December 18, 2000 Magazine Archive

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ISSUE DATE: DECEMBER 18, 2000

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Fast wideband DACs, Transceiver IC, Brighter LEDs, IC voltage references, Decoupling strategies

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December 18, 2000 - In This Issue

[Technology Report]
Brighter LEDs Signal Longer Life And Lower Power For Lighting Applications
What CMOS circuits did for the world of power-hungry electronics, LEDs may be doing for the world of lighting. Just as CMOS-based ICs reduced the energy necessary for a given electronic function, LEDs have slashed power requirements in many lamp... — David G. Morrison

[Product Innovation]
High-Speed Wideband DACs Permit Multicarrier Cellular Basestations
The drive toward multicarrier and multimode basestations and direct-IF transceiver designs is motivating data-converter suppliers to keep propelling the performance envelope of digital-to-analog converters (DACs) to greater heights. These... — Ashok Bindra

[Product Innovation]
CMOS Transceiver Chip Allows 50-Gbit/s Serial Data Transmissions
Serial data communications rates keep rising as the pressure for greater bandwidth continues. Recent developments in optical-fiber communications as well as 1-Gbit/s and 10-Gbit/s Ethernet have pushed semiconductor companies to produce chips that... — Louis E. Frenzel

[Design Application]
Carefully Compare Pros And Cons To Correctly Choose An IC Voltage Reference
Because most of today's digital logic, mixed-signal, and analog circuits include a voltage reference, designers must understand how references operate and how to choose from among the available types. From the many specifications that characterize a... — Contributing Author

[Design Application]
Design Engineers Battle The Dark Side Of Electromagnetism
Today's higher population densities on pc boards, faster switching speeds, and greater switched power contribute to the increased probability of interference between circuits, modules, and systems. This means emissions requirements are much tighter.... — Contributing Author

[Ideas For Design]
RS-485-To-RS-232 Transceiver Takes Its Power From The Com Port
Half-duplex RS-485 networks offer minimal distributed wiring in industrial applications. This results from the remote stations sharing a single pair of copper wires as the communications medium. Software protocols ensure that there’s no network... — Contributing Author

[Ideas For Design]
Digitally Controlled Potentiometer Linearizes A Cryogenic Thermocouple
Regardless of its many personality flaws, the ordinary bi-metallic thermocouple (TC) remains the dominant technology for industrial temperature sensing. TCs are popular because of their durability, simplicity, and low cost, not to mention their... — W. Stephen Woodward

[Ideas For Design]
1-Wire Technology Simplifies Humidity And Temperature Measurement
A new 1-Wire technology component, the DS2438 Smart Battery Monitor provides several functions. Developed by Dallas Semiconductor, this device offers a unique 64- bit serial number, an internal temperature sensor, and an A/D that measures both the... — Contributing Author

[Ideas For Design]
Microcontroller Systems Load Sensing
With the never-ending demand for improved system reliability, an increasing need exists for load-sensing capabilities in control systems. The circuit shown implements this function by combining an economical microcontroller reset circuit with a... — Contributing Author

[Editorial]
Expanding Challenges Push Us Back To School
Designers are constantly faced with challenges, whether it's the challenge of a new project or the behind-the-scenes challenge of self-educating themselves on the latest tool, microprocessor architecture, or software utility. We are perpetual... — Dave Bursky

[Pease Porridge]
Bob's Mailbox
Hi Bob: During heavy rain, water drips from the underside of my dashboard onto my left leg. I often cannot move my leg out from under the drip as the leg is busy operating the clutch during my commute in traffic-congested downtown... — Bob Pease

[Viewpoint]
As ICs Grow More Complex, Design Verification Will Be Outsourced
Many companies struggle to maintain a state-of-the-art verification environment. As engineering projects continue to increase in complexity, thorough verification is taking up more engineering time and creating several challenges for in-house... — Contributing Author

[Editor's Notebook]
Rewiring The World Again, And Again, And Again, And...
Let's see, how many times have we actually wired and rewired the world for some electrical or electronic application? The first real wiring effort occurred in the mid-1800s after the birth of the telegraph. Morse invented it in 1843, but it took us... — Louis E. Frenzel

[The Design Factory]
Shedding Some Light On The Dark Side Of Status Differences
One day, Ogg, the Cro-Magnon design engineer, was shooting the breeze with his friend Grnk. "You know, our general manager Mr. Big wears a huge bone in his nose. I need a bone just like that." "Watch out," Grnk warned. "Mr. Big gets very... — Don Reinertsen

[Letters]
Letters
Is Good Documentation Just Talk? Your Sept. 18 "Great Ideas Get Lost In The Sea Of Incomplete Documentation" [p. 68] is a subject dear to my heart. I'm resurrecting the design of a 25-year-old processor chip... — Various

[40 Years Ago]
Tunneltron May Be New Basic Component
A new basic electronic component may result from research under way in at least two organizations. Developed so far is a simple thin-film device that operates at cryogenic temperatures and exhibits superconductivity, tunneling, and negative... — Steve Scrupski

[40 Years Ago]
Thin-Film Memory Commercially Available
First news of a commercially available thin-film memory was disclosed by Remington Rand's Univac division at the Eastern Joint Computer Conference. The new memory, with access times measured in nanoseconds, will be included in the Univac 1107... — Steve Scrupski

[Forefront]
IEDM Charts The Course For Future-Generation Semiconductor Devices
The International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) is very well known for laying the groundwork for future semiconductor devices and associated fabrication processes. This year's event, held last week in San Francisco, was no different. Several... — Ashok Bindra

[Forefront]
Nanocrystal Quantum Dots Efficiently Emit Laser Light
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, N.M., and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge have demonstrated that nanoscale semiconductor particles efficiently emit laser light.... — Lisa Eccles

[Forefront]
Industry Group Hopes To Promote Internet Lifestyle
A dozen large companies, including high-tech and retail firms, have formed the Internet Home Alliance. Its self-stated mission is to enhance "consumers' understanding, appreciation, and adoption of the Internet lifestyle." This group plans to... — Lisa Eccles

[Forefront]
Designers Turn LCD Technology Into A Single-Lens, Stereo Image Shutter
Why confine LCD technology solely to displays? CRL Opto of Hayes, England, believes that there is no reason to. This company has extended LCD use to 3D-image capture. In combination with a single-lens camera, a fast-switching LCD can act as a... — Stephen Grossman

[Forefront]
Device Bends Infrared Beams With Minimal Loss
Researchers at the Department of Energy's Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., have created a cheesecloth-like bar that bends infrared beams with low loss. This development may provide a simple, essentially two-dimensional method for... — Lisa Eccles

[Forefront]
Researchers Use UV Light To Control The Size Of Nanopores
Scientists engaged in a multi-institution project based in Albuquerque, N.M., have found that UV light can be used to make precise size adjustments to nanopores. The study, which involves Sandia National Labs and the University of New Mexico, is... — Lisa Eccles

[Forefront]
Film Industry Plans To Speed Internet Bits And Boost Its Revenues
To understand what will increase the Internet's already voracious appetite for bandwidth, storage, and content protection, consider this. Within 12 to 24 months, it may be possible to deliver full-length feature films via the Internet. That was one... — Stephen Grossman

[Forefront]
Company Wire
• Graphical display software supplier Metro Link Inc. and RTOS developer OnCore Systems Corp. have teamed up to provide graphical solutions with FAA RTCA/EUROCAE DO-178B certification for the mission-critical and avionics... — Staff

[Forefront]
Microdisplay Module Brings Sharper, Brighter Images To Viewfinders
Backlit thin-film-transistor (TFT) direct-view displays are often employed in camera viewfinders. But they tend to be afflicted with pixelation, high power consumption, and low optical efficiency. The CMD3X2A QVGA microdisplay viewfinder module,... — Stephen Grossman

[Forefront]
CMOS-Based Sensor Cuts Chip Count In Digital Still Cameras
In the past, designers of digital still cameras first selected a CCD sensor and then added the necessary companion chips. But doing so led to multiple-chip-count configurations. This hindered a compact design and made it impossible to produce a... — Stephen Grossman

[Forefront]
Fast, 10-Bit ADC Taps 0.25-μm CMOS Process
Combining a deep-submicron CMOS process with a pipeline architecture, STMicroelectronics has readied a high-speed, very low-power analog-to-digital converter (ADC) family that operates from a single 2.5-V supply. The TSA1002 consumes just 50 mW at... — Ashok Bindra

[Forefront]
Tri-Band Power Amplifier Enables Worldwide GSM Mobile Phones
A new triband power amplifier, the CX77302, enables GSM mobile phones that can be used around the world. Designed by Conexant Systems, this device operates in the 900-, 1800-, and 1900-MHz communications bands. Consequently, it provides a singular... — Ashok Bindra

[Forefront]
Software-Coverage Test Tool Tracks Execution Paths
Most software-coverage tools check whether a particular statement has been executed. McCabe Test from McCabe & Associates takes coverage testing a step further by tracking execution paths as well. This distinction is important because 100% code... — William Wong

[Forefront]
Wireless Module Adds Voice Capability To PDA
The VisorPhone module adds GSM phone and short-messaging functions to Handspring's Visor personal digital assistant (PDA). This device also modifies the PDA's address book, enabling storage of five pages of single-tap dialing... — Lisa Eccles

[Forefront]
Talking Browser Opens E-Business Sites To The Blind
The Home Page Reader 3.0 for Windows allows many visually impaired and blind users to buy, sell, and trade on the Internet. Offered by IBM, the device is a low-cost, easy-to-use, talking web browser that works with e-business web... — Lisa Eccles

[Forefront]
Tool Debugs Linux Kernels Without Instrumented Code
Designers can trace applications within a Linux kernel with SpyKer, an event trace and visualization tool from LynuxWorks. Prior to this release, kernel tracing required a custom kernel with instrumented code so the trace application could hook into... — William Wong

[Careers]
Identify And Manage Work-Related Stress
With complex engineering problems, short deadlines, and not enough people and equipment, the demands placed on engineers today can make any design job highly stressful. For engineers who are used to making and implementing decisions analytically,... — Peter Varhol

[New Products]

• Analog — Staff

• Motor Control — Staff

• Packaging/Enclosures — Staff

• Passive Components — Staff

• Power — Staff

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