New battery technologies hold promise, peril for portable-system designers By Margery Conner, Technical Editor
For the near future, most portable systems will have to rely on some form of the now-venerable lithium-ion battery. Fortunately, lithium-ion cells are improving in cost, robustness, and even energy capacity. But beware the perils that "clone" battery packs can pose for your system.
Operating alone By Robert Cravotta, Technical Editor
Autonomous systems are showing up in more places. Competitions such as the DARPA Grand Challenge are increasing their visibility.
Simplifying industrial backplanes By Richard Zarr, National Semiconductor
System designers turn to serial-communications strategies to boost reliability and extend service life in hostile factory or industrial environments.
Common-driver-library architecture supports, maintains products By Chet Douglas and Boji Tony Kannanthanam, Intel
Using a CDL-based architecture for device drivers can significantly reduce the time to develop, maintain, validate, and support device drivers for multiple platforms.
FROM EDN EUROPE: ARM targets automotive and industrial dominance By David Marsh, Contributing Technical Editor
Recent statistics confirm that ARM's dominance in wireless telephony is virtually complete. But what does the architecture hold for automotive and industrial designers looking to migrate to a stable, low-cost 32-bit platform—and what's available to help?
FROM EDN EUROPE: Multi-chip packaging: tall stacks, low profiles By Graham Prophet, Editor
SoC or SiP? As the design cost of a complex system-level chip escalates, the system-in-package approach becomes increasingly attractive. At the same time, new ways of packing more chips into a single, outwardly conventional package are coming on-stream.
