[Cover Feature] Power Demands Drive Advances In Automotive Applications
Increased demand for electrical power in new and emerging automotive applications are forcing today's car makers to challenge established power control and conversion techniques. This is driving rapid advances in power semiconductor and packaging technologies for automotive applications, not least in the area of the power MOSFET. Compared to general-purpose power semiconductors, those destined for automotive applications typically face more stringent demands on voltage and...
—
Steve Clemente
, et al.
[News Feature] Medical Reliability A Medical Matter
Medical device technology has recently advanced rapidly, enabling better and less intrusive patient care. Semiconductor designs are ever-shrinking and combine analogue circuits and digital signal processing in a single device, helping designers bring new generations of reliable, low-power, implant devices to market. The availability of numerous analogue and digital IP building blocks will help to reduce development time and costs, and simplify the implementation of technology in...
—
Robert Tong
[News Feature] Architectural Attitudes On Power
ATCA addresses the needs of telecom and datacom applications with an open standard documented in PICMG 3.0. It aims to provide high levels of availability via redundancy and hot-swapping techniques, high packaging density, reduction of development cost and time to market for system developers and an environment for standardised hardware support from multiple suppliers. The physical structure for ATCA consists of chassis or shelf units available in several capacities to fit...
—
Conor Quinn
[News Feature] Mobile Manoeuvres
CPS and SiGe have decided to collaborate to provide network operators and cellular service providers with a positioning solution for the delivery of seamless, reliable location-based services. Both companies demonstrated seamless coverage with fast location fixes by interfacing a GSM cellular handset equipped with SiGe Semiconductor's SE8901L global positioning system (GPS) receiver IC to a network powered by the CPS Matrix system. The combination of these technologies in an Enhanced GPS...
—
Paul Whytock
[News Feature] In-Camera Editing Focuses On A New Design Era
Over the last decade, digital still camera (DSC) manufacturers have doggedly pursued a strategy of increasing megapixel count; shortening boot-up time, shutter lag and shot-to-shot delay; offering more optical zoom lens choices and reducing power consumption. The results have been impressive and translated into phenomenal sales. Yet enhancement of the digital image, for either creative or corrective purposes, remained a post-exposure, post-download process dependent on secondary...
—
John Daniels
[Editorial] Cell Mates
The industry rumour mill has been grinding at turbo speed recently, having been kicked into gear by whispers that Apple may strike a deal with Sony whereby the computer company and the Japanese entertainment giant become Cell mates. This, of course, does not relate to any shady corporate deals the two may have been up to, but the possibility exists that Apple will be able to take advantage of the extremely powerful Cell processor that Sony and its other Cell mates, IBM and...
—
Paul Whytock
[Upfront] World’s Smallest Photocouplers With 5kV Isolation Voltage
Toshiba Electronics Europe has launched a miniature surface mount package technology that it claims delivers the world's smallest photocouplers with 5kV isolation voltage. Suitable for applications that need to combine high-speed switching with isolation levels to international safety standards, a photocoupler-IC in the new SDIP (Shrink Dual Inline Package) will have dimensions of 6.8mm x 4.5mm x 3.6mm. Toshiba photocouplers based on the new SDIP technology offer the...
—
Paul Whytock
[Upfront] Changing Names
Aeroflex has changed the name of Racal Instruments Wireless Solutions (RIWS) to Aeroflex. The adoption of the new name completes the transition of RIWS to the Aeroflex brand. Aeroflex purchased the Wireless Solutions Group based in Burnham, England, from Racal Instruments Group Holdings on July 31, 2003....
—
Paul Whytock
[Upfront] Actel Claims Lowest Cost FPGAs
Actel has launched its ProASIC3 and ProASIC3E families, the company's third generation of flash-based programmable logic solutions and what it claims are the world's lowest-cost FPGAs. With the ProASIC3/E families, Actel believes it is addressing strong market demand for full-featured, cost-effective FPGAs for consumer, automotive and other price-sensitive application areas. This value-based segment represents the fastest growing component of the FPGA market, which is estimated to be $500M...
—
Paul Whytock
[Upfront] Thales Ties Up With Wind River On Software Development
Thales has formed an alliance with Wind River that will provide Thales' computer activities with early access to next-generation, market-specific Wind River Platforms and software development licenses for a range of real-time operating systems and development environments. By porting the company's VxWorks Board-Support Packages (BSPs) to these platforms ahead of time, Thales' computers activities enable customers to market new applications faster. With this range of BSPs, Thales...
—
Paul Whytock
[Upfront] Automotive Telematics Unit Is Ready To Roll
Plextek has developed a reference design for an automotive in-vehicle telematics unit based on Wavecom technology, as a first step in the partnership between the two companies. The cost-effective platform offers a customisable and proven telematics solution that is ready to manufacture and therefore provides a rapid time-to-market, says Plextek. The unit has a range of on-board features in addition to the GSM/GPRS wireless connectivity, including GPS positioning, data processing...
—
Paul Whytock
[Upfront] Small But Powerfully Formed
Samsung has created a very small, low-power multimedia memory card (MMC) for mobile phones. The MMCmicro memory card has been designed to overcome a major hurdle in cell phone design — achieving high performance with a low-power, removable memory card, now smaller than the size of a thumbnail. With dimensions of 12 x 14 x 1.1mm, Samsung's device is one-third the size of most reduced-size multimedia cards (RS-MMC). Each card can operate on 1.8 or 3.3V of power. The card...
—
Paul Whytock
[Upfront] Agilent Validates 3G SerDes Core
Agilent Technologies has validated its third-generation SerDes core in a 90nm CMOS process technology. Due to the core's good noise immunity, modular design and low power consumption, storage and networking OEMs are now able to embed as many SerDes channels (each operating at up to 6.25Gb/s) as needed onto a single ASIC chip. "Our latest 90-nm validated SerDes core offers customers the flexibility to embed hundreds of SerDes channels on a single chip," said Kin Chan, director of...
—
Paul Whytock
[Point of View] Making A Case For An Holistic Approach To Design
Electronics design now requires an understanding of a broad range of market requirements, application complexities, and advanced technologies and techniques. Product differentiation has become a fundamental design requirement. Cost reduction that facilitates competitive pricing throughout the lifespan of a device is crucial to success. Time-to-market is an ever-shortening cycle. Nanometer process technologies need a new perspective, while what have previously been considered fringe...
—
Marco Sabatini
[Pease Porridge] What’s All This Comparator Stuff, Anyhow?
There are many comparators that you can buy to provide quick (sub-microsecond) response when a large signal changes and crosses a threshold voltage, such as a reference voltage. Unfortunately, comparators don't work well when the input signals are very small. The ability to respond correctly, without offset, drift, or noise, is normally impossible to do with a comparator unless the signal is moving more than a millivolt beyond the reference voltage. And with a comparator, you can't add a...
—
Bob Pease
[Basics of Design (Sponsored Editorial)] PFC Takes The Stress Out Of Power Applications
Conventional offline switch-mode power converters create nonsinusoidal input currents with a high harmonic content. This causes stress for the power wiring, circuit breakers, and electric utility. In addition, these harmonics can affect other electronic equipment connected to the same power line. Active power factor correction (PFC) that reshapes the input current before its application to the switch-mode supply solves this problem. PFC has become important since the European Union...
—
Sam Davis
