Electronic Design UPDATE: December 19, 2005

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Electronic Design UPDATE e-Newsletter
Electronic Design Magazine
Electronic Design ==> www.electronicdesign.com
December 19, 2005
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http://news.electronicdesign.com/t?ctl=1C3E4:484C79

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Today's Table Of Contents:
1. Industry View
  *Automation Turns Nightly Builds Into Espresso Break Builds
2. Focus On Test & Measurement
  *Control Instruments Anywhere Through Ethernet-To-GPIB Interface
3. News From The Editors
  *Seminars Bring Power Know-How Close To Home
  *Interconnect Technology Weaves An On-Chip Web
  *Lead-Free Tantalums Put Large Capacitance In Small Packages
4. Magazine Highlights: December 15, 2005
  *Cover Feature: Success Story -- A Prescription-less Portable 
   Defibrillator
  *Technology Report -- Timing Analysis Rounds The Corner To Statistics
  *Leapfrog: First Look -- PMBus Controller Takes A State-Machine Approach
  *Design View/Design Solution -- Use Forward Voltage Drop To 
   Measure Junction Temperature

Electronic Design UPDATE edited by Lisa Maliniak, eMedia Editor
mailto:[email protected]
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1. Industry View -- Exclusive to Electronic Design UPDATE
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Automation Turns Nightly Builds Into Espresso Break Builds

By John Graham-Cummnning, Cofounder and Chief Scientist, Electric Cloud
 
No self-respecting engineering team works without source-code 
control or a bug tracker, and almost every quality-assurance (QA) 
team installs expensive test automation tools. Yet build teams use 
20-year-old tools like Make and cobbled-together Perl scripts to run 
the critical stage of actually building the final product. It's time 
that changed. In fact, time's up for creaky homegrown build systems. 
As engineers employ agile development methods requiring constant 
integration, and development schedules get squeezed by pushes for 
ever faster time-to-market, the hours-long nightly build is an 
anachronism...

Read the full article at 
http://news.electronicdesign.com/t?ctl=1C3D5:484C79

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*************************ADVERTISEMENT**************************

High-Precision ADCs - http://news.electronicdesign.com/t?ctl=1C3E2:484C79 

Simplify your design with National's pin- and function-compatible 
family of ADCs and online design tools. These ADCs deliver the 
highest performance at the lowest power and allow you to change 
resolution and speed with ease. And to make designing with ADCs even 
easier, National and Arrow offer an online seminar, an online eBook 
and the WEBENCH Signal-path designer tool-all on http://news.electronicdesign.com/t?ctl=1C3E2:484C79

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*******************Live on ElecDesign.com***********************

Free Web Seminar: RoHS -- The Manager's Role, Part 2

December 21, 2005 at 2:00 pm ET
Join us for our second Web seminar that looks at the manager's role 
in the transition to compliance with the European Union's 
Restrictions on Hazardous Substances (RoHS). We will identify and 
explore the decisions that industry managers have to make. Register 
today! 
http://news.electronicdesign.com/t?ctl=1C3D2:484C79

Free eBook: A Black-Box Approach To ADCs

This eBook provides a black-box approach to the traditional 
analog-to-digital coverter (ADC) tutorial. It concentrates on the 
common characteristics of all ADCs and what they imply for the 
system-level designer. The second chapter is now available. Download 
the first two chapters today!
http://news.electronicdesign.com/t?ctl=1C3DA:484C79

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2. Focus On Test & Measurement
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***Control Instruments Anywhere Through Ethernet-To-GPIB Interface
The Model 8065 Ethernet-to-GPIB controller provides access to 
multiple general-purpose interface-bus (GPIB) instruments from any 
computer with a network-interface-card interface or connection to 
any TCP-IP network. With this device, users can share test 
instruments from anywhere in the world using a PC connected to a 
company network or the Internet. The 8065 complies with the VXI-11.2 
communication standard for LAN-to-GPIB servers and with the VXI-11.3 
standard for LAN-controllable instruments. The VXI-11 Service can be 
accessed from National Instruments LabView, Agilent Vee, Visual 
Basic, and C application programs that call for a VXI-compliant VISA 
layer. The 8065 comes with a VXI-11 Keyboard utility program that 
lets users with WIN32 computers control GPIB devices without having 
to write a program. Also, an included configuration utility lets 
users set the IP address, GPIB address, interface name, and other 
settings. It can handle up to 15 VXI-11 links. The Model 8065 costs 
$695 each in quantities of one to four units, with delivery in four 
to five weeks. Versions that comply with the European Union's 
Restrictions on Hazardous Substances (RoHS) will be delivered in 
March 2006.
     ICS Electronics ==> http://news.electronicdesign.com/t?ctl=1C3DE:484C79 

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3. News -- From The Editors
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***Seminars Bring Power Know-How Close To Home
A series of power seminars will soon arrive at an American or 
European city near you. The seminars will present fresh approaches 
to switching regulator topologies and implementations, practical 
application issues for switch-mode power supplies, and help with 
understanding today's power MOSFETs. Conducted by power experts 
from Fairchild Semiconductor's Global Power Resource design centers, 
the seminars will cover the latest design techniques, tips, and 
tools for optimizing system power. The seminars kick off on January 
30, 2006 in Stockholm and conclude on May 17, 2006 in Moscow. In 
between are stops in locales such as Stuttgart, Germany (February 
8); Huntsville, Alabama (March 15); Dallas, Texas (April 6); San 
Jose, California (April 25); Phoenix, Arizona (April 27); and Tel 
Aviv, Israel (May 11). Visit the company's Web site for a complete 
list of seminar dates and venues.
     Fairchild Semiconductor ==> 
http://news.electronicdesign.com/t?ctl=1C3DD:484C79

***Interconnect Technology Weaves An On-Chip Web
One of the most critical issues for system-on-a-chip (SoC) designers 
is the interconnections between the many IP blocks that comprise the 
device. Traditional on-chip bus architectures have proved to be a 
design and performance bottleneck. Now, a network-on-chip technology 
promises to give designers a leg up on interconnect issues by making 
possible the proper price/performance tradeoffs. STMicroelectronics' 
ST Network on Chip (STNoC) technology replaces the traditional 
circuit-switched bus with a packet-based paradigm that incorporates 
a layered protocol stack analogous to a very simplified networking 
scheme. IP blocks such as processor cores, cache memories, 
connectivity I/O functions, or audio/video codecs are simply plucked 
from a library, added to the SoC design, and empowered to communicate 
with each other by means of a high-speed, low-power, packet-based 
communications protocol. ST's Spidergon topology arranges all of the 
SoC's IP blocks in a ring. Each IP block is connected to its clockwise 
and its counter-clockwise neighbor as in a simple polygonal ring 
topology. However, each IP block also is connected directly to its 
diagonal counterpart in the network. This allows the routing algorithm 
to minimize the number of nodes that a data packet has to traverse 
before reaching its destination. 
     STMicroelectronics ==> 
http://news.electronicdesign.com/t?ctl=1C3D9:484C79

***Lead-Free Tantalums Put Large Capacitance In Small Packages
Thanks to a new low-profile "R" case size, a line of tantalum 
capacitors enables designers to meet Restrictions on Hazardous 
Substances (RoHS) environmental standards with a component that 
won't eat up pc-board space. The TAJ "R" capacitors offer height 
options of 1.2, 1.5, and 2.0 mm, which equal the heights of standard 
IC packages after mounting. They'll find myriad applications in 
computer power supplies, disk drives, cellular handsets, and PCMCIA 
cards. The capacitors come in a range of values from 0.1 to 22 
microF with a capacitance tolerance of +/-10 percent to +/-20 
percent. Their operating temperature ranges from -55 deg.C to 125 
deg.C. They're available on standard 7- or 13-in. reels in 
quantities of 500 to 10,000. Pricing is around $0.21 each in volume 
quantities.
     AVX Corp. ==> http://news.electronicdesign.com/t?ctl=1C3E3:484C79

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Just For Fun...

Top-Secret Design Project

Electronic Design reader Dan Willis from Electronic Concepts & 
Engineering in Holland, Ohio, wanted to share some details from his 
company's latest top-secret design project. Hope you enjoy!

http://news.electronicdesign.com/t?ctl=1C3DB:484C79

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4. Magazine Highlights
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In case you missed them, here are some of the high points of our 
most recent issue.

December 15, 2005:

* Cover Feature: Success Story -- A Prescription-less Portable Defibrillator
The HeartStart low-cost automated external defibrillator for home 
use breaks new ground in consumer health electronics.
http://news.electronicdesign.com/t?ctl=1C3D3:484C79

* Technology Report -- Timing Analysis Rounds The Corner To Statistics
Timing-signoff flows, overburdened by corner-based analysis, evolve 
to encompass statistical methods.
http://news.electronicdesign.com/t?ctl=1C3D7:484C79

* Leapfrog: First Look -- PMBus Controller Takes A State-Machine Approach
Ease of use, flexibility, and efficiency blend together in this 
power manager and converter package.
http://news.electronicdesign.com/t?ctl=1C3D4:484C79

* Design View/Design Solution -- Use Forward Voltage Drop To Measure 
Junction Temperature
You can characterize a semiconductor device to be its own 
temperature sensor by using an accurate four-wire measurement 
technique.
http://news.electronicdesign.com/t?ctl=1C3D6:484C79

For the complete Table of Contents, go to Electronic Design ==>
http://news.electronicdesign.com/t?ctl=1C3DC:484C79

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EiED Online -- Best Computer of 2005

Embedded in Electronic Design (EiED) Online is your source for 
technical insight and hands-on reviews. Read Technology Editor Bill 
Wong's latest EiED Online column, "Best Computer of 2005." Building 
the Best Computer of 2005 requires the best components and a bit 
more. Check out Bill's holiday project, which takes gaming and 
multimedia entertainment to the max. Find out why this system is 
twice as good as others.

http://news.electronicdesign.com/t?ctl=1C3D8:484C79

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TAKE A POLL!

Which tech toy would you put at the top of your holiday wish list?

-- iPod
-- High-definition plasma TV
-- GPS navigation system
-- Smart phone
-- Satellite radio

Vote at Electronic Design ==> http://news.electronicdesign.com/t?ctl=1C3E1:484C79

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CONTACTS: Electronic Design UPDATE e-NEWSLETTER
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Editorial: Mark David, Editor-in-Chief
mailto:[email protected]

Advertising/Sponsorship Opportunities: Bill Baumann, Publisher:
mailto:[email protected]
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