Articles
Semiconductor Highlight: ZigBee Radios and ICs Gain Momentum in Industrial Control Applications
December 23, 2008 4:52 am | by Rich Howell, California Eastern Laboratories | CommentsRiding an elevator is typically a mundane exercise - you push a button, you wait, you get off at your floor. Few give any thought to the workings outside the metal box you’re riding. But behind the scenes a lot of technical communication takes place between the elevator car, the controller at the top of the elevator shaft, and the call button you’re patiently pushing in the lobby. Today that communication is typically conducted over high-grade RS-485 twisted pair serial cable.
Design Talk: Batteries
December 22, 2008 11:34 am | CommentsPortable electronics are evolving so quickly that one can barely keep up with the new devices available to end-users. Regardless of the system, consumers expect more functionality in a smaller device that operates for a longer period of time between charges.
Brainstorm: Advanced Technology Vehicles
December 22, 2008 9:08 am | CommentsHow can Advanced Technology Vehicles penetrate the mainstream automotive market?
Cover Story: The PXI Bus Hits its Stride
December 18, 2008 7:23 am | by Jon Titus, Senior Technical Editor | CommentsAs you might guess from its name, the PCI eXtensions for Instrumentation bus, or PXI bus, takes advantage of the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) technology developed for personal computers. Just as the original PCI bus lets users add cards to a PC motherboard, the PXI bus lets instrument-system developers connect measurement and control modules through a standard backplane.
Semiconductor Highlight: Power Management for Low-Power IP Phones and VoIP Devices
December 8, 2008 9:19 am | by Rich Nowakowski and T.Y. Chan, Texas Instruments | CommentsNow that power via media-dependent interface (MDI) was added to the IEEE 802.3af Standard, data terminal equipment (DTE) can receive power over existing data transmission cables. The IEEE 802.3af Standard defines the requirements associated with providing and receiving power over the existing cabling. The power sourcing equipment (PSE) provides the power on the cable, and the powered device (PD) receives the power.
When Electronics Go Green, Everybody Wins
December 8, 2008 6:25 am | by Jeff Ittel, senior vice president of semiconductors, Avnet Electronics Marketing | CommentsFor members of the electronics supply chain, going “green” is not just a short-term marketing scheme rife with buzzwords but short on substance. Granted, the tech sector has jumped on its share of bandwagons, but this movement is different. It’s not just about pioneering technologies, building a positive public image, padding the bottom line or even “doing the right thing.” It’s all of the above. When state-of-the-art electronic products are energy efficient, environmentally sustainable, and cost effective, everyone wins.
Embedded Systems: A Legacy and a Bright Future for the VMEbus
December 5, 2008 11:05 am | by Ray Alderman, Executive Director, VITA | CommentsIn October of 1981, three semiconductor companies announced the open-architecture VMEbus, spawned by the introduction of the Motorola 68000 microprocessor. After 27 years, the VMEbus still holds the largest market share of all buses and boards. Today's bus technologies have lives measured in months, so why has the VMEbus survived and prospered while other buses have rapidly gone by the wayside? (Engineers use the terms VMEbus and VME interchangeably.)
Celebrating the year’s best products
December 5, 2008 8:32 am | by Chris Warner, Executive Editor | CommentsAll around, 2008 has been a very trying year. Each day seemed to bring a new round of bad news, whether it was the real estate bubble bursting, stock markets plummeting, or the “big three” automakers petitioning congress for a bailout similar to the one given to some of the nation’s largest banks. In the electronics industry, lackluster consumer confidence, fueled by the global economic crisis...
Industry Focus: When Electronics Go Green, Everybody Wins
December 4, 2008 11:45 am | by Jeff Ittel, senior vice president of semiconductors, Avnet Electronics Marketing | CommentsFor members of the electronics supply chain, going “green” is not just a short-term marketing scheme rife with buzzwords but short on substance. Granted, the tech sector has jumped on its share of bandwagons, but this movement is different. It’s not just about pioneering technologies, building a positive public image, padding the bottom line or even “doing the right thing.” It’s all of the above. When state-of-the-art electronic products are energy efficient, environmentally sustainable, and cost effective, everyone wins.
Brainstorm: New Year Tech
November 24, 2008 9:34 am | by Edited by Jason Lomberg, Technical Editor | CommentsWhat technology will have the biggest impact in 2009?
Industry Focus: Eliminating Medical Device RF Interference
November 19, 2008 9:44 am | by Christopher Keuling, Associate Editor | CommentsWireless RF interference found in medical devices causes tainted results and misdiagnoses. Medical professionals and patients rely on these results to pursue the correct course of action for a given illness. There are several companies and collaborations looking into solutions of how to reduce and/or remove interference in the medical field. This month, we take a look at some of the causes of wireless interference and answers that are being worked on now in today’s medical devices, as well as future devices.
Cover Story: PCB Routers Cut Time and Copper
November 19, 2008 9:12 am | by Jon Titus, Senior Technical Editor | CommentsAt 3:00 PM on a Friday afternoon you devise a new design for a low-noise amplifier you've worked on for months. You want to try the circuit right away, but a quick-turn printed-circuit board (PCB) house cannot deliver boards until next week. You know another engineering group uses a PCB router to produce prototype boards in about an hour, so you decide to try it.
Embedded Systems: C and C++ Tools Reduce Code Errors
November 19, 2008 8:44 am | by Jon Titus, Senior Technical Editor | CommentsProgrammers now have many tools that help reduce or eliminate problems. Unfortunately, they might not know these tools exist. "In 1998, the UK's Motor Industry Software Reliability Association (MISRA) published their standard for the C language to promote 'safe C' in the UK automotive industry," explained Chris Tapp, a field-applications engineer at LDRA. "The software industry has seen MISRA-C as a way to encourage good programming practice, focus on coding rules, and ensure well designed and tested safe code."
Semiconductor Highlight: Leadless Packages Empower Your Design
November 19, 2008 6:15 am | by Ian Moulding, Business Manager, Diodes Incorporated | CommentsSemiconductor packaging has evolved from the through-hole packages of the 1970’s, through surface mount leaded packaging in the 1990’s to leadless package technologies of today such as quad/dual flat no leads (QFN/DFN), ball grid arrays (BGA) and chip scale packaging (CSP). It can be argued that it is semiconductor package innovations such as these that have allowed the industry to exploit the successive IC process shrinks and achieve product performances that were previously unobtainable.
Holiday wishes
November 18, 2008 8:46 am | by Alix Paultre, Editor-in-Chief | CommentsAs Halloween blurs into the great amorphous mass that is the combined orgy of Thanksgiving eating and Christmas Holiday shopping, we take the time to look at some of the things we’d like to see in our holiday gift baskets. Beyond the obligatory wishes for world peace and international understanding, there are some nice toys out there, too.
