Electronic Design Update: May 28, 2008

Electronic Design UPDATE e-Newsletter |   May 28, 2008 ADVERTISEMENT Performance Motion Devices (PMD) is a world leader in motion control chips, cards, modules, and software. PMD provides high-performance single and multi-axis motion control products for DC brush, brushless DC, microstepping, and pulse & direction motors. We specialize in providing cost-effective, high performance motion systems to OEM customers for a wide variety of industries, including medical device, materials handling, robotics, test and instrumentation, industrial automation, motion control, and textile applications.
Click here for more info. viewpoint |Go To DAC, For Your Career's Sake . . . By Limor Fix
Associate Lab Director, Intel Research Pittsburgh
In order to have a long and successful career in the electronic design industry—whether you are a designer, engineering manager, or executive–you should take three important steps. First, enhance your skills and knowledge. Second, network with your peers. And last, monitor market trends. Unfortunately for many of us today, these activities get postponed indefinitely while we take care of the immediate deadlines and crises of our workdays. Read the full article... blog |IEF 2008 Session 2: Driving the Changes By Joe Desposito, Editor-in-Chief
This session included three presentations: Electrification—A Chance for Automotive Electronics, by Valentine von Tils, vice president of platform development ASICs, Robert Bosch Corp.; Unified Communications: The Real Business Behind Web 2.0, by Thomas Wiemers, vice president of strategic marketing, Siemens Communications; and Mobile Innovation: Improving Customer’s Quality Of Life, by Luigi Licciardi, executive VP, technology & operations, Telecom Italia. Read the full article... engineer's resource | Aftermarket Battery Packs - Revelations from Product Tear-Downs Aftermarket battery packs are available for most portable devices. Hosted by Robin Sarah Tichy, Technical Marketing Manager with Micro Power and contributor to Electronic Design's Power Design column, this webcast will present the results of several product tear-downs on aftermarket battery packs and explain how substandard aftermarket packs can cut corners on cost, safety mechanisms, and battery performance. These teardowns expose electronic & mechanical design issues, as well as good manufacturing and regulatory violations. Then, this webcast will provide solutions for OEMs to manage and control their ecosystem of aftermarket battery pack suppliers. The webcast is applicable to OEMs of consumer and industrial electronic products susceptible to aftermarket batteries, such as medical, handheld radio, and data collection devices.

SID 2008
The Society for Information Displays (SID) hosted its International Convention and exhibition at the Los Angeles Convention Center, and 9500 engineers and scientists showed up to learn the hows and whys of display device operation. For exclusive coverage, including panel discussions, product announcements, and video, visits our SID 2008 site.

IEF 2008
IEF 2008, held in Dubai, UAE, was a far-flung event with interesting panel discussions led by key personnel in the semiconductor industry. Catch up with Joe Desposito, Electronic Design Editor-in-Chief, as he reports on the conference, and watch exclusive video coverage from the show.

focus on embedded hardware |

32-Bit CISC MCUs Look To The Future

With an eye on the diverse needs of future embedded-system applications, the RX600 series of MCUs from Renesas Technology America, forecasts a redefining of the performance capabilities of CISC based MCUs. The devices, ramping up for sample shipment in the second quarter of 2009, will be the first 32-bit MCUs to employ the next-generation RX CPU architecture and deliver performance levels up to 200 MHz, according to the company. Read the full article... EiED online |

ZBA Bluetooth Kit

Technology Editor Bill Wong gives ZBA's latest evaluation kit and Bluetooth modules a test run. Read the full article...

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Click here to learn more. Engineering TV | Service Robot For Elderly And Disabled Robosoft's recently unveiled robot combines the advantages of Internet and robotics technologies to provide daily-life services to people staying at home, the disabled, and the elderly. Its numerous functions include social interactions and remote visits with distant friends, relatives and doctors, telemedicine, cognitive prosthesis, daily reminders, and more. It is based on robuLab10, a multi-purpose mobile robot designed to embed various “application modules," and a robuBox, the generic robot middleware based on Microsoft Robotics Studio that comes with every robot produced by Robosoft. Developed and compatible with Microsoft Robotics Studio, the robuBOX-AGV implements all the basic functions needed by most automatic guided vehicles, such as service orchestration, management and abstraction of hardware and sensors, guidance by inductive wire or laser, anti-collision, beacon detection and localization, path teaching-and-repeating, fleet supervision, and remote control (by phone).

news from the editors |

Meeting Will Discuss Universal Power Supplies

The second meeting of the Alliance for Universal Power Supplies (AUPS) will focus on questions such as how power is really distributed in the office, how China established a workable cell-phone-charging standard, and how the Environmental Protection Agency views the proliferation of power supplies. Read the full article...

MIT Hikes Methanol Fuel-Cell Power

MIT engineers have boosted the power output of direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs) using a new material that offers several advantages, including lower cost than traditional fuel cells. DMFCs also have potential applications in other electrochemical systems, such as batteries. Read the full article...

DIVA Consortium Demos Single-Cable TV Technology In China

The China Video Industry Association (CVIA) announced its support of the DIVA Consortium’s efforts to create a new interface for next-generation interactive digital television and consumer electronics (CE) networking. The DIVA protocol was demonstrated working over a single CAT6 cable, with only eight wires (four differential pairs), during the China Digital Living Forum & Showcase 2008. Read the full article...

Firms Lead Effort For Rugged MicroTCA Standard

Hybricon Corp. and Emerson Network Power have taken leadership positions in the new PICMG Rugged MicroTCA.2 subcommittee. Comprising members from dozens of PICMG member companies, the subcommittee is focused on addressing the dynamic and challenging rugged environments that are critical for a number of applications in the military market. Read the full article... quick poll | Are you okay with Internet service providers (ISPs) monitoring your surfing habits?

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