IC Insider

The Skyworks SKY77186
By Randy Torrance, Chipworks, 9/21/2010
The IC Insider: This WCDMA power amplifier packs a lot in a small package.

IC reverse engineering-a design team perspective
By Randy Torrance and Dick James, Chipworks, 3/11/2010
The IC Insider explains the why and how of circuit extraction of semiconductor chips. 

In this exclusive series, Chipworks, one of the world's leading IC reverse-engineering houses, provides detailed functional and circuit analysis of significant new integrated circuits. Coupling actual silicon imagery with circuit schematics, The IC Insider shows you how the latest ICs really work, and why—insight you'll never get from the data sheet. Look for The IC Insider exclusively on EDN.com.

Battery-charger IC drives energy efficiency
By Jerico Garcia, Chipworks, 12/4/2009
The IC Insider looks at Freescale Semiconductor's latest SMARTMOS 10 dc/dc converter and how it drives a circuit with an ultra-low input voltage. 

RFIDs power themselves
By Randy Torrance, Chipworks, 5/4/2009
The IC Insider takes a look at the charge pump of Alien Technology's Alien Higgs RFID. 

Maxim MAX17061 WLED driver recipe calls for three flavors of DAC
By Randy Torrance, Chipworks, 3/27/2009
The IC Insider: Unity-resistor-string, binary-weighted, and R-2R ladder DAC architectures help Maxim Integrated Products' high-efficiency driver IC power large LCD panels that use an array of LEDs as a light source. 

GSM/GPRS power amplifiers use CMOS technology
By Randy Torrance, Chipworks, 2/26/2009
The IC Insider: Reverse engineering the Axiom AX502 CMOS power amplifier.

Low-power wireless performance starts with CMOS elegance
By Randy Torrance, Chipworks, 1/5/2009
The IC Insider delves into an ISM transceiver implemented in standard CMOS, revealing that interference-free operation in this crowded swath of spectrum begins with attention to layout details.

MEMS-based inertial sensor is not your grandfather's gyroscope
By Randy Torrance, Chipworks, 12/1/2008
The IC Insider looks at a MEMS-based gyroscope in microscopic detail, and finds that the ingenuity in this sophisticated sensor goes far beyond the process technology used to sculpt its mechanical features.

DDR3 SDRAM exposed: Inside a bleeding-edge, blazing-fast memory device
By Randy Torrance, Chipworks, 11/3/2008
The IC Insider reveals the densely packed real estate and impressive clock-synchronization circuitry that allow Samsung's 1-Gbit K4B1G0846D-HCF8 to achieve its 1066-Mbps data-transfer rate.

Lithium-ion-battery-charging IC powered by charge-transfer, control innovations
By Randy Torrance, Chipworks, 10/1/2008
The IC Insider: Reverse engineering the Maxim MAX8814ETA 28V linear lithium-ion battery-charger IC.