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ISSUE DATE: JULY 21, 2003 OPTIONS
Flat-panel displays, WLAN chips, Take advantage of USB On-The-Go, L-C transformer adds low-pass filtering

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July 21, 2003 - In This Issue


Editorial: Need More Information?
Table of various contacts for more information regarding the "last mile" of fiber to the home (FTTH)  — Mark David


TechView: Analog & Power -- Design Platform Facilitates Sensorless Motion Control
The intellectual property (IP) library offered by International Rectifier’s iMotion can design variable-speed motion control systems with or without encoders. For example, the IRMCO203 algorithm is a licensable object code IP library for...  — David G. Morrison


New Products: More Embedded
Java Development Support Tool Runs On WebSphere And Eclipse A development tool designed to enhance Java application development includes Code Audit and Code Metrics modules, Javadoc audit and repair tools, a design patterns database, a...  — William Wong

[Technology Report]
Flat-Panel Displays: Poised To Take Over Large And Small Screens
Look around anywhere and you're bound to see flat-panel display technology at work—at the office, your doctor's office, bank and retail-store terminals, your home, your car, wherever. Most notable in this arena are large-screen (diagonals...  — Roger Allan

[Leapfrog: First Look]
High-Performance 10-Gbit Ethernet Switch Knocks Price Down
As desktop platforms migrate to Gigabit Ethernet to improve the data bandwidth, servers and network backbones must move to 10 Gbits/s to avoid bottlenecks that disrupt data flow. However, 10-Gbit Ethernet switches have been pretty expensive,...  — Dave Bursky

[Leapfrog: First Look]
New Mini-Card Form Factor Embeds PCI Express
Getting on PCI Express just got a little easier for laptops and embedded devices with the release of PCI Express Mini Card Electromechanical Specification Revision 1.0. This compact platform targets standard devices like 802.11x wireless adapters,...  — William Wong

[Design View / Design Solution]
Take Advantage Of All That USB On-The-Go Has To Offer
Until very recently, no common interface existed between handheld devices and PC peripherals. Then, this past January, Sony released its CLIE PDA with Universal Serial Bus On-The-Go (USB OTG) functionality for a common, interoperable solution...  — Alan Chang , et al.

[Ideas For Design]
L-C Transformer Cuts Cost And Size, Adds Low-Pass Filtering
L-C equivalents of microwave quarter-wave transformers provide cost savings, miniaturization, and supplementary low-pass filtering. Typically, these transformers have been synthesized directly with published design tables.1, 2 But the...  — Richard M. Kurzrok

[Ideas For Design]
Analog Pink-Noise Source Drives Earphones Or Speakers
Acoustic white noise is useful as a masking sound to improve privacy in offices, or as a soothing sound field to help concentration and sleep. It has also been said to aid in therapy for people suffering from tinnitus (ringing in the ears). White...  — Dick Cappels

[Editorial]
Fiber To The Home Will Push The Pace Of Convergence
While there has been much talk about the convergence of voice, data, and video applications, the reality is that very few service providers have delivered this "triple play" of signals into the home in a unified fashion. All that is set to change as...  — Mark David

[POV: Point Of View]
Turn The WEEE Challenge Into A Fresh Opportunity
Since its inception, the idea of sustainable development has sparked heated debates over corporations' responsibility for the waste their products produce. Recently, the European Union (EU) directed that by 2007, European OEMs will be fully...  — Hagen R. Wenzek

[Pease Porridge]
Bob's Mailbox
Dear Bob: My first car was a 1955 secondhand Cadillac DeVille convertible; tube radio, automatic station seeker, service every 1000 miles, total life 100,000 miles (Swiss miles, up the mountains), end of life due to multiple mechanical...  — Bob Pease

[Beyond Technology]
Want Job Security? Get A Security Job
Job security is literally taking on a new meaning. Domestic security concerns, tied so closely into the nation's reliance on telecom and computers, has opened up tremendous job opportunities for EEs and computer scientists who can design and...  — Ron Schneiderman

[TechView: The Industry]
WLAN Chips Target Client Applications
The rollout of 802.11 wireless local-area network (WLAN) chips continues at a frantic pace as semiconductor companies compete for an ever-expanding market. Atheros Communications joins this throng by announcing its third generation of...  — Louis E. Frenzel

[TechView: The Industry]
POL Converters Make Tracking A Breeze
The PTHxx series of plug-in power modules incorporate Auto-Track sequencing technology, which allows multiple modules to be powered up and down in sequence without external circuitry. Through this technology from Texas Instruments, the modules can...  — David G. Morrison

[TechView: Analog & Power]
Integrated Design Platform Simplifies Motion Control
A design platform for variable-speed motion-control systems integrates the related digital, analog, and power technologies to simplify and speed up system design. It also can optimize system performance and reduce design costs. Called iMotion, the...  — David G. Morrison

[TechView: Analog & Power]
Power-Management ICs Target Multiple Supplies And USB OTG
The SMM665 power-supply controller from Summit Microelectronics monitors, margins, and sequences up to six voltage supplies at 0.3 to 5.5 V. This chip performs both on and off sequencing of supplies, such as those generated by bricks and other dc-dc...  — David G. Morrison

[TechView: Communications]
Dielectric Antenna Solves Tough Integration Problems
One nagging problem with microwave antennas in cell phones and other products is that the user's presence seriously affects them. Bringing the antenna near the user detunes it. Also, a huge portion of the radiated or received energy is lost in the...  — Louis E. Frenzel

[TechView: Communications]
White House Initiates Spectrum-Management Study
The electromagnetic frequency spectrum is like all other natural resources—there's only so much of it. That's all the more reason to use what we have efficiently and cleverly. The management of spectrum falls to the Federal Communications...  — Louis E. Frenzel

[TechView: Embedded]
RTOS Runs Soft RISC On System-On-A-Programmable Chip
The Nios RISC architecture morphs into version 3 with the latest release of Altera's Nios Development Kit. The kit includes Altera's Stratix high-density FPGA. Kits are also available for other FPGA product lines and include all of the necessary...  — William Wong

[TechView: Embedded]
Java Jumps Ahead With RAD
Rave, SDKs, and new technology permeated the Sun One Conference In San Francisco this year. Project Rave was one of the new technologies displayed. Based on the JavaServer Faces technology, drag-and-drop layout of user interfaces and component...  — William Wong

[TechView: Embedded]
Software News Clips
A New C Compiler And IDE speed 8-bit application development. Version 8 of Rabbit Semiconductor's Dynamic C Premier development environment incorporates new features like syntax highlighting in the editor, an improved debugger interface, and...  — William Wong

[TechView: Components & Test]
Miniscule Absolute Encoder Cuts Assembly Time In Half
A novel absolute encoder module that comes in 12- and 16-bit versions uses a modular approach to reduce the number of assembly steps from as many as eight down to just four (see the figure). Agilent...  — Roger Allan

[TechView: Components & Test]
Analysis Software A Boon To Power Measurement
The PMA2 Powermeasure Analysis Software crafted by LeCroy brings the analysis capability, customization, and ease of use of the company's X-Stream technology to power-measurement applications. Designed for use with the WavePro 7000 series and...  — Roger Allan

[TechView: Components & Test]
LCD Toolkit Offers A Quick Fix To Display Design
The LCD ToolKIT delivers a convenient solution for accelerating LCD flat-panel display design. Developed by Optrex America, it contains an LCD panel, a thin-film transistor controller board with an on-screen display, a backlighting inverter board...  — Roger Allan

[TechView: Digital]
Hardwired FPGA Option Shrinks Chip Size And Cost
The large chip areas consumed by high-density FPGAs tend to make the devices rather costly for volume production. As chip size grows, performance likely decreases because wire lengths and parasitic capacitances increase as well. By creating a...  — Dave Bursky

[TechView: Digital]
Breaking News
A new self-aligned gate structure used in a NAND-based flash memory allows designers at Toshiba Corp. and SanDisk Corp. to craft NAND flash-memory chips with capacities of up to 4 Gbits. The gate's ability to self-align to the active area of each...  — Dave Bursky

[TechView: Digital]
MIPS-Family 64-Bot CPUs Hit Gigahertz Clock Speeds
Taking two paths to deliver high-performance 64-bit MIPS-compatible processors, PMC-Sierra Inc. has extended its RM9000 series of 1-GHz highly-integrated processors. The RM9220 and 9224 contain dual processor cores, three 10/100/1000 Ethernet...  — Dave Bursky

[TechView: EDA]
SystemVerilog Support Leads Debuggers' Upgrades
In the latest versions of its Debussy and Verdi debugging systems, Novas Software includes support for SystemVerilog, making them among the first debug systems to support the emerging standard. The debuggers will work with SystemVerilog...  — David Maliniak

[TechView: EDA]
Accellera Gives Nod To Standards
Reaching a significant milestone, Accellera's board and technical committee members approved four new standards for language-based design verification. Key EDA vendors have already gotten behind the standards as Accellera prepares for the next step:...  — David Maliniak

[TechView: EDA]
EDA Update
Configurable IP cores for PCI express technology are now available through Denali Software. Denali will directly sell and support application-specific configurations of the IBM-developed core through its own channels along with its existing PureSpec...  — David Maliniak

[TechView: EDA]
EDA Update
The IEEE'S Design Automation Standards Committee (DASC) has approved a project to use Verisity's e verification language as a basis for standardization. The IEEE Standards Association assigned the number 1647 to the project. The e language becomes...  — David Maliniak

[New Products]

• Low-Cost Tester Targets 200-Pin SO-DIMM DDR Memories  — Roger Allan

• Connectorless Logic Analyzer Probes Reduce Capacitive Loading By 80%  — Roger Allan

• Powerful Microwave Synthesizer Offers Intuitive User Interface  — Roger Allan

• Novel Instrument Measures Environmental Electrocompatibility  — Roger Allan

• Low-Cost General-Purpose LCR Meter Exhibits Exceptional Accuracy  — Roger Allan

• Turnkey System Designed For Handset Power Amps  — Roger Allan

• EJTAG Emulators For MIPS CPUs Pass 3-Mbyte/s Download Speeds  — Roger Allan

• SO-DIMMs Run Cool At 400 MHz, Yet Deliver Densest Storage  — Dave Bursky

• Chip-Scale Package Cuts Space By 60% Versus US8  — Dave Bursky

• Interface Pushes Data-Transfer Speeds To 225 MHz  — Dave Bursky

• Clock Dividers Keep Jitter, Skew To A Minimum  — Dave Bursky

• Controller Chip Ties Parallel Buses To The Serial I²C Bus  — Dave Bursky

• Low-Power Pseudo-SRAMs Offer 16- And 32-Mbit Capacities  — Dave Bursky

• PLL Frequency Synthesizers Operate To 8 GHz  — Louis E. Frenzel

• Diversity IF-To-Baseband Receiver Eases EDGE Basestation Design  — Louis E. Frenzel

• 220-MHz Transmit Combiner Cuts Intermodulation Interference  — Louis E. Frenzel

• Stackable SFF Transceivers Splash Onto The Market  — Louis E. Frenzel

• Operating-System Software Steps Up Gateway Performance  — Louis E. Frenzel

• Convert Gaussian Laser Beams Into Flat-Tops With Near 100% Efficiency  — Louis E. Frenzel

• Bare Die Implements Bluetooth In Ultra-Small Modules  — Louis E. Frenzel

• MESFET Boasts 13-dB Gain At 2 GHz  — David G. Morrison

• Buck Converter Occupies Just 9 mm²  — David G. Morrison

• Difference Amp Steers Performance For 42-V Automotive Systems  — David G. Morrison

• Quarter-Brick Converters Deliver Up To 300 W At 12 V  — David G. Morrison

• 1 U Medical Power Supply Configures In A Quarter Of A Million Ways  — David G. Morrison

• Preconfigured Systems Combine Power, Cooling, And Rack  — David G. Morrison

• 3- By 5-in. Supply Achieves 6.6 W/in.³  — David G. Morrison

• SIP-Style Point-Of-Loads Deliver 10 A  — David G. Morrison

• SBC Built To Run In Rugged Environments  — William Wong

• Low-Power Module Corrals Windows CE.Net  — William Wong

• MCU Takes On LIN And Motor Control  — William Wong

• Motherboards With Dual Xeons Support 12-Gbyte ECC  — William Wong

• MCU Brings Low-Cost Option With 32 Kbytes Of Memory  — William Wong

• Software Turns Palm Into Handheld Instruments  — William Wong

• Conduction-Cooled, Dual PowerPC SBC Surfs On StarFabric  — William Wong

• Flat Panel Distinguishes Novel Industrial PC  — William Wong

• Single-Board Computer Sports PMC Expansion  — William Wong

• C/C++/EC++ Compiler Generates Smaller, Faster Code  — William Wong





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