Articles
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.
Roundtable: What new electronics packaging materials or techniques do you expect to gain popularity in 2013?
November 1, 2012 12:02 pm | CommentsCustomers are demanding smaller, thinner, faster and more power efficient semiconductor solutions, especially for mobile applications, consumer electronics and the growing “Internet of Things.” Substrate advancements can help address these needs. New techniques are delivering materials with lower expansion and higher stiffness, resulting in thinner and/or coreless packages with reduced warpage.
Design requirements for automotive displays
November 1, 2012 11:34 am | by Mike Mallory, Electrical Engineer, Ocular LCD | CommentsTouch panel demand continues to rapidly increase and applications utilizing this advanced technology are expanding into a wide variety of markets. According to DisplaySearch, projected capacitive touch panels have surpassed resistive touch panels in shipments and revenue.
Why I don't trust cars that think for themselves
November 1, 2012 10:32 am | by Kasey Panetta, Associate Editor | CommentsMost drivers wouldn't feel comfortable just handing over control of their vehicle to, well, their vehicle, but a new system from Nissan may do just that. The Autonomous Emergency Steering System, as the name suggests, will take over steering in emergency situations in which a crash could be avoided when you remove human error from the equation.
Ever-smarter digital power modules ease energy-efficiency gains
October 31, 2012 12:20 pm | by Patrick Le Fèvre, Marketing and Communication Director, Ericsson Power Modules, www.ericsson.com | CommentsA gift from decades of telecoms-industry development, bullet-proof models for high-availability power-supply systems and key standards documents are freely available online to tempt adventurous designers into exploring their own solutions for safeguarding processes that cannot afford unplanned downtime.
Selecting Hall-effect sensors for brushless DC motors
October 29, 2012 12:00 am | by Josh Edberg, Honeywell Sensing and Control, sensing.honeywell.com | CommentsBrushless DC (BLDC) motors need to operate more efficiently as energy and cost savings become bigger concerns for designers of electronic devices. One way to help ensure greater efficiency is by selecting the correct bipolar latching Hall-effect sensor IC for electronic commutation in BLDC motors.
Is a pacemaker capable of mass murder?
October 24, 2012 9:05 am | by Kasey Panetta, Associate Editor | CommentsWhen you are a patient in a hospital, you tend to expect that the electronics are either top of the line or at least functioning correctly. You expect that the devices doctors implant in your body are reliable and safe. These seem like safe assumptions. Unfortunately, you could be mistaken.
Letter From the Publisher: It’s Time to Grow Again
October 23, 2012 12:02 pm | by Nick Pinto, Group Publisher | CommentsWith the recent downturn in the global economy, countries throughout the world have struggled to celebrate growth opportunities within their various industrial sectors. The medical device market has not been immune to the downturn, but has been able to persevere better than most industries.
The best solution for dealing with space junk
October 19, 2012 2:26 pm | by Kasey Panetta, Associate Editor | CommentsThere is a lot of junk in space. There’s American junk, Russian junk, Chinese junk, and corporate junk. There are satellite pieces and discarded rocket parts and metal bits. Basically, all the junk is just floating around clonking into other junk and causing general mayhem when they get a bit too close to the stuff that’s not junk.
Better Design Practices and Connector Technologies for Midplane Power Engineering
October 18, 2012 3:47 pm | by Corey Schroeder, Molex Incorporated | CommentsMidplane power engineering requires better design practices and connector technologies Upticks in computing power in a range of industries—consumer goods and appliances, data/communications devices, medical and diagnostic equipment, servers and other networking systems
