Features
Thermal Concerns in LED Lighting
April 28, 2008 11:40 am | by Steve Bowling, Microchip Technology Inc. | Articles | CommentsWhile LEDs offer mainstream lighting applications benefits such as long life, durability and high efficiency, the lifetime of an LED product may be significantly shortened without proper thermal management safeguards in your design.
Kits for Kids 2008
April 28, 2008 10:55 am | by Jon Titus, Senior Technical Editor | Articles | CommentsWith summer vacation on the way, keep kids occupied with engineering-like activities and projects.
Protecting intellectual property by design
April 25, 2008 9:36 am | by Leon M. Attarian, ECN Editorial Advisory Board, Director of Marketing for PennEngineering | Articles | CommentsIndustrial intellectual property (IP) offers a powerful tool to communicate and reinforce expectations associated with product quality, consistency, and performance. In all forms (whether brand names, patents, trademarks, design markings, or others), IP additionally can help point the way to reputable “tried-and-true” product solutions and draw clear distinctions in an increasingly complex global marketplace.
Digital Power Management and the PMBus
April 25, 2008 5:50 am | by Torbjorn Holmberg, Ericsson Power Modules | Articles | CommentsAs systems that incorporate low-voltage logic become ever more complex, the power supplies necessary to correctly operate multiple-voltage chips such as DSPs and FPGAs similarly increase in complexity. For example, it’s now commonplace for an FPGA’s core to operate at 1.2 – 1.8V, while its I/O banks run from multiple levels to interface with external logic families. Most often, chips that have core power supplies that are independent from I/O and auxiliary levels require careful power sequencing to ensure they start up and operate correctly.
Green is also the Color of Money
April 9, 2008 10:08 am | Blogs | CommentsImproving the environment is always a good idea, but wireless companies are finding ways to go green while bringing more “green” to their bottom lines.
New Record: Wind Powers 40% Of Spain
April 4, 2008 11:50 am | Blogs | CommentsWind power is breaking new records in Spain, accounting for just over 40 percent of all electricity consumed during a brief period last weekend. As heavy winds lashed Spain on Saturday evening wind parks generated 9,862 megawatts of power which translated to 40.8 percent of total consumption.
Low-loss IGBTs Improve Switching In Sub-2.5 kW Inverter Applications
March 26, 2008 12:51 pm | by Vijay Bolloju, International Rectifier | Articles | CommentsTraditionally, IGBTs have addressed applications requiring high-voltage and -current ratings and relatively slow switching frequencies. When the switching frequency is low, the inherently low conduction losses resulting from the device’s low VCE(on) (collector-to-emitter saturation voltage), which derive from the IGBT’s minority carrier operation, outweigh the
Talking in turbulent times
March 26, 2008 6:44 am | by Alix Paultre, Editor in chief | Articles | CommentsAnyone who has survived the last several years in the electronic industry know what I mean when I say that these are very turbulent times. Disruptive technologies in both the hardware and software arenas combined with the relentless pressure of convergence in functionality, marketplace, and the business itself have made life very interesting for electronic design engineers.
Side Bar: Get a Trusted Security Certificate
March 24, 2008 6:46 am | by Jon Titus, Senior Technical Editor | Articles | CommentsJon Titus exlains that you can buy digital certificates to identify your products and provide a public/private key for each.
X PRIZE Group Offers $10 Million Challenge to Auto Industry for 100-MPG Car
March 21, 2008 10:54 am | Blogs | CommentsThe goal is to inspire a new generation of viable, super fuel-efficient vehicles that offer more consumer choices.
Brainstorm - Communication Buses
March 20, 2008 10:26 am | Articles | CommentsAs electronic networks become more data-intensive and intelligent subsystems increase in number and complexity, bandwidth limits, signal interference, and device compatibility issues become important concerns. What are some ways that an electronic circuit designer can address these challenges?
Security Goes Beyond Cryptography
March 20, 2008 9:45 am | by Jon Titus, Senior Technical Editor | Articles | Comments“When engineers start to network devices, security becomes a top design requirement,” said Tim Stapko, lead software engineer at Digi International. “But many designers of embedded systems just don’t think about security. When they do, they might consider security as an add-in option or think of security as simply encrypting communications.”
Designing Appliances that Communicate
March 19, 2008 10:03 am | by Bob Gohn, vice president marketing, Ember Corporation | Articles | CommentsThe need for our appliances to be networked is rapidly emerging, and fortunately, so are the means with the advent of ZigBee low-cost wireless platforms.
Switch Requirements for Medical Applications
March 14, 2008 10:05 am | by Jerome Smolinski, Senior Product Manager, C&K Components | Articles | CommentsIn the area of medical switch components, current trends continue to call for further miniaturization to meet the needs of space-saving applications like hearing aids.
One Step Closer to Making OLEDs a Viable Option
March 12, 2008 7:46 am | Blogs | CommentsGE Global Research announced the successful demonstration of “roll-to-roll” manufactured OLEDs. The company claims that this process is a key step toward lower costs of the technology.
Books and Boards 2006
March 5, 2008 5:56 am | Articles | CommentsJon Titus reviews Silicon Labs ToolStick Starter Kit and Robert Oshana's DSP Software Development Techniques for Embedded and Real-Time Systems.
Confidence as world commodity
February 29, 2008 8:58 am | by Chris Warner, Executive Editor | Articles | CommentsFor all the new component demos I see each year, particularly those with applications for consumer electronics, I often wonder whether the latest whiz-bang feature that a particular component is intended to deliver for the end-product is really satisfying some sort of demand. In other words, does the end-user have an appetite for that revolutionary new feature?
On the Spot: Digital Power Management Drives Energy Efficiency
February 27, 2008 11:27 am | by Jim MacDonald, Zilker Labs, Inc. www.zilkerlabs.com | Blogs | CommentsJim MacDonald, Zilker Labs, Inc. comments "The need for higher energy efficiency in embedded systems continues to rise on the priority list of systems developers and end users alike"
Trend Report: Energy Conservation and Sustainable Design
February 27, 2008 11:23 am | by by Jeff Uden, Newark, www.newark.com | Blogs | CommentsThe concept of sustainable design started, not as a way of conserving the environment, but to prolong battery life in portable consumer goods such as cell phones, laptops and PDAs.
Battery and IC Products Enable Portable Consumer-Electronic Devices
February 26, 2008 11:21 am | by Kevin Tretter, Senior Product Marketing Engineer, Analog & Interface Products Division, Microchip Technology Inc | Articles | CommentsIn the world of portable consumer-electronic devices, manufacturers are faced with a challenging prospect — creating physically smaller devices that have enhanced performance while maintaining or extending operating battery life. These requirements have rippled throughout the entire electronics industry, forcing battery and Integrated Circuit (IC) manufacturers to constantly push the boundaries of technology.
Select the Optimal Power Management IC
February 26, 2008 6:25 am | by Bob Lyle, Intersil Corp. | Articles | CommentsManaging power is a critical requirement for all electronic equipment from notebooks to PDAs to storage peripherals. Power management ICs can optimize power usage to match the constantly changing demands of whatever task the device is carrying out. There are several important criteria to consider when selecting the best IC for an application.
Small Logic Analyzers Pack in the Bits
February 25, 2008 10:09 am | by Jon Titus, Senior Technical Editor | Articles | CommentsSmall logic analyzers put many digital channels, trigger options and I/O capabilities in an instrument that engineers can consider as their own. These small analyzers connect through a USB port to a host PC that controls functions and displays, and saves information.
Brainstorm - Military & Aerospace Electronics
February 11, 2008 6:14 am | Articles | CommentsWe asked industry leaders what key technologies will enhance thermal management in military/aerospace equipment in the next three years?
People are talking
February 11, 2008 5:23 am | Articles | CommentsIf you’re like most people living in the “digital home,” you have a plethora of those bulky, brick-like power adapters — wall warts as they’re commonly known — connected to a wall and one of perhaps a dozen or more electronic devices, each with its own unique DC power requirement. Whether to power a laptop, cell phone, computer and peripherals, games or power tools...
