September 16, 2002 Magazine Archive

Technologies
- Analog
- Communications
- Components
- Digital ICs
- EDA
- Embedded
- Power
- Test
Design Hotspots
- Analog
- Embedded
- Power
- Green Design
Resources
Magazine
eBooks & Whitepapers
Shows
- electronica
- NI Week
- MTT-S
- DAC
- MD&M
- PCIM
- SID
- IEF
- ESC
- CTIA
- APEC
Jobs
More...
- eBooks
- Whitepapers
- Webcasts
- Job Zone
- Newsletters
- Blogs
- Hall of Fame
- RSS
- Subscribe

Click to view this week's ad screen

ISSUE DATE: SEPTEMBER 16, 2002

OPTIONS

Distributed power, Home networking, Intellectual property

• Get a FREE Subscription
• Renew Subscription
• Reprints/Licensing
• Advertiser Index
• Submit Article Ideas

Browse Archived Articles By: Issue | Author | Department | Topic

September 16, 2002 - In This Issue

[Technology Report]
Distributed Power Moves To Intermediate Voltage Bus
The 48-V power bus is the basis of distributed power architectures found in telecom and many computing applications. In these systems, ac-dc front ends convert line voltages down to 48 V dc for distribution among various pc boards in the system.... — David G. Morrison

[Technology Report]
Multiple Home Network Options Keep Designers Guessing
Most of you define a home network as a system that links two or more PCs in the home. Yet that's only part of the picture. Home control networks have existed for years, but interest has recently been rekindled. Furthermore, there's a growing interest... — Louis E. Frenzel

[Technology Report]
Assertion-Based Verification Smoothes The Road To IP Reuse
By most estimates, the verification portion of the design of complex ASICs, ASSPs, and systems-on-a-chip (SoCs) now takes 70% or more of the overall design cycle. So we frequently hear designers using the phrase "verification bottleneck," usually... — David Maliniak

[Product Innovation]
Configurable Network Chip Set Handles Packets And Traffic At Wire Speeds
As the systems that support the Internet and Metropolitan-Area Networks (MANs) in both the edge and core are called on to handle more packet traffic, existing line card designs are running out of steam. The level of integration available today... — Dave Bursky

[Design Application]
Customized Processor Extension Speeds Network Cryptology
As public data networks, online commerce, and smart cards become more popular, the need for secure data transmission grows. But the complex computations required to encrypt and decrypt data can soon become a performance bottleneck. When servers spend... — Peter Davies , et al.

[Ideas For Design]
Universal Low-Jitter Level Shifter Drives High-Performance ADCs
This idea describes a circuit that converts a low-phase-noise sinusoidal signal into a low-jitter square wave, suitable to drive analog-to-digital converters (ADCs). The square wave's amplitude and average value are adjustable to comply with any... — Robert LeBoeuf

[Ideas For Design]
Novel Low-Cost QPSK Modulator Needs No Adjustments
Eliminating software adjustments in circuits based on digital logic improves robustness and reduces cost for small-production-run series. This circuit is a cost-improved version of classical QPSK modulator designs. Based on common CMOS logic, it needs... — Eduard Bertran

[Ideas For Design]
Compact ±5-V High-Current Supply Uses One 1.25-MHz Switcher
Disk drives, ADSL modems, notebook computers, and other data-acquisition circuits require high-current, ±5-V power supplies with switching frequencies above 1.1 MHz to avoid interfering with noise-sensitive circuitry. A very simple, compact, and... — Keith Szolusha

[Editorial]
National ID Card: The Ultimate Security Measure
A year has now passed since the tragedy that took place at the World Trade Center and other locations on the east coast. The events on September 11, 2001 did a lot more than end thousands of lives and make an impact on countless millions of others.... — Dave Bursky

[Pease Porridge]
Bob's Mailbox
Dear Bob: In your recent "Mailbox" (electronic design, April 15, p. 69) you wrote, "On a good day, I teach by asking questions." This Socratic Method stuff has been around for a while now. It works well. But somehow it... — Bob Pease

[Viewpoint]
Electromechanical Relays Versus Solid-State: Each Has Its Place
Since the introduction of solid-state relays some decades ago, the debate over which is better, solid-state relays (SSRs) or electromechanical relays (EMRs), has gone on. The general answer is neither, as each one has good and bad points. But in terms... — Thomas R. Mahaffey

[Editor's Notebook]
Fall Conferences Herald New Opportunities For Job-Seeking EEs
Let's face reality. It has been a very bad year for much of the electronics industry—a year full of bad financial news and, for engineers, a year of too many layoffs. The story of lost engineering jobs may itself have gotten lost amid the bigger... — David G. Morrison

[Celebrating 50 Years]
Flashback
Flashback > 10 Years Ago SEPTEMBER 17, 1992 As the result of a VMEbus committee meeting held last June, the VMEbus will see some significant changes in the near future. Those changes are among the... — Staff

[Forefront]
Mixed-Signal Oscilloscopes Rocket To 1 GHz
With Agilent's 54830 series 600-MHz to 1-GHz Infiniium mixed-signal oscilloscopes (MSOs), engineers can trigger on and view up to 20 (four analog plus 16 timing) time-aligned signals on one instrument. The scopes are designed for debugging complex... — Lisa Fakhry

[Forefront]
Novel Memory Cell Merges DRAM Functionality And Nonvolatility
Combining the functionality of RAM and Flash storage into a single memory cell, a novel memory architecture promises lower system costs, lower system power, and smaller system footprints by eliminating separate memory types in a system.... — Dave Bursky

[Forefront]
Serial Device Servers Breathe New Life Into Legacy Peripherals
A line of serial device servers bridges the gap between RS-232 or RS-422/485 serial equipment and local-area network/wide-area network (LAN/WAN) configurations. These servers offer multiple serial ports, enumerating themselves as standard COM ports on... — Lisa Fakhry

[Forefront]
Scalable UPS Keeps IT Infrastructure Running As It Grows
Designed to power as many as 300 servers, the Galaxy PW uninterruptible power supply (UPS) takes scalability to a new power level. Output from UPS may be configured for power levels ranging from 100 to 225 kVA. Based on a modular design,... — David G. Morrison

[Forefront]
Pathways To More-Integrated Power Supplies
Power-supply manufacturers face constant pressure to build smaller, more-powerful supplies while keeping costs down. The primary path to doing so is through an increase in the integration of power-conversion functions in mixed-signal silicon.... — David G. Morrison

[Forefront]
Highly Integrated 10-Gbit Transceiver Chips Support Ethernet, Fibre Channel, And OC-192
One of the industry's most highly integrated transceiver chips, the nPower BBTX100, handles 10-Gbit/s data rates and supports Ethernet and Fibre Channel interfaces. A separate version of the chip, the BBTX102, provides an OC-192-compatible (Sonet/SDH)... — Dave Bursky

[Forefront]
Communications Consortium To Define 6-Gbit/s+ Serial Backplane
To handle the expected higher serial backplane data rates, nine leading communications companies have formed the High-Speed Backplane Initiative (HSBI). The HSB will be able to send point-to-point data at rates from 4.976 to 6.375 Gbits/s across a... — Roger Allan

[Forefront]
Real-Time Operating System Pushes Auto Standards
Discuss embedded automotive standards, and OSEK/VDX pops up. So, it's no surprise Accelerated Technology's new royalty-free Nucleus OSEK Real-Time Operating System (RTOS) meets the latest OSEK 2.2 standard (www.osek-vdx.org). The... — William Wong

[Forefront]
Of Special Note...
InfiniBand. Server blades and InfiniBand sound like a match made in heaven, but NitroII from Mellanox is down to earth. Though it's only a reference design, the NitroII system with its impressive power and... — Staff

[New Products]

• 1U Rack-Mount Fan Tray Integrates Speed Controls — Lisa Fakhry

• Fan Managers Detect Fault And Overtemperature States — Lisa Fakhry

• High-Speed DC Fan Cools With 82 CFM — Lisa Fakhry

• ESD Simulator System Trumps Standards With 30-kV Discharge Voltage — Lisa Fakhry

• Spring Finger EMI Gaskets Shield CompactPCI Enclosures — Lisa Fakhry

• Thermal Circuit Breaker Doubles As Power Rocker Switch — Lisa Fakhry

• Module Protects Circuits From 0.1 To 16 A Up To 250 V AC — Lisa Fakhry

• 12-Bit Monolithic ADC Reaches 210 Msamples/s — Lisa Fakhry

• 12-Bit AFE Works With 8-Msample/s Sensors — Lisa Fakhry

• Analog Switch Family Includes 1.8-, 3-, And 5-V Devices — Lisa Fakhry

• Digital Amplifier Controller Steers 100-W, 6-Ω Delivery — Lisa Fakhry

• DVM Board Module Extends Direct-Connect Interface — Lisa Fakhry