Articles
What equipment do you need to skydive from 120,000 feet?
October 11, 2012 8:54 am | by Kasey Panetta, Associate Editor | CommentsBy this point, you’ve probably heard that Felix Baumgartner is planning to skydive from 120,000 feet above the earth. For the record, that’s about 23 miles from solid ground. The jump was originally supposed to happen on October 9, but because of 14 mph wind speeds—they needed speeds of less than 2 mph to jump safely
LRDIMM answers the enterprise compute and communications systems call
October 10, 2012 4:39 pm | by Sameer Kuppahalli, Inphi Corporation | CommentsAmong the myriad technology sectors looking to boost performance efficiently, the enterprise segment poses a unique challenge to communications and other system makers. While servers can be deployed in any number of environments – and scaled to meet applications’ specific needs...
Integrating power electronics design technologies
October 9, 2012 4:47 pm | by Tony Christian, Director, Cambashi | CommentsThe field of power electronics, the application of electronics for the control and conversion of electric power, is underpinned by basic electrical principles that were established in the distant past by the pioneers of electrical science. But today, the need to supply, modify and control the voltage, current or frequency
Prevent accidents by making your backseat disappear
October 9, 2012 11:16 am | by Kasey Panetta, Associate Editor | CommentsCrunch. That’s the last sound you want to hear when you’re backing up your car. It is scary. It is alarming. It is NOT a good sound.It’s the reason dashboard cams were invented. Unfortunately, the embedded cameras only show a small portion of what’s behind the car, and accidents still happen.
Solder wicki
October 8, 2012 11:31 am | by M. Simon | CommentsI like to do projects. I like to do projects that involve soldering. These days that means surface mount. And therein lies a tale. I design my own boards and get them produced by OSH Park they do great work. I try to make the boards easy to solder. To see the little bits when I do do the soldering I use a pair of Foster Grants with 3.25 magnification...
What’s the worst that could happen? RF communication disasters
October 8, 2012 11:07 am | by Michael Clonts, Product Manager, RT Logic | CommentsThe morning of December 4, 2011 began normally for the team of Air Force technicians. As they settled into their shift flying unmanned aircraft over Afghanistan, perhaps they chatted casually and swapped stories from the weekend. Very soon, however, their conversations were interrupted by shrill alarm sirens blaring from their control monitors.
Capnography for the masses
October 8, 2012 9:20 am | by Jeff Shiner, Sales and Business Development Manager at Spansion | CommentsAlmost every patient who enters a hospital can benefit from capnography. It’s a technology that has enabled better patient care through consistent monitoring, with measurement of carbon dioxide output, and feedback on ventilation, metabolism and circulation. Industry recognition of capnography is causing it to spread rapidly throughout the medical world.
Low-voltage ICs in power-hungry data centers benefit from high-voltage DC supply path
October 5, 2012 10:10 am | by Stephen Oliver, VP VI Chip Product Line, Vicor Corp., www.vicorpower.com | CommentsThere's a "back to the future" aspect to power distribution for datacenters in the 21st century. At the beginning of the 20th century, Thomas Edison was a proponent of distributing power to homes and businesses using higher-voltage DC, while Nikola Tesla’s backer George Westinghouse supported distribution via AC.
Kits for Kids
October 4, 2012 3:46 pm | by Jon Titus, Technical Contributor | CommentsElectronics, computer, and science kits can help kindle technical interests in kids of all ages. Each year the holidays seem to arrive sooner than expected and parents of young people interested in science and technology search for gift ideas. This column provides some suggestions. Some projects require adult help or supervision.
Emergence of environmentally friendly piezoelectric material
October 4, 2012 12:14 pm | by Adnan Mousharraf, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), Dhaka, Bangladesh | CommentsPiezoelectricity is a reversible property possessed by a selected group of materials that does not have a center of symmetry. When a dimensional change is imposed on the dielectric, polarization occurs and a voltage or field is created which is known as direct effect.
Protection against counterfeit product issues for military programs
October 3, 2012 3:22 pm | by Michael Sarpa, e2v | CommentsCounterfeit material in the semiconductor supply chain is increasingly problematic for the military and aerospace community. With the immense costs and significant program delays inherent in a system redesign, military program managers search high and low for parts to meet the original specification requirements...
Reliable, accurate motion control is critical in large patient scanners
October 3, 2012 1:49 pm | by Art Gaines of Artec Imaging and Don Labriola of QuickSilver Controls | CommentsIt takes a strong and sophisticated device to position a patient for a CT scan, but what if that patient has four legs, a long neck, a tail and weighs well over 1,000 pounds? In the world of equine healthcare, getting a large horse into position for accurate imaging is a heavy-duty effort that requires a scanning table that up for the challenge.
High-powered medical devices present power-supply design challenges
October 3, 2012 12:41 pm | by Frank Rene, Protek Power, www.protekpowerna.com | CommentsThe medical industry prides itself on designing leading edge medical electronic devices capable of offering solutions where, historically, electronic devices have not previously been available for use. For example, mechanical/chemical devices are now being replaced by electrical/mechanical/chemical devices...
Unmanned aerial vehicles define and challenge new interconnect requirements
October 3, 2012 12:21 pm | by Stephen Johnson, Hypertronics Corporation, www.hypertronics.com | CommentsIn recent years, unmanned vehicles, be they the Predator Drones that we watch on the evening news letting loose with pinpoint-precision Hellfire Missiles that take out enemy targets from high above the earth, a bomb-detecting/disposal ground vehicle that keeps soldiers and law enforcement people out of harm's way...
Controller area network (CAN): Teaching an old dog new tricks
October 3, 2012 12:06 pm | by Scott Monroe, Texas Instruments | CommentsThere is a saying that you cannot teach an old dog new tricks. While CAN is 25 years old, it continues to grow and gain new capabilities. It has been adapted into widely varying applications starting with its roots in simple automotive multiplexing to the current automotive networks, transportation, and industrial applications.
