October 2, 2000 Magazine Archive

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ISSUE DATE: OCTOBER 2, 2000

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Integrated FPGA, Low-temp cofired ceramics, 3G cellular/PCS, High-density switching, PXI-based ATE

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

October 2, 2000 - In This Issue

[Technology Report]
Low-Temperature Cofired Ceramics Fuel Growth Of High-Frequency Designs
In just a handful of years, the packaging and interconnect technology known as low-temperature cofired ceramics (LTCCs) has entered the mainstream of electronics design. LTCCs, which up until about five years ago were mostly relegated to the realm... — David G. Morrison

[Technology Report]
Designers Face Tough Challenges In 3G Cellular/PCS Phone Specs
As set forth by the International Telecommunications Union's (ITU's) IMT2000 broad set of guidelines for third-generation (3G) Personal Communication Services (PCS) and cell phones, current standards and systems must either evolve, or change... — Louis E. Frenzel

[Product Innovation]
FPGA Combines Multiple Serial Interfaces And Logic
Data-transfer rates are continually increasing, carrying more data from node to node within a network, or from point to point within a system. As a result, generic field-programmable logic arrays cannot meet the performance demanded by high-speed... — Dave Bursky

[Product Innovation]
Tool Set Optimizes And Validates Designs Based On The PCI-X Bus
With clock rates in the latest CPUs zooming past the 1-GHz barrier and with the onset of Gigabit Ethernet, a major revision of the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus specification was clearly needed. Last September, the PCI specification... — Stephen Grossman

[Product Innovation]
New Embedded OS Approach To Memory Protection Targets High-Availability Systems
Protected-domain support is just one of the innovative features available in a new operating system from Wind River Systems. Named VxWorks AE RTOS/Tornado Tools 3.0, the system retains and extends Wind River's popular VxWorks application programming... — William Wong

[Design Application]
High-Density Switching Systems Pose Interface Timing Challenges
Over the past decade, physical layer (PHY) interface technology has kept pace with the proliferation of high-performance networks by providing more flexibility, faster performance, higher densities, and lower cost. This is especially true regarding... — Contributing Author

[Design Application]
Downsize ATE Systems With PXI Modular Instrumentation
Everyone knows that testing is an essential part of the manufacturing process, but no one wants to spend a lot of money on it. This is mostly because it doesn't add any tangible features to the product that can justify an increase in cost.... — Contributing Author

[Ideas For Design]
Single-Rail Noninverting Schmitt Trigger Has Symmetrical Thresholds
A single-supply, inverting Schmitt trigger was detailed in a previous Idea For Design (“Comparator Features Symmetrical Thresholds,” by Samuel Kerem, Electronic Design, March 6, p. 124). The thresholds of this device remained symmetrical about a... — Contributing Author

[Ideas For Design]
Efficient Algorithms Improve The Linearization Of Platinum RTDs
The platinum resistance temperature detector (PRTD) is generally accepted as the most stable and accurate temperature sensor in common use. But the PRTD resistance-versustemperature curve is nonlinear. This makes it difficult to get real precision... — W. Stephen Woodward

[Ideas For Design]
Differential Line Receivers Function As Analog Zero-Crossing Detectors
The RS-422 specification requires certain differential line receivers to be able to detect small differential voltages over a broad common-mode range. Within the recommended common-mode operating range of −7 to +7 V, these devices are... — Contributing Author

[Editorial]
Are You A Netronics Engineer? New Special Issues
The whirlwind pace of the general electronics industry seems a small draft in light of the swath cast by the tornado-like development pace of the networking and communications industries. So much is happening in those industries that we at... — Dave Bursky

[Pease Porridge]
What's All This VW Stuff, Anyhow?
As you read this column, Bob Pease is off trekking in Nepal. But he figured you might like to read some old stories—with some new TWISTS added.—ED When I was a kid, my first car was a black 1941 Chevy, and it was a piece of... — Bob Pease

[Viewpoint]
New Approaches Speed Up Optimization Of Analog Designs
As more ICs incorporate some analog functionality, the demand for analog CMOS design will greatly increase. Not only will the number of new designs increase, but so will the number of legacy designs that must be ported every eight to 12 months to... — Contributing Author

[The Design Factory]
There Are Many Times When A "Prototype" Is Not A Prototype
The Bison Valley Ax Works had just implemented a phased development process. Mr. Big, the general manager, was proud to bring order to his chaotic engineers. The development process was neatly divided into planning, concept design, detail design,... — Don Reinertsen

[Letters]
Letters
Always Have A Pen And.... I read with some interest your Editor's Notebook about the use of the napkin by engineers to solve problems ["Ode To The Paper Napkin—The Untold Story," Aug. 7, p. 54]. It is... — Various

[40 Years Ago]
General Electric Transistor Manual: The Fifth Edition
Featuring two new chapters on the tunnel diode, this is one book in the transistor field you can't afford to be without...because it's the one reference that is constantly being revised and brought up to date to serve your needs. The... — Steve Scrupski

[40 Years Ago]
Bell Optical Maser Transmits Light 25 Miles
An optical maser has been successfully used in long-distance communication experiments by the Bell Telephone Laboratories with pulses of coherent light transmitted over a 25-mile line-of-sight path between laboratories at Holmdel and Murray Hill,... — Steve Scrupski

[Forefront]
Moving Programmable Analog To A Higher Design Platform
For years, analog and mixed-signal IC suppliers have frantically been trying to bring the benefits of programmability to the analog design world. Over time, sufficient progress has been made to narrow the gap between analog and digital designers,... — Ashok Bindra

[Forefront]
InfiniBand Promises Greater Speed, Scalability For Servers And Clusters
If bus architectures such as PCI and PCI-X could deliver the higher I/O clock rates and scalability essential for 21st century networks, an I/O architecture known as InfiniBand never would have been hatched. In the early 1990s, 66-MHz processors and... — Stephen Grossman

[Forefront]
Upgraded Tool Does Kernel-Level Debugging For Real-Time Linux
The Linux Trace Toolkit (LTT) now supports kernel-level debugging. It has been available for application-level debugging for some time, but real-time developers had to contend with basic debugging tools. This version of LTT also supports the Linux... — William Wong

[Forefront]
Microdisplays Gain Ground In Projector, Viewfinder Applications, Look Strong For Near-Eye Use
Growth opportunities in the rear-projection markets—particularly for liquid-crystal-on-silicon (LCoS) microdisplays—will be su-perb, according to Chuck McLaughlin, president of the McLaughlin Consulting Group in Menlo Park, Calif. This is... — Stephen Grossman

[Forefront]
Head-Mounted Displays Almost Here
Despite the skeptics' claims, the head-mounted display may be at our doorstep. Gary Jones, CEO of eMagin Corp. of Hopewell, N.Y., says, "There will be a significant number of people using head-mounted displays for computing, entertainment, and games... — Stephen Grossman

[Forefront]
Company Wire
• Red Hat Inc., a provider in open-source Internet infrastructure solutions, acquired privately held WireSpeed Communications Corporation Inc. WireSpeed develops network and telecommunications components for embedded systems software... — Staff

[Forefront]
266-MHz Pentium Processor Module May Herald A New Embedded System Standard
Designers who need a custom solution often turn to single-board computers (SBCs), which typically come close to filling their needs. Unfortunately, these designers often have to set up complicated cable connections and add custom hardware, prompting... — William Wong

[Forefront]
FCC OKs Fivefold Hike In HomeRF BW
In one of its most pivotal rulings in home wireless networking, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission has cleared the way for the HomeRF Working Group to increase the transmission speed of the Shared Wireless Access Protocol (SWAP) to 10... — Roger Allan

[Forefront]
Wideband 3GPP W-CDMA Instrument Combines Multiple Test Functions
Designed as a digital mobile transmitter tester, Anritsu's MS8608A doubles as a power meter and a spectrum analyzer. Aimed at third-generation partnership-project (3GPP) W-CDMA applications, it can test basestations and mobile basestation amplifiers... — Roger Allan

[Forefront]
Field-Programmable Analog Array Delivers FPGA-Like Benefits
By combining programmable switched-capacitor op-amp cells with flexible on-chip configuration techniques and clocking resources, Anadyne Microelectronics has launched its first field-programmable analog array (FPAA). The AN10E40 comprises 20... — Ashok Bindra

[Forefront]
STN Color LCD Operates Over Wide Temperature Range
A 256- by 64-pixel super-twisted nematic (STN) color LCD known as the F-51136 features cold-cathode backlighting. Designed for the automotive, industrial, navigation, and general-transportation markets, it's easy to read in normal and low-light... — Stephen Grossman

[Forefront]
IC Design Tool Suite Runs On Linux Platform
The entire IC Station Suite from Mentor Graphics is now available under Red Hat Linux 6.0, in addition to HP-UX and Solaris. It provides full-custom IC design solution support, including schematic capture, netlisting, and IC layout. Furthermore,... — William Wong

[Forefront]
Interactive Remote Controls Feature Enhanced Versatility
Two additions to Interlink Electronics' Interactive Remote Control (IRC) family, the IRC-TE and IRC-TG, accelerate product development and reduce engineering costs. Like all IRC models, these multibutton controls use Interlink's proprietary... — Roger Allan

[Forefront]
USB 2.0 Chips Simplify Design Of High-Speed Serial Interfaces
USB 2.0 is poised to make a big splash and break USB 1.1's 12-Mbit/s bottleneck. With a maximum bandwidth of 480 Mbits/s, the USS-2200 host controller chip supports both specifications by incorporating both controllers in a single... — William Wong

[Forefront]
Low-Power Microcontroller Combines With An FPGA Or PLD
Rated at 30 MIPS at a frequency of 40 MHz, the Field Programmable System Level Integration Circuit (FPSLIC) combines an 8-bit microcontroller with over 50 kgates of FPGA or PLD programmable logic. Produced by Atmel Corp., it's ideal for custom... — William Wong

[Forefront]
Very-High-Density Universal-Access 48-Port Module Supports Two T1 Lines
The MTN1048 is a 48-port network-access module designed for telecommunications convergence applications. Its port density is unusually high at 16 ports/in.2 Yet it consumes just 100 mW/port. Based upon Mapletree's UniPorte architecture,... — Stephen Grossman

[Forefront]
Bus Switch Offers Voltage Translation, Undershoot-Safety
The FSTUD16211 is a 24-bit bus switch with a 5.0- to 3.3-V voltage translation and undershoot-hardened circuitry. Consuming little power, it's well suited for servers, data routers, notebook computers, set-top boxes, network and telecom switches,... — Stephen Grossman

[Real-World Engineering]
Economics For Engineers Is A Branch Of Psychology
I maintain that I'm the only one I know who doesn't understand economics. This entitles me to speculate without claiming that I know what I'm talking about. Here are some hypotheses that I invite you to criticize: We are in the longest and... — Lawrence J. Kamm

[Heads Up]
New Screen Designs Are Leading To More Attractive Images
The introduction of high-definition rear-projection TVs and the coming rear-projection computer monitors has placed new demands on screen technology. Plus, many new systems will use flat-panel display technology instead of CRTs as the... — Chris Chinnock

[New Products]

• Power — Staff

• Sensors — Staff

• Switches And Relays — Staff

• Test And Measurement — Staff

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