Articles
Take a Top-Down View of Industrial Imaging
February 12, 2009 8:23 am | by Jon Titus, Senior Technical Editor | CommentsBefore you think about using an industrial imaging system to solve an inspection problem, you must exactly define the problem or problems you need to solve. To start, John Keating, product marketing manager at Cognex breaks vision tasks into four categories: inspection that detects flaws, gauging that performs a dimensional measurement, identification that reads information, and guidance that directs movement.
Achieving High Efficiency with Power Switches
February 12, 2009 8:18 am | by Gwan-Bon Koo, Senior Engineer, Fairchild Semiconductor | CommentsIn general, high frequency operation allows the use of small-sized passive components in switch mode power supplies (SMPS), while it causes switching losses to increase in a hard switching mode. To reduce switching losses at high switching frequencies, many soft switching techniques have been developed. Among them, load resonant techniques and zero voltage transition techniques are widely used.
Brainstorm: Technology Obsolescence
February 5, 2009 3:28 am | by Edited by Jason Lomberg | CommentsWhat technology will become obsolete in the near future?
Interview With CEO of Dialog Semiconductor
February 3, 2009 5:53 am | CommentsDialog Semiconductor has had a something of a rollercoaster ride in recent times. Once part of the European semiconductor industry’s first order, it suffered many years of poor management and complacency that left it foundering. With the appointment of Jalal Bagherli, the firm is finally back on its feet. He has put together a ‘redeem team’ of executives to aid him in recapturing the glories of the past. ECN’s Mike Green gets some insight on how he is going about it.
Linux Update
January 20, 2009 6:19 am | by Jon Titus, Senior Technical Editor | CommentsA view of Linux from several perspectives will help embedded-system designers better understand how they can use this open-source operating system. Experts at Eurotech, Texas Instruments, and Rowebots share their approaches. "Contrary to what some engineers might think, Linux provides a mature operating system," said Arlen Nipper, president and CTO at Eurotech. "You can obtain best-in-class security, TCP/IP stacks, and support for wireless networking, for example. The associated code drops into Linux and works right away."
Semiconductor Highlight: Standards for Embedded Microcontrollers
January 20, 2009 6:00 am | by Reinhard Keil, ARM | CommentsTypically, industries use standards to improve product quality and enable component sharing across projects. In practice, such standards achieve wide acceptance since the synergistic effects provide significant benefits to the user community. The hardware and software industry is full of such standards, but there is an exception
Industry Focus: Automotive Electronics
January 20, 2009 5:14 am | by Akio Nezu, Fujitsu Microelectronics America | CommentsDespite recent economic challenges facing the auto industry, many leaders are moving forward with new and innovative systems for in-vehicle entertainment, and sophisticated audio-video capabilities. Industry analysts such as iSuppli Corporation have cited significant consumer demand for audio-video connectivity and networking in the vehicle, noting that the industry is at a point where A/V connectivity clearly influences sales.
Looking forward
January 20, 2009 4:49 am | by Alix Paultre, Editor-in-Chief | CommentsBy the time you read this column, Barak Obama will be the President of the United States of America. Politics aside, I think that this is a positive thing for many reasons, the most predominant being that this is a President that understands technology. He was in High School when the first generation of computers arrived, and came of age...
Security is All in Vein
January 16, 2009 10:09 am | by Alfred Poor, Contributing Editor | CommentsWe’ve seen biometric scanning devices so often in movies and television shows that many people feel that they are commonplace. You even have a choice of notebook computers that have fingerprint scanners built in as a security device to limit access to the computer’s contents.
Cover Story: Distributed Power Goes from Utilities Down to ICs
January 14, 2009 6:12 am | by Jon Titus, Senior Technical Editor | CommentsDistributed power means different things to engineers. Some think of it only as the distribution of different DC voltages on a circuit board or in a rack of equipment. But good power-distribution engineering starts at the power company's connection to a building's wiring and goes all the way down to IC power inputs.
Auld Lang Syne
December 23, 2008 12:06 pm | by Alix Paultre, Editor-in-Chief | CommentsAs we head into the New Year, looking towards the future, our minds are always drawn to the past. “Auld Lang Syne” means roughly ‘long times past”. Our ruminations on the past vary from individual to individual; one may look back nostalgic, another regretful, and the third satisfied. The most important thing to remember is that the past is past, and we must embrace the future or face the consequences.
Sensor Zone: January 2009
December 23, 2008 11:59 am | by Valerie Rothermel-Nelson, Honeywell Sensing & Control | CommentsWhen considering a relative humidity sensor for one’s application, the selection process involves a series of choices to meet application requirements and key parameters while, at the same time, insuring that the product selected delivers the lowest total cost solution. Despite the diversity in humidity sensor applications and specifications, the desire
Embedded Systems: Ethernet Modules Act Like SBCs
December 23, 2008 8:45 am | by Jon Titus, Senior Technical Editor | CommentsManufacturers offer a variety of small modules that let engineers easily add an Ethernet port to a design. They may need only a UART or I2C port in a main system to communicate with and control one of these modules. But if engineers stop there they will miss many other capabilities offered by these modules--actually single-board computers (SBCs).
Industry Focus: Planning for End-of-Life in Mil-Aero Markets
December 23, 2008 6:06 am | by George Karalias, Rochester Electronics, LLC | CommentsAlthough the ramifications of end of life (EOL) announcements have long been an issue for OEMs in the mil/aero marketplace, many still fail to put a workable plan in place to face this reality. As a result of the increase in end-product programs for these industries, long-term support requirements can sometimes extend for decades, leaving customers in a difficult position as they source components for ongoing production, maintenance and repair.
FPGAs Offer More Flexible, Affordable Embedded System Solutions
December 23, 2008 5:51 am | by Stephen Cunha, MEN Micro, Inc. | CommentsPotential solutions for providing application-specific functionality in embedded systems typically come with trade-offs in terms of cost and time to market. With few projects having the lead-time, budget or high-volume payback potential to tool-up for custom chip or hardware production runs, the best answers often revolve around "modular" solutions.
