October 8, 1998

Cover Story

• Keeping HAL cool in 2003
  HAL in Stanley Kubrick's 2001 had deep space to keep it cool. Lacking that luxury, EDN worked with multidisciplined thermal-engineering experts to cool a supercharged computer from the year 2003 within tight budget constraints.
  — Bill Travis, Senior Technical Editor

Design Features

• Optical networking lightens carrier-backbone burden
  More and more users are finding faster ways to send data and are thus overburdening long-haul communications backbones. Optical networking is poised to ease that overload with mixed protocols and data rates and newly emerging photonics.
  — Stephen Kempainen, Technical Editor

• The frequency domain: A whole 'nother way of thinking
  As signals move faster and faster, familiar time-domain measurement tools can't always keep up. Making a transition to frequency-domain tools can help, but it puts you in territory you may not have visited since you left school.
  — Dan Strassberg, Senior Technical Editor

• The million-gate march: Tackling today's tough ASIC challenges
  Increasing chip density is putting a strain on design engineers. Adhering to a good design-reuse methodology and working within a close-knit design team allow engineers to complete million-plus-gate designs.
  — Roy Shanks And Jon Levi, Cadence Spectrum Design Center

• Digital sync-tip clamping: a new approach to video-signal conditioning
  Digitial sync-tip clamping allows an ac-coupled ADC to digitize analog video without restoring the horizontal timing. You can implement the technique as a stand-alone clamping ADC or as a complete front-end configuration, including sync detection and AGC.
  — Lazar Shifrin, Advanced Imaging Solutions

• Analyze the cause of signal jitter in passive structures
  Signal jitter in passive interconnections, such as connectors and pc boards, can be a significant source of error in a high-speed digital system. Simulation results illustrate how adjacent signals induce jitter by producing impedance changes in the active line. Simple grounding guidelines help you minimize the problem.
  — Chad W Morgan And Hank Herrmann, Amp Inc

• Use precise, tunable noise to test data systems
  A binary sequence generates wideband tunable analog noise more accurately than a commercial noise generator does.
  — Tom Napier, Consultant

Leading Edge

• USB modems sprout as vendors plant enabling chip sets
• Pro-audio converter handles 96-kHz sample rates
• Logic family shrinks propagation delay to less than 2 nsec
• DIGITAL DESIGNER WANTED
• Phase-change material replaces thermal grease
• Sensor-interface µC provides low-cost signal conditioning
• EDN accepts nominations for 1998 Innovation Awards

• Highly integrated PC-graphics chip sets jostle the competition
• Supply controller slashes loss, size, parts count in recharger circuits
• DSO offers 16M-sample memory
• Beboputer prototypes, simulates, and educates
• Image compression catches a wavelet
• Compiler brews relief for embedded programmers
• 48V dc/dc converters come in maxi, mini, micro sizes

Leading Edge

• Automatic features simplify thermal analyses
• Adjustment-free designs target UHF radio links
• Build a CPU-hosted USB modem with two-chip set

• Visualise your product early for concurrent engineering gains
• Chip I/O densities continue to rise

Design Ideas

• Optical encoder controls range switch
• µC controls digital potentiometer
• Timer inputs double as interrupt-request lines
• DSP algorithm measures frequency and damping

• Video equalizer sharpens VCR images
• Programmable charger fills capacitor banks
• µC provides wireless keypad control
• Submit your own Design Idea(s)

Products

• New Product Database (registered users only) 

Departments

• ednmag.comment
• Change partners and dance—Jim Lipman, Technical Editor
• Back to the breadboard —Graham Prophet, EDN Europe Editor

• Gloves off
  Two companies face off about oscilloscopes. You can get in on the discussion too.

• Tech Toys
  Who says engineers can't have fun?

• Editorial Staff
• Business Staff