Recently added articles from EDN:
Is your amplifier offset way out of whack?
Jun 25, 2009 ... By Bonnie Baker Have you ever spent a great deal of time selecting the perfect operational amplifier for your circuit, only to find that the offset voltage is wrong at the manufacturer's bench-specified input? What if you find that it is more than 10 times higher than ...
Accelerating consumers' NAS adoptions: assessing your product options.
Jun 25, 2009 ... By Brian Dipert, Senior Technical Editor Network storage is a notably bright spot in the otherwise-blah consumer-electronics economy. Carefully select and cull hardware, software, and their jointly implemented features to ensure product success. At least one ...
Diagnostic ultrasound gets smaller, faster, and more useful.
Jun 25, 2009 ... By Paul Rako, Technical Editor The signal path in Ultrasound machines is a multichannel transmitter-receiver system with blazingly fast data rates. engineers need to weigh a host of options in designing these complex machines. Developers of diagnostic-ultrasound ...
Create a swept-sine function in LabView with just one virtual instrument.
Jun 25, 2009 ... Sean McPeak, University of California--San Diego Edited by Martin Rowe and Fran Granville Swept sine waves are useful when you want to test a product over a wide frequency range. A large research project included the requirement to determine wave propagation in the ...
Charlieplexing at high duty cycle.
Jun 25, 2009 ... Luke Sangalli, Digital Designs, Melbourne, Australia Edited by Martin Rowe and Fran Granville A few articles have recently appeared describing novel ways to increase the number of LEDs a microprocessor can drive with a limited number of pins (Reference 1 ). The ...
Serial port tests digital circuits.
Jun 25, 2009 ... Yury Magda, Cherkassy, Ukraine Edited by Martin Rowe and Fran Granville A PC's serial port provides signal lines that you can use to read voltage levels of digital circuits. You can use the port to test digital TTL (transistor-to-transistor-logic)-level circuits. You ...
DAC calibrates 4- to 20-mA output current.
Jun 25, 2009 ... Ronald Moradkhan and Steven Lau, Maxim Integrated Products, Sunnyvale, CA Edited by Martin Rowe and Fran Granville Industrial controls make heavy use of 4- to 20-mA current loops to transmit process measurements because current loops retain information in the ...
Alarm tells you to close the refrigerator door.
Jun 25, 2009 ... Boris Khaykin, TRW Automotive, Livonia, MI Edited by Martin Rowe and Fran Granville The circuit in Figure 1 is a simpler and safer device than a similar one I recently read about (Reference 1 ). A few years ago, I built the circuit that this Design Idea describes, and ...
Can't see the forest ...(marketing )(Editorial)
Jun 25, 2009; ... By Paul Rako, Technical Editor Analog design is all about trade-offs, so system-design expertise is vital to any company offering analog chips. For example, Dave Kress, director of technical marketing at Analog Devices, points out that his company is trying to get a better ...
Peering into ultrasound machines.
Jun 25, 2009 ... Robert Cravotta, Technical Editor Ultrasound finds use in noninvasive imaging in cardiac, obstetric, gynecologic, and other diagnostic areas. What's inside this tool that is playing an expanding role in today's medical world? The systems often operate in the 2- to ...
Application engineers: serving the customer.
Jun 25, 2009 ... Interview conducted and edited by Paul Rako Jim Williams on the changing role of application engineering Jim Williams is a staff scientist at Linear Technology Corp. Longtime EDN readers recognize Williams as a vital contributor of analog-themed articles over the last ...
Improving on PCB design.
Jun 25, 2009 ... Interview conducted and edited by Paul Rako In 1995, OrCAD had the most popular PC-based PCB (printed-circuit board)-schematic tool. Another popular tool was available from PADS, which Mentor Graphics now owns. Engineers designed PCB schematics in OrCAD and laid out the board in ...
Little-known flash-memory features protect data and IP.
Jun 25, 2009 ... By Bill Stafford, Numonyx Features from block locking to encrypted-password-access mechanisms can prevent unintentional disruption, malicious damage, or copying. You design a system, and somebody messes it up. The damage is sometimes unintentional. For example, a ...
Scope-based tools support complete debugging and compliance testing of Superspeed USB 3.0.
Jun 25, 2009 ... by Dan Strassberg Tektronix's new DPO (digital-phosphor-oscilloscope)/DSA (digital-signal-analyzer) 7000B family is now available with a USB-TX option, which, with the press of a button, allows you to automatically and rapidly validate USB (Universal Serial Bus) 3.0 Superspeed ...
Analog Devices, Infineon collaborate on air-bag systems.
Jun 25, 2009 ... by Graham Prophet Analog Devices and Infineon Technologies have collaborated to produce next-generation automotive-air-bag systems. In the immediate future, the two companies will produce a hardware platform using parts from each company's current offerings. Designers will be ...
1- to 4-GHz, 20G-sample/sec DSOs and MSOs integrate protocol analysis.
Jun 25, 2009 ... by Dan Strassberg Agilent Technologies has expanded its MSO (mixed-signal-oscilloscope) and DSO (digital-storage-oscilloscope) portfolios with the addition of the six-model Infiniium 9000 series. All of the units offer true analog bandwidths of 1, 2.5, or 4 GHz on four channels ...
Nonvolatile-RAM module swaps batteries for supercapacitors.
Jun 25, 2009 ... by Margery Conner Systems often need some form of nonvolatile RAM to protect against memory losses after a power interruption or loss. Battery-backed RAM has been the most common form of high-density nonvolatile memory, but it is bulky, involves long charging times for the ...
Chip allows isolated USB.
Jun 25, 2009 ... by Paul Rako Analog Devices' new ADuM4160 bidirectional isolator provides UL (Underwriters Laboratories) 1577-rated, 5-kV isolation for 1.5- or 12-Mbps USB (Universal Serial Bus)-data lines. The isolator has propagation delay comparable with that of a standard hub and cable. It ...
POE ICs offer increased power efficiency for PDs.
Jun 25, 2009 ... by Margery Conner Akros Silicon cannily plays the efficiency card--for both energy and space--with its new AS1854 POE (power-over-Ethernet) PD (powered-device) IC. Akros claims that the integration of parts into the 1854 PD-controller platform saves more than 75% in board space ...
Tool bundles target FPGAs.
Jun 25, 2009 ... by Graham Prophet Xilinx this year introduced two families of Virtex-6 and Spartan-6 FPGAs that enable targeted-design platforms. The company is now adding domain-specific-tool support to the targeted-platform concept. Xilinx' ISE (integrated software environment) Design Suite ...