 20-MHz MCU Comes In Short Eight-Pin Housing
Yes, that tiny eight-pin package in the middle of the development board photo is the smallest Z8 Encore! XP available to date. The tiny 20-MHz processor includes a 5.53-MHz on-chip oscillator and up to 4 kbytes for flash and 128 bytes of nonvolatile memory. The large 1-kbyte SRAM is especially useful for multitasking and C programming requirements. The four-channel, 10-bit analog-to-digital converter has differential inputs and a selectable 1×/20× gain amplifier. The UART...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] Platform Blends Windows XP And VxWorks
VxWin 3.0.1 adds support for the Windows XP Embedded Service Pack 2. This package from Kuka Controls allows Wind River's VxWorks real-time operating system to coexist with Windows XP Embedded on a single processor. With it, VxWorks applications can handle time-critical services while Windows XP deals with high-level applications and services. The new version supports the Windows XP extended hibernate mode and the Microsoft Target Designer. A new memory-allocation technique brings more...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] Modules, Mezzanine Cards For Fast Delivery
System complexity is growing while time-to-market times are shrinking. A designer can cope by taking advantage of someone else's work. Buying a complete system and adding software is one approach, but most embedded solutions require more customization to give a company that edge. A number of different approaches are available, and the best solution depends on the application. Need a compact package that uses the latest high-speed serial technologies like PCI Express and Serial...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] Video Compression PCI/PMC Packs A Punch
Thanks to JPEG 2000 support, the Orion dual-channel video compression/decompression board can handle full-frame encoding of standard 625-line PAL or 525-line NTSC composite video. Developed by Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing, the board also accepts up to 10 single-ended or four differential analog PAL or NTSC video inputs. Priced at $1750, the board comes in PMC and PCI form factors. www.cwcembedded.com...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] CompactPCI SBC Optimized For Real-Time Applications
The Eurocom 258 CompactPCI single-board computer (SBC) integrates a low-power, 1.6-GHz Pentium M processor. Designed by American Eltec, the board has a 10/100 and a 1-Gbit Ethernet controller. The Intel 855GME chip set supports up to 1556 by 1048 video resolution. Housed in a 6U package, the Eurocom 258 costs...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] Software Promotes Easy-To-Use Boundary Scan
Bringing up a new board is always a challenge, especially with hard-to-probe surface-mount components. Macraigor's J-Scan boundary-scan software simplifies this job via its diagnostic tool. At $1895, it's significantly less expensive than more sophisticated boundary-scan solutions that typically address the problem from a system-test and quality-assurance view. J-Scan targets board developers who need to interactively work with the system to find shorts and faults. The drag-and-drop design...
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William Wong
[TechScope] R2-D2, Where Are You? Try Indianapolis
From April 21 to 24, sci-fi fans and EEs alike will descend on the Indianapolis Convention Center for Star Wars Celebration III. And more than a few robots should be joining them. The members of the R2-D2 Builders, an international group of hobbyists, have built their own working models of the incomparable astromech from the popular movies. So far, none of these robots have saved the galaxy. But they can move, beep, flash their lights, and do just about anything else asked of...
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Richard Gawel
[Basics Of Design] Uncovering The Basics Of All Filter Types Sponsored by: NATIONAL INSTRUMENTS
A filter is a signal-processing component that removes unwanted parts of an input signal such as noise, extracts useful parts of an input signal lying within a certain frequency range, or reshapes the frequency spectrum of the input signal. Analog filters operate on analog or continuous signals, while digital filters operate on digital samples of a signal. An analog filter comprises electronic components like resistors, capacitors, and op amps. These filters are widely used in...
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Roger Allan
