[Cover Feature] Putting EDR To The Test
The success of Bluetooth will be enhanced by the introduction of Bluetooth 2.0 plus Enhanced Data Rate (EDR). Offering faster data throughput, reduced power consumption, and the potential for multiple devices working simultaneously, it is a compelling proposition for potential users. Even so, it raises a number of important new issues for manufacturers, not least of which is the complex process of product testing and regulatory compliance. This process remains critical to the acceptance and...
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Steve Flooks
[Direct Feature] Making The Most Of Discretes
Advances in design and improved packaging has made it possible to develop optimised discrete semiconductor devices with low saturation voltage and Schottky rectifiers with very low forward voltage that meet heat generation, efficiency, space, and cost requirements. The collector power dissipation PC = VCEsat x IC is a major contributor to losses in bipolar transistors. Since the collector current IC is predefined by the application, the device manufacturer has only the option to...
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Thomas Bluhm
[Direct Feature] Cracking The Code Automatically
Over the past few years, use of block-diagram-based tools has become the preferred method for modeling and simulating complex dynamic systems. These tools provide the graphics for simulation and model-based design that facilitate rapid model construction, execution, and analysis of simulation results. Models developed with these tools have clean, well-defined interfaces for use in multiple aspects of the system design process. As a result of advances in automated code-generation...
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Mike Dickens
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[News Feature] World’s Smallest Ethernet Controller
Claimed as the world's first 28pin stand-alone Ethernet controller, providing the smallest whole-product Ethernet solution for embedded applications, the ENC28J60 from Microchip is targeted at remote communication between embedded applications and local or global networks. The company also unveiled the first ten members of its high-pin-count, high-density memory PIC18F87J10 flash microcontroller family. It's said to double the performance in low-voltage applications by delivering...
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Paul Whytock
[Editorial] Women In Engineering?
In the May edition, we published a Bob Pease column that asked the question in true Pease style: "What's this woman scientist stuff anyhow?" For those of you who didn't catch it in the issue, go take a look at http://europe.elecdesign.com/Articles/ArticleID/10425/10425.html. I mention this not to embark on any discussion here about whether the column made some strong well-reasoned arguments to support its premise or whether the whole thing had a chauvinistic tone...
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Paul Whytock
[Upfront] Fujitsu And SiGe Deliver WiMAX Reference Design For The 3.5GHz Band
SiGe Semiconductor and Fujitsu Microelectronics unveiled a reference design that they claim will provide manufacturers with a production-ready blueprint for the development of WiMAX-capable broadband wireless access systems. The reference design includes all of the software and hardware required to design residential and enterprise customer premise equipment. It is based on the Fujitsu WiMAX-compliant baseband SoC, the new MB87M3400, and the SE7351L/SE7051L RF transceiver chipset...
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Paul Whytock
[Upfront] Chips Inc. Goes For The ARC 605 Core
Chips Inc has licensed an ARC 605 processor core for use in a new MPEG2 codec design. Targeted at high-volume set-top box applications, Chips selected the ARC 605 core because it is smaller, lower power and provides up to twice the megahertz performance than competitive cores, says...
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Paul Whytock
[Upfront] VoP Deal For ST And Octasic
STMicroelectronics and fabless telecom semiconductor company Octasic have signed an agreement to develop a family of Voice-over-Packet (VoP) ICs. The first devices to be developed under this agreement will be based on ST's 0.13µm and 90nm process technology. They will feature Octasic's designs for VoP and Voice Quality Enhancement, which includes technology for line and acoustic echo cancellation, noise reduction capabilities, vocoding, and packetisation. The first IC will...
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Paul Whytock
[Upfront] RF Transistor Milestone
Freescale Semiconductor, supplier of high-power radio-frequency (RF) power transistors for 2.5G and 3G wireless base-station amplifiers, has shipped more than 10 million high-power, high-frequency RF power transistors in plastic packages. Freescale's TO Series RF power plastic-packaging technology provides an economic solution for RF applications such as cellular base-station amplifiers that support GSM, EDGE, CDMA, and W-CDMA...
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Paul Whytock
[Upfront] Latens Deal Aims To Beat The Pirates
Latens Systems has ported its IP CAS to Texas Instruments digital media processor platform. This, says the company, means a new generation of content-oriented services, such as Pay-TV and Video on Demand (VOD) services via IP set top boxes, personal video recorders (PVR), personal computers (PCs) and other consumer devices, will be protected against piracy. The combination of Latens' solution with TI's TMS320DM64x generation of digital media processors delivers an optimal and...
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Paul Whytock
[Upfront] Queen Honours Electronics Companies
Amongst this year's winners of The Queen's Awards for Enterprise, the UK's leading accolade for business success, were several companies from the electronics sector. Included were supplier of electronic components, Arcotronics; developer of computer graphic boards, displays, and accessories, Datapath; designer of electronic control systems for amusement and gaming machines, Heber; supplier of market research services to the global electronics industry, IMS Research; manufacturer...
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Paul Whytock
[Upfront] NI Cuts Visteon Delivery Times
Visteon has adopted National Instruments (NI) products, including PXI modular instruments, NI TestStand test management software, LabWindows/CVI, and NI-IMAQ vision software as part of the company's plan to cut delivery time, costs, and floor space in manufacturing. "With this new test system, we reduced our delivery time to our customers from eight to six weeks, with a record time of two weeks, due to software reuse. In addition, we saved more than $13 million and reduced floor...
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Paul Whytock
[Upfront] Lattice And Synplicity Extend OEM Agreement
Lattice Semiconductor and Synplicity extended their agreement for Lattice to OEM Synplify synthesis tools, which support all Lattice digital programmable-logic devices. The new deal means Synplify will continue to be included in the Lattice ispLEVER design tool suite and the new, non-volatile LatticeXP devices. The LatticeXP devices use a combination of SRAM and flash technology to provide a non-volatile, in-system reconfigurable FPGA family that offers a single-chip, secure...
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Paul Whytock
[Upfront] Dialog Financials
Dialog Semiconductor reported sales of EUR18.6 million for the first quarter of 2005 (compared to EUR 23 million for Q1 2004). Sales from products for the automotive and industrial sectors increased by 16% compared to Q1 2004. But this was not enough to offset the lower wireless revenue for Q1 2005 that were down by EUR 5.3 million compared to Q1 2004. The company's operational costs in Q1 2005 have been reduced by 8.2% compared to Q1 2004, and by 13.8% compared with Q4...
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Paul Whytock
[Upfront] Lowest Power-Per-Channel DC-Coupled VGA
Analog Devices introduced what it claims is the industry's highest bandwidth, lowest power-per-channel, dc-coupled VGA (variable gain amplifier). It is 50% faster and one-third smaller than other solutions, says ADI. Good dc characteristics make the AD8337 VGA suitable for a range of high-channel-count industrial and instrumentation applications, such as PET (positron emission tomography) medical imaging, industrial ultrasound, RF (radio frequency) test instruments, and high-performance AGC...
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Paul Whytock
[Pease Porridge] What’s All This Resonance Stuff, Anyhow?
I was walking down a hallway on the top floor of NSC's building D, when something I heard made me suspicious. It sounded like a series of tiny clicks rattling around the hallway. I stopped and slapped my thigh to make a sharp sound. I heard TICK-TICK, tick-tick, tick-tick. I was surprised, because there was no obvious reason why this hallway should do this. It even had a carpeted floor. I tried the slap in several other hallways—and in tile bathrooms—and got almost none of this...
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Bob Pease
