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Only one week left to submit proposals for Open Hardware Summit
Somehow I missed it when the initial Call for Abstracts went out last month: The deadline for proposals for talks, posters, or a project demo is May 31, 2012. The Open Hardware Summit itself will be held September 27, 2012 at Eyebeam Art + Technology Center in New York City. Most of us know what open source software (OS) is, thanks to the phenomenal success of OS projects like Linux and ... More
About this blog
Technical Editor Margery Conner's PowerSource streams the latest developments in electronic power design and related technologies. Follow Margery on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/margeryc.
A window into the frequency domain, part 2
From guest blogger Gina Bonini: In my last post, I reviewed windowing factors used during scope FFTs—why they’re needed, and how to select the right one. In this post, I’ll continue down the path of reviewing key tidbits about the scope FFT function, an often confusing and somewhat mysterious topic. One of the biggest concerns when performing an FFT is aliasing. Aliasing occur ... More
About this blog
Jit Lim, Tektronix senior technologist for high-speed signal analysis, has an EE degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and more than 20 years of experience in the test-and-measurement industry. He has also designed some of Tektronix's highest-performance real-time scopes and published numerous technical papers. Lim brings his extensive experience in signal integrity, jitter measurement, and high-speed-signal physical-layer characterization to these blog posts.
Who is Tom Brown?
That’s the question I inevitably get when I mention Tom Brown. I guess that I naturally assume that everyone in electronics knows the co-founder of Burr-Brown Corp. because I worked for and knew Tom for 14 years until he passed away in 2002. Silly assumption on my part because most of the younger EE’s would probably not know of Tom’s contributions to analog IC development. Fro ... More
About this blog
Senior Technical Editor, Steve Taranovich, muses about the analog world of electronics as it relates to electrical engineers and analog aficionados.
Nathan Seidle: open source, open mind, open for business
As an undergraduate electrical-engineering student in 2003, Nathan Seidle founded SparkFun Inc, an online retail store that describes itself as selling “the bits and pieces to make electronics projects possible.” Since then, the company has expanded to more than 450 original products, which its growing and varied customer base of EEs, hobbyists, artists, students, do-it-yourselfers, ... More
About this blog
This blog is open to the EDN audience and moderated by EDN’s editors. We encourage you to share your perspective on all matters of engineering, be that what’s happening in the electronics industry, changes to design, what it means to be an engineer, or anything else of relevance to you and your peers. E-mail submissions to edn.editor@ubm.com.
Google, your favorite hardware company
It’s official. Google today announced that it has closed its previously announced acquisition of Motorola Mobility Inc (MMI) for $40 a share. Google’s mission statement from the outset was “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” One could say it is continuing down that path with this mobile computing-focused buy. Unsur ... More
About this blog
Offering news and business analysis for the design engineer, Managing News Editor Suzanne Deffree filters the electronics industry's developments and trends to explain how what's happening in the board room today can impact the tech innovation of tomorrow. Follow Suzanne on Twitter, @Deffree. Suzanne also manages EDN's Twitter account, @EDNMagazine.
Apple and forced obsolescence: More questions and comments
Wow. It’s good to be back! I’m frankly pretty mind-blown at the popularity of, and response to, last Tuesday’s post, “Obsolescence by design: Short-term gain, long-term loss, and an environmental crime.” As of Sunday morning, when I began writing this follow-up, readers had left more than 70 comments on it, roughly half of those in the first 24 hours it was publi ... More
About this blog
<p><img alt="Brian Dipert" hspace="6" align="left" border="0" src="/contents/images/_brian_s60.gif" /><em>EDN</em> contributor Brian Dipert exposes, analyzes and<br />opines on diverse topics in technology.</p>
Ignore politics at your peril
When I recently heard banging on my front door, I came dashing up from my office, in no mood for a door-to-door pitch. Instead, what I got was a chance to put my time where my mouth is with regard to engineering and politics, and so far I’ve again failed to act-but at what price? As engineers, we eschew politics. We think that we are above all that. We think that we’re smarter, more ... More
About this blog
In the Design Cycle I will be focusing on the devices, tools, technologies and techniques that will help you get your job done. If I see an interesting tool, I'll let you know, same for products, design tips and industry trends you should know about. Anything that'll help you get to market faster. If there's something you think I should be talking about, flag it!
Modeling in layers results in increased productivity
Productivity is related to the way in which we can model something and reliably go from that model to an implementation that meets all of the design goals. In the digital world, we have managed to incrementally increase productivity over time by raising the abstraction, improving the quality of the tools and removing tasks that previously had to be performed manually. Examples of the former are th ... More
About this blog
Brian Bailey explores how IC design teams work: the struggle for power efficiency and performance, wrestling with semiconductor processes and design methodologies, the challenges of global design teams. How do we somehow herd architecture, IP, design and verification into a successful tape-out?
Cornell Cup: Embedding design into young engineers' minds
In his breakfast keynote presentation opening the inaugural Cornell Cup USA student embedded design competition, presented by Intel, Bikas Narain, Intel, director of platform and software validation, said, “The future is so bright, it’s mind boggling.” Narain was speaking of two things: First, the growth of the embedded systems market, which by 2015 is expected to mass up to 1 ... More
About this blog
Focused on the next generation of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) professionals, this blog explores the challenges and opportunities facing incoming engineers, as well as the “engineering crisis” that could be triggered as baby boomers exit the workforce. This blog also aims to connect new engineers to more experienced STEM professionals as a way of growing young careers and passing on the knowledge accumulated by veteran engineers over decades. Contributions to this blog come from engineers, professors, students, mentors/mentees, and EDN’s Suzanne Deffree, who moderates this blog. Contact her at suzanne.deffree@ubm.com if you wish to contribute a blog post.
IXYS-Clare CPC1540 solid-state relay: Solid-state relay features thermal shutdown
The 350V, current-limiting, normally open CPC1540 solid-state relay replaces electromechanical devices and enhances system robustness. The optically isolated device improves survivability in harsh environments and is designed to pass regulatory voltage-surge requirements when provided with overvoltage protection. Targeting use in environmentally demanding ac or dc applications with limited PCB spa ... More
About this blog
EDN's technical editors highlight notable new products including analog and digital ICs, power components, sensors, passives, boards and systems, software, and more.
Rako moves on…but stays analog
As I explained in my anablog post, I am sad to say I am leaving EDN. I have a great opportunity at Analog Devices. I wanted to post some links to my articles and such that might help you folks with your designs, and I sure hope you liked my work editing Design Ideas. I don’t want to go all Mr. Weepytears on you, but I have to tell you that it is a misnomer to call these “my ” ... More
About this blog
Design Ideas editor Paul Rako introduces EDN's latest engineer-submitted circuit designs, providing links to related articles from our archives, design resources elsewhere on the Web, and just-plain-fun stuff.
Researchers take spintronics for a ride
In early May, researchers at Ohio State University combined traditional inorganic semiconductors with organic spintronics, in a device that they claimed to be the first of its kind. With the prototype, the researchers managed to incorporate an organic polymer into a GaA-based device. This was no easy task, in fact according to Dr Ezekiel Johnston-Halperin, leader of the Ohio State team, ... More
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Matthew Scherer, a semiconductor market research analyst at Databeans Inc, looks at the trends and technologies that will guide the future of the electronics industry in Silicon Beyond.
One EDA/T&M couple is "in a relationship", while another is getting married.
Synopsys and Munich-based test and measurement instrument supplier Rohde & Schwarz have announced that they are collaborating on solutions for the design and verification of LTE and LTE-Advanced chipsets to be used in mobile handsets and wireless basestations. Synopsys will be providing a 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) standard-compliant LTE library for the System Studio and SPW alg ... More
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Technical Editor Mike Demler's IC Design Corner blog provides analysis and discussion on the engineering challenges of IC design and applications, from full custom to field-programmable systems on a chip, EDA tools and methodologies, and advanced semiconductor processes. Follow Mike on Twitter: @MikeDemler.
Hokey smokes, Bullwinkle! TechShop is coming to downtown San Jose
Exiting the Camera 3 movie theaters on Mother’s Day in downtown San Jose, I spotted this banner across the street. The TechShop is coming to downtown San Jose! Ever wanted to run a plasma cutter or a CNC machine? You won’t find those in the Binford catalog in Tim “the toolman” Taylor’s universe but you will find them at the TechShop, a membership-based, high-tec ... More
About this blog
Leibson's Law: It takes 10 years for any disruptive technology to become pervasive in the design community. This blog is about the disruptive technologies that either have or will win over electronic engineers, some that won't, and why. Please feel free to link to these blog entries! Written by Steve Leibson, Technology Evangelist and Director of Strategic Marketing for Denali Software, formerly VP of Content for Reed Business, and formerly Editor in Chief of three publications including EDN and Microprocessor Report. You can email me at steven.leibson followed by the magic email symbol @ followed by att.net.
RoHS dev kit debate heats up in Europe
The RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) directive status of development kits and evaluation boards has always been unclear and hotly debated within the electronics industry with no legally binding decisions being made. The German government decided many years ago that printed circuit boards sold separately to users, for example, to increase computer memory or add new functions to PCs would ... More
About this blog
Gary Nevison, director of legislation and environmental affairs at Newark and Farnell, contributes his views on the electronics supply chain and environmental compliance's most critical topics -- ROHS (all variations around the world), REACH, EUP, WEEE directives, and on whatever else comes up in this ever evolving business channel.
Tenet of Innovation #10: Recognize that innovation can be managed
The process of creating commercial products involves generating information and moving from high risk and uncertainty toward very low risk and great predictability. By the time the products and services are in production, our expectations are for high quality and certain yields, cost, and performance. And yet we know that, by its very nature, risk is inherent to the innovative process. The answer ... More
About this blog
Larry Pendergrass, vice president of New Product Development at Keithley Instruments, Inc., contributes his views on a variety of issues related to new product development leadership, including general leadership, innovation, strategy development and execution.
EDAgraffiti is now at edagraffiti.com
I’ve moved EDAgraffiti to its own website at www.edagraffiti.com. There may be teething troubles so please let me know of any problems. See you over there… ... More
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MRAM Moves to Higher Densities
Everspin introduced a 16-megabit MRAM product today focused on all applications requiring both SRAM performance and nonvolatile data storage. This latest product also addresses MRAM’s traditional high reliability and high-performance market segment, while advancing the technology to a higher density. The new MR4A16B is a 3.3-volt parallel I/O non-volatile memory product featuring 35ns acce ... More
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The Professor Memory blog covers critical new applications and the resulting shift in the value proposition of memory technologies. The professor identifies competitive advantages of the widening range of memory technologies, and forecasts potential market entry points that will be enabled by changes in market dynamics.
Stratix Strategy for Fifth Generation
Given Altera Corp.’s earlier statements regarding 28-nm processes and HardCopy architectures, the capabilities of Stratix V were known long before the April 19 launch of the family. Still, the justification for the 28-Gbit/sec transceivers and 1.6-Tbit/sec aggregate switching capability aims for a core transport application space that may be only a partial realization of the inherent d ... More
About this blog
Analyst Loring Wirbel covers programmable logic from an application perspective, providing a sneak peek at the vertical applications that help drive FPGA complexity, performance, and density. The blog will feature videos allowing engineers to spotlight their latest designs, along with news of products and corporate trends at FPGA vendors and the developers of third-party tools for programmable logic.
Robust Design: Patch-It Principle
The software patch is a much maligned technique for keeping systems robust because many users perceive that the majority of these patches as merely fixes of feature bugs that the developers should have taken care of before shipping the software. While there are many examples where this sentiment has a strong ring of truth to it, the patch-it principle is a critical approach to maintaining robust s ... More
About this blog
Welcome to The Embedded Master, the expert resource for embedded systems designers and developers. Daily news, insightful blogs, video demos, monthly contests, whitepapers and more for the embedded community
Join me at the Embedded Master Micro-site
I have found a new home at the Embedded Master-Microsite to continue the topics we were exploring here. Thank you to all of the people that sent me an email in response to the Tying up Loose Ends post. I have three series running at the micro-site at this time.Monday posts address the Robust Design series. Wednesday posts address the Question of the Week series. Friday posts address the Extreme P ... More
About this blog
Technical Editor Robert Cravotta explores processor and software-processing architectures and the impact they have on system and software development. Relevant architectures include microprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors (DSPs), multiprocessor architectures, processor fabrics, coprocessors, and accelerators, plus embedded cores in FPGAs, SOCs, and ASICs. You can find out where Robert is posting by checking Embedded Insights. Follow Robert at Twitter at: http://twitter.com/robertcravotta
Using eight bits to save two bits
Do some inflection points make as much sound as one hand clapping? It seems that way. Why else would so many device manufacturers still use 8- or 16-bit processors, when modern 32- and 64-bit processors blow those parts out of the water? The answer, of course, is cost. 8-bitters are cheap. Unfortunately, this cost-saving measure comes at a, well, cost — lost productivity. Engineering time i ... More
About this blog
Industry leaders share their insights about processor and software-processing architectures and the impact they have on system and software development. Relevant architectures include microprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors (DSPs), multiprocessor architectures, processor fabrics, coprocessors, and accelerators, plus embedded cores in FPGAs, SOCs, and ASICs. Moderated by EDN Technical Editor Robert Cravotta.
Delivering The Standard In Wireline Home Networking
In the year since my original post to this blog, "Setting the standard in wireline home networking", our industry has devoted many engineer-hours to progressing the wireline home networking standards currently in development. Now that we can see the light at the end of the tunnel, it is time to turn our attention from setting the standard to delivering it. First: an administrative point. In this p ... More
About this blog
Industry leaders, moderated by EDN Senior Technical Editor Brian Dipert, share their thoughts on consumer electronics: past-event post-mortems, current developments and future trends. Follow the How We See CE Twitter feed at www.twitter.com/HowWeSeeCE.
Minimizing Video Processing Design Time with FPGA Development Kits and Reference Designs
Introduction Video standards and methods of encoding/decoding have made tremendous progress over the last decade with the availability of large system-on-a-chip (SOC) solutions using ASSPs, ASICs, or FPGAs. The majority of broadcast content is already streaming in high definition (HD) and is moving from an interlace format to a progressive format. Today’s broadcast equipment must be capable ... More
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Do you know enough about LEDs?
The majority of the people who read this blog are components distributors or other members of the electronics supply chain, so I won’t go into a whole repetitive blathering here about how huge the opportunity is for the electronics supply chain when it comes to LEDs or why it’s a long-term opportunity for the overall electronics industry with tremendous growth potential. Why tell you ... More
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What's happening in the electronics supply chain that will change the way business is done? News Editor Suzanne Deffree looks at environmental regulations, RFID, inventory levels, globalization, distribution, and a host of other issues that influence the electronics supply chain.
Module merges SUMIT interface with ISM form factor
Taking advantage of the latest small form factor announcements, ADLINK Technology just introduced the CoreModule 730 single board computer combining the SUMIT (Stackable Unified Module Interconnect Technology) standard expansion interface from the Small Form Factor Special Interest Group (SFF-SIG) with the newly defined ISM (Industry Standard Module) form factor. The new embedded computer is based ... More
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Technical editor Warren Webb comments on board-level embedded hardware, development tools, and software. No chips!
Capital spending: can it get worse?
After last week’s Wall Street plunge, it was a relief to receive word that all was not lost at least at Lehman Brothers as C.J. Muse, semiconductor equipment/display technologies analyst there continued to send out his reports. With word of a number of fab closures, sales and cutbacks as well as floundering equipment sales, Muse said in a report Friday that in terms of semiconductor ma ... More
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What's happening behind the scenes in the semiconductor manufacturing industry? Read this blog by Senior Editor Ann Steffora Mutschler to find out - and chime in with your thoughts and questions.
DesignCon 2008: One step forward, two steps….
I attended DesignCon last week and covered two events: “Where’s the ROI on DFM?”, which was a lively business panel, and a panel moderated by EDA industry analyst Gary Smith on functional verification. I actually planned to write-up a few more events but was sad to find that the others I attended lacked substance and were largely product and/or marketing pitches. I’ve b ... More
About this blog
EDN Senior Editor Mike Santarini covers digital design and the EDA, ASIC, and FPGA industries. [Editor's note: As of Feb. 2008, this blog is no longer active and is presented here for archival purposes.]
OLED Sony TV shines at CES from afar
I didn’t attend the CES show. This is the second straight year that start-of-the-year management tasks have kept me from the show. In this case, however, I didn’t miss much from most accounts. But as I promised in my most recent post, I have to commend Sony for their introduction of an OLED TV even if it measures only 11-in diagonally. I’ve regularly blasted Sony for obsession ... More
About this blog
In this blog, EDN Editorial Director Maury Wright focuses on digital consumer-electronics gadgets and the converged networks that feed them with video, audio, and data. [Editor's note: As of Feb. 2008, this blog is no longer active and is presented here for archival purposes.]
