Contents
December 7, 2004
Cover Story
- Wind chimes in
Capturing the sun's energy via wind power is not new, but today's power semiconductors and control systems make this energy source more viable. - FROM EDN EUROPE: LEDs make the spot light
Available in a multitude of colours and offering superior ruggedness with extended life, LEDs are the natural successors to incandescent bulbs. Today's high-power versions overcome limited brightness to enable new automotive, consumer, and industrial applications.
Design Features
- USB update boosts instrument control
A new class specification for the test-and-measurement industry emulates GPIB-instrument control over high-speed USB. - Accurate power-analysis techniques support smart SOC-design choices
Power issues can plague any SOC, so every design flow needs methods for predicting power consumption, beginning at RTL. - Understand the effects of clock jitter and phase noise on sampled systems
Much of your system's performance depends on jitter specifications, so careful assessment is critical. - EDN hands-on project, part 2: Automate your acceleration
The second installment in a two-part series explores how automation enables designers without hardware backgrounds to create custom hardware acceleration.
Leading Edge
- Real-time spectrum analyzer's 2000-times-higher time resolution shows why digital-RF signals misbehave
- FROM EDN EUROPE: CSR cuts overhead for WiFi on battery power
- FROM EDN EUROPE: On-chip resource management for complex SOCs
- FROM EDN EUROPE: 32-bit RISC design targets FPGA implementation
- FROM EDN EUROPE: 30V process adds robustness to precision analogue parts
- VME DSP board processes 100-MHz signals
- Dueling dual-band 802.11 chips vie for enterprise, consumer, and portable sockets
- Designers get help with thermal analysis
- Don’t mess with this spdt RF FET
- Devices increase VOIP and wireless performance
- Device expands low-end, 32-bit performance
- OS virtualizes guest operating systems
- Circuit simulator adds hierarchical-design tools, supports variants
- Tool adds power-analysis features
- Wind-farm storm watch
Design Ideas
- Dual-output nonisolated SMPS powers appliances
- High-voltage amplifier drives piezo tubes
- Phone wire, RJ-11 jacks and optocouplers build a bus
- Use a PC's parallel port to program a clock source
- Constant-on-time buck-boost regulator converts a positive input to a negative output
- Rainbow LED indicates voltage with color
Tech Trends
- Saving Stan
Sophisticated mathematical models of human physiology and multiple engineering disciplines unite to bring a human-patient simulator to life. Meet Stan.
Departments and Columns
- edn.comment
Blearily, we blog along
- Signal Integrity
For your protection
- edn.comment
FROM EDN EUROPE: Branding the invisible
