May 7, 1998

Cover Story

• Biometrics: You are your password
  For verifying your identity, your physical attributes are better in many ways than a password. But which attributes to use and what mass-market products should be the first to use this technology are provoking a spirited debate in the biometrics community.
  --Dan Strassberg, Senior Technical Editor

Design Features

• EDN's Innovation Campaign winners
  Your votes have been tallied in EDN's annual campaign to recognize innovative people and products. We are proud to present the winners and congratulate all the nominations in a strong field of entries.

• EDN's Hands-On Project: Getting a handle on HDLs
  Programmable-logic chips and designs are growing more complex. As a result, you'll sooner or later need to add HDL expertise to your skills if you want to keep hitting those project deadlines. For this Hands-On proj-ect, I learn VHDL, complete a mixed logic and embedded-memory design in an FPGA, and share observations along the way.
  --Brian Dipert, Technical Editor

• Defibrillator technology: help in a heartbeat
  Advances in medicine normally come from the laboratories of white-coated scientists and physicians. This time, designers can take the credit for an evolutionary step in automatic-defibrillator technology that could save as many as 100,000 lives a year.
  --Warren Webb, Technical Editor

• Power-factor correction: Rx for medical power supplies
  A power-factor-corrected power supply allows more instruments to plug into a single outlet, which is an important consideration for both industrial and medical settings. Power-factor correction also ensures adherence to international harmonic-current regulations.
  --Danis Carter, Principal Engineer, Nellcor Puritan-Bennett

• Versatile ICs enable chemistry-independent battery charging
  Fast-moving battery technology poses a question for designers: whether to choose the latest technology for maximum performance or to sacrifice performance for a mature and more reliable technology. The advent of chemistry-independent battery chargers helps to resolve this problem.
  --Matt Schindler, Maxim Integrated Products

• Careful power-distribution design ensures standard-compliant USB operation
  Proper component selection and design make your USB system operate properly and adhere to the USB specification.
  --Larry Mazer and Kevin Lynn, Micrel Semiconductor

Leading Edge

• Instrumentation software: no it's not from Microsoft
• Device gives new perspective to 3-D performance, quality
• Sensor interface measures temperature here and there via SMBus
• Hardware, software advance PC-graphics realism
• ADSL driver/receiver pumps up the current with fast-slewing drive
• Switch IC lets you sense when the force is with you
• Supply regulator corrals DSP conundrum

• Chip integrates T1/E1/J1 framer, analog line interface
• MPEG codec yields lower cost, nonlinear video editing
• Arm yourself with desktop codevelopment system
• Gigabit transceiver targets serial-backplane data switches
• Multiprotocol IC trio goes to any port in an interface storm
• Timing-model generators boost static-timing accuracy
• Diodes fit medical applications
• Calendar