Leading Edge
-- EDN, January 7, 1999
Both LeCroy and Tektronix are starting the new year by announcing two- and four-channel portable digital oscilloscopes that offer performance heretofore unavailable in units of their size and price. All of the scopes use color active-matrix LCDs that, as a standard feature, emulate analog scopes’ intensity-modulated displays. LeCroy’s $5990 to $12,990 LT300 Waverunner series ( Picture) includes four 18-lb, 8.3X13.8X11.8-in. units, all of which offer 500-MHz bandwidth. Tektronix’s TDS3000 series ( Picture) uses an approximately 6X12X4.5-in., 7-lb lunch-box-sized package. You can equip any of the six $2995 to $9995, 100-, 300-, and 500-MHz TDS3000 scopes with a 4-lb internal battery pack that runs the scopes for approximately two hours. You can recharge the battery in approximately 12 hours without removing it from the scope or in approximately two hours in an external charger. The LeCroy scopes offer acquisition memories of 250k and 1M samples/channel and allow both random-interleaved and real-time (RT) sampling. The maximum real-time-sampling rate is 500M samples/sec/channel. Tek based its units on the fast-in/slow-out (FISO) sampling technology of the company’s digital real-time (DRT) scopes. The maximum sampling rate is 5G samples/sec in 500-MHz-bandwidth units, 2.5G samples/sec in 300-MHz units, and 1.25G samples/sec in 100-MHz units. This performance is available simultaneously on all channels. DRT scopes have acquisition memories of relatively modest depth—10k samples/channel in the TDS3000 units. A feature of the TDS3000 scopes that appears to be unique among digital scopes is intensity control. This knob has much the same effect on the display as does an analog scope’s intensity control. Internally, however, the operation is different, combining a dozen software algorithms, according to Tektronix. Although the TDS3000 scopes use the digital-phosphor-oscilloscope (DPO) technology that Tek introduced last year, the implementation differs significantly from that of Tek’s first DPOs. Whereas the initial DPO models, which are more expensive than the new units, can acquire as many as 200,000 waveforms/sec, the new units acquire a maximum of 5000 waveforms/sec. This rate is significantly higher than that of most digital scopes, but not of LeCroy’s units, which acquire 40,000 waveforms/sec/channel in the segmented-memory "sequence" mode. Both families of scopes offer extensive waveform-processing capabilities, including FFTs. In the Tek units, you add these by inserting small firmware modules, two of which Tektronix includes with the 500-MHz units. In the LeCroy units, you simply call LeCroy and supply a purchase-order number. The company provides the codes that unlock onboard firmware. All units in both families also include floppy-disk drives, a much-wanted feature that some earlier portable scopes lacked.—by Dan Strassberg LeCroy Corp, Chestnut Ridge, NY. 1-800-453-2769, www.lecroy.com. Tektronix Inc, Beaverton, OR. 1-800-426-2200, www.tek.com/Measurement.
The EDN Embedded Microprocessor Benchmark Consortium (EEMBC) has started a beta-licensing program to allow select vendors to gain access to EEMBC’s industry-standard benchmarks. EEMBC is targeting this program toward compiler and real-time-operating-system vendors; however, processor customers are welcome to participate. These vendors will benefit from this offer by getting a head start on enhancing their products for the benchmarks, which in turn will benefit the real-world applications from which these benchmarks are derived. This program will also allow the licensees to provide feedback to the consortium for possible inclusion in the Version 1.1 benchmarks, scheduled for release in early February.—by Markus Levy EEMBC, 1-916-939-1642, info@eembc.org, www.eembc.org. Compress images without a loss If your application requires the high image quality that lossy compression can’t deliver, but you need smaller files than Lempel-Ziv-Welch (LZW) compression creates, check out BitJazz’s BitJazz and PhotoJazz (see " Compression puts images on a diet ," EDN, June 18, 1998, pg 71). This software supports Windows and Mac OSs, and the company plans to migrate it to Unix and other operating systems. BitJazz’s "condensation" scheme borrows from negative entropy and annealing theories in thermodynamics. Condensation extracts probability-correlation information across the entire image, not just in a pixel-to-pixel scan-line fashion. The BitJazz software-development kit, written in C, contains the compression and decompression algorithms, error-detection routines and operating-system interface. BitJazz’s compression of Kodak’s ( www.kodak.com) 768X512-pixel test image suite yielded an average compression ratio of 2.5-to-1 and compressed three times faster than portable-network-graphics algorithms. My tests on 24-bit color images yielded files noticeably smaller than the most aggressive tagged-image-file-format (TIFF) compression option. Decompression generated pictures visually indistinguishable from the originals, and BitJazz handles a variety of color formats, including RGB, CMKY, LAB, and gray scale. (See JPEG versions of the images at www.geocities.com/Yosemite/Rapids/5902/nepalpix.htm.) BitJazz has also developed a $99 compression/decompression program called PhotoJazz that runs under Adobe Photoshop and other Photoshop plug-in-compatible software, and the company is also working on Web-browser add-ons. An RGB-only version of PhotoJazz costs $49, and you can also download both a free evaluation version of PhotoJazz and the software-development kit from the company’s Web site. Contact the company for licensing information.—by Brian Dipert BitJazz Inc, San Geronimo, CA. 1-415-642-4829, fax 1-415-642-4839, www.bitjazz.com. Physical-design tool takes on deep-submicron problems The Envisia Silicon Ensemble Ultra placement-and-routing tool from Cadence offers concurrent placement and timing optimization, completes placements as much as five times faster than its predecessor, and increases accuracy with new interconnect-extraction techniques. The tool includes the Ultra placer with three- to five-times faster placement than the company’s Silicon Ensemble DSM placement-and-routing tool; the fully integrated HyperExtract tool, which offers quasi-3-D interconnect extraction; and support for silicon processes with as many as nine metal layers that you can extend to 256 layers with Cadence’s IC Craftsman shape-based autorouter. Ultra also offers interactive debugging for analyzing critical timing paths.
The Envisia product family will ultimately include design-planning and -synthesis capabilities, along with placement and routing. Running on Unix platforms, Silicon Ensemble Ultra is a $97,000 upgrade of Cadence’s Silicon Ensemble DSM or $495,000 as a stand-alone tool. A clock-tree option adds about $50,000 to Ultra’s price—by Jim Lipman Cadence Design Systems, San Jose, CA. 1-408-943-1234, www.cadence.com. Amplifier pushes cable signals upstream with programmable gain Operating over 5 to 65 MHz, the Maxim MAX3510 programmable power amplifier delivers an output level that you can set in 1-dB steps. This maximum output voltage ranges from 8 to 64 dBmV when you connect it to the cable through a 2-to-1 voltage-ratio transformer for signal coupling and isolation. The $4.72 (1000), 5V, 20-pin QSOP device has an output-noise floor of –47 dBmV over a 160-kHz bandwidth. In partial-shutdown mode, it maintains the programmed gain setting but disables all analog circuitry; its full-shutdown mode disables all circuitry and cuts supply current to less than 10 µA.—by Bill Schweber Maxim Integrated Products, Sunnyvale, CA. 1-408-737-7600, www.maximic.com. On-chip memories come forth and multiply In response to the demand for a broader range of memory compilers, Artisan Components has tripled its memory-product offering to 19 generators. The new compilers include a high-density memory family and add members to the company’s low-power and high-performance memory families ( Figure).
The new high-density family has eight memory generators, including synchronous and asynchronous single- and dual-port SRAMs, synchronous register files, and ROM. The low-power and high-performance memory-generator families have five new members, including ROM and single-port asynchronous SRAM for both families, along with dual-port register files for low-power applications. Besides distinct products for low-power, high-speed, and high-density applications, Artisan can also tune each generator to give you blends of speed, power, and density for specialized applications. This tuning feature lets you optimize memory blocks for a feature set that might be, for example, between a memory block for high speed or high density. Artisan also offers tunability for its standard-cell and I/O products. Optional memory features include Artisan’s Universal Test Interface for supporting popular memory-test methodologies, a late-write feature enabling input-data arrival following address- and control-signal arrival, and a byte-write capability to support any segment-size data-write operation. All three memory-generator families support 0.15-, 0.18-, 0.25-, and 0.35-µm CMOS processes. Artisan optimizes each family for a foundry’s process. Each memory generator has a starting price of $390,000 for each process.—by Jim Lipman Artisan Components, Sunnyvale CA. 1-408-734-5600, fax 1-408-734-5050, www.artisan.com.
GPS antenna and preamp maintain application’s low profile Although antennas and their front ends have not shrunk as dramatically as IC features have, they are still shrinking at an impressive rate. Toko America’s TMM869 low-profile global-positioning-system (GPS) antenna module ( Picture) includes an antenna, a low-noise amplifier, and a preselecting bandpass filter in a 43X53X13-mm-high package. The 5V/15-mA unit operates at 1575.42 MHz with a 9-MHz passband. Antenna gain is 5 dBi, and amplifier gain is 31±4 dB with a 0.9-dB typical noise figure. You can get the $18 (1000) module—which mounts using magnetic strip, adhesive strip, or screws—with any of several standard RF connectors on its cable, or you can omit the housing if you prefer to provide your own packaging.—by Bill Schweber Toko America Inc, Mount Prospect, IL. 1-847-297-0070, fax 1-847-699-1194, www.tokoam.com.
Push high-voltage or -current outputs from small SIP op amp Not every linear design is micropower: Piezoelectric transducers and some instrumentation may need 100s of volts, and magnetic transducers and controls often require high currents from their driver sources. A pair of small yet potent op amps from Apex Microtechnology, the PA13 current-output device and the PA15 voltage-output device ( Picture), may fit your electrical needs and mechanical constraints. The PA13 comes in a 12-pin power SIP housing, and the PA15 comes in a 10-pin power SIP. The PA13 delivers 10 or 15A peak output (depending on model) from a 90V (±45V) supply and contains a temperature-compensated output stage that eliminates the unfortunate tendency of high-power Class AB output stages to enter thermal runaway mode. Output slew rate is 4V/µsec for this fully protected device. The 10 and 15A versions cost $77.20 and $100.35 (100), respectively. The PA15 drives loads as high as ±225V with continuous output currents as high as 200 mA and pulse currents as high as 300 mA. The 20V/µsec version costs $74.25, and the 30V/µsec version costs $96.50 (100).—by Bill Schweber
Apex Microtechnology Corp, Tucson, AZ. 1-520-690-8600, fax 1-520-888-3329, www.apexmicrotech.com. IC lets you slide smoothly from digitized to viewable video Comprising one IC, the ML6461 video encoder from Micro Linear does the job of many: converting uncompressed video to analog format and then filtering it for viewing ( Picture). The device accepts an 8-bit-wide stream from an MPEG decoder and converts it into NTSC composite or S-video formats. Applications include set-top boxes, digital cameras, camcorders, and PC-graphics add-in cards. The 28-pin SOIC ML6461 includes three 10-bit D/A converters; a timing generator; a vertical banking-interval encoder for closed-captioning, summing circuitry; two sixth-order, lowpass filters for waveform reconstruction; and three 6-dB, 75V video amplifiers that can drive as much as 300 ft of coax. You supply the digital ports with YCrCb-encoded video, in CCIR601 or square-pixel formats. Similar to the $8 (1000) ML6461, the ML6460 also includes Macrovision copy-protection for digital-versatile-disk (DVD) applications.—by Bill Schweber Micro Linear Corp, San Jose, CA. 1-408-433-5200, www.microlinear.com. Full-featured flash focuses on code and data Rather than extend its traditional NOR flash with multilevel-cell technology, AMD has introduced the UltraNAND flash-memory process for storage of data such as voice, music, and still and video images. AMD’s first UltraNAND-based device, the 64-Mbit AM30LV0064 ( Picture), is socket-compatible with chips from NAND originators Samsung ( www.samsung.com) and Toshiba ( www.toshiba.com). AMD believes that UltraNAND will share a number of advantages with NAND over the fast-access NOR and DiNOR approaches, including smaller die for a given density and a simple, low-cost manufacturing process. According to AMD, however, UltraNAND offers two key advantages over standard NAND: high quality and reliability. The AM30LV0064 J40 version specifies 1024 (100%) functional blocks through 100,000 erase cycles, with 10-year guaranteed data retention. Although the chip’s multiplexed interface and slow random-access time make it unsuitable for code execution compared with other EPROM-like flash memories, you don’t need system error detection and correction (EDAC) in designs that store code in UltraNAND flash memory and shadow it in RAM for fast execution. AMD also specifies a K40 version with 1014 to 1024 (99%) functional blocks for applications that can tolerate lossy data or that include EDAC to enable use of lower cost flash memory. The AM30LV0064 feature set also extends beyond standard NAND flash memory with its "gapless-sequential-read-data" command. This function eliminates the 7-µsec setup time when fetching data from consecutive pages, delivering 50-nsec/byte read performance from the memory space. The 3.3V AM30LV0064 with optional 5V I/O buffers, costs $18.85 (10,000) and comes in TSOP-IIs and FBGAs. It is available for sampling and will enter production by the end of this quarter.—by Brian Dipert AMD Corp, Sunnyvale, CA. 1-408-732-2400, fax 1-408-774-7216, www.amd.com.
Integrated RAID engine slashes server cost Offering ways to boost system performance and reliability, RAID (redundant-array-of-inexpensive-disk) technology is invading servers to embedded systems; some analysts predict 85% of servers will include RAID in 2000. Now, LSI Logic is offering a single-chip RAID controller that makes the technology even more cost-effective. The SYM53C1510 integrates dual 80-Mbyte/sec Ultra2 SCSI cores, a RAID XOR engine, an ARM RISC core, a PCI interface, and a memory controller. The IC enables PCI add-in-card RAID designs that require only external memory and can be equally effective directly in motherboard implementations. LSI based the SCSI cores on the SYM53C895 architecture (which Symbios Logic developed before its acquistion by LSI Logic), and the IC can run scripts developed for the popular SCSI chip family. The IC will sell for $121 (1000), and samples are available now. Expect volume shipments and OEM host-adapter boards by midyear.—by Maury Wright
LSI Logic, Milpitas, CA. 1-800-856-3093, www.lsilogic.com. Ultra-low-power SRAMs stretch battery life Cypress Semiconductor believes the low-power-SRAM market is alive and well, despite what some of its competitors might think (see " SRAMs strive to specialize ," EDN, Nov 5, 1998, pg 62). The company’s new MoBL (More Battery Life) product line ( Picture) specifies standby current lower than 1 µA typical and operating current lower than 10 mA, both at 1.8V. The devices offer an operating voltage range of 1.8 to 3.3V, respective access times of 100 and 70 nsec over industrial temperatures, and a 1V data-retention mode. The first two MoBL family members, the 2-Mbit CY62136V (with a X16-bit data bus) and the CY62138V (with a X8-bit data bus) cost $5.25 (10,000) each and come in 48-ball FBGA and 44-pin TSOP packages. Cypress plans 4-Mbit versions of these chips for introduction this year. The company will also base these chips on its 0.25-µm RAM5 process.—by Brian Dipert Cypress Semiconductor, San Jose, CA. 1-408-943-2600, fax 1-408-943-2741, www.cypress.com.
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