[Leapfrog: First Look] Aggregating Ethernet Ports Slashes System Cost
Today's Ethernet network connections typically operate at under 50% of the available bandwidth utilization due to many factors, but especially the bursty nature of the data being sent. However, equipment aggregating Ethernet links, like switches and...
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Dave Bursky
[Ideas For Design] Simple Electronic Lock Uses Single-Transistor Circuit
A very simple but highly efficient combination lock circuit is shown in the figure. Any type of on/off switches can be used, varying from commercially available inexpensive types to more sophisticated miniswitches. The switches are assembled according...
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Ejaz ur Rehman
[Ideas For Design] One-Pin Keypad Features Low Component Count
Building on the recent Design Brief theme of one-pin keypads, this design uses only one analog microcontroller (MCU) input to scan numerous keys, plus one resistor per key and another resistor and capacitor. The circuit is simply a crude...
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Hank Wallace
[POV: Point Of View] Pre-Test SERDES To Smooth Integration In Fast ASICs
With equipment providers looking to introduce new communications technology at much lower costs of procurement and operation, faster interfaces are becoming more important. As a result, serializer/deserializer (SERDES) circuits have become the most...
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Beth Logan
[Pease Porridge] Bob's Mailbox
Dear Bob: I understand your views about Spice. I'm sure you're aware that companies periodically appear to promise better analog EDA, but most seem to fail. (There's a promising firm called Barcelona, but it's not far along yet.) Here's my...
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Bob Pease
[Beyond Technology] Censor Sensibility?
Almost daily reminders about national security have reached a new level—safeguarding information on American technology by keeping more of it secret. Over 20 scientific journals have agreed to censor articles they believe could compromise...
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Ron Schneiderman
[Conference Preview] What's Hot At DAC
As always, the 40th Design Automation Conference (DAC) in Anaheim (June 2-6) will have something for everyone concerned with EDA. The latest and greatest tools and methodologies will be displayed either on the show floor or in the sprawling labyrinth...
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David Maliniak
[TechView: The Industry] Content Processor Makes System Throughput Sail
A network's server often creates a performance bottleneck due to all of the software checks or operations it must perform on incoming data. But by offloading the compute-intensive tasks onto a content-processing engine that sits between the server and...
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Dave Bursky
[TechView: Analog & Power] The Typhoon DC-DC Converters
The Typhoon dc-dc converters from Artesyn combine high current density with a very low, 0.3-in. package height. The family includes a 40-A, 1.8-V output eighth brick. It also features quarter bricks that offer dual outputs of 1.2 and 3.3 V or 1.8 and...
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David G. Morrison
[TechView: Analog & Power] A 500-W Isolated DC-DC Power Supply
A 500-W isolated dc-dc power supply, Power-One's PDC500-1024D converts a 48-V bus to 24 V while complying with EN61000-4-4 and EN61000-4-5 input transient standards. Several features distinguish this power converter from the bricks—U-channel...
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David G. Morrison
[TechView: Digital] Speedy MCUs Tackle Car, Industrial, And Comm Needs
By merging microcontroller product families from Hitachi and Mitsubishi, Renesas offers the broadest variety of microcontrollers in the industry. Extending this line even further, the company has released high-performance extensions to the 32-bit H8...
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Dave Bursky
[TechView: Digital] Breaking News
These days, the well-equipped consumer's personal electronics collection typically includes a PDA, a GPS receiver, and a cell phone. A few companies have combined the phone and PDA. Centrality Communications, however, has come up with a highly...
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Dave Bursky
[TechView: EDA] Formal Tool Verifies Complex Datapaths
Until now, verification of complex datapath blocks has been left to simulation, a strategy fraught with drawbacks. Debugging is difficult, and the overall quality of verification is lower than that seen by other parts of the design. In the end,...
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David Maliniak
[TechView: EDA] Designers Can Verify System Interoperability
Designers can verify system interoperability with a newly released Serial RapidIO bus-functional model. Developed by Motorola, the software module complements last year's hardware interconnect platform spec. Bus-functional C models for both the serial...
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David Maliniak
[TechView: EDA] Hot Products
Two new lines of phase-locked loop (PLL) analog hard macros address issues associated with tradeoffs between undesirable options. One series comprises low-jitter spread-spectrum PLLs, which allow spread-spectrum functionality to be included...
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David Maliniak
[TechView: EDA] New Communication Protocols
New communication protocols call for verification IP, and 0-In has weighed in with a CheckerWare monitor for the emerging PCI Express serial interconnect spec. During simulation and hardware acceleration and emulation, the monitor warns users of any...
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David Maliniak
