October 22, 1998

Cover Story

Computer-board manufacturers are scrambling to get a piece of the action as more customers commit to the CompactPCI platform. Compare the latest and hottest CPU offerings from the industry, and find the one that will speed up your project.
— Warren Webb, Technical Editor

Design Features

• Covering your HDL chip-design bets
  Better quality Verilog or VHDL code results in better, more testable chip designs. Code-quality-enhancement tools help you find coding errors and questionable code constructs before synthesis. Code-coverage tools help determine your simulator's efficiency in checking all parts of a design.
  — Jim Lipman, Technical Editor

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• GPS: coming soon to a cell phone or car near you
  In a quest for ubiquitous GPS deployment, IC vendors have a multipronged approach to proliferate the technology. Higher integration is lowering the cost of stand-alone receivers and making GPS a viable peripheral, even for PDAs, and a melding of technologies will ultimately yield GPS-enabled cell phones and other consumer devices.
  — Maury Wright, Technical Editor

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• C modeling accelerates HDL-system design
  C modeling's software models and benchmarks make it a powerful tool for enhancing HDL design and verification. You can use C models to evaluate early architectures and to verify intermediate and final system-simulation results.
  — Tom Balph And Pat O'Malley, Motorola Semiconductor

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• Bypassing PC boards: Thumb your nose at rules of thumb
  Performance requirements should determine how you bypass power planes on multilayer pc boards. The classic technique, which relies on anecdotal rules of thumb, has simply outlived its usefulness.
  — Jeffrey S Pattavina, Intraplex Inc

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• DC/DC-converter Spice model speeds simulation
  A dc/dc-converter macro model provides fast and accurate simulation of any fixed-frequency converter. By replacing the oscillator with a stable element, the model provides simulation speeds more than 100 times higher than an equivalent oscillator in transient-mode simulation.
  — Martin O'Hara, Newport Components Ltd

Leading Edge

• Fall brings a flurry of processors
• Power ICs tailored to pager's demanding needs
• Fiber switches and media converters support Ethernet and Fast Ethernet
• Hot summer delivers scorching graphics
• GUI software suite simplifies embedded graphics
• EDN accepts nominations for 1998 Innovation Awards
• Configurable processor yields desktop ASIC development
• IC shows where there's smoke, there's a smoke detector
• Video decoding goes beyond PCs
• Monolithic instrumentation amp provides bridge from transducer's bridge

• Count on Talisman for graphics good luck
• Reconfigurable computing speeds chip-design verification
• LVDS enclosure family supports Ultra2 bus speeds
• Single-supply line driver makes ADSL G.lite bits swim upstream
• Keep your technical skills sharp with free, Web-based school
• PIN photodiode positions CDs in optical drives
• Low FET resistance and gate charge boost efficiency in switchers
• Rate adapters bridge emulation problems
• Calendar

Design Ideas

• Ethernet 10BaseT simulator jig yields zero emissions
• Digital potentiometer autonulls op amp
• Single wire connects microcontrollers

• Photo-flash charger minimizes parts count
• Generate an analog signal with a µC

Products

• New Product Database (registered users only) 

Columnist

• Time-tested tricks find hidden failure modes—Ron Mancini

Departments

• Editorial Staff
• Business Staff