February 5, 2001 Magazine Archive

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ISSUE DATE: FEBRUARY 5, 2001

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Configurable supplies, Super-smart power, High-voltage vehicles, 0.13-μm CMOS

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

February 5, 2001 - In This Issue

[Technology Report]
Super-Smart Power Technology Scales Down To Nanometer Design Rules
With the thrust toward system-level integration, smart power devices continue to make progress on all fronts. This advancement has enabled makers of smart power ICs to implement on-chip microprocessors/microcontrollers and digital signal processors... — Ashok Bindra

[Product Innovation]
Configurable Power Systems Reshape Standard Supply Landscape
When selecting modular power-supply components, designers have traditionally been forced to choose between two paths—standard, off-the-shelf solutions, or custom, application-specific solutions. In many cases, designers would like to specify a... — David G. Morrison

[Design Application]
Higher-Voltage Vehicles Generate New Demands For Power Management
During the twentieth century, the power required for vehicles grew continuously as car manufacturers added both standard and optional equipment to meet the increasing consumer demands. Because of this ongoing rise in power consumption, automakers... — Contributing Author

[Ideas For Design]
One Single-Section Potentiometer Sets The Gain On Two Channels
What signal conditioning circuit could possibly be easier or more straightforward to design than a dual-channel dc amplifier with a common tracking-gain control? Of course, the obvious way to realize this trivial function is by simply wiring up... — W. Stephen Woodward

[Ideas For Design]
Use Modified Video As An Analyzer Tool
When designing digital video systems, a significant amount of time is spent searching the display for any instabilities arising from noise, cross-talk, or timing violations. These problems become even more difficult if the system contains... — Contributing Author

[Ideas For Design]
Stable I_Q Reduces DC-DC Losses
Inexpensive, low-power dc-dc converters can suffer power inefficiencies if the system isn't designed properly. In a low-power converter, the system efficiency is greatly affected by the controller's quiescent current. The MC34063A is... — Contributing Author

[Ideas For Design]
Precise Trigger Aids In Recording Scope Signals On Plotter
Analog oscilloscopes remain the lowest-cost means for viewing waveforms. Capturing single-shot or repetitive signals using a film camera, digital camera, or camcorder1 can be costly, however. Another drawback is that the resulting 2D... — Contributing Author

[Editorial]
Personal Privacy Issues Abound As The Internet Evolves
Who you are, or perhaps, more accurately, "who are you today?" is a question that Internet companies are striving to answer by collecting data online. Armed with this information, marketing specialists can create impressive profiles of your likes,... — Dave Bursky

[Pease Porridge]
What's All This Battery-Charging Stuff, Anyhow?
On October 4, at noon, I sat down at my breakfast table, and plugged in my soldering iron. I was going to build the circuit shown in Figure 1. I had one hour to put it together, which was enough time, and... — Bob Pease

[Viewpoint]
Chip-Scale Packaging Is Ready For Prime Time
Flash back to 1981. Plastic surface-mount packaging moved from the lab into the marketplace. Philips pushed the now industry-standard SO package while the Japanese created their own footprints around a very similar concept. Adoption in the... — Contributing Author

[Editor's Notebook]
Energy Technologies Progress Slowly In The Real World
When the topic is energy efficiency, it always seems to be a case of good news versus bad news. For every ray of hope that we're making progress in managing our energy production and consumption, there appears to be a dark cloud of reality... — David G. Morrison

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
Welcome To Embedded-In-ED
The good news is that design is still fun. We get to create things, do good design, and cobble together applications, systems and subsystems that actually do what needs to be done. The bad news is that there's less and less time to do this. And... — Ray Weiss

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
Hard RISC Cores To Power System-Level FPGAs
FPGAs are becoming true high-level system chips. This requires high-performance, dense processing power. Vendors of FPGAs are turning to hard RISC processor cores to get that deployable processing power. Developers will no longer need to rely on... — Ray Weiss

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
Hardware Directory
ARM9T Core The ARM9T family defines a set of RISC cores that are optimized to minimize cost and power dissipation. The family builds around the ARM9 Thumb architecture, a full ARM ISA also capable of dropping into a... — Ray Weiss

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
8051 Keeps Plugging Away: Faster CPUs, Smaller Packages
The 8051 8-bit microcontroller just keeps plugging away, adding new peripherals, speed grades, and packaging. Among the latest advances is Dallas Semiconductor's 8051 implementation that delivers a 50x speedup over the original 12-clock instruction... — Ray Weiss

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
Universal Serial Bus 2.0
USB is the de facto interconnection standard for low- to mid-range PC peripherals. The latest version, USB 2.0 moves USB from a 12-Mb/s peak bandwidth to a 480-Mb/s peak. USB 2.0 allows engineers to interconnect peripherals with rates of up to 50... — Ray Weiss

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
Development Frameworks Push Total Solution For Faster Development
Development frameworks help generate embedded applications very quickly. However, they do require a major commitment to using the framework. Using standard support classes eliminates the need to build or buy additional services, which in turn... — William Wong

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
Software Directory: Inferno
Inferno Inferno was developed at Bell Labs in conjunction with the Plan 9 project. Inferno is now distributed by Vita Nouva on very liberal terms. There is no distribution-related royalty. The Styx... — William Wong

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
Software Directory: Java 2 Micro Editions
Java 2 Micro Editions Sun's Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) delivers an embedded development framework that can be enhanced incrementally. The Java Virtual Machine (JVM) is the base on which configurations are built,... — William Wong

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
Software Directory: .NET and C# Core
Net and C# .Microsoft's all-encompassing .NET strategy targets server-based applications that use standard Internet protocols, like Extended Meta Language (XML) and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), to interact... — William Wong

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
Software Products
Embedded Linux Gains Web-Based User Interface Lineo's Embedix UI provides developers with a microbrowser interface that's easily incorporated into embedded Linux applications. It supports all of HTML 3.2 and the... — William Wong

[Embedded in Electronic Design]
Java 2 Micro Edition Partitions Embedded Java
With the Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME), Sun Microsystems delivers a partitioning scheme that embedded Java developers need. Whereas the Java 1-based PersonalJava specification was monolithic, the J2ME provides a superset environment that comprises the... — William Wong

[Letters]
Letters
The Original Disposable Lighter I always enjoy looking back to times when engineers were also part mechanic, sheet metal worker, carpenter, and chef. Your photo of the Fairchild IC in "Fairchild's First Silicon... — Various

[40 Years Ago]
Ultra-Fast Epitaxials In Production
Epitaxial silicon transistors, offering such advantages as faster switching speed, saturation resistance relatively independent of temperature, and low collector capacitance compared to conventionally fabricated devices, are now available... — Steve Scrupski

[40 Years Ago]
Editorial: Electronic Chewing Gum Would Help
Imagineering is generally directed toward solutions of complex problems. Having somewhat of an inverted mind, this engineer has let his fancy focus on a more prosaic problem—finding a replacement for the alligator clip. A basic invention that... — Steve Scrupski

[Forefront]
Advanced 0.13-μm CMOS Process Is Ready To Produce 2-GHz Processors
Two major semiconductor players have unwrapped plans to ramp up production in the 0.13-µm (130-nm) CMOS process. Combining innovations in copper wiring, silicon-on-insulator (SOI) transistors, and improved low-k dielectric insulation, IBM will... — Ashok Bindra

[Forefront]
Semiconductors Surged In 2000; Slower Growth Seen For 2001
The bean counters are still finalizing the totals. But based on early estimates, 2000 was a very good year for the semiconductor industry. In December, Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) presented its 2000 edition... — Richard Gawel

[Forefront]
Electroluminescent Displays Eye Lucrative HDTV Market
Embracing Thomas Edison's credo that innovation is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration, iFire of Toronto, Ontario,Canada, is embarking on its 11th year in its quest to bring a viable, inorganic electroluminescent (EL) display to the market. It's a... — Stephen Grossman

[Forefront]
A Wave Of Bluetooth Hardware, Software Coming To Market
The wait for real Bluetooth products is nearly over. At December's Bluetooth Developer's Conference in San Jose, Calif., dozens of papers and over 100 vendors exhibited or announced a wide range of hardware, software, and application products. Most... — Louis E. Frenzel

[Forefront]
Company Wire
Motorola has selected Dot Hill as its OEM partner for the SwitchMATE II wireless network management system. Dot Hill, a manufacturer and provider of data storage and storage area network solutions, will use this two-year development deal... — Staff

[Forefront]
Focused Microwaves Fight Cancer Cells Instead Of Missiles
During the Cold War, scientists developed radar anti-jamming technology to detect missiles from space-borne satellites. But that era is over, and those scientists have now found a way to use the same focused microwave technology to fight an even... — Richard Gawel

[Forefront]
7.5-Teraflop Supercomputer Finds Revolutionary Use In Genetic Research
IBM is currently building the world's largest commercial supercomputer. NuTec Sciences, an Atlanta-based life-sciences company, will use it to investigate how gene interactions cause life-threatening diseases. According to IBM, this is the fastest... — Lisa Eccles

[Forefront]
Linux Software DVD Player Now Available To Manufacturers
LinDVD, a Linux software DVD player developed by InterVideo, provides users with a fully licensed, legal DVD player for use on their Linux platforms. The software targets makers of embedded Linux devices such as home entertainment... — Lisa Eccles

[Forefront]
Serializer/Deserializer Creates Low-Cost, Short 10-Gbit/s Optical Links
Designers of optical transmission equipment estimate that 80% of SONET OC-192 10-Gbit/s (9.952-Gbit/s actual) links are 100 meters or less. Typically, these links are located in a central office to interconnect switches, routers, and dense... — Louis E. Frenzel

[Forefront]
Fingerprint Recognition Gets Thinner And Easier To Integrate
Industry and legal authorities alike accept biometric authentication as an identification technology. It's easy to use, and more importantly, it's getting easier to integrate it into embedded systems. Two examples of this technology, Ethentica's... — William Wong

[Forefront]
Synchronous-Rectification Device Boosts Low-Voltage DC-DC Efficiency
Tailored to boost the power-conversion efficiency of low-voltage dc-dc isolated converters, the IR1176 is the newest member of International Rectifier's application-specific synchronous-rectification IC (SRIC) line. This device is primarily... — Ashok Bindra

[Real-World Engineering]
Stretching Your Horizon As An Engineer
Applying the calculus concept of limits, the specialist gets to know more and more about less and less until, in the limit, he retires, knowing everything about nothing. The generalist learns less and less about more and more until, in the limit, he... — Lawrence J. Kamm

[New Products]

• Optoelectronics/Displays — Staff

• Software — Staff

• Test And Measurement — Staff

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