October 16, 2000 Magazine Archive

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ISSUE DATE: OCTOBER 16, 2000

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Tiny power supply, SoC line, Enhanced x86s, Software radios, Head-mounted displays

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October 16, 2000 - In This Issue

[Technology Report]
Enhanced Technology Moves The x86 Into The 21st Century
The Intel x86 architecture has had a long and sometimes convoluted history. Challenged by the advanced RISC architectures with their very-long-instruction-words (VLIWs), it may be kept out of high-end applications. Still, the x86 architecture has a... — William Wong

[Technology Report]
Speedier High-Resolution Data Converters Make Software Radios Feasible
Recent improvements in front- and back-end data converters have accelerated the acceptance of digital or software-defined radios in the commercial world. These improvements have filled an existing void after the availability of low-cost DSPs... — Ashok Bindra

[Technology Report]
Head-Mounted Displays Provide User Mobility, Privacy, and Convenience
Mounting a display on the human head may be one of the most revolutionary developments in this century. Separating the display from its host, be it a PC, TV, or a DVD, offers a number of benefits. These include the potential for far lower display... — Stephen Grossman

[Product Innovation]
Tiny Power Supply Delivers A Big WALLOP
The steady advance in silicon technology is altering the landscape for power supplies. With each new generation of CMOS chips, circuit densities and signaling speeds continue to rise, while supply voltages continue to fall. The 5-V standard for... — David G. Morrison

[Product Innovation]
System-On-A-Chip Line Features Pentium Core And 2D Video Accelerator
Combine the GX1 Pentium processor core from National Semiconductor with a 2D video controller and you have the heart of the SC1200, SC2200, and SC3200 system-on-a-chip (SoC) devices. The main difference between the chips in the SC product line are... — William Wong

[Design Application]
Optimizing Code, The SHARC Vs. The Minnow (Part II): The SHARC's View
This article is the second of a two-part series. Part I appeared in the Sept. 18 issue.—ED Techniques of adding DSP capability to an existing CISC system were discussed in the first part of this article. 68k code for part of a... — Contributing Author

[Design Application]
System-On-A-Chip Reuse Platforms Can Dramatically Shorten Design Cycles
The industry shift toward design reuse is now progressing from block-level to system-level design. To improve system-on-a-chip (SoC) productivity, many organizations are turning to SoC reuse platform solutions. These application-specific reference... — Contributing Author

[Ideas For Design]
Bipolar Single-Supply Schmitt Trigger Extends DPM Range
There are some design complications encountered in applications that use single-supply circuitry to process an ac input signal. One drawback is that the signal often can’t be attenuated and level-shifted to fit within the supply range without... — Contributing Author

[Ideas For Design]
A Simple RS-232-Based Logic State Analyzer
Designers are often faced with debugging and testing new hardwareor software while operating in-circuit in the application hardware. Test points and/or headers are generally provided to make monitoring the hardware status more convenient. Critical... — Contributing Author

[Ideas For Design]
Programmable Differential Amplifier Features Logarithmic-Type Gain
The circuit shown is a differential amplifier that not only offers programmability but also provides a logarithmic-type gain (Fig. 1). The traditional gain-setting resistors of the amplifier, R1 and R2, are... — Contributing Author

[Ideas For Design]
Remove Large Common-Mode Signals Using Standard Op Amps
In many industrial applications, signals requiring analog-to-digital conversion ride on a large I common-mode signal of up to a few hundred volts. A familiar problem in these applications is removing this common-mode signal. Doing so enables... — Contributing Author

[Editorial]
Bringing Even More To You To Serve You Better
Over the last few issues, this editorial page has been a tool for announcing a new editor, a new web portal, and a pair of special issues targeted at designers of networking and communications systems. All of this was done with our readers in mind,... — Dave Bursky

[Pease Porridge]
Bob's Mailbox
Dear Bob: I couldn't ignore the letter from S.J. regarding digital projection in cinemas (electronic design, July 24, p. 139). It's true that film can deliver excellent dynamic range and resolution. But, in the real world, this doesn't... — Bob Pease

[Viewpoint]
Functional Verification Is As Important As Timing Closure
In the rush to get electronics-based products to market faster, cheaper, and with more functionality, timing is everything. The electronics industry commonly believes that achieving timing closure makes a design silicon-ready. Several EDA companies... — Contributing Author

[Editor's Notebook]
Wireless, Wireless Everything? What's Holding Things Up?
People just love wireless stuff. Have you ever met anyone who doesn't love cell phones, TV remote controls, garage-door openers, satellite TVs, or GPS devices? We're addicted to wireless, but we take it for granted. We have all enjoyed the... — Louis E. Frenzel

[The Design Factory]
The System Isn't Always To Blame; Look At Who's Operating It
One of the misconceptions spawned by the dogma of Total Quality Management is that a company's problems always originate from the design of its management processes, and never from its people. While this is a delightfully humanistic philosophy, it... — Don Reinertsen

[Letters]
Letters
With Neither Paper Nor Napkins I have a story pertaining to "Ode To The Paper Napkin—The Untold Story," [Aug. 7, p. 54]. Back in 1955, I was fresh out of college and working for a small transmitter... — Various

[40 Years Ago]
Parametric Amplifiers For All Microwave Applications
These reactance-diode parametric amplifiers are designed for applications at all microwave frequencies. The heart of the line is the gallium- arsenide, variable-reactance diode, which gives improved noise performance over a wide range of... — Steve Scrupski

[40 Years Ago]
Electronic Watch Has More Accuracy
A transistorized wrist watch, called Accutron, has been designed by the Bulova Watch Co., Inc., Woodside, N.Y. The timepiece is approximately 10 times as accurate as a conventional wrist watch, according to the company. It is guaranteed not to gain... — Steve Scrupski

[Forefront]
Revamped Microarchitectures Let CPUs Deliver Top-Notch Performance
A quartet of CPU unveilings, showing off new microarchitectures and significant performance increases, was put before the audience at the recent Intel Developer Forum in San Jose, Calif. The Santa Clara company presented its forthcoming Pentium 4... — Dave Bursky

[Forefront]
Quadrupole Resonance Detects Landmines With 100% Accuracy
From World War II to Somalia, the percentage of casualties caused by landmines has risen sharply. These explosives have indiscriminately killed and wounded soldiers and civilians for over six decades. Sadly, the problem only seems to be getting... — Ashok Bindra

[Forefront]
Bluetooth Designers Can Smile About Their Future
So far, it's been nibbling at the edges. But over the next few years, Bluetooth technology will take a big bite out of the wireless market. A study by the In-Stat Group, Newton, Mass., reports that manufacturers will produce 1.4 billion... — Richard Gawel

[Forefront]
MEMS Sampling Device Promises Big Results For Detection And Analysis Of Chemicals
A sampling device smaller than the tip of a fingernail promises big results for detecting and analyzing trace chemicals. Developed by the Department of Energy's Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, N.M., this tool is a super-miniaturized... — Roger Allan

[Forefront]
Simulations Prove Viability Of 6-nm Liquid Jets
While the airline companies are announcing larger and larger widebodies, the electronics industry is going smaller and smaller—with jets as small as a few nanometers in diameter. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology in... — Richard Gawel

[Forefront]
Software Moves Complex Designs To Factory Floor
A software tool developed at Sandia National Laboratories automatically translates computer designs of complex products into assembly plans for use on the factory floor. The ISRC Archimedes software combines its understanding of each part's geometry... — Roger Allan

[Forefront]
Company Wire
• KineticSystems Co. LLC, a supplier of high-performance data-acquisition products, has teamed with VXI Technology Inc., which provides high-density modular switches and instruments for functional test. This pairing has produced... — Staff

[Forefront]
Digital Oscilloscopes Speed Up Sampling While Extending Memory
The WavePro family of digital oscilloscopes from LeCroy Corp. incorporates a "digitizer-on-a-chip" technology. This approach helps increase sampling rates and memory in the 500-MHz to 2-GHz bandwidth range while reducing prices. A feature of this... — David G. Morrison

[Forefront]
InfiniBand Device Handles Four 3.125-Gbit/s Channels
An InfiniBand system device known as the LU6X14FT comprises four 3.125-Gbit/s serializer/deserializer (SERDES) channels on a single chip. The four channels can be aggregated to handle data rates of up to 12.5 Gbits/s. This chip consumes... — Stephen Grossman

[Forefront]
Software Reduces Mixed-Signal Design Iterations
Software from Antrim Design Systems automates the analysis, characterization, verification, and reuse of mixed-signal circuits. With an intuitive graphical user interface, the specification-driven Antrim-ACV supports development from design capture... — Ashok Bindra

[Forefront]
Electroluminescent Driver Uses External 32-kHz Clock Source
The SP4414 is a small electroluminescent (EL) lamp driver that operates with an external 32-kHz clock source, letting designers configure low-cost products while maintaining stable, repeatable lamp colors. It's well suited for backlighting... — Stephen Grossman

[Forefront]
Peripheral Chip Connects Mobile Devices To Wireless GSM
A peripheral chip known as the iChip Internet controller provides embedded Internet connectivity for devices via GSM modems. It targets wireless designs in telemedicine, environmental monitoring, e-commerce, industrial controls, and remote data... — Stephen Grossman

[Careers]
Should You Go Back To School Or Not?
Back to School, Rodney Dangerfield's 1986 movie of a successful businessman returning to college to work on his bachelor's degree, illustrated many of the nontraditional reasons for continuing a formal education. Dangerfield's character,... — Peter Varhol

[New Products]

• Analog — Staff

• Optoelectronics — Staff

• Components — Staff

• Enclosures — Staff

• Software — Staff

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