Recently added articles from ECN-Electronic Component News:

On acronyms, Jargon and terminology.(Editor's View)

Jun 01, 2008; Paultre, Alix ... Every special-interest group has its own language, and only part of the reason is to exclude others from the conversation. Jargon also helps define common terms necessary to conduct business or discuss philosophies and procedures within the group. Engineering is a very special discipline, ...

Compact computer features 100 GFLOPS processing power.(Leading Off)

Jun 01, 2008 ... Mercury Computer Systems announced its PowerBlock 50 embedded computer for small platforms in the 6lb. to 10lb. range. Suited for real-time image, sensor and signal processing, and ruggedized for harsh environments, it is fully integrated and programmable with liquid cooling. The system's ...

Starter Kit de-skills low power wireless connectivity.(Leading Off)

Jun 01, 2008 ... Jennic announced a Starter Kit which allows developers with little or no wireless experience to develop products. Priced at $219, the JN5139-EK020 IEEE802.15.4/JenNet Starter Kit uses Jennic JN5139 MCUs and modules as wireless processors or co-processors. In the wireless co-processor ...

High density 40-nm FPGAs and HardCopy ASICs present transceiver options.(Leading Off)

Jun 01, 2008 ... Altera introduced its Stratix IV 40-nm FPGAs and HardCopy ASICs. Both devices feature transceiver options, provide desirable densities, performance and low-power. The Stratix IV family has up to 680K logic elements (LEs), two-times bigger than the company's Stratix III family. The HardCopy ...

Powertrain microcontrollers feature emissions control technology to address global warming.(Leading Off)

Jun 01, 2008 ... Freescale Semiconductor has introduced a family of 32-bit automotive microcontrollers (MCUs) with integrated emissions control technology. The MPC563xM family includes three 32-bit powertrain MCUs designed to help improve the efficiency and performance of small engines scaling from one to ...

Custom and standard segmented display cells offer readability in paper-thin form factor.(Leading Off)

Jun 01, 2008 ... E Ink announced general availability of its next-generation segmented display cells (SDC). The simple digit, icon and alpha-numeric displays offer readability in a paper-thin form factor that uses minimal battery power. The company asserts the new SDCs are 40 percent thinner with a wider ...

BeO insulator features a low loss index.(Leading Off)

Jun 01, 2008 ... The BW3250 beryllium oxide (BeO) insulator from Brush Ceramic Products delivers a thermal conductivity of >325 W/mK at room temperature. Providing insulation in high-power RF and microwave power transistor packages as well as electron devices such as inductive output tubes, BeO has a low ...

Enclosures: this section presents, side-by-side, recently introduced enclosures available in a wide range of sizes, styles and features.(PRODUCT TECHNOLORY REVIEW)

Jun 01, 2008 ... The Diplomat Series of 19" and half-width desktop cases, and 19" vertical and horizontal caseframes from Verotec is available in 3U,4U, 6U and 9U heights and depths of 322 mm, 422 mm, 522 mm,and 622 mm. The series is equally suitable for use during system development and as a housing for ...

Capture timed events.(ESC update.)(Conference news)

Jun 01, 2008 ... If you have not recently--or ever--attended the Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose, you owe it to yourself and your company to go. This conference and its many exhibits give you opportunities to talk with colleagues and technical experts. Unlike some shows, vendors send their ...

1024 neural nets on a chip.(ESC update.)

Jun 01, 2008 ... Smart sensors and imaging equipment can take advantage of the 1,024 neurons in the CogniMem (CM-1K) chip produced by Recognetics. The device can recognize one vector from among 1,024 within 10 [micro]sec because the, 1024 identical neurons operate in parallel, although they communicate ...

PIC family adds USB ports.(ESC update.)

Jun 01, 2008 ... Microchip Technology announced USB capabilities in its new 12-member PIC24FJ256GB1 family of 16-bit MCUs. USB 2.0 operations include embedded-host, dual-role and On-the-Go (OTG). Microchip provides software, via free USB class drivers, and USB applications that easily fit within the ...

Multicore chip breaks new ground.(ESC update.)

Jun 01, 2008 ... If a future design calls for a multi-core processor, take a look at the XSl-G family coming from XMOS Semiconductor. According to the company, these chips will find use in home net works, display-panel controls and consumer electronics. The first chip, the XS1-G4, includes four 32-bit ...

Wireless processor simplifies ZigBee designs.(ESC update.)

Jun 01, 2008 ... Engineers need not master the ZigBee protocol to use this wireless standard. The new Z-Accel family of 2.4 GHz ZigBee-certified network processors from Texas Instruments simplifies development of networks. The CC2480 ZigBee Processor includes a Z-Stack, IEEE 802.15.4 radio and an SPI ...

Chips put USB on the go.(ESC update.)

Jun 01, 2008 ... USB On the Go lets people connect USB devices without an intermediate host PC. New members of the Luminary Micro ARM Cortex-M3 MCU family provide USB ports that engineers can configure for the USB OTG mode. Thus, an embedded controller can serve as either a host or as a device in ...

Development kit helps customize ARM7-based MCUs.(ESC update.)

Jun 01, 2008 ... Some designs need a bit of customizing, but without large FPGAs and ASICs. To answer that need, Atmel provides an AT91CAP7 family of ARM7 MCUs that include a metal-programmable block of 450K gates; the equivalent of 56K FPGA logic elements. Designers can port any function implemented in an ...

Package EPIC and EBX computers with care.(ESC update.)

Jun 01, 2008 ... If your products will use EPIC or EBX single-board computers, take a look at the ENC-EPX-G-1000 ($89) EPIC enclosure and the ENC-EBC-G-1000 ($129) enclosure for EBX computer. WinSystems designed these packages for equipment that requires mounting computers inside NEMA boxes, OEM machinery, ...

Wireless modules go long range.(ESC update.)

Jun 01, 2008 ... Digi International now offers designers the XBee-PRO XSC embedded-RF module that operates in the 900-MHz band over a line-of-sight distance of up to 15 miles. The postage-stamp size XBee-module family now lets engineers choose IEEE 802.15.4, ZigBee and long-range point-to-multipoint ...

FPGAs get on board at innovation station.(ESC update.)

Jun 01, 2008 ... Designers who use the Actel ProASIC3, Xilinx Virtex-5, Spartan-3AN or Spartan-3A DSP FPGAs can take advantage of new daughter cards that drop these devices into the Altium Innovation Station. That unit combines Altium Designer software with the Desktop NanoBoard development station to give ...

Group defines new module standards.(ESC update.)

Jun 01, 2008 ... The Small Form Factor Special Interest Group (SFF-SIG) has defined a small stackable module, called Express 104, that relies on a Stackable Unified Module Interconnect Technology (Sumit) expansion interface. Express 104 boards measure 90 mm X 96 mm and can include one or two 52-pin Sumit ...

Wringing the power consumption out of that FPGA: FPGAs are flexible and powerful, but they are notoriously power hungry. New, customizable MCUs offer the functionality of FPGAs with a significant reduction in power consumption.(Low Power Microcontrollers)

Jun 01, 2008; Murphy, Jamie ... Computationally intensive DSP functions often require hardware acceleration. Increasingly, designers are implementing their DSP algorithms in FPGAs because they offer better performance than DSP processors. Benchmarks show that FPGAs execute turbocoding, GPS correlation, H264 and other DSP ...