[Editorial] Personal Privacy—How Much Do We Yield To Catch Cons?
Every day it seems that the daily papers churn out another story about someone conning somebody else by using the anonymity possible on the Internet. Whether it's a fraudulent sale of goods on an auction site or the misleading of a young child into...
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Dave Bursky
[Pease Porridge] What's All This Finite-Gain Stuff, Anyhow? (Part 2)
Back in around 1963, we had a whole bunch of controversies at Philbrick Researches. We were getting a bunch of new solid-state operational amplifiers, some with high voltage gain, and others with moderate gain. A lot of debates and arguments...
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Bob Pease
[Embedded in Electronic Design] Paranoid Programming
Even paranoids can have enemies. And there is a place for paranoid behavior in design. Good programmers and engineers treat incoming data and signals the way a paranoid would—they don't trust them. Safety first—checking and validating...
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Ray Weiss
[Embedded in Electronic Design] Software Products
Tools Ease Migration From 8051 To 16-Bit XA • Tasking Inc. (781) 320-9400; www.tasking.com The 8-bit 8051 is one of the most successful microcontrollers around, but designers are...
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William Wong
[Letters] Letters
Easy Luggage Transport The unmanned space-flight theme is a jewel ["Man-In-Space Is An Ambition Whose Time Has Passed," April 2, p. 152]. I also scanned your Web site. The luggage-handling system you...
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Various
[40 Years Ago] Just Diodes In Hi-Fi Amplifier
Attendees at Dr. William Shockley's lecture on four-layer diodes, given recently at the Eighth Annual Cleveland Electronics Conference, were treated to a demonstration of music played through an amplifier devoid of tubes or transistors—diodes...
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Steve Scrupski
[40 Years Ago] Industry Preparing For Push In FM Stereo
Triggered by the FCC's approval of suppressed-carrier-am as the multiplex standard for fm stereo broadcasts, manufacturers are preparing to produce equipment for transmitting and receiving. In the new system, the main carrier is frequency-modulated...
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Steve Scrupski
[Forefront] Fully Functional Spice Simulator Gets Optimized For Switchers
Adding speed and convergence to original Spice code, Linear Technology Corp. of Milpitas, Calif., has developed a fully functional Spice simulator that includes schematic-capture and waveform display capabilities. Proprietary convergence, time-step...
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Ashok Bindra
[Forefront] Software Squeezes The Most From IC Wire-Bond Designs
A recently developed software tool automatically checks for design-rule violations as locations are designated for wire bonds between die and package lead frames. Known as the Post-Layout Bond Tool, it was initially developed by Knights Technology...
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David Maliniak
[Forefront] Nanodevices Buckle Up Their Semiconducting Nanobelts
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta have created a new type of nanometer-scale structure that may be used in inexpensive ultra-small sensors, flat-panel displays, and other electrical nanodevices. Termed "nanobelts," these...
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Lisa Eccles
[Forefront] Collaboration Creates Free Open-Source Hardware Library
Hardware developers are joining forces to create a free open-source hardware design library. Similar to how Linux developers and other open-source programmers share open-source software designs, the members of a Web-based organization named...
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Lisa Eccles
[Forefront] Company Wire
IBM Corp. and Symbian Inc., a developer of operating systems for wireless devices, have partnered to enhance connectivity in cellular phones. IBM will equip Symbian's "smart phones" with its DB2 Everyplace database to store and collect...
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Staff
[Forefront] Mobile Graphics Chip Supports Twin Data Rates
The SuperSavage is the latest successor in the Savage series of graphics processor chips for notebook computers. Launched by S3 Graphics, this discrete mobile graphics solution features 128-bit single data rate (SDR) and 64-bit double data rate...
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Lisa Eccles
[Forefront] Handheld Chemical Sensor Sniffs Out Harmful Substances
With the VOCcheck handheld sensor system, users can perform on-site detection, analysis, and verification of volatile compounds. It provides quality assurance for a variety of markets, including the chemical, food, and environmental industries....
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Roger Allan
[Forefront] CB Process Yields Power-Efficient High-Speed Op Amps
Leveraging its VIP10 sixth-generation dielectrically isolated complementary bipolar (CB) process, National Semiconductor has launched a new line of power-efficient high-speed op-amp ICs. Designed for xDSL, set-top boxes, cable modems, and other...
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Ashok Bindra
