EDN - General Articles The Breaking News Section of Reed Electronics Group News en-us http://www.edn.com Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information. Subject to its <A href="http://www.reed-electronics.com/ednmag/index.asp?layout=siteInfo&doc_id=26250">Terms of Use</A> Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:13:08 PST Atmel teams with HMT, MESCO Engineering on tiny IO-Link reference. http://www.edn.com/article/CA6708266?nid=2551 Atmel Corp. has combined a microcontroller with HMT physical-layer chips and MESCO software stack, for a 6 x 20 mm IO-Link reference design.<br /> Sponsored Link: NI introduces High Performance USB Data Acquisition http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;219509079;12103198;g?http://www.ni.com/new_compactdaq/?metc=mtkxq9 NI CompactDAQ hardware delivers accurate measurements in a small, simple, affordable system; and is optimized for multicore processing and Windows 7. Learn more. Secondary-side synchronous rectification boosts resonant converter efficiency http://www.edn.com/article/CA6707473?nid=2551 While secondary-side synchronous rectification in resonant half-bridge topology is not uncommon, its implementation has not been easy. A novel control scheme precisely turns on and off the secondary-side synchronous rectifier MOSFETs to achieve rectification that emulates a Schottky-diode rectifier, minimizing switching losses and optimizing conversion efficiency. PIC32 expands connectivity support http://www.edn.com/article/CA6707464?nid=2551 Microchip Technology’s PIC32MX5/6/7-family chips expand the connectivity support of PIC32 processors to cover 10/100-Mbps Ethernet; CAN (controller-area-network) 2.0b; and USB (Universal Serial Bus) host, device, and OTG (On-The-Go) peripherals. New power-supply efficiency numbers herald a new era in power management http://www.edn.com/article/CA6707615?nid=2551 GUEST OPINION: The EDN article "Industry standards lead push toward energy-efficient computing" discussed the new Platinum power requirements for high-efficiency ac/dc power supplies. But have we reached the point of diminishing returns by pushing efficiency requirements too high? Atmel debuts secure controller family http://www.edn.com/article/CA6707074?nid=2551 Atmel Corp. has used its SecureAVR cores in a new family of secure microcontrollers, the AT90SO line. Power-converter IC targets dimmable LEDs, needs no optoisolator http://www.edn.com/article/CA6706827?nid=2551 The large installed base of dimmable-lighting switches dictates that most new lighting technologies, including LED lights, should support dimming, and the myriad disparate specifications for dimming switches requires these lights to meet a wide range of characteristics. &ldquo;Not I,&rdquo; said the rat: the tale of the Little Red Hen-gineer http://www.edn.com/article/CA6705270?nid=2551 Tales From The Cube: It sometimes pays to shut off all the extra noise—um, information—and handle things your own way. BLE set for surge http://www.edn.com/article/CA6705269?nid=2551 According to ABI Research, manufacturers will ship more than 2.5 billion Bluetooth low-energy chip sets in 2014 in a market that will grow at 78% compound-annual-growth rate between 2009 and 2014. MIIT proposes China ROHS catalog http://www.edn.com/article/CA6705268?nid=2551 The restrictions are expected to come into force 10 months after the adoption of the legislation. Outsourcing to China in question http://www.edn.com/article/CA6705267?nid=2551 A possible electronics-supply-chain shift may be in the works as the challenges of manufacturing in China and the still-recovering global economy have caused jitters among OEMs. Digital photomultipliers challenge vacuum-tube photomultipliers http://www.edn.com/article/CA6705266?nid=2551 Despite massive improvements in solid-state light sensors in recent years, the detection of extremely low light levels has remained stubbornly resistant to the incursion of solid-state devices. The problems have been how to deal with the excessive dark count once you integrate the photodiodes into a circuit and how to reduce the cost of the specialized processes that the diodes require. Team hardens SiGe circuits http://www.edn.com/article/CA6705265?nid=2551 Manufacturers once aimed certain process technologies at radiation-hardened designs. CMOS, for example, started out that way, when RCA (www.rca.com) developed its silicon-on-sapphire process. However, the overwhelming success of bulk-silicon CMOS processes has driven most of the alternatives into niches, forcing up their cost to the point that only the best-funded programs can use an alternativ... Avnet releases Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGA evaluation and development kits http://www.edn.com/article/CA6705264?nid=2551 The Avnet Electronics Marketing operating group of Avnet Inc has announced the Xilinx Spartan-6 LX16 FPGA evaluation kit and Spartan-6 LX150T FPGA development kit. Both kits support the new FMC (FPGA-mezzanine-card)-expansion standard, which enables the addition of add-on modules and customization when working with FPGAs. Reference-tool flows and process-design kits, part two http://www.edn.com/article/CA6705259?nid=2551 As a result of the shift to global design centers and the reduction in time designers spend on each process node, it is no longer always accurate to assume that experienced designers will be working with PDKs. PCB-layout techniques for gigasample ADCs http://www.edn.com/article/CA6705258?nid=2551 When a multilayer board operates at speeds greater than a few hundred megahertz, it's a challenge to maintain signals without mismatches, losses, distortion, or EMI. Follow these guidelines for PCB layout to preserve signal integrity and achieve high-speed performance.