Altera's Case for DSP in Industrial Control

posted by Loring Wirbel on 03/12/2010   |   comments 3

We’ve been watching the board-level embedded folks like Mercury Computer Systems and Pentek shift over the last couple years from DSPs to hig... • read more

Tier Logic's Threefold Path

posted by Loring Wirbel on 03/10/2010   |   comments 2

Tier Logic has gotten the occasional mention in this blog as a startup specializing in 3D interconnect, but after the splash made by players such a... • read more

Revisiting High-Speed Serial Protocols

posted by Loring Wirbel on 03/08/2010   |   comments 0

Ever since the IEEE 802.3 Ethernet high-speed study group approved dual project authorization requests at 40 and 100 Gbits/sec that became 802.3ba,... • read more

Circuit protection for outdoor LED lighting

posted by By Phillip Havens, Littelfuse on Mar 3, 2010

Outdoor LED lighting can be an efficient, "greener" source of light in addition to promising a long, maintenance-free life. However, outdoor LED lighting installations can actually be less reliable than conventional lighting unless designers add the proper circuit protection to guard against the • read more.

Dealing with LED Heat

posted by Charles J. Murray on Mar 1, 2010

To cool high-power LED assemblies, manufacturers such as TI, National Semiconductor, Bergquist, TT Electronics IRC Div., Cool Innovations, Nuventix have developed drivers, metal-clad substrates and heat sinks to move the surrounding air. • read more.

Burn out: Weak links affect HB-LED lifetime

posted by By Margery Conner, Technical Editor on Feb 18, 2010

High-brightness LEDs for solid-state lighting can last 50,000 hours or more, but the components surrounding them generate heat that can cause early failures. Proper selection of capacitors and other components, along with thermal management, can help you save your LEDs from an early demise. • read more.

PRODUCT LITERATURE: Building Automotive Driver Assistance System Algorithms with Xilinx FPGA platforms

The emerging market for automotive driver assistance systems (see cover story) requires high-performance digital signal processing as well as low device costs appropriate for a volume application. Xilinx® FPGA devices provide a platform with which to meet these two contrasting requirements. • read more.

WEBCAST: Platform Management Using MachXO & ProcessorPM PLD

PLDs are commonly used in platform management applications for housekeeping and power-up management. In this webcast, we discuss the requirements of PLDs in this scenario and look at some of the advantages of the MachXO and ProcessorPM devices from Lattice. We will also examine some of the convenient tools that Lattice provides for quick evaluation and experimentation of the MachXO and ProcessorPM PLDs. • read more.

PRODUCT BROCHURE: MachXO Family

The MachXO family of non-volatile infinitely reconfigurable Programmable Logic Devices (PLDs) is designed for applications traditionally implemented using CPLDs or low-density FPGAs. Combining an optimized look-up table (LUT) architecture with low-cost embedded Flash process technology, the instant-on, easy-to-use MachXO devices are the most versatile, non-volatile PLDs for low-density applications. • read more.