June 12, 2000 Magazine Archive

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ISSUE DATE: JUNE 12, 2000

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Chip Protect Video Content, MEMS, Distributed Power, Mixed-Voltage-Systems

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June 12, 2000 - In This Issue

[Technology Report]
MEMS Designs Gear Up For Greater Commercialization
Today, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and microsystems technology (MST) make up one of the fastest-growing markets around. As MEMS and MST devices proliferate into the commercial sector, they're penetrating new markets aside from the... — Roger Allan

[Technology Report]
DC-DC Converters Deliver Better Performance For Distributed Power
Falling supply voltages and rising supply currents are driving the adoption of distributed power architectures (DPAs) in a growing number of applications. In systems that were previously well served by centralized power schemes, evolving supply... — David G. Morrison

[Product Innovation]
Two-Chip Set Safeguards Digital Video Content
The Digital Visual Interface (DVI) specification, introduced in April of 1999, established an industry-wide standard for an interconnecting link between a video source and a digital display. Using this, Silicon Image has crafted the SiI 168... — Stephen Grossman

[Product Innovation]
Real-Time Scope Breaks Into 4-GHz Territory With Fast SiGe Technology
Just when you thought real-time oscilloscopes might be reaching the end of the bandwidth line, along comes the Tektronix TDS7000 Series. The flagship model in this series, the TDS7404, boasts an impressive 4-GHz bandwidth, as well as a host of other... — Joseph Desposito

[Product Innovation]
ICs Drive Down The Cost Of Connectivity For Gigbit Ethernet Over Copper
Until now, end-to-end connectivity for Gigabit Ethernet over copper has been a costly proposition. But, that's about to change thanks to the development of two new ICs from Broadcom: an integrated switch, the BCM5680, and a PHY (physical-layer... — Joseph Desposito

[Design Application]
Packaged DC-DC Converters Solve Distributed Power Dilemmas
The growth of distributed power architecture (DPA) has increased the demand for dc-dc power conversion. As a result, a number of "off-the-shelf" packaged dc-dc converters have become available. Careful design with these converters can help engineers... — Contributing Author

[Design Application]
Useful Tips Ease Interfacing of Logic Device in Mixed 3-V and 5-V Systems
Operating voltages for digital systems have dropped from 5 V to 3 V or lower, because of the demand for higher-speed logic families that use ICs with smaller geometries. Contributing to the drop as well are the low power-consumption requirements of... — Contributing Author

[Design Application]
High-Density Power Components Add Flexibility to Distributed-Power Design
The introduction of high-density power components brought unprecedented flexibility and creativity to power-system development. This provided designers with options to implement power architectures that were never before possible. Furthermore, using... — Contributing Author

[Ideas For Design]
Aircraft Light Flasher Extends Bulb Life
On aircraft, it’s desirable to have lights in the wings that flash in alternating 1/2 to 1 second intervals, enhancing recognition by other aircraft. This circuit accomplishes such a flash operation in a somewhat unconventional manner. The... — Contributing Author

[Ideas For Design]
An Almost Ideal Low-Battery Cutoff Circuit Draws Only 1.2 μA
An ideal low-battery cut-off circuit should have zero on-resistance, zero power consumption when the switch is off, and zero power consumption when the switch is on. The circuit shown in the figure meets... — Contributing Author

[Ideas For Design]
Add Real-Time Control To QuickBasic
Even though Windows-based applications are now the market standard, DOS-based industrial applications or prototypes still find a place in the field of real-time control. For these applications, a simple and deterministic OS (DOS) might be the only... — Contributing Author

[Ideas For Design]
Program Quickly Calculates Transformer Design Parameters
During the transformer design process, design engineers need to quickly verify that their designs satisfy the various interrelated transformer design requirements. These would include the size of the core, the required turns ratio in the primary and... — Shyam Sunder Tiwari

[Ideas For Design]
Composite Amp Had Low Noise, Drift
Typically, FET input operational amplifiers have desirable characteristics such as good frequency response, low input bias current, and low input bias-current noise compared to bipolar input amplifiers. On the other hand, bipolar... — Contributing Author

[Editorial]
Embedded Technologies Now Under New Management
I would like you to join me in welcoming a new technology editor to our staff: Bill Wong. Bill will be our Embedded Technologies/Software editor, responsible for covering a wide range of hardware and software developments related to what we loosely... — Dave Bursky

[Pease Porridge]
What's All This "More Engineers" Stuff Anyhow?
I was reading the junk mail on my breakfast table, and listening to Garrison Keillor's NEWS FROM.... Suddenly, I jumped up and strode to the dining room, where my computer was simmering away. Why the rush? Because if I didn't jot this down quickly,... — Bob Pease

[Viewpoint]
Design Technology Advances Unleash New FPGA Capabilities
Today's multimillion-gate FPGAs offer great promise for designers confounded by the limitations of traditional ASIC implementation. Increased time-to-market demands, the lower cost of FPGA development, and FPGA capacities well in excess of a million... — Contributing Author

[Editor's Notebook]
Component Vendors Innovate To Deliver Custom Samples Faster
If cultures and corporations can have core values, then why can't entire industries too? When I think about the pace of change in the electronics field and the time-oriented nature of most technology news, it seems that "faster is better" has become... — David G. Morrison

[The Design Factory]
Drastic Stretch Goals Can Do More Harm Than Good
Ogg, the Cro-Magnon ax designer at the Bison Valley Ax Works, developed a schedule for the Mammoth Whacker III (MWIII). He carefully examined his timesheets for previous ax design projects to estimate how long each subtask should take. He adjusted... — Don Reinertsen

[Letters]
Letters
Author Expands Idea For Design I tested the circuit using the AD9832 DDS device along with the AD8400-50 digital potentiometer ["Digital potentiometers Vary Amplitude In DDS Devices," May 29, p. 108]. By... — Various

[40 Years Ago]
Special Report: Digital Communication
In an era of ever more promising electronic developments, digital techniques are offering exciting challenges to the designers of communications equipment. With digital systems, great stores of information can be transmitted speedily and accurately.... — Steve Scrupski

[40 Years Ago]
Army Shifting Its Molecular-Circuit Research
A shift to vapor deposition methods of producing molecular circuits is planned by the U. S. Army Signal Corps Laboratories, Fort Monmouth, N.J. The vapor phase deposition method, developed by Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, N.J., will supplant... — Steve Scrupski

[Forefront]
64-Bit Architecture's New Instructions Take On Digital Entertainment, More
The R20K processor core features a raw throughput estimated at 720 to 1000 MIPS and 1.4 to 2 GFLOPS. This 64-bit CPU also includes an extended instruction set that lets it make short work of 3D-graphics computations. Designers at MIPS Technologies... — Dave Bursky

[Forefront]
Refined Trench Process Squeezes More Juice Out Of Power MOSFETs
Pressure is mounting to squeeze more power out of cell-phone and portable-appliance batteries. Power-MOSFET suppliers are tapping every trick they can to boost performance. One company, Intersil Corp. of Palm Bay, Fla., has enhanced its trench... — Ashok Bindra

[Forefront]
Researchers Investigate Sintering Process In Quest To Develop Stronger Metals
Scientists at Ames Laboratory, Ames, Iowa, have developed a nondestructive ultrasonic technique for observing the sintering of powdered metal components. Sintering involves pouring a metal powder into a die, which is then pressed and heated until... — Cheryl Ajluni

[Forefront]
Alliances Brighten Future For OLED Displays
A number of strategic partnerships in the display industry are working to bring organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays to the forefront. These devices already are attractive in portable applications because of their wide viewing angle,... — Cheryl Ajluni , et al.

[Forefront]
FCC Chief Urges Broadcasters To Embrace The Digital Age
Progress waits for no man—nor does it wait for broadcasters. This was the message delivered by William E. Kennard, guest speaker at the recent National Association of Broadcasters Convention, held in Las Vegas. As chairman of the U.S. Federal... — Stephen Grossman

[Forefront]
Company Wire
• Eying the power-line networking and broadband wireless markets, Cogency Technology Inc. and Trunk Corp. have merged to form a fabless IC design company, Cogency Semiconductor Inc. The new firm will combine Trunk's channel-adaptive... — Staff

[Forefront]
Microfabricated Multichannel System Detects, Analyzes Gases Quickly, Accurately
A complete miniature multichannel gas-phase detection and analysis system is under development at Sandia National Laboratories, Livermore, Calif. Using micromachined components, researchers have built a prototype two-board, two-channel system... — Roger Allan

[Forefront]
Thick-Film Hybrids For Automotive Use Merge Power and Control On a Single Substrate
A new method for fabricating thick-film hybrids lets designers place both logic and power circuitry on the same ceramic substrate. Developed by Welwyn Components Ltd. of Bedlington, the U.K., and AB Mikroelektronik of Salzburg, Austria, the... — David G. Morrison

[Forefront]
From The Labs
• Researchers at Brown University's Center for Advanced Materials Research are exploring the action of atomic level materials. Their project is investigating the potential creation of fast electrical devices and optical switches... — Staff

[Forefront]
CompactPCI Remote-Access Card Delivers True Universal Port Capability
To some, universal port functionality means that each port must be configured ahead of time for its particular application. Not so with the MTN5000 CompactPCI remote-access card. Its manufacturer, Mapletree Networks, says that it is the first... — Stephen Grossman

[Forefront]
20.1-In., Digital-Interface Color LCD Module Targets High-End Displays
Manufacturers of high-end displays have a new component at their disposal—a 20.1-in., high-resolution, color LCD module with a digital interface. This device, the NL128102AC31-02, has an unusually wide 170° maximum viewing angle (top/down... — Stephen Grossman

[Forefront]
Single-Chip Digital Set-Top Box Controller Enables 225 MIPS
The STB034xx integrates IBM's PowerPC 405 processor with subsystems from IBM's family of set-top box functions—all on one chip. By allowing the base audio and decoding activities to execute with minimal host processing, this set-top box... — Stephen Grossman

[Forefront]
Macrocell-Rich PLDs Pack 1440 Registers And 360 I/O Registers
Staking claim to the highest macrocell count of any complex programmable logic device (CPLD)—1080 macrocells—the ispLSI 8000V line offers up to 1440 internal registers and up to 360 I/O registers. Known as the SuperBIG family of in-system... — Dave Bursky

[Forefront]
Embedded Speech Processor Eases Voice-Activated Dialing
The ADSP-21ESP202 embedded speech processor targets full-duplex hands-free cellular communication in an vehicles. A wide variety of features lets it act as a single-chip solution for other applications as well. The processor is derived... — Ashok Bindra

[Forefront]
Flash-Based, 16-bit DSPs Target Motor-Control Systems
Aspiring to stay competitive in the emerging digital motor-control sector, Motorola has expanded its 8-bit MCU portfolio with four new 40-MIPS high-performance digital signal processors (DSPs). Based on the company's DSP56800 16-bit fixed-point... — Ashok Bindra

[Real-World Engineering]
Entrepreneurship: Doing It On A Shoestring
You can create your own manufacturing business with little capital, test it with little risk, and expand it if the test is successful. Inventors who get rich do so from this method. Your Product: Choose a... — Lawrence J. Kamm

[Heads Up]
TI Takes Lead In Digital Camera
One year ago, I reported that the digital cinema era began at the ShoWest Exhibition in Las Vegas. At that same event last March, several producers of large-venue projection platforms announced plans for products tailored to the needs of digital... — Chris Chinnock

[New Products]

• Communications — Staff

• Computing — Staff

• Components — Staff

• Test And Measurement — Staff

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