Webinar: Supercharging Products with Embedded RFID
June 26 @ 2 pm ET Sponsored by SkyeTek
They may still look the same on the outside, but embedded RFID readers and software can transform products from the inside, offering manufacturers, OEMs, and product designers new opportunities for competitive advantage through increased efficiency, accuracy and product differentiation. With an seemingly unending list of products, RFID is a key technique to adding new functionality, increasing reliability and enhancing the user experience. At this webinar and interactive Q&A session learn the difference between RFID and existing barcode and contact technologies; and how embedded RFID has new applications in disposable authentication, smart shelves and cabinets, contactless payments, tracking, inventory and stock, and customizable configurations. Also catch up on unique technical and business considerations for embedded RFID and companies that are already implanting the technology.
Last week’s 45th Design Automation Conference (DAC) in Anaheim was my twelfth consecutive DAC, and it was surely the most interesting and different I’ve experienced in journalistic terms. Yeah, that was me traipsing around the show floor with my colleague Damian Mendez in tow, toting a great big video camera. It was my first experience in documenting DAC in video, and I would term it a success.
This year's DAC, held in Anaheim earlier this month, lived up to all the expectations from this blockbuster event. Large exhibits, great panels, and technology galore. EDA Editor David Maliniak was there with a camera in hand. Check out our exclusive DAC page and catch up on all the highlights.
SID 2008 Display Week, also known as SID 2008, left some clear impressions about the state of display technologies. Various forms of LCDs created most show activity. This is a mature and dominant technology, widely used in television sets, computer displays, and handheld products. Check out the highlights from the show.
The Stanford Testbed of Autonomous Rotorcraft for Multi-Agent Control (STARMAC) is a multi-vehicle testbed used to demonstrate new concepts in multi-agent control on a real-world platform. In order to make such a testbed easy to use, the Stanford team focused on a small, light, low-cost design, which presented numerous opportunities for innovative work. STARMAC consists of up to eight quadrotor vehicles that autonomously track a given waypoint trajectory. On board components include: Robostix for inner loop control from Gumstix, Stargate SBC from Crossbow (based on the Intel Xscale PXA255 microprocessor) with a Netgear MA701 Compact Flash Wifi card, PC104 for high level planning and automation, a Superstar II Differential GPS receiver from Novatel (outputs 10 Hz carrier phase measurement data), a 3DM-GX1 Inertial Measurement Unit from MicroStrain, a Sonic Rangefinder from Acroname, and caps, resistors, voltage regulators from Digikey.
ADVERTISEMENT
Rev up fuel efficiency and win $10,000
Design an energy-saving solution for automotive applications
Infineon and Auto Electronics invite you to participate in the “REV UP FUEL EFFICIENCYâ€쳌 design contest. Take “the green challengeâ€쳌 and design a solution using Infineon products that enables or improves energy efficiency for automotive applications. You could win a grand prize of $10,000, a second prize of $5,000 or a third prize of $2,000.
The three winners will get an all-expenses-paid trip to the Infineon and Auto Electronics Contest Award Ceremony at Convergence 2008. In addition, your winning design will be featured at the Infineon booth during the show. Submit your entry by August 15, 2008.
RF Design Environment Gains Improved User Interface
Version 2008 of AWR’s Microwave Office design environment includes more than 100 enhancements and sweeping changes to the user interface that dramatically increase its flexibility for the user. Features such as project, elements, layout tabs, and the status window are now fully dockable and floatable, providing a design environment that is fully configurable to suit personal preferences.
Building on the strength of its PICO Extreme algorithmic synthesis tool for SoCs, Synfora’s PICO Extreme FPGA extends algorithmic synthesis technology to FPGA devices. PICO Extreme FPGA enables the implementation of dramatically larger and more complex FPGA subsystems such as video codecs, wireless modems, or imaging pipelines and ensures more efficient implementation of complex algorithms than any other synthesis capability, according to Synfora.
The Spinner I/O fabric generation tool for automated, bug-free I/O fabric synthesis of complex SoCs is said to automatically generate and validate the RTL for the complete I/O layer of an IC from a single-source specification.
The Magillem flow-optimization suite is comprised of an IP-XACT packager, platform assembly tool, complete development environment, flow control tool, and a register view kit. The Magillem suite enables homogeneous design flow integration for various targets such as ASICs, FPGAs, electronic boards, analog/mixed-signal systems, and other complex systems. Adaptation kits have been developed for each target.
Send us your Ideas for Design and we'll pay you $150 for every Idea for Design that we publish. In addition, the year's top design as selected by our readers will earn an additional $500, with two runners-up each receiving $250. You can submit your Ideas for Design via e-mail to: dbs@penton.com or, mail your material to:
Ideas for Design Electronic Design 45 Eisenhower Dr., Suite 550
Each chapter of Inside Steve’s Brain explores a different facet of what’s made Jobs and Apple (not to mention Pixar) so successful: organizational genius, perfectionism, elitism, despotism, passion, inventiveness. It also looks at some of the traits that have made him a legend in Silicon Valley.
Reprints
