[Engineering Feature] Redefining The Workstation
It's easy to picture the traditional workstation. Simply imagine a high-powered UNIX computer, somewhere between a PC and a minicomputer, that tackles power-hungry applications like computer-aided design/engineering (CAD/CAE), computer-aided manufacturing (CAM), graphics, or publishing. Yet today, even the least expensive PCs can outperform the workstations of just 10 or 15 years ago. With embedded microprocessors showing up just about everywhere, the term "workstation" takes on a new...
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Wayne Labs
[Technology Report] Spring "Board" To FPGA Design Success
Here's a tip for the next time you need to evaluate a new FPGA architecture or develop an application: Try an evaluation board or even a full-blown development kit. The basic resources these tools offer help chop away at product development time and cost. Prices for basic starter kits range from about $50 to well over $2500. So, they're a good starting point for designers who are familiarizing themselves with an FPGA complex programmable logic device (CPLD) architecture and its...
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Dave Bursky
[Leapfrog: First Look] Novel Digital Isolators Rely On Capacitors
On the manufacturing floor, digital isolators permit high-speed data transmission in the presence of rotating machines and other sources of large magnetic fields. In high-impedance circuit paths, isolation causes noise to appear across the isolation barrier, rather than at the receiver or more sensitive components. It also provides patient protection in medical applications and breaks potential ground loops between distant nodes. Previous isolators have been based on LEDs and photodiodes,...
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Don Tuite
[Design View / Design Solution] Improve EMC In Class D Amplifier Applications
The state of the art in class D amplification has progressed rapidly in the past few years, most noticeably for lowerpower applications that require less than 50 W per channel. Class D is inherently more efficient than the traditional class AB amplifier because the output stages are always on or off, with no intermediate bias stage necessary. This efficiency advantage has never held widespread appeal for designers, since the disadvantages of higher parts cost, poor audio...
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Tony Doy
[Ideas For Design] Powerline Dropout Simulator Tests Reset Circuits
Short ac powerline dropouts can cause incomplete power-on resets, leaving the microcontroller and logic circuits in an indeterminate state. This susceptibility can be tested using a very low-cost eight-pin microprocessor and a solidstate relay (SSR). Operation of the reset circuit under test is accomplished by varying the number of half-cycle powerline dropouts. The dropout simulator, an ATtiny11 MCU, detects the line frequency zero crossing using level shifter Q1 and its...
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Hans Krobath
[Ideas For Design] Triple Video Mux-Amp Doubles As A/V Source Selector
The increasing number of audio and video sources (VCR, DVD, set-top box, etc.) in a typical home-entertainment system requires a simple way to select the desired source. The add-on mechanical switches available today are bulky and prone to contact wear, resulting in degraded performance over time. Solid-state analog switches solve this problem. But passive switching can produce an annoying thump as ac-coupling capacitors get charged and discharged by the make-and-break action of...
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Bob Pospisil
[Ideas For Design] µP-Controlled Oscillator Delivers Rock-Bottom Distortion
Function generators often play a critical role in the design, testing, and operation of encoders, modulators, demodulators, and measurement instruments. Here's an inexpensive way to build a bus-controlled sinewave oscillator that has downright low distortion. The circuit generates a sinusoidal output with typical second and third harmonics down from the fundamental by -76.1 and -74.2 dB, respectively, across its full output range of 10 Hz to 10 kHz. That performance represents...
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James A. Mahoney
[Ideas For Design] Telecom Supply Powers Temperature Sensor
IC temperature sensors generally are preferred in data-acquisition systems when the accuracy demands aren't extreme. Sensor, signal-processing, and data-conversion electronics are all integrated in the IC along with an easy to use digital-I/O interface, all at low cost. Such ICs require a supply voltage in the range of +3 V to +5 V, negative to common. Also, they usually draw very low supply current. But biasing the sensor is more difficult in a telecom system, where the only...
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Alfredo Saab
[POV: Point Of View] Determinism Means More Than Faster Processors
Abounded response to events is the key to defining a hard real-time system. Real-time systems require determinism to ensure predictable behavior. Without determinism, systems can't be called real-time. And without bounded determinism, systems can't be classified as hard real-time. Full-featured operating systems (OSs) such as Windows aren't deterministic, but some designers may believe that faster processors can achieve a semblance of determinism. The level of determinism required is a...
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Kim Hartman
[Editorial] Speech Recognition Gets Intuitive, Finds New Life In Mobile Applications
Speech recognition has been one of those technologies that's perpetually "just around the corner." But after a recent IBM press event showcasing advances in speech technology and a spate of impressive applications, I'm convinced the age of speech recognition has dawned at last. For years, IBM has pursued dictation applications. I tried IBM's ViaVoice for the PC some 10 years ago to dictate a magazine column. While it was fun and fairly efficient, there were too many MPMs...
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Mark David
[Pease Porridge] Bob's Mailbox
Dear Bob: I have a little microcontroller circuit powered from a 115-V ac to 24-V dc supply that is then further stepped down to 5 V with a buck converter. An RS-232 converter, whose switched capacitors give 8-V swing, is used to communicate to a PC. The problem I have is that connecting to a grounded PC has blown out the serial port on the PC. We grounded the common in the circuit and have had no problems since. I'm looking to understand what possibly could have happened....
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Bob Pease
[TechView: The Industry] Next-Generation PCs Take Top Prizes
You can forget about the boring box-monitor-keyboard setup on your desktop. Some new ideas are on the way, courtesy of the Next Generation Windows OS PC Design Competition. Sponsored by Microsoft and the Industrial Designers Society of America, this contest drew 195 entries and countless ideas as innovators created prototypes that could lead to the next wave of personal computing. Sungho "Oho" Son, a graduate student in Purdue University's Industrial Engineering program, teamed...
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Richard Gawel
[TechView: The Industry] Nascent 3D Chip Market Likely To Hit $1.3 Billion By 2010
Semiconductors have always lived in a two-dimensional world. But with the rising use of three-dimensional (3D) stacking technology, chips are making a foray into the third dimension. Today's systems-on-a-chip (SoCs) often contain a diverse range of functions, each served best by a different process technology. As silicon moves to 90-nm and smaller geometries, the cost of adding embedded capabilities like analog or flash memory to a logicbased process becomes a burden. The...
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Jordan Selburn
[TechView: Analog & Power] IC Powers Ethernet Appliances From PoE Or AC Adapters
The LM5071 pulse-width modulation (PWM) controller can accept power from a Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) IEEE 802.3af Ethernet cable. This single-chip device from National Semiconductor also can accept power from external ac adapters. Designers can use it to create PoE powered devices (PDs) that can handle power from either source. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phones, Wi-Fi hotspots, and Ethernet security cameras that include the chip all can work anywhere in the Ethernet...
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Don Tuite
[TechView: Analog & Power] Low-Noise Dual JFET FIlls Gap Left By Discontinued 2SK389s
A functional replacement for Toshiba's discontinued 2SK389 low-noise dual JFET is available from Linear Integrated Systems, which devotes itself to specialty semiconductors. In fact, the LSK389 series of 1-nV n-channel monolithic dual JFETs improves upon the original. When it was available, Toshiba's 2SK389 was used in audio amplifiers and preamps, discrete low-noise operational amplifiers, and battery-operated audio preamps. It also went into audio mixer consoles, acoustic...
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Don Tuite
[TechView: Analog & Power] Four-Port PoE Driver Supports SOHO Routers
Power over Ethernet (IEEE 802.3af, or PoE) is expanding from mainframe Ethernet routers and midspans to smalloffice/home-office (SOHO) implementations. According to PowerDsine's marketing VP Madhu Rayabhari, a new market for "network-in-a-box" products that provide Ethernet solutions for small enterprises has emerged. To satisfy that market, PowerDesine has introduced the PD64004A. This four-port PoE driver enables the detection of PoE powered devices (PDs). It then permits PDs...
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Don Tuite
[TechView: Communications] Platform Improves And Facilitates QoS In IP-Based Systems
IP demands are on the rise. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) already is here, and Video over IP is on its way. Designers not only need to ensure quality of service, they also need to improve it. Texas Instruments' Piqua system promises to do just that. This distributed software/hardware system can be embedded in almost all of the components in an IP network, from telephones and set-top boxes to gateways, routers, cable modem termination systems (CMTSs) and digital-subscriberline...
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Louis E. Frenzel
[TechView: Communications] OCXO Passes Muster In Military Vibration And Stability Tests
The Department of Defense is looking for a few good oven-controlled crystal oscillators (OCXOs). It demands improved phase noise to meet the needs of the next generation of radar, navigation, and secure communications systems. Frequency accuracy and stability are essential to the success of the new Communications, Navigation and Identification (CNI) softwaredefined radio platforms. The 9633 from Symmetricom answers the call (see the...
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Louis E. Frenzel
[TechView: Embedded] 64-Bit x86 Dual Core Goes Embedded
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has been pushing its 64-bit processors into realms previously reserved for its 32-bit embedded processor line. Two things have made chips like the dual-core Athlon and Opteron more interesting—a minimum of seven-year availability and low-power, 33-W single-core versions. As a result, Performance Technologies' CPC5564 6U CompactPCI singleboard computer offers a range of Opteron processor options, from the 2.2-GHz single core to the 1.8-GHz dual...
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William Wong
[TechView: Embedded] Embedded News
Quad Processor VPX Board Tackles Rugged DSP Chores Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing's CHAMP-AV6 6U VPX singleboard computer is designed for inclusion in a Serial RapidIO fabric. The board includes four Freescale 1.33-GHz 8641 PowerPC processors with DSP and Altivec vector processing support. It handles up to 2 Gbytes of DDR2 SDRAM per processor along with 512 Mbytes of flash memory. Also, it offers 128 kbytes of nonvolatile RAM. Four Serial...
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William Wong
[TechView: Digital] Content Processor Takes On Multiple Algorithms
With its nine onboard engines, Tarari's T9000 content processor delivers multigigabit throughputs (Fig. 1). Each of these engines has been optimized to implement one of the more CPU-intensive algorithms found in the enterprise network. The T9000 handles any applications that need to scan, parse, or filter data. These include content-based routing and switching, application firewalls and security gateways, Web acceleration, content...
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Dave Bursky
[TechView: Digital] USB-Based Microcontroller Packs 32-Bit CPU For Top-Notch Throughput
The USS2828 system-on-a-chip (SoC) controller combines a USB 2.0 interface and a 32-bit embedded processor to triple the data-processing throughput of similar controllers based on 8-bit 8051 embedded processors. Developed by Agere Systems, it also boasts a similar price point compared to the 8-bit-based devices. The chip's high-speed USB 2.0 port supports 480- and 12-Mbit/s data-transfer rates. Additionally, its ARM7TDMS processor offers a 40-MIPS throughput that lets...
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Dave Bursky
[TechView: EDA] SystemC Model Library Makes TLM Reuse Easier
Would-be users of transaction-level models (TLMs) and electronic system-level (ESL) design approaches in general face a major hurdle. Traditionally, it has been difficult to construct TLMs that serve the needs of early software development, hardware designers, and system architects. These users need somewhat different views of the system to do their jobs. To date, TLMs haven't translated well among those views. With the release of a standards-based modeling library, CoWare gives users of...
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David Maliniak
[TechView: EDA] Optical Proximity Correction Spreads Its Wings Across The Process Window
Variability in lithography processes can have a profound effect on IC yield, particularly at 90 and 65 nm. Process variability can destroy image fidelity even when the operating conditions of the lithographic process window are acceptable. Mentor Graphics' Calibre OPCverify ferrets out lithographic errors or marginalities caused by process variability before the design goes to the mask or wafer manufacturer. OPCverify creates a virtual-silicon image of an IC layer that's been...
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David Maliniak
[TechView: EDA] VSP Adds Bus Protocols
Support for additional bus protocols has been added to Carbon Design's Virtual System Prototype (VSP) product line in the form of bus-functional models or transactors. These models for the PCI, PCI-X, USB 2.0 Host, and double-data-rate SDRAM protocols provide a communication layer from abstract functions, such as reads and writes, to pin-level devices listening and/or responding on a bus. The combination of a transactor and a virtual hardware model produced using Carbon Design's...
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David Maliniak
[Component View] Displays/Indicators
Innovative features and a 4-ms response time make the 19-in. SyncMaster 960BF LCD monitor an ideal choice for multimedia-driven applications and systems employing motion video or streaming video. Samsung's proprietary MagicSpeed technology is the key to the 4-ms gray-togray response time, which the company claims is one of the fastest to date. MagicSpeed also reduces the ghosting and lack of focus that may appear on displays with a slower response time. Samsung's MagicZone...
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Lisa Maliniak
[Basics Of Design] Embedded Processors
Efficient communication between processors is criticial in multiprocessor and multicore embedded designs. How the software will take advantage of the underlying hardware support structure is equally important. Almost any software layer can be placed between the hardware and distributed applications. Still, communication efficiency often dictates a close match between hardware and software. In multiple-processor environments, things get difficult when embedded designers encounter...
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William Wong
[Design FAQs] Direct Digital Synthesis
How does direct digital synthesis (DDS) work? There are at least three elements to DDS: a numerically controlled oscillator (NCO) with a phase modulator, a block that converts the phase information to amplitude values, and a digital-to-analog converter (DAC). An inphase/quadrature (I and Q) modulator may be added ahead of the DAC? What are the advantages of DDS? The digital nature of DDS technology provides...
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Don Tuite
