Electronic Design UPDATE: June 14, 2006

Electronic Design UPDATE e-Newsletter
June 14, 2006

Time’s Up... Are You RoHS Ready? The July 1 deadline for compliance with the Restrictions on Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive is just around the corner. Are you ready? Electronic Design’s RoHS Reference Center has the information you need to make the shift to green designs. Download our six-chapter eBook, “Electronic Design’s Guide To New International Environmental Laws,” at www.elecdesign.com/rohs. Today's Table Of Contents:

Industry View: The Paradigm Shift To Digital Control
Focus on Test & Measurement: Emulator Creates Multipath Environments For Wireless Testing
News From The Editors:
NFC Forum Unveils Technology Architecture And Specs
Vibration Energy Powers Wireless Devices
Compact Print Mechanism Fits Portable Devices
Magazine Highlights: June 8, 2006
Cover Feature: Advances Trigger An Ultrasonic Boom
Technology Report: Digital TV, Audio Boost Analog/Mixed-Signal
Leapfrog First Look: Cores That Share Chores
Design View/Design Solution: Turn Capacitors And Inductors Into “Active Passives” In Your System

Electronic Design UPDATE edited by Lisa Maliniak, eMedia Editor

industry view The Paradigm Shift To Digital Control
By Don Alfano, Director of Power Products, Silicon Laboratories Inc.

Digital control isn’t an incremental improvement to analog, it’s a major paradigm shift. To be viable, digital control must represent a significant advantage in all areas of consideration. It must deliver significant performance advantages over analog plus the more tactical benefits of cost, size, and integration. Today, digital control is a new technology making its way into targeted applications where specialized functionality, increased integration, higher efficiency, faster transient response, and programmability are key...

Click here for full article.

focus on test & measurement Emulator Creates Multipath Environments For Wireless Testing

The TrueChannel emulator reproduces accurate multipath environments for testing up to 4x4 multiple-input/multiple-output (MIMO) or single-input/single-output (SISO) wireless designs. It works with wireless IC and board-level products, enabling users to stress a device-under-test’s (DUT) algorithms and hardware...

Click here for full article.

live on electronicdesign.com Free Webcast: Composite Current Source (CCS) Modeling
Wednesday, June 14, 2006 @ 11am PT (2pm ET)

With design libraries being called upon to support more voltage and temperature process corners, nanometer IC designs are making for more convoluted design flows. Join this free webcast to learn how Synopsys' Galaxy design platform uses the Composite Current Source (CCS) modeling technology to address all these nanometer design challenges while simplifying your design flow.
Register today!

Free Webcast: Overcoming The Top Five Challenges In Electro-Mechanical Product Development
Wednesday, June 28, 2006 @ 11am PT (2pm ET)

Electrical engineers using ECAD tools do not have full and immediate visibility into the actions of mechanical engineers using MCAD tools and vice versa. This webcast will give you a better understanding of how the increasing inclusion of software and electronics is making product development more complex, and how you can find out-of-the-box solutions that will simplify the process, eliminate the complexity, and improve productivity.
Register today!

Take Our FRAM Pop Quiz And You May Win An iPod!

Put your EE skills to the test and take the Electronic Design and Ramtron FRAM pop quiz—you could even win an iPod!
Take the quiz now.

ADVERTISEMENTOn-Line Tools for High-Speed Backplane Design Register for your free access to DesignLink from Amphenol TCS. Perform trade-off analysis and “what if” scenarios at any phase of your backplane design. Reduce the decision time and identify cost reduction opportunities early. Download valuable technical information 24x7, including symbols and footprints, application notes, drawings, SPICE models and more. Click here to request access today.

news from the editorsNFC Forum Unveils Technology Architecture And Specs The NFC Forum revealed its technology architecture and announced the first five Forum specifications for near-field communications (NFC) last week. When complete, the NFC Forum’s technology architecture will include specifications that define a modular NFC device architecture, as well as protocols for interoperable data exchange and device-independent service delivery, device discovery, and device capability...

Click here for full article.

Vibration Energy Powers Wireless Devices
Perpetuum has launched a vibration-energy harvester to power wireless and battery-free devices that can send large amounts of data from many types of industrial equipment. The PMG7 microgenerator lets users power sensors, microprocessors, and transmitters for monitoring the condition of plant equipment and machinery without the need for batteries, cabling, or maintenance...

Click here for full article.

Compact Print Mechanism Fits Portable Devices
A new high-speed, battery-driven thermal printer mechanism from Fujitsu Components America is very small and lightweight, meeting the tight space restrictions of portable designs. It targets handheld and portable systems such as point-of-sale devices, measuring and medical instrumentation, and receipt printer applications...

Click here for full article.

ADVERTISEMENTIndustry’s First 8 MHz Buck Regulator Micrel’s MIC2285 is the industry’s first 8 MHz, 500mA synchronous buck regulator. Merging the best LDO and buck regulator technology, it is aimed at space-sensitive applications including ultra-thin cell phones, PDAs, GPS systems, digital cameras, and portable media players. Featuring high efficiency, ultra-low noise and fast transient response, it incorporates a LOWQ LDO mode. Click here for more information.

magazine highlights: June 8, 2006\[ Cover Feature: Engineering Feature \]Advances Trigger An Ultrasonic Boom
Impressive technology gains in sensors, signal processing, and software push ultrasound imagers into a host of new medical applications.\[ Technology Report \]Digital TV, Audio Boost Analog/Mixed-Signal
Innovation in the analog domain has never been stronger thanks to a series of new applications from the digital side.\[ Leapfrog: First Look \]Cores That Share Chores
Single-chip microcontroller houses a number of Forth processor cores that must cooperate when performing computational tasks.\[ Design View/Design Solution \]Turn Capacitors And Inductors Into “Active Passives” In Your System
Instead of relying on a vendor’s specified values, take out your magnifying glass and examine how dc bias changes capacitors, and how current affects inductors.

Click to see the complete Electronic Design table of contents.

embedded in electronic design online FPGA 2: Xilinx Embeds Processors

Embedded in Electronic Design (EiED) Online is your source for technical insight and hands-on reviews. Read Embedded/Systems/Software Editor Bill Wong's latest EiED Online column, "FPGA 2: Xilinx Embeds Processors." Xilinx’s Vertex-4 FX12 incorporates a PowerPC core and has plenty of room for a MicroBlaze soft processor. Bill takes a look at the company’s PowerPC and MicroBlaze development kit, which is easy to use and very powerful.

design briefs wanted! Send us your ideas for design. We'll pay you $150 for every Design Brief 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 to: [email protected].

Click here for submission guidelines.

poll TAKE A POLL!

The Immigration Bill sent to the Senate proposed raising the cap on H-1B visas from 65,000 to 115,000, and 20% per year thereafter. Will this influx of workers help or hurt the U.S. high-tech industries?

Hurt: it would force down wages and discourage future engineers

Help: it would boost creativity and productivity and drive innovation

Neither: high-tech firms already utilize foreign engineering talent

Don’t know

Vote at ElectronicDesign.com

Electronic Design UPDATE e-Newsletter Contacts

Editor: Mark David
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