July 16, 1998

Cover Story

• Divide & Conquer AC ’97’s sound strategy for multimedia PCs
  By putting audio codecs’ digital and analog functions in separate ICs, AC’97 gives PCs better sound quality. As a bonus, it promises to lower costs by integrating audio and modem subsystems.
  --Maury Wright, Technical Editor

Design Features

• Despite threats from USB and Firewire, IEEE 488 ain’t down yet
  USB costs less. Firewire can be 50 times as fast and will get faster. But IEEE 488 still has a lot going for it. Not the least of the reasons for the bus’s survival are the thousands of instruments that manufacturers can’t redesign overnight.
  --Dan Strassberg, Senior Technical Editor

• Board-level signal-integrity analysis: Sooner is better
  Bigger and faster chips are giving major signal-quality headaches to pc-board designers. Using the right tools to analyze and correct signal-integrity problems early during your design gives you fast relief.
  --Jim Lipman, Technical Editor

Leading Edge

• Converter lets PCs use Firewire to talk to IEEE 488 instruments
• Bring in ‘da noise; bring in a ‘da filter
• Monolithic cascode amplifier fulfills cascade of RF needs
• Single chip switches for the whole Ethernet family
• DSL yields very high-speed Internet access
• Active sink helps big ICs play it cool
• PFC dc/dc converters shrink in size, grow in performance
• Programmable-logic design tool: more beef, same price

• SHARC doubles its bite
• Physical-design tools blow into designers’ hands
• Competition for CDMA baseband processor emerges
• Workstations sport Slot 2 bus and Xeon mP
• High dynamic range enlightens CMOS image sensor
• Vendor voluntarily recalls 60,000 DSOs
• Flea-sized resonators provide timing in portable apps

Design Ideas

• Step-up/step-down converter takes 2 to 16V inputs
• Battery booster delivers 75W
• PLL synchronizes power-supply IC
• Simple Spice model simulates laser diode

• Ignore input-range limits in wideband op amp
• High-speed regulator makes great current source

How it Works

• Optical amplifiers literally pump up the (photon) volume
  --Bill Schweber, Technical Editor

Columnist

• Intellectual property: product or technology?
  --Wolfram Blume

Products

• New Product Database (registered users only) 

Departments

• ednmag.comment
• Editorial Staff
• Business Staff