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2009 Editorial Calendar
| Issue | Cover Story | Design-Application Story | Product Roundup |
| OCT 8 | Systems T&M Topic: Systems test & measurement Author: Ron Wilson The whole purpose of prototype boards, design kits, and reference designs is to let the debug engineer see what’s happening on the board. But that requires access to the vital and often delicate signals. EDN listens as experienced board designers tell how they decide ahead of time what signals to make accessible, how they design-in access, and how they select the right instruments for the job. |
Analog Topic: Comparators Author: Paul Rako One of the most basic analog functions is embodied in the comparator. All it does is indicate if one input signal is above or below a second input signal. Yet these parts have a myriad of specifications you need to be aware of. This article describes a little comparator history and explains the important specs. In addition, it tells you why an op amp may not work as a comparator. |
Sensors/Transducers |
| OCT 22 | Microprocessor Directory Topic: Annual Microprocessor Directory Author: Robert Cravotta The microprocessor market is an ever evolving landscape. EDN Technical Editor Robert Cravotta surveys the microprocessing landscape with the annual microprocessor directory to help you find your way around this changing market. |
Systems Topic: Debugging an FPGA design—not so easy! Author: Chris Schalick, Founder and CTO, GateRocket As FPGAs have become bigger, faster, and less expensive, just about everybody uses one from time to time. But while the field-programmable devices are unquestionably easy to configure, it is a big mistake to assume you can debug them just by programming up a part and dropping it into your board. In this piece, a long-recognized expert on FPGA debug discusses the many places in the design flow where errors can creep into an FPGA, and how to get them out again. |
Amps/Osc/Mixers |
| NOV 12 | Comm Topic: Modular instrument systems for communications systems design Author: Rick Nelson Whether you are designing cellular infrastructure equipment or a mobile communications device, pulling together a complex system and making sure the communications links that hold it together are working can require coordinated, synchronized measurements, possibly at geographically dispersed test nodes. Modular instruments conforming to specs like PXI and LXI can help. This article investigates the instrument types available in modular formats and describes the advantages of each standard. |
Power Topic: Power-conversion efficiency challenges Author: Margery Conner Margery Conner, EDN’s Power Systems technical editor, works with an industry consultant on this article covering power-conversion efficiency challenges for ac/dc and dc/dc power supplies. In addition, the article looks at the paradox of power efficiency: As we develop more efficient power supplies, lights, and cars, it effectively drives the cost of energy down, and we end up consuming more of it. This is sometimes called the rebound effect, or the Khazoom-Brookes Postulate. The topic is very timely based on worldwide government programs mandating increased efficiency. |
Discrete Semi |
| NOV 26 | Consumer Topic: The concepts and realities of SSDs Author: Brian Dipert Brian Dipert explores the rapidly changing world of solid-state disks. Not a hands-on benchmarking piece, this is a more conceptual investigation. First and foremost, it will review flash-file system basics, explaining the most common questions on the subject, such as, Why don't SSDs wear out after 10,000 writes? Then the story will discuss various trade-offs that enable design optimization for performance, power consumption, cost, form factor, longevity, and/or capacity. These topics will include system- versus subsystem-based and software versus hardware issues of controller design; degree of access parallelization; flash memory component erase block size and page write size; flash memory technology options (NOR versus NAND, etc.); single- versus multilevel cell trade-offs; and related topics. |
ICs Topic: Lessons from the Last Mile Author: Ron Wilson High-definition video over Internet Protocol to the home is suddenly one of the few growing areas in a bleak electronics landscape. But the twin challenges of getting adequate bandwidth over antediluvian copper twisted pairs and of driving the cost of fiber connections down to fiber-to-the-home levels are creating their own technical stimulus package for IC designers in the telecom world. This article examines what the rest of the industry can learn from the heroic efforts of chip designers creating hardware for the Last Mile. |
Opto/Display |
| DEC 3 | Power Topic: Inverters at the heart of solar power Author: Margery Conner Solar power has received a lot of attention lately, with most of the focus on the solar cells. However, just as important to overall system efficiency is the inverter design. Solar inverters take the dc power generated at the solar-cell module and convert it to ac power. Power Systems Technical Editor Margery Conner looks at architectures and design considerations for the new breed of solar inverters. |
DSP Topic: The many paths to digital signal processing Author: Robert Cravotta Developers have many options when it comes to implementing DSP (digital signal processing) in their designs. EDN Technical Editor Robert Cravotta explores the many faces of DSP, including how these different technical approaches, such as DSP processors, FPGAs, and hardware accelerators, compete and complement each other in today's signal-processing-intense applications. |
Connectors |
| DEC 15 | Hot Technology #1 Topic: Model-based design and early verification Author: Rick Nelson Engineers can save themselves a lot of grief if they carefully evaluate their designs in software before committing to silicon or sheet metal. Model-based design and early verification tools are helping designers find inevitable mistakes early and get to market on time, whether they are developing integrated circuits or airframes. |
Hot Technology #2 Topic: Floating-gate storage in analog signal paths Author: Paul Rako Storing charge on a floating gate—a technology we normally associate with Flash memory—can have uses in analog design as well. By using the charge on the floating gate to represent an analog quantity, designers are finding that analog storage, analog multipliers, and many other components are feasible. This technology could pull some important signal-processing tasks away from DSPs and back into the analog domain. |
Power Sources |
