Articles
Antenna selection is critical for successful wireless water meter reading applications
November 15, 2012 2:44 pm | by Jeff Shamblin, Ethertronics | CommentsWater utilities worldwide are increasingly migrating to wireless to enable automated meter reading (AMR). By 2016, annual wireless water meter shipments will hit 10 million worldwide, with the majority going to North American utilities, IMS Research predicts. In 2010, North American utilities accounted for 70 percent of the $500 million global wireless water meter market, IMS says.
This “smart” traffic light could cut commutes by 60 percent
November 14, 2012 11:08 am | by Kasey Panetta, Associate Editor | CommentsWere you aware of the fact that you waste one week per year sitting in traffic? One week per year. That is 7 days, 168 hours, 10,080 minutes, stuck in traffic. Not only is it a huge waste of time, breathing in the exhaust fumes while you sit and mentally-fume can actually be dangerous to your health
Roundtable: What must designers of portable devices do to deal with power and performance demands?
November 12, 2012 11:57 am | CommentsExperts in the power industry weight in on the question: What must designers of portable devices do to keep pace with increased power and performance demands? In their responses the industry experts talk about the future of portable devices and the design changes necessary to power them.
ECN’s Veteran’s Day tribute: Remembering those who’ve served
November 9, 2012 2:50 pm | by Jason Lomberg, Technical Editor | CommentsOn the cusp of Veteran’s Day, I’m reminded that a disproportionate number of our friends and colleagues served in the military. And that makes me proud to work in this industry. ECN — and her parent company, Advantage Business Media — is no exception. You can’t swing a dead cat (or give a resounding Hoooah!) without hitting a veteran.
Do you have what it takes to be a Roundtable expert?
November 8, 2012 11:11 am | CommentsIn October, we asked you for your words of wisdom for a brand-new design engineer and boy, did you guys have advice in spades. The responses we received were so good in fact, we’ve decided to open up our December Roundtable to our faithful readers in hopes that you can offer more words of wisdom.
Introducing capacitive touch sensing to home appliances
November 7, 2012 1:59 pm | by Pushek Madaan and Sachin Gupta, Cypress Semiconductor | CommentsOne of the most important factors in the purchase of home appliances is how the product looks and what high-end features it supports. With today’s highly integrated System-on-Chip (SoC) processors, designers can introduce not only a new UI based on capacitive sensing but also incorporate other system functions to lower system cost and save board space.
Electronica 2012: ECN’s interview with Standex Electronics
November 7, 2012 1:37 pm | by the Editors | CommentsThe 25th International Trade Fair for Electronic Components, Systems, and Applications (i.e., electronica 2012) starts next week (or now, depending on when you see this), so ECN thought it fitting to interview one of the leading OEM vendors, Standex Electronics about industry trends, especially as it relates to sensors.
Is glasses-free 3D ready for industrial/medical applications?
November 6, 2012 4:36 pm | by Dale Maunu, Senior Business Planning Analyst, Renesas Electronics America | CommentsHarking back to the good-old-days, before social media, before texting, before mobile phones – all the way back to when we (not me literally) received news from the wireless (radio), this new-fangled invention came along called the TV and sat down in living rooms everywhere.
Do ultracapacitors make wind energy a sustainable option?
November 5, 2012 12:27 pm | by Kasey Panetta, Associate Editor | CommentsThe idea of using wind to create energy isn’t exactly new. The first examples can be traced back to 200 B.C. in Persia – a creation of Heron of Alexandria. That particular device simply harnessed the wind to power a machine, so a case could be made that the first real windmills were built a little bit later, in the 7th century in Sistan, modern day Iran.
Machine to machine communications – The Facebook of smart devices
November 5, 2012 11:21 am | by Ramanuja Konreddy, Senior Product Marketing Engineer, MCU32 Division, Microchip Technology | CommentsImagine a bike that sends its location to your smart phone if moved; a camera that can talk to a GPS module and suggest scenic locales when you are on a hike; a refrigerator that would send you a reminder text message when the milk runs out; a smart meter that can turn on your washing machine during off-peak hours...
How to use off-the-shelf DC-DC converters for backlight applications
November 2, 2012 3:13 pm | by David Smith, Sr. Field Applications Engineer, Seiko Instruments | CommentsIt has become increasingly more common in portable, handheld devices to use white backlighting for display illumination. The use of white LEDs, are practical in mobile applications due to the need for color reproduction and balancing. For a low cost, simple alternative, an inductive-based DC-DC converter can be used...
Seeking solutions to color binning in the LED value chain
November 2, 2012 11:12 am | by Geoff Gardner, Marketing Manager, Dow Corning Lighting Solutions | CommentsThe semiconductor technology that underlies solid-state illumination represents the epitome of precision manufacturing. Production of these devices begins with creation of blue light-emitting diodes (LED chips) through the nanoscale deposition of semiconductor materials onto a wafer...
An optimized power factor-corrected driver for LED bulbs
November 2, 2012 10:08 am | by Bernie Weir and Frazier Pruett, ON Semiconductor, www.onsemi.com | CommentsAs incandescent bulbs are phased out, the two options that offer significant energy savings are compact fluorescent (CFL) and LED. While CFL’s are a mature technology, white LEDs are still advancing rapidly with higher lumens per packaged LED as well as increased efficacy.
Top 10 must-see posts from October
November 1, 2012 1:49 pm | by The ECN Editors | CommentsHere’s a rundown of the most read, most popular, most awesome articles on the web. Take a look at what you missed the first time around or check up on an old favorite to see the conversation in the comments. Keep checking out the Lead at www.ecnmag.com and follow us on Twitter @ecnonline for our most up-to-date articles.
Common design challenges for LED backlit LCD panels
November 1, 2012 1:43 pm | by Girish Ramesh, Sr. Marketing Manager, Atmel Corporation and Kevin Hempson, Staff Applications Engineer, Atmel Corporation | CommentsOver two-thirds of all TVs and desktop monitors shipped in 2012 will be LED backlit models (source: DisplaySearch, July 2012). The explosion of LEDs as the dominant technology for backlighting LCD panels has been enabled by the improvements in LED device performance that have provided increased efficiency and light output.
