[Engineering Feature] SDR Transforms Amateur Radio
Like almost everything else in electronics, radios are becoming processors with software that communicate via a small amount of RF I/O circuitry. Surely, then, the rise of software-defined radio (SDR) should come as no surprise. Digital signal processing (DSP) lies at the heart of SDR. Add to that the arrival of faster analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters (ADCs and DACs) and processors, and SDR becomes more viable for a wider range of...
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Louis E. Frenzel
[Technology Report] Myriad Infrastructure Options Bombard Femtocell Design
Cell phones are everywhere, and femtocells may follow. Designed for homes and small businesses, these desktop cell-phone basestations connect to the cell-phone network via an existing high-speed Internet connection using a DSL or cable TV modem. The femtocell is a home version of the micro and pico cells used in buildings and other densely populated environments. They enable the network to handle more subscribers, and they improve indoor handset...
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Ravi Raj Bhat
, et al.
[Leapfrog: First Look] Big, Black, And Bold Oscilloscope Breaks Performance Barriers
The WavePro 7 Zi series from LeCroy revolutionizes oscilloscope design and functionality (Fig. 1). While the 15.3-in. WXGA LCD touchscreen can display all sorts of useful data at the same time, the real breakthrough is what’s inside, as its hardware and software make it one of the best scopes on the market. The series includes five basic models with maximum bandwidths of 1.5, 2.5, 3.5, 4, and 6...
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Louis E. Frenzel
[Leapfrog: First Look] RF/IF VGA Chip Does It All
According to Maxim Integrated Products, the MAX2065 fully programmable, multistate, analog and digital IF/RF variable-gain amplifier (VGA) aims to solve a number of automatic gain control (AGC) design problems in GSM/EDGE, CDMA, WCDMA, LTE, and WiMAX receiver applications (see the figure). But what does that mean? In explaining the thinking that went into the design of the...
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Don Tuite
[Design View / Design Solution] Protect Storage Solutions Against Sophisticated Attacks
With the trend toward greater global competition, companies are increasingly setting up manufacturing facilities in countries with historically weak legal protections for intellectual property (IP). Thus, there’s a growing demand among system designers for enhanced physical-layer security to protect sensitive information stored in silicon. Even the most sophisticated lock in the world offers no protection if its key is easy to find. This principle applies equally...
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Craig Rawlings
[Design View / Design Solution] Build A Debug And Trace Systems For Multicore SoCs
Embedded designers put microprocessors in everyday products like cars, phones, cameras, TVs, music players, and printers, as well as the communications infrastructure, which the general public doesn’t get to see. They know how important it is for their products to work—and work preferably better than their competitors’ products. But the systems-on-a-chip (SoC) behind them continue to grow in complexity, making that simple goal harder to achieve, ...
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William Orme
[Ideas For Design] Driver Offers Proportional Solenoid Control Without PLC, Microcontroller
The proportional-control solenoids used in some industrial hydraulic systems are usually driven by microcontrollers or programmable logic controllers (PLCs). Such complex drivers typically require several different supply voltages for logic and control. (The purpose of proportional control is to move the solenoid plunger to an arbitrary position and leave it there.) A set-and-leave solenoid driver, however, should not require a costly PLC or the...
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Robert Brewer
, et al.
[Ideas For Design] Some Basic Math Creates A Low-Cost Nonlinear Thermocouple Interface
Measurement and process control loops often use 8-bit microcontrollers. The devices are inexpensive and widely available, and they can be programmed in many popular high-level languages—like C and Basic. However, if the loop requires a nonlinear sensor, the designer faces the added challenge of having to develop a software linearization algorithm. One solution is to design hardware to perform the required curve fitting before the sensor’s output...
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Robert S. Villanucci
[Editorial] Wireless Everywhere Still Needs To Work Out The Kinks
If you’ve ever seen the Dead Zone commercials from Verizon Wireless, you realize that there is some truth to the statement that wireless everywhere is still working out the kinks. My favorite is the one where a young couple is purchasing the “the old Miller place—in spite of what happened there,” according to an older woman who walks up to the couple as they’re moving in. “Oh, they didn’t tell you,” she says, “It’s a dead zone.” Of course, the couple isn’t worried...
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Joseph Desposito
[POV: Point Of View] Wireless Security Gets A New Sheriff And Deputy—802.1x And EAP
Wireless technologies continue to grow with no sign of slowing down. Today, companies need to understand the advances in wireless security standards so they can easily integrate wireless infrastructure products (access points and clients) while utilizing and enhancing the network security infrastructure. As wireless security development continues, clever hackers continue to find new ways around security measures. To mitigate vulnerability to attacks, companies have...
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Vishal Kakkad
[Pease Porridge] What's All This Output Impedance Stuff, Anyhow? (Part 1)
A few engineers were having a debate. According to all the books, some of them said, op amps are supposed to have zero output impedance, or very low. That means the output voltage wonâ??t change, just in case the output current changes. Some older op amps had an output impedance of 600 ? or 50 ?. So, the gain of the amplifier wonâ??t change just because the load changes. That must be good. But a couple of other engineers pointed out that many modern op...
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Bob Pease
[TechView: Analog & Power] Set-Top Tuner Simplifies Design And Assembly
Tuners for set-top boxes, DVRs, PC TVtuner cards, and the like keep getting simpler to design in and less demanding to assemble into end products. Anadigics’ AIT1032 1-GHz double-conversion tuner implements upconverter, downconverter, voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO), synthesizer, RF and IF amplifier, and RF and IF gain control functions with a combination of gallium-arsenide (GaAs) and silicon technologies. It’s designed to avoid...
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Don Tuite
[TechView: Analog & Power] RF Power MOSFETs Top Previous PAE Standards
Power-added efficiency (PAE) is the ratio of the difference of the power gain of an RF power amp to the dc power that amp consumes. In commercial wireless systems at 175 and 500 MHz in cell phones at 800 and 900 MHz, it’s customary to use two MOSFET stages in the final output, running off a 3.6-V rail. For those typical applications, Renesas has applied a new process technology to boost PAE. The n-channel first-stage RQA0014 has 55% higher PAE than...
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Don Tuite
[TechView: Test] Updated Signal-Generation Software Uses Click-And-Drag GUI
Keithley Instruments has launched the 2.0 version of its SignalMeister Waveform Creation Software. Introduced last year, the original version of the software tool lets engineers create highly complex signals needed to test modern RF and wireless products. With SignalMeister, designers can create waveforms for multiple signal standards and add signal impairments and channel modeling. The created waveforms are downloaded to Keithley’s 2900 series RF...
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Louis E. Frenzel
[TechView: EDA] Model Extractor For CMOS Sports Improved RF/DC Parameters
It’s very difficult to create accurate device-simulation models for advanced CMOS digital processes. Why? Because hard-to-model effects like gate accumulation and tunneling, trap-assisted tunneling, and halo effects have become so prevalent at ultra-deep-submicron technology nodes. For designers of RFcapable systems-on-a-chip (SoCs), this has become a critical issue in the accurate prediction of the behavior of highly nonlinear RF circuits,...
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David Maliniak
[Embedded in Electronic Design] Wireless Python Key To Mobile Robot
Programming wireless devices can be a chore, but the use of scripting languages like Python can turn rapid frustration into rapid development. I tested this theory with the Synapse Wireless EK2500 development kit, which I combined with iRobot’s Create here in the lab (see “Commanding The iRobot Create” at www.electronicdesign.com, ED Online ID ...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] Rugged Gateway Links ZigBee And Cellular
Digi International’s ConnectPort X4 NEMA provides a rugged link between a cellular and ZigBee network. The gateway features Python programming support in addition to serial, Ethernet, and USB interfaces. The unit is designed to be a gateway to other Digi Drop-in Networking products (see “ZigBee Kits 5” at www.electronicdesign.com, ED Online ...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] Fanless Mini-ITX Motherboard Stays Cool
ITOX’s G5G100-L10C Mini-ITX motherboard sports heatsinks to keep its 1-GHz Celeron M Ultra Low Voltage 373 processor cool. The chip has a 512-kbyte cache and a 400-MHz front-side bus. The system uses less than 17 W. The board utilizes the Mobile Intel 910GMLE Express chip set with the Intel ICH6M I/O controller hub and the GMA 900 graphics adapter. Also, there is a 1-Gbit Ethernet port, eight serial ports, two SATA ports, an Ultra- DMA/100...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] ZigBee Chip Goes 32 Bits
Jennic’s JN5139 brings 32-bit computing to ZigBee Pro. It’s built around a 32-bit, 16 MIPS RISC core, 96 kbytes of RAM, and 192 kbytes of ROM. Developers can use the JenNet stack, 6LoWAPAN IP, or ZigBee Pro protocol stack. Peripherals include 21 GPIO, I2C, SPI, two serial ports, a four-channel, 12-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC), and dual 11-bit digital-toanalog converters (DACs). A 48-byte one-time programmable (OTP) eFuse stores the MAC ...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] Rugged Displays Get Wide
Stealth Computer’s SV-2400 wraps a steel enclosure around a widescreen, 24-in. LCD. The system features an optional USB-based, capacitive touchscreen interface designed for rugged environments. The NEMA 4/IP56 LCD can withstand water, dust, and dirt. It features a 5-ms response time, 1920-by-1200 resolution, a 16:10 aspect ratio with 250 nits of brightness, a 160° viewing angle, and a 1000:1 contrast ratio. It accepts DVI and...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] Linux L2/L3 Middleware Targets Multicore Solutions
6WINDGate EDS and SDS software from 6WIND addresses telecom applications such as wireless infrastructure. The EDS version enables Fast Path implementation as a Linux kernel module between the Linux networking stack and the interface drivers. The SDS version takes advantage of the Multi-Core Executive Environment (MCEE). Also, the EDS version targets quad-core x86 processor platforms and runs on platforms such as Cavium’s MIPS64- based multicore...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] Constructing Tiered Wireless Sensor Networks
Packet processing needs processing power. Thatâ??s what GE Fanuc delivers with its WANic 5434 Packet Processor (see the figure). The PCI Express-based board can handle wire speeds up to 4 Gbits/s. It also can handle packet layers 2 through 7, making complex security processing applications. The WANic 5434 is based on Caviumâ??s 500-MHz CN5434-NSP Octeon chip,...
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William Wong
[Embedded in Electronic Design] Multicore For WANs
The University of Southern California is the home of Tenet, a tiered wireless sensor network project. The architectures combine PC-class network masters with a horde of wireless micro motes that are typically 802.15.4 nodes. Generally, these are very low-power devices. Version 2.0 is available for download from the Tenet project’s Web site. The master tier runs on Linux or Windows (courtesy of Cygwin). The applications that run on...
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William Wong
[Design FAQs] Automated Test Summit 2008
What is the Automated Test Summit? The Automated Test Summit is an annual virtual industry event for test and design engineers hosted by National Instruments. It includes a virtual trade show floor with exhibits, interactive Q&A, live keynotes, and several live technical tracks. You can experience all of these events just as you would if you were attending the conference yourself, but from the convenience of your desk...
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Louis E. Frenzel
[Engineering Essentials] Welcome To Antennas 101
Antennas are much more than simple devices connected to every radio. They’re the transducers that convert the voltage from a transmitter into a radio signal. And they pick radio signals out of the air and convert them into a voltage for recovery in a receiver. Typically taken for granted and left for the last minute in a design, antennas are nonetheless critical for establishing and maintaining a reliable radio connection. They may look complex and enigmatic...
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Louis E. Frenzel
[Lab Bench] The Challenge: Handling 1000 Cores Wirelessly
Intel and other companies are forecasting a single chip with 1000 cores. Programming these chips will be a challenge, but there is another arena with similar challenges. Cores are proliferating in the wireless sensor and control arena, with 802.15.4 being the underlying protocol of choice. Wireless chip vendors like Ember, Freescale, and Texas Instruments are churning out an array of options that often incorporate a compact 8-, 15-, or 32-bit core to handle...
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William Wong
