[Cover Feature] Tactical Training: Displaying The Right Attitude
These days' modern sensor-rich displays for military command and control have to integrate graphics video and radar components to provide tactical awareness. Although simulation of this data provides one method of training operators, direct recording of the display screens during realistic training missions allows for analysis and debriefing of an actual situation. Capturing the contents of a high-resolution computer display containing real-time sensor data and graphics has been a...
—
David Johnson
[Direct Feature] Looks Good, Sounds Right
Home-theatre systems, AV, and DVD receivers have become much more complex since the introduction of digital audio. As analogue hi-fi components continue to be used, these audio hubs must seamlessly interoperate with both analogue and digital equipment. Today, the migration from stereo to multichannel audio further increases complexity. Modern AV receivers must support a variety of formats, such as 5.1, 6.1, or 7.1 channels, as well as traditional stereo, using analogue and digital signal...
—
Duncan Macadie
[News Feature] Conversion Compliance For Power Over Ethernet
See Figure 1 IEEE Standard 802.3af defines the specifications and protocols for distribution of low power (<15.4W) at low voltage (-48Vdc) over standard existing Ethernet cabling. Over the next few years, Power over Ethernet (PoE) is expected to become a standard feature on all high-end switches and routers. For example, applications such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and LAN wireless are expected to grow to 18...
—
Victor Guijarro
[News Feature] Capacitance And Impedance Converters—A High-Precision “First”
The world's first high-precision, integrated converters that address the signal-processing challenges of direct capacitance-to-digital and impedance-to-digital conversion have been developed by Analog Devices (ADI). The company believes its capacitance-to-digital converter (CDC) and impedance-to-digital converter (IDC) devices attain a level of precision previously achieved with conventional analogue voltage-to-digital converters aided by a significant number of discrete...
—
Paul Whytock
[News Feature] Image Conscious
Advancing technology continues to advance the quality of the television pictures in our living rooms. Consumers see the quality of DVD and HDTV pictures and they demand better pictures from all video providers. Set-top box (STB) manufacturers have met the challenge, with today's digital products producing better-than-ever images. Two key areas of improvement involve anti-alias and reconstruction video filters. Microelectronics has replaced bulky expensive discrete component filters. To...
—
Bill Laumeister
[Editorial] Opening The Loop
Like many people these days, I am a SOHO operator, and generally speaking, this works well. I say generally because there are those rare occasions when the whole concept is threatened by forces way out of our control. It all started with my computer telling me I couldn't send emails because I now had to have SMTP authentication. This had suddenly become a requirement from BT Yahoo. No problem, I naively thought at the time. Into Outlook Express I go, straight to the Accounts...
—
Paul Whytock
[Upfront] Power Play On Architecture Specifications
Thales' Computers Business group is joining forces with IBM and other companies to form the Power Organization (Power.org), an open standards community that will define open specifications related to Power Architecture technology. Other Power.Org members include AMCC, Bull, Cadence Design Systems, Chartered Semiconductor, Culturecom, IBM, Jabil Circuits, Novell, Red Hat, Shanghai Belling, Sony, Synopsys, Tundra Semiconductor, and Wistron. Power Architecture is a...
—
Paul Whytock
[Upfront] Eurofighter Selects INTEGRITY System
Green Hills Software's INTEGRITY RTOS and AdaMULTI Integrated Development Environment (IDE) are being used in the development and implementation of mission-critical systems deployed in the latest Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft. The INTEGRITY RTOS will be a critical component in a number of the aircraft's "line-replaceable" items. David Smith, software manager of Eurofighter GmbH, the consortium managing Eurofighter's development and production, says "The INTEGRITY RTOS is an...
—
Paul Whytock
[Upfront] Scope Saves On Size And Power Consumption
Yokogawa's SignalXplorer DL9000 series of digital oscilloscopes features a maximum frequency bandwidth of 1.5GHz, maximum sampling rate of 10GS/s, and maximum memory length of 6.25MW. These 4-channel instruments have an enhanced waveform accumulation function that allows up to 450 million digitised points to be acquired and displayed every second. Measuring 350 × 200 × 178 mm and weighing only 6.5 kg, the DL9000 Series is the smallest, most lightweight instrument in its class in...
—
Paul Whytock
[Upfront] Low-Power ZigBee Partnership Deal
Atmel and Ember Corporation have decided to partner on ultra-low-power ZigBee semiconductor developments. Atmel's AVR 8bit Flash microcontrollers combined with Ember's wireless semiconductor systems let OEMs take advantage of the emerging ZigBee application market with a complete, integrated-microprocessor, radio and software solution, claim the companies. The partnership has already borne fruit, with many OEMs bringing real-world ZigBee-based products to market. For example,...
—
Paul Whytock
[Upfront] Cool Package Will Handle Twice The Current
STMicroelectronics and Siliconix concluded an agreement whereby ST will license a new power MOSFET packaging technology from Siliconix. The new package provides good thermal performance via top and bottom heat-dissipation paths in systems using forced-air cooling. Offered by Siliconix under the PolarPAK name, the package's leadframe and plastic encapsulation are similar to those used for most standard power MOSFET packages. But because the package dissipates heat very...
—
Paul Whytock
[Pease Porridge] What’s All This Power Stuff, Anyhow?
Sometimes a lot of power is just right. Sometimes 200 hp in a car is a lot better than 100. Sometimes even 1 hp gets a bicycle up the hill quite fast. Yet a bicycle can cruise along at 6 or 8 mph with less than 0.1 hp. That's part of the elegance of the bicycle, as an extremely efficient mode of transportation. Yet by using external sources of power, I can go uphill much faster than I can by pedaling my bike. The dollars per mile can drop way down, if I count my time at even $5...
—
Bob Pease
