High-power systems tax L, C elements By Bill Travis, Senior Technical Editor
Using both improved old technologies and entirely new techniques, reactive components are keeping pace with increasing system-power demands.
FROM EDN EUROPE: Category 6 cable—Gigabit Ethernet over copper
By David Marsh, Contributing Technical Editor
Gigabit Ethernet delivered over copper cabling challenges fibre and ATM for high-end enterprise LAN infrastructures. Lower installation costs together with reduced retraining and support issues persuade Gigabit Ethernet's early adopters. But with the standards issues still in the air, what's the state of the technology? And how do you test the new systems to assure their performance?
Design Features
The best (or worst?) of both worlds By Brian Dipert, Technical Editor
Programmable-logic devices deliver design, manufacturing, and after-sale-service flexibility that ASICs can't match, but CPLDs and FPGAs also run more slowly, burn more power, and cost more per gate. Does the emerging one-chip ASIC/programmable-logic hybrid eliminate-or just accentuate-the shortcomings of both precursors?
Low-cost techniques bring Internet connectivity to embedded devices
NS Manju Nath, Technical Editor
Specialized chips, cores, and networking software now enable you to connect small, embedded devices to the Internet. This fact may well herald an era of simplified Internet-connectivity options for consumer electronics.
Modify your switching-supply architecture for improved transient response
Brian Erisman, Analog Devices Inc, and Richard Redl, PhD, Elfi SA
By taking a different approach to switching-supply design, you can develop an architecture that improves overall supply performance in critical transient specifications.
Synchronous oscillator outperforms the PLL Vasil Uzunoglu, Synchtrack
The PLL has numerous limitations, including low input-signal sensitivity and contradictory design requirements. The synchronous oscillator doesn't suffer from these problems and has many powerful properties, including three internal filters and a self-regulation property.
New printed-wiring-board materials guard against garbled gigabits
Chad Morgan and David Helster, Amp Inc
Eye diagrams show that, at 2.4 to 4.8 Gbps, the old standby, FR4, can produce unacceptable signal distortion. Several dielectric materials that supposedly offer significant improvements offer only slight improvement. However, a couple of other materials are good choices, and one costs only about twice as much as FR4.
