Design Features: May 12, 1994

Cover Story
High-speed modems	High-speed modems help reduce telephone bills and speed remote access to data. Currently, you can choose between two nonsanctioned standards to achieve data rates faster than V.32bis. But expect a UTI-T-sanctioned, 28.8-kbps standard—albeit untested—this year. — John Gallant, Technical Editor
Design Features The hottest new technologies and the latest design techniques to help you work efficiently and effectively.
Internal debuggers simplify µP pc-board verification	When you must keep the cost of a design to a minimum, try using µPs having background- debug mode, which reduces parts count, lowers board cost, and improves reliability. —Jim Hebert, Tektronix Inc
Transition maps guide successful asynchronous state-machine design	To avoid the risks of asynchronous logic, designers too often sacrifice system performance by using synchronous designs. Transition maps, however, help designers avoid the risks in asynchronous logic—and recover lost performance. —Ricardo O Rabinovich, Ascom Timeplex Inc
Test high-speed drivers with bursts and pseudorandom bit patterns	Combine a high-performance, dual-channel pulse generator having burst and pseudorandom bit-stream capabilities with a high-bandwidth sampling oscilloscope for an effective and reliable way to characterize high-speed drivers. —Andreas Pfaff, Hewlett-Packard GmbH
Diverse PCMCIA add-ons present difficult choices	Abundant, inexpensive PCMCIA card drives make it easy to add credit-card-sized peripherals to desktop computers and embedded systems. But finding the right drive for your application isn’t so easy. —Gary Legg, Senior Technical Editor
A surfeit of power-supply voltages plagues designs of compact products	With logic-supply voltages multiplying like rabbits, designers of small products face some tough architectural decisions. —Dan Strassberg, Senior Technical Editor