July 24, 2000 Magazine Archive

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ISSUE DATE: JULY 24, 2000

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Digital camera chips, Fibre Channel repeater, Satcom systems, Bluetooth, MEMS testing

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July 24, 2000 - In This Issue

[Technology Report]
Satellite Systems Gear Up To Meet The Challenges Of Global Networks
Nothing epitomizes the global nature of everyday life quite like satellite communications. From video and television to voice and basic messaging services, it's the heart and soul of the drive to instantly access information, anytime, anywhere.... — Patrick Mannion

[Technology Report]
With Devices Ready To Go, Bluetooth Is Poised To Make Its Move
One of the hottest topics in Europe is Bluetooth. The new standard was created by the Swedish telecommunications equipment manufacturer Ericsson. Named after the Danish King Harald II, who received the nickname "Bluetooth" when he unified Denmark... — Alfred Vollmer

[Product Innovation]
Digital-Camera Chip Set Delivers High-Quality Images At 50 Mpixels/s
Customers are demanding film-quality digital cameras and high-definition digital camcorders at progressively lower prices. They also want to see cameras with longer battery operating life. In fact, consumers would like to carry just one camera with... — Stephen Grossman

[Product Innovation]
2-Gbit/s Fibre Channel Repeater Doubles Throughput, Halves Power
Storage systems are the heart of the Internet and enterprise networks. But with the increasing amount of data passing to and fro at an exponential rate, these are quickly creating a bottleneck in the drive to maximize throughput in the networks they... — Patrick Mannion

[Design Application]
MEMS Raise Testing Issues From The Beginning To The End Of The Design Cycle
Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) can be realized in many fashions. To date, however, pressure sensors and accelerometers have been the majority of high-volume applications. In fact, a number of these devices are currently produced in quantities... — Contributing Author

[Design Application]
Build Com Objects In Visual Basic For Your Embedded System Applications
Due to the highly transparent integration of the Component Object Model (COM) into the Visual Basic (VB) development environment, VB developers are effectively programming and deploying COM applications today. Unlike their C/C++ counterparts, VB... — Contributing Author

[Design Application]
Design A High-Resolution Δ-Σ ADC Using An 8-Bit Microcontroller
There are numerous methods of implementing delta-sigma (Δ−Σ) analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), and each has its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Some engineers employ complex systems to solve simple conversion problems,... — Contributing Author

[Ideas For Design]
Interfacing A Single-Wire Temperature-Sensor IC To A PC
Over the years, vendors have introduced a large assortment of temperature-measuring semiconductor devices with varying interfacing techniques. One of the latest of these, Maxim’s MAX6577, can measure temperature over a range of −40°C to... — Contributing Author

[Ideas For Design]
Simple Current-Limiter And Power Switch Offer Overcurrent Protection
Many applications that use a single power supply need some type of overcurrent protection. Such a device will help prevent the entire system from shutting down in the event of a single fault or short circuit. The high-current switch Q1, driver Q3,... — Contributing Author

[Ideas For Design]
Counter Circuit Improves Oscilloscope Triggering
Internal trigger-and-hold circuits are used by oscilloscopes to trigger the sweep circuit reliably at lower frequencies. At high frequencies, however, other methods are generally necessary. Oscilloscope sweep circuits usually synchronize to... — Contributing Author

[Ideas For Design]
CMI-Coded Pseudorandom Data-Pattern Generator in PSpice
Typically, bit-error-rate (BER) and "eye-closure" measurements are performed on communications systems. Pseudorandom data patterns monitor the deteriorations of the “eyeopening” and error detection over, for example, 1023 cycles. The... — Contributing Author

[Editorial]
Just Because We Can Do Something, Should We?
Designers have always pushed the leading edge in their quest to build the fastest, smallest, lowest-power, or lowest-cost product. This has led to many advances over the decades—the transistor, the integrated circuit, the microprocessor, and... — Dave Bursky

[Pease Porridge]
Bob's Mailbox
Dear Bob: I have enjoyed your column for many years. I also am an analog guy, working as the chief engineer for a PBS station. As an avid boater, Douglas Butler caught my attention (electronic design, May 15, p. 135). I... — Bob Pease

[Viewpoint]
Broad-Based Technologies Are Revolutionizing Instrumentation
Instrumentation is undergoing a revolution. The convergence of instrumentation and the PC has fundamentally changed the way engineers take measurements. Modular, computer-based measurement and automation systems that can leverage breakthrough PC,... — Contributing Author

[Editor's Notebook]
Communications Paves The Path To World Unity
When I started covering Communications technology, I was pretty excited as almost every facet has a high "cool" factor. From satellite to wireless networks, optical systems, and the Internet, there are innovations everywhere you turn that will... — Patrick Mannion

[The Design Factory]
Sometimes We Learn The Wrong Thing
One day Ogg, the Cro-Magnon design engineer, was invited by Snrg, the marketing manager, to play goof (an early form of golf) at the Bison Valley Country Club. Snrg was quite good at goofing because he worked in marketing, where this, like eating in... — Don Reinertsen

[Letters]
Letters
The Fire Is Still Burning I greatly enjoyed the subject of the editorial column "Does The Fire Burn And The Wonder Still Exist?" [May 15, p. 52]. I believe the reason you do your job well (as it appears to... — Various

[40 Years Ago]
Multi-Function Compactrons Promise Two-Tube Radio
Multi-function tubes, combining diodes, triodes, and pentodes in various combinations, were recently announced to reduce size and component counts in entertainment and industrial devices. "Compactrons," from General Electric, Owensboro, Ky., have 12... — Steve Scrupski

[40 Years Ago]
Hot Germanium Transistor Too Good
A germanium transistor operated just too well at a recent press conference. As part of a demonstration of a new thermoelectric transistor cooler, General Thermoelectric Corp. of Princeton, N.J., immersed a transistor amplifier in boiling water. The... — Steve Scrupski

[Forefront]
Java Processors, Coprocessor Perform Direct Bytecode Execution
Three companies have taken different approaches to direct Java bytecode execution. Two of them have developed dedicated Java processors. The third has a coprocessor design that can be embedded as part of a standard processor core, such as a MIPS... — William Wong

[Forefront]
Burr-Brown Buy Boosts TI's Role In Analog, Data Conversion
Bolstering its presence in the analog and data-converter markets, Dallas-based Texas Instruments is acquiring Burr-Brown Corp. of Tucson, Ariz. Burr-Brown will become part of TI's catalog-analog organization. TI will continue to use the Burr-Brown... — Ashok Bindra

[Forefront]
Saw-Based Electronic Nose Accurately Characterizes Vapors In Seconds
Typically, engineers who want to electronically sense and characterize odors expose an array of SAW crystals with different polymer coatings to the target vapor. Yet this method suffers from limited sensitivities in the nanogram range, as well as... — Roger Allan

[Forefront]
Company Wire
• Magma Design Automation Inc. and Moscape Inc. are merging. While terms of the agreement have not been disclosed, Magma will retain Moscape as an independent wholly owned subsidiary. Moscape's tools will continue to interface with all... — Staff

[Forefront]
SMARTMOS Merges Analog And High-Voltage Power Components In Deep-Submicron CMOS
Affording more transistors on a single chip, Moto-rola Semiconductor's SMARTMOS7 smart-power process integrates microcontroller core, nonvolatile flash, and other memory types with analog and high-voltage power components on the same substrate.... — Ashok Bindra

[Forefront]
From The Labs
• The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has awarded a $15 million contract to a consortium of traffic safety research organizations headed by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute. Spanning a three-year period,... — Staff

[Forefront]
Neuromorphic Engineers Craft Brain-Like Circuitry To Perform Perceptual Tasks
Scientists at Bell Labs and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed an electronic circuit that mimics the biological circuitry of the cerebral cortex. In the future, devices that behave like neural systems could be able to perform... — Richard Gawel

[Forefront]
MEMs-Based Magnetic Coils Exceed The Limitation Of Optical Couplers
Implementing surface-micromachined-based magnetic coils in a standard semiconductor process, Analog Devices is readying a new class of ICs for industrial automation, motor control, and data acquisition. MEMS, acting as a post-processed... — Ashok Bindra

[Forefront]
Prescalar Circuit Extends Trigger Range Of Scopes And Counters To 16 GHz
Developed by Picosecond Pulse Labs of Boulder, Colo., the 5650 Trigger Countdown prescalar circuit extends the triggering-frequency range of high-speed oscilloscopes and frequency counters to 16 GHz. Most of these instruments can only accommodate... — Roger Allan

[Forefront]
High-End Scope Performance Suits Middle-Class Budgets
Two additions to the DL line of digital oscilloscopes save engineers time in troubleshooting and problem solving. The LC564DL features a 1-GHz bandwidth, while the LC554DL provides 500 MHz. The four-channel scopes boast 1 million points of... — Richard Gawel

[Forefront]
Power-Efficient Programmable DSP Taps New-Generation Core
The TMS320C5510 is the first DSP device derived from Texas Instruments' third-generation core, the TMS320C55X. Aimed at applications with limited power budgets, the TMS320C5510 consumes only 80 mW at 160 MHz for 320 MIPS of processing... — Ashok Bindra

[Careers]
Mixing Work And Leisure: A Blurring Line
At the end of the workday, some of your fellow engineers head out the door together, perhaps for dinner, drinks, or even a movie. They used to invite you, but you had family activities or night school after work, and repeatedly declined. After all,... — Peter Varhol

[New Products]

• Analog — Staff

• Communications — Staff

• Interconnects — Staff

• Electronic Design Automation — Staff

• Sensors And Transducers — Staff

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