2145 results found for Digital ICs, displaying items 1 - 20
July 10, 2008[Ideas For Design] VHDL Code Offloads LED Blinking Task To A CPLD
An earlier Idea For Design (“Hardware-Based LED Blinking Control Eliminates Software Overhead,” Sept. 27, 2007, p. 52) described a very interesting way to offload the software overhead required for a microcontroller to drive LEDs that indicate operating states to the user. That article discussed the use of memory-mapped LED control registers, buffers, and a clock source, all used to blink an LED without burdening the microcontroller code with...
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Philip Warren
July 10, 2008[Ideas For Design] VHDL Code Listing
IFD2303code.txt library IEEE; use IEEE.STD_LOGIC_1164.ALL; use IEEE.STD_LOGIC_ARITH.ALL; use IEEE.STD_LOGIC_UNSIGNED.ALL; entity LED_Driver is port ( clk: in std_logic; -- Clock input por: in std_logic; -- Power-On Reset a_bus: in std_logic_vector(3 downto 0); -- 4-Bit Address Bus d_bus: inout std_logic_vector(7 downto 0); -- 8-Bit Data Bus led_out: out std_logic); -- Output to...
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Philip Warren
July 10, 2008[Embedded in Electronic Design] USB Spans 8- To 32-Bit MCUs
Microchip’s latest microcontrollers, from its 8-bit PICs to 32-bit MIPS-based chips, now sport USB. At the low end is the small-footprint PIC18F1XK50 family. The 16-bit PIC24F family now adds USB OTG (On the Go) support, as does the low-cost, 40-MHz, 32-bit PIC32MX420. Other PIC32 systems run at speeds up to 80 MHz. Pricing starts at $1.32, $3.47, and $3.25, respectively. MICROCHIP ...
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William Wong
July 10, 2008[Lab Bench] DSP Pumps Up The Performance In High-End Stereo Speakers
Even in this age of tiny earbud music players, audiophiles want high-end stereo systems that provide perfect acoustics and fidelity— and technology is making these systems less expensive than ever. In fact, I recently received a letter from a reader asking about some of these developments: “I heard that Emerald Physics has a set of $3500 speakers that outperforms more expensive, $20k to $50k systems using a DSP. Is this possible?” asked S....
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William Wong
July 10, 2008[TechView: Digital] CPLD Technology Scores A Big Green Zero
Last month, the FCX Clarity began rolling off the production line at Honda’s plant in Tochigi, Japan. The sedan is powered by the company’s V Flow fuel-cell stack, a compact lithium-ion battery pack, and a single hydrogen storage tank. According to Honda, it has a 280-mile driving range and gets 72 miles/kg-H2, or the equivalent of 74 mpg of gasoline. Three-year leases will be available for $600 a month to customers living in Southern California near publicly accessible...
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Daniel Harris
July 10, 2008[Design View / Design Solution] Technology Options And Issues For FPGAs
The five mainstream FPGA vendors—Actel, Altera, Lattice Semiconductor, QuickLogic, and Xilinx—have a combined market share of approximately 98%. The remaining percentage points account for a few specialty suppliers that offer FPGA-like capabilities. All of these companies are fabless operations and rely on wafer foundries in Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, or Germany to produce their wafers. As a consequence, they only have access to the technologies...
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Bernhard Linke
July 10, 2008[Design View / Design Solution] Protect Your FPGA Against Piracy
Over the past two decades, the field-programmable gate array (FPGA) has transitioned from a prototyping tool to a flexible production solution in both consumer and industrial applications. With FPGA logic complexity increasing from a few thousand gates to millions of gates, the devices are able to hold more of the key functions (intellectual property) of a system. Today, designers can select FPGAs that employ various technologies to hold the configuration...
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Bernhard Linke
July 10, 2008[Engineering Essentials] Without Thermal Analysis, You Might Get Burned
Remember when thermal analysis meant getting your prototype back and deciding if you might need to throw in a couple of heatsinks and a fan for good measure? Try that approach now and you may find yourself in deep and without a paddle. After all, heat can hamper electrical performance and ultimately reduce mean-time between failures. Back in my engineering heyday, I never put much thought into thermal analysis because it just wasnâ??t necessary, and I know...
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Daniel Harris
July 10, 2008[Technology Report] MEMS The Word... In Consumer Electronics
Demand for devices that can sense motion, orientation, and location is surging, and it runs the gamut from the hottest video games to critical medical technology. With accelerometers and gyroscopes based on microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) rapidly maturing, that demand is being met. Many of the latest consumer products include one or more MEMS IC functions that measure and control factors like movement, position, force, and even temperature. As a...
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Roger Allan
June 25, 2008
[Technology In The News] International Experts Will Judge 2008 Green Design Contest
Premier Farnell, an international multi-channel electronics distributor, has chosen its judging panel for the design competition called "Live EDGE" (Electronic Design for the Global Environment). The competition allows engineers and students to compete by designing electronic products that are environmentally friendly.
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ED News Staff
June 26, 2008[POV: Point Of View] Is China's Fabless Industry Ready For Cross-Border Collaboration?
In today’s flat but increasingly complex world, no one entity can do it all—not even Cisco or IBM, both prominent proponents of business collaboration and participation in clusters. The semiconductor industry came to this realization earlier than other high-tech sectors. Twenty years ago, TSMC established a service—what was then a novel idea—of making ICs for other companies. Other independent foundries followed, nurturing a new industry sector called fabless...
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Lilly Chung
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June 26, 2008[Technology Report] FPGAs Pushing MCUs As The Platform Of Choice
Falling FPGA prices and ever-improving tools make FPGA development more palatable to designers who aren’t well versed in this arena. Likewise, the increased number of choices and improved sophistication of soft processor cores for FPGAs create new options for developers who would otherwise look only at stock, offthe- shelf microcontrollers. There are many reasons why designers should consider FPGAs as a development and deployment platform. Processors ...
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William Wong
June 26, 2008[Leapfrog: First Look] Copper Energy Saves Plenty Of Energy—And Pennies
Find a penny, pick it up, and all the day you’ll have good luck. That saying has been around since pennies were actually made mostly of copper, not just copper-coated like they are today. Copper can also be found in our bloodstream. It has been used to carry water and transfer heat. Most recently, it has been used for interconnects in semiconductors. But what about putting the metal to work as part of a nonvolatile memory technology? Researchers from...
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Daniel Harris
June 24, 2008
[EEPN In Electronic Design] BSI Technology Flips Digital Imaging Upside Down
The quest for superior digital images in evershrinking camera designs never ends. Now, CMOS-sensor specialist OmniVision Technologies has partnered with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. (TSMC) to take a completely different approach to traditional CMOS image sensor technology. OmniVisionâ??s OmniBSI architecture consists of a novel sensor design that uses backside illumination (BSI) to improve image quality while shrinking pixel size down to 0.9 μm....
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Mat Dirjish
June 19, 2008[Technology Report] Motion Blur Distorts Digital Video's Future
Back in the dark ages, watching TV was a challenge. If you were on the fringes of the broadcast networks’ ranges, you and your siblings had to take turns holding the TV set’s rabbit ears to improve its reception. And if the set stopped working, you were in for a trip to the local drug store with a bag full of vacuum tubes. These days, if you’re talking about a TV not functioning, you’re likely referring to the shift from analog to digital...
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Daniel Harris
June 17, 2008
[Viewpoint] Cars Tap Wireless, Memory Technologies For Improved Safety
The automobile has come a long way since its inception in the 1700s. What’s next for the cars of tomorrow? While we won’t exactly be flying about like the Jetsons, in the coming years, features like traffic notification systems and speed limit alarms will enhance the driving experience and make it a lot safer.
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Gaurav K. Agrawal
June 16, 2008
[Technology In The News] Universities, Industry Team In Microelectronics Manufacturing R&D
It’s getting harder for U.S.-based industries to maintain competitiveness in business segments that have been moving offshore. But a collaboration between two universities and a maker of electronic interconnects has resulted in a pioneering microelectronics manufacturing research and development center.
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ED News Staff
June 12, 2008
[MD&M 2008] Emerging Technology Under And Behind The Knife
One would be hard pressed to dispute that Medical Design & Manufacturing East is the world's largest conference and exhibition for medical manufacturing and related products. Taking up nearly one third of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City, the event featured over 1,000 exhibitors from every area of the healthcare market.
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Mat Dirjish
June 12, 2008[Leapfrog: First Look] Drive Straight To The EEPROM On A Single Bus
With the cost of materials and labor rising, wouldn’t it be nice to find out the amount of pavement needed for a new road has been minimized? Microchip has taken that concept and applied it to its latest line of EEPROM devices. The company’s UNI/O family only requires a single trace be paved from the microcontroller EEPROM—and even a fresh engineering graduate could be trusted to handle the routing of a single trace (...
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Daniel Harris
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