Technical Articles - Cypress.com

Design modularity: the fool-proof way to maintain market leadership in the mobile handset arena

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 01:15:05 -0600

Mobile handset has become the most dominant portable consumer electronics of all time, with worldwide shipments of 990 million units in 2006 and exceeding 1.1 billion units in 2007 (iSuppli). The double-digit year-on-year compounded growth rate is expected to continue for the next few years, as many developing countries are quickly ramping up on wireless infrastructures to meet the booming wireless communications demand. For many developed countries, it is also not uncommon to see individuals carrying multiple handsets; typically one for personal use and another dedicated for business. Forward looking, mobile handset OEMs and ODMs will be constantly challenged to stay competitive, and their most challenging task is to attract new adopters as well as to retain brand loyalty among current users. Having periodic product releases that keep consumers freshly engaged is the key to success in this fast-paced industry, while shortening the product design cycle and releasing products with innovative features are proven to be the two most effective ways to capture a bigger piece of the pie. This article explores the modular architecture approach to mobile handset design that enables both faster time to market and better features support that will lead mobile handset vendors to a successful future. To read more, click the download link above or visit Wireless Design and Development.

USB 3.0 - The Next-Generation Interconnect

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 01:12:25 -0600

When was the last time you got impatient with technology not being fast enough? Here is a situation: your flight from San Francisco to New York takes off in 3 hours and you are ready to head to the airport, but you really want to catch up with the all new season of your favorite series “House” which you missed. A friend just sent you a message on Facebook about how much he enjoyed a blockbuster movie he watched last night and you wish you could watch it on the long flight you are about to get on. If I were you, I would be wondering “if only I had the time to simply get all the content I need right now”. Today, it would take about 14 minutes to transfer an HD movie of 25GB and almost 9 minutes to transfer a TV Show of 16GB from a PC to your handheld media device. Thankfully, technological innovations are happening at a pace that enables users to get the content they want a lot faster. One such evolution is that of the most universal and ubiquitous interface – USB. USB 3.0 SuperSpeed is here and promises to be the panacea to such situations. To read more, click the download link below or visit: Electronic Design.

USB On-The-Go Specification Adds Muscle To Portable Devices

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 00:59:08 -0600

Electronic Design (USA)

Reprinted with permission from Electronic Design,
June 10, 2002. Copyright 2002, Penton Media Inc.
611 Route 46 West, Hasbrouck Heights, NJ 07604, USA

Read the article here.

For more information on our USB Embedded Hosts products, visit: cypress.com

Wireless USB Cuts the Cord for Multipoint-to-Point Systems

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 00:36:33 -0600

Wireless Design and Development (USA)

wirelessdesignmag.com

Today, along with wireless USB there are a number of other wireless options available - each suited to a different type of traffic." Existing low-cost RF transceivers typically use the 27 MHz, 433 MHz, 868 MHz, or 900 MHz frequency ranges. In the 2.4 GHz and 5.4 GHz frequency ranges, there are options such as various renditions of 802.XX and Bluetooth.

Crossing the three spectrums is ZigBee (868 MHz, 915 MHz, and 2.4 GHz). For non-network, multipoint-to-point applications, there is wireless USB in the 2.4 GHz range (See Table 1). Another alternative is infrared...

How to Design a Three-Channel LED Driver

Sun, 06 Jan 2013 23:03:16 -0600

Size and cost constraints are driving integrated circuit suppliers to integrate multiple peripherals into single packages. Generally, this means that there are many specialized devices out in the market that are added to dizzying catalogues and distribution models. This article will demonstrate how programmable mixed-signal devices can facilitate the integration of multiple peripherals, using as an example a 3-Channel LED system with constant current drive and color mixing. To read more about this topic, visit Planet Analog.

The Art of Capacitive Touch Sensing

Sun, 06 Jan 2013 23:02:11 -0600

Touch sensors have been around for years, but recent advances in mixed signal programmable devices are making capacitance-based touch sensors a practical and value-added alternative to mechanical switches in a wide range of consumer products. This article walks through a design example of a touch-sensitive button that can be actuated through a thick glass overlay. To read more on this topic, click the download link above or view the full article on Planet Analog.

White Light and Color Mixing: A Single Approach

Sun, 06 Jan 2013 23:01:01 -0600

High-brightness LEDs continue to revolutionize the lighting industry with the added flexibility and intelligence they bring to lighting systems, including white light and colored light designs. These lighting systems give designers the ability to dynamically control color temperature while maintaining high CRI in white light applications. Alternatively, these systems can produce a broad spectrum of highly accurate colored light. While these two types of light appear very different, most intelligent lighting applications using LEDs are fundamentally built with a mixed-signal controller, constant current driver(s), and high-brightness LEDs. Multiple LED channels are used in both cases and thus all LED designs will need to deal with binning, temperature effects, aging, and overall color accuracy. Using a mixed-signal controller is a powerful way to intelligently address these issues while still achieving accurate white or colored light. For many lighting designers that are making the leap from legacy lighting (incandescent, fluorescent) to LED fixtures, using a mixed-signal controller is already a big challenge on its own.

This article discusses the similarities and differences between designing white light applications versus colored light applications, the challenges facing LED system design, and some powerful (even code-free) options available today for aiding designers in solving these issues. To read more, click the download link above or visit Planet Analog.

Thermal design considerations for high-power LED systems

Sun, 06 Jan 2013 22:59:43 -0600

Unlike incandescent tungsten-filament light bulbs, high-power LEDs do not radiate heat. Instead, LEDs conduct heat from their PN junction to the thermal slug on the LED package. Because the heat generated by LEDs is conducted, the heat has a longer, more expensive, path to the atmosphere. In an LED, the heat path includes the thermal impedances from the junction to the slug, the slug to the board, the board to the heatsink, and the heatsink to the atmosphere. The heat path for a tungsten bulb is almost straight into the atmosphere, starting with the thermal resistance from the filament to the glass and ending with the thermal resistance from the glass to the atmosphere.

To read more on this topic, click the download link above or view the full article on Planet Analog.

Embracing Tunable White LEDs as the Next Generation of Lighting

Sun, 06 Jan 2013 22:58:17 -0600

Adoption of static white solid state lighting continues as performance and efficiency levels rapidly surpass system efficiency levels of conventional light sources. To truly unlock the potential of solid state lighting, control and consistency issues must be addressed to deliver new functionality while still meeting or exceeding the status quo of conventional lighting technology. This article explains in detail issues such as CRI for white lighting applications, controlling CRI through color mixing, color temperature setting and more. To read more on this topic, click the download link above or visit Planet Analog.

Designing with Multi-PLL and Spread-Spectrum Clocks in Digital Entertainment Equipment

Sun, 06 Jan 2013 22:57:09 -0600

Electronic systems need a timing reference or clock, which have traditionally been crystals or crystal oscillators. PLL based (Silicon) timing solutions are becoming more common - to provide cleaner, stabler clocking options for designs that need multiple frequencies. This article describes the value proposition of using silicon based timing solutions to solve design challenges vs. traditional methods. To read more on this topic, click the download link above or view the article on Planet Analog.

Designer's Guide to Rapid Prototyping of Capacitive Sensors on any surface

Sun, 06 Jan 2013 22:55:06 -0600

This article discusses how to replace the mechanical buttons on a product with a smooth and sleek touch-sensitive surface. It presents the concept of prototyping capacitive sensors on any nonconductive surface using silver-ink pens and copper tape. Topics included are capacitive sensor basics, silver-ink and copper tape, and construction technique. Measured results are presented for sensors applied to the back side of a simple acrylic sheet. To read more on this topic, click the download links above or view the full article on Planet Analog.

Custom LCD differentiation: Not as hard as you might think

Sun, 06 Jan 2013 22:53:01 -0600

Custom LCD displays can wildly differentiate your products from the competition leading to greater sales and adoption by your customers or even lower your manufacturing costs. Implementing custom displays, however, increases design complexity and, with the wrong solution, may negatively offset the cost savings in manufacturing. In this article we’ll explore the advantages of custom LCD designs and what they mean to your products as well as an approach to mitigating design complexity and cost through the use of system-level programmable solutions. To read more, click the download link below or visit: Planet Analog.

Crosstalk Measurement Techniques for Multi-Channel and Multi-Rate High Speed Serial Communication Systems

Sun, 06 Jan 2013 22:51:52 -0600

Crosstalk is the effect on a signal caused by the high-speed switching of a nearby signal. This effect can manifest itself as jitter, which is the deviation of a signal's edge from its expected location. A large amount of jitter can cause a timing budget failure in a parallel system or it can cause a clock and data recovery PLL to incorrectly recover the data in a serial system.

Due to the deleterious effects of crosstalk, it is important to determine the amount of it that exists during worst case scenarios. Currently, there are no standard crosstalk measurement techniques for the serial domain. This article describes effective measurement techniques and how to determine if the amount of crosstalk is acceptable for reliable data transfer. The techniques described include measuring the device's jitter output with a wide-bandwidth oscilloscope and spectral output with a high-bandwidth spectrum analyzer. Also discussed are the configurations that yield the highest crosstalk scenarios. Real measurement data of a multi-channel, independent rate device is provided. The measurements are performed at video serial digital interface (SDI) data rates, but the measurement techniques apply to any high-speed standard. To read more on this topic, click the download link above, or visit Planet Analog.

Capacitive Sensing Builds a Better Water-Cooler Control

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 04:59:09 -0600

Capacitive sensing offers developers a new way to interact with users that overcome the traditional problems associated with mechanical levels or push button switches that engage a solenoid controlled value. Exploring the use of capacitive sensing in a water cooler illustrates not only how capacitive sensing can make devices more reliable but also how the controller managing capacitive sensing can take on additional functions to add further value to customers as well as reduce maintenance expenses. To read more about this topic, visit Planet Analog.

Mixed Signal Devices and Sensors

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 05:42:43 -0600

Sensor design in embedded systems has traditionally required analog experts to interface with the sensors, but the use of mixed signal products relegates embedded sensor design to a typical EE. Previously, interfacing with an analog sensor required the use of external amplifiers and filters to conditional the signal properly before digitizing the signal in a microcontroller’s ADC. By utilizing a mixed signal controller, the amplifiers and filters are integrated, allowing the designer to program each component in the signal path. This integration simplifies the design and reduces the time and complexity of the system. To read more, click the download link above or visit Electronics Components World.

Avoiding Interference in the 2.4-GHz ISM Band

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 06:43:32 -0600

commsdesign.com

Designers can create frequency-agile 2.4 GHz designs using procedures provided by standards bodies or by building their own protocol.

The Need for RF in Remote Controls

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 06:16:16 -0600

Traditionally a product perceived to be more of a bundled accessory, remote controls are starting to play a more significant role in Consumer Electronics because of converging trends towards a digital living room. Media convergence into the living room has taken significant steps with digital TVs becoming more affordable and further fueled by the growing popularity of ON DEMAND, TiVo and digital/personal video recorders in general. Because of this paradigm shift, the demand for remotes to be equipped with LCD displays and touch screens is starting to become noticeable. And the freedom and flexibility of RF as opposed to old-school infrared (IR) is catapulting in status from a "nice-to-have" feature to becoming an absolute requirement. To view more on this topic, click the download link above or visit EE Times.

How to Simplify Debugging and Documenting Wireless Applications

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 06:09:24 -0600

Wireless application debugging sessions are prone to analyzer capture buffer overruns and mountainous serial-based protocol to unravel. Often this leaves engineers with the troublesome time-consuming task of manually stitching together and decoding elaborate back-to-back captures to analyze the inner workings of a single event. This article details the ease of debugging and documenting your wireless application utilizing PC-based tools. To read more on this topic, click the download link above or visit Wireless Net Designline.

CY7C64225 - USB to UART Bridge Controller Product Description Guide

Fri, 03 Aug 2012 06:57:33 -0600

CY7C64225 is Cypress Semiconductor's Full-speed (12 Mbps) USB to UART Bridge controller supporting data transfer rates from 300 bps to 256000 bps and data format of 8 data bits, 1 stop bit and no parity. CY7C64225 is a fully integrated chip with an internal EEPROM, Oscillator and a voltage regulator that reduces BOM cost. The controller supports bus and self-powered modes, and enables efficient system power management with suspend and remote wake-up signaling. Cypress's proprietary software configuration utility allows configuration of VID, PID, Product string descriptor, and Manufacturer string descriptor. These parameters are stored in EEPROM.

This document details how to configure the controller, install drivers, and interface with external components.

Capacitive Touch Switches for Automotive Applications

Fri, 03 Aug 2012 04:37:23 -0600

Today's cars have far more switches and buttons than earlier models. Not only are there more, but they also need to be easily installable into increasing more contoured control surfaces. They also have to be cost effective, ruling out hermetically sealed switches. One approach gaining momentum is to convert to capacitive touch switches (cap sense). With no mechanical parts, as well as the ability to conform to contoured surfaces, cap sense switches provide the reliability and cost point required by the automotive industry. This article looks at how to implement capacitive sensing interfaces in automotive applications. To read more on this topic, click the download link above or read the full article on Automotive DesignLine.

System Performance Advantages of Higher Density SRAMs

Fri, 03 Aug 2012 04:16:56 -0600

With ever increasing system bandwidth requirements on the order of multigigabits/sec, SRAMs need to be optimized for higher density and performance as well as reliability, especially for look up table and packet buffering in networking applications. This article will address the different factors affecting system performance using Synchronous SRAMs. To read more, click the download link above or visit Comms Design.

Golden Gloves ADC Championship Match - SAR vs. Sigma-Delta

Tue, 31 Jul 2012 05:54:00 -0600

In one corner, the current Champion SAR ADC, in the opposing corner, a relative newcomer to the analog to digital conversion scene, the ΣΔ ADC.

This will be a 7-round fight to the finish, with judges awarding points in the following categories:
1. Conversion Accuracy
2. Speed of Conversion
3. Linearity of Strikes
4. Conversion Accuracy in the Low and High Side Corners
5. Differential Non Linearity
6. Integral Non Linearity
7. Quantization Error

To read more, click the download link below or visit Planet Analog.

Automotive HMI Redefined

Tue, 31 Jul 2012 05:50:18 -0600

Human Machine Interfaces, or HMIs, traditionally consist of multiple systems which allow drivers to interact with their vehicle In today's automotive designs, the HMI also displays any feedback from the vehicle to the driver. This interaction begins the instant one unlocks the car door, continues while driving, and ends the moment the driver gets out and locks the car. It involves the optimal balance of the driver's sensory inputs to make the driving experience both safe and enjoyable. Some of the more commonly recognized HMI system modules for enhancing the driver's experience are keyless entry, power seats control, side mirror control, occupant detection, and most importantly, the vehicle's center stack where the majority of human-machine interactions take place. To read more, click the download link above or visit Automotive DesignLine.

Design Best Practices Enabling Seamless Transition from 8-bit to 32-bit MCU Designs

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 08:47:58 -0600

The age-old embedded design question still remains whether to use an 8-bit or 32-bit core in your new design. If you ask several engineers, you will probably find that their opinions are very polar. Like it or not, 32-bit cores are here to stay. So what does this mean? It means that inevitably one day, no matter how hard you try not to, you will need to migrate from your loveable 8-bit core to one of those new and complex 32-bit cores. Fortunately that migration doesn't have to be painful. This article will explore the latest best practices, that when used make the transition from 8-bits to 32-bits seamless. To read more, click the download link below or visit Embedded.com

New approach to LCD segment drive

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 08:37:08 -0600

Segment LCD drives have reached ubiquity: you see them in everything from watches, to home thermostats, to portable medical instruments like glucose meters and blood pressure monitors, and even in certain automobiles. Almost every MCU vendor provides LCD drive capability; these solutions have been around for long time. With this much of an established history, you might not expect any emerging innovations in LCD drive capabilities. However, this article will focus on highlighting exciting new developments on this mature capability and how they are made possible. To read more, click the download link below or visit: Embedded.com

CAN in 30 minutes or less

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 07:35:15 -0600

Since CAN was introduced in the 80’s, it has seen a tremendous evolution in terms of specifications and requirements. Its extended capabilities have led to its wide adoption across applications, from automotive, to industrial machine and factory automation. With this growth, complexity of implementation has also increased on two levels:
1. CAN controller design has gone from a basic controller to a full CAN controller and, in some cases, an extended full CAN controller.
2. CAN software stacks vary, from an automotive communication stack, to CANOpen, and DeviceNet.

Given that CAN is only a single component within the automotive system, developers need to be able to implement it with as few challenges as possible so they can focus on system-level functionality rather than struggle with peripheral configuration. This article will explore the CAN interface and discuss different ways of implementing, configuring, and tuning interfaces to facilitate simplified design. To read more, click the download link below, or visit Embedded.com .

Designing a Wireless Heart Rate Monitor with Remote Data Logging

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 01:19:09 -0600

Extending the Human-to-Machine Interface (HMI) using wireless communications is a fast developing field. Important improvements in HMI functionality have been made possible by continuing advancements in Machine-to-Machine interfaces in terms of increased baud rate, low power consumption and reach (distance) of communication. HMI also benefits from advances in System-On-Chip technology which enable greater integration, greater power efficient, and higher accuracy. This article focuses on showing how these technologies drive forward HMI capabilities and considers the heart rate monitor with wireless transmission as a case study. To read more, click the download link below or visit: Wireless Design & Development

SONET/SDH weiter ausgereizt (German)

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 05:59:06 -0600

Elektronik Praxis (Germany)

elektronikpraxis.de

For more information on our SONET and SDH PHY products, visit: cypress.com

EZ-Color and PSoC Express: Bridging the Knowledge Gap for Intelligent Lighting and the Semiconductor Market

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 05:45:35 -0600

To fully realize the potential of the burgeoning High Brightness LED market, new tools and techniques must be utilized, including semiconductor technology. With many current lighting engineers needing to come quickly up to speed on basic microcontroller usage, it is necessary to find avenues to effectively create even basic fixed-color designs. Cypress Semiconductor's EZ-Color technology uses the power of PSoC Express to bridge this knowledge gap by decreasing time to market, integrating functionality, and giving users a distinct advantage in a competitive market. To read more on this topic, click the download link above or access the article on the LED Journal website.

To Buy or To Build your LED Driver in 2010

Tue, 10 May 2011 10:19:02 -0600

Countless number of lighting companies and engineering houses are jumping into the General Illumination business with the advances and opportunities created by Solid State Lighting Technologies. With these advances bring many new challenges for those looking to redesign lighting fixture or retrofit existing Edison sockets with these new LED based options. While many options exist to purchase LED Driver off-the-shelf, advances in 2009 brought many new solutions to market which will allow many companies to design their own intelligent drivers. To read more, click the download link below or visit LEDs Magazine.

Robots in the Military - Brave, Autonomous and Dispensable Warriors

Tue, 10 May 2011 10:18:01 -0600

In today’s military conflicts, the airspace is filled with unmanned aerial vehicles of all sizes—hand launched vehicles by Special Forces to the jet-powered Predator drones flown by Airmen thousands of miles away from the conflict area; as well as ground-based autonomous and wirelessly controlled robotic vehicles for high-risk patrols to explosive ordinance detonation and disarming. These robotic vehicles support a variety of military missions ranging from covert intelligence gathering, direct support to ground forces to overt military strikes. The military robotic force of today saves lives. Designers and engineers of robotic systems and components may or may not even know that they play a large part in enabling these and future systems. Developing these systems; however, is not a trivial task. Robotic systems, in their most basic being, simulate or otherwise artificially sense their environment and through programmed logic, respond and interact with their surroundings—the ultimate mix of analog sensing, driving and digital logic, processing and communications. Mixed signal designs are definitely not new, but with state of the art advances in the fundamental components that make up these designs, there are now ways to implement robotic subsystems easier, with lower power requirements and at greatly reduced costs. To read more, click the download link below or visit: Electronic Products.

Think it-Draw it-Build it: with PSoC Creator

Tue, 10 May 2011 10:17:12 -0600

In September 2009, Cypress Semiconductor introduced the PSoC Creator embedded design tool for its new PSoC 3 and PSoC 5 programmable system-on-chip architectures. PSoC Creator integrates support for PSoC programmable hardware with a full-featured software IDE. It abstracts away the hardware so you do not need to be an expert on the device you are using or the inner workings of peripherals you program it with. It routes on-chip connections and I/O automatically. And it generates APIs for the peripherals and on-chip functions, which are known as components, to ensure error-free interaction from software.

In the following example we’ll take a mixture of digital and analog components, quickly configure them into the PSoC 3 device, then build a simple but useful application that monitors a pin for an over-voltage condition, controls a warning LED, and records the number of events and maximum duration of that state. To read more, click the download link below.

USB 2.0 boosts bus speeds

Mon, 09 May 2011 16:02:14 -0600

Featured in Network World Fusion News

http://www.nwfusion.com/news/tech/2002/0429tech.html

The USB specification was recently updated to improve the performance and usability of PC peripherals, opening the door to a world of high performance and high bandwidth, such as mass storage, digital video and broadband access. The speed of USB 2.0 has been increased to 480M bit/sec, a 40-fold improvement over Version 1.1.

USB 2.0 Printed Circuit Board Design (Japanese)

Mon, 09 May 2011 16:02:03 -0600

DesignWave (Japan)

http://www.cqpub.co.jp/dwm/contents/0050/dwm005001450.pdf

Four Wires and A World of Possibilities - USB Going Strong

Mon, 09 May 2011 16:01:50 -0600

Four wires and a world of possibilities - USB remains the most ubiquitous PC and PC peripheral connectivity standard in the world. It connects everything from phones to printers, microphones, toys, speakers, to just about anything. Interestingly, USB has become SO widely used, almost everyone knows what it is, but few people understand the technology and the advances in applications.

In fact, many people simply take USB for granted. They assume it is the standard by which their new PDA, MP3 player, printer, or external hard drive will connect. For the most part they're right, their new device does connect with USB. And for those devices that ship with a proprietary, or non-standard, connection, it is very likely that the underlying technology making that connect IS USB; some designers just disguise USB as a proprietary connector (can you say Xbox?). But how does USB get into all these devices? What applications are big for USB? What does the future of USB look like? What in the world is the secret of this technology? To view more on this topic, click one of the download links above.

Illegal USB – Sourcing the Power, Killing PCs

Mon, 09 May 2011 16:01:35 -0600

Did you know that one of the greatest benefits of the Universal Serial Bus (USB) is the fact that the four wire cable carries power to the peripheral devices? This can be wonderful in specific applications if designed properly. If designed improperly, however, designers can have real field failure issues on their hands. Understanding Universal Serial Bus power standards, 'legal' and 'illegal' design choices, and the implications of making illegal USB design choices can be key information for designers. This article gives specific technical explanation for the above choices and leaves the designer fully understanding USB power issues. To view more on this topic, click the download link above.

QDR SRAM, Next Generation Memory for High Performance Networking

Mon, 09 May 2011 16:01:02 -0600

EE Times (Korea)

eetkorea.com

For more information on our Sync SRAMs, visit: cypress.com

Applications and Considerations of Capacitive Proximity Sensing

Mon, 09 May 2011 16:00:35 -0600

Proximity sensing enables a range of unique usability, design, and functional benefits for end-users of industrial applications. For example, light guides can be used to enhance accuracy of user interface selection in dark environments. Coupled with the use of capacitive sensing, user interface keys can be hidden from view when fingers are not in proximity of the keys. Proximity sensing can also be used in conjunction with Bluetooth devices to decrease connection negotiation lag from sleep. This article will focus on key factors associated with mechanical and system design to achieve high-yield proximity designs in production, including sensor to ground coupling and managing LCD noise. This article presents some common applications of proximity sensing as well as considerations that will greatly maximize design success. To read more, visit EDN.

Bringing sensors and MCUs to a wirelessly monitored hospital bed

Mon, 09 May 2011 16:00:00 -0600

Until recently, sensing has been implemented using hardwired circuits, which can be inconvenient to deploy in the areas where they are mounted. To simplify deployment, next-generation sensors are transferring the data they record using wireless technology. A microcontroller that can interface with sensors and also has wireless capabilities makes continuous monitoring of received data possible.

This article explores the technology involved in interfacing of sensors for medical applications, using hospital beds as an example. Hospitals are places where all of us have felt the need for a little more comfort, and hospital beds/mattresses can be made more comfortable through technological improvements possible using sensors and microcontrollers. Making patients more comfortable helps the patients, doctors, and also medical caretakers. To read more, click the download link above, or visit Embedded.com.

Breaking Down the Sensor Signal Path

Mon, 09 May 2011 15:59:15 -0600

Embedded systems are using sensors with increasing frequency. While industrial products have always used them for manufacturing control systems, consumer devices are starting to employ them more often, as well. Sensors are being integrated into consumer products to create better user experiences — ranging from adding accelerometers in mobile phones to adding water vapor sensors in microwaves.

System designers, who previously worked only in the digital domain, are now finding themselves having to interface with analog sensors. A sensor's analog signal needs to be digitized to be used by the system, and the signal path goes through several stages: amplification, filtering and digitization. Once the signal has been digitized, the user can pass it to a control system on the microcontroller or can massage the data and pass it to a host processor via a communication protocol. The sensor data can be utilized as required. To read more, click the download link below or visit Design News.

Adopting an SOC-based Approach to Designing Handheld Medical Devices

Mon, 09 May 2011 15:58:56 -0600

In designing embedded devices for the variety of medical devices, selecting the right components to meet design specifications, keep costs down, maximize power efficiency, and manage the physical size of the device are only some of the factors to be considered.

If these weren’t sufficient, developers must also guarantee device reliability while ensuring that the components used adhere to FDA rules. One such FDA rule is that the components that comprise the medical device have to be in production for the next 5 years. Given these constraints, many developers are turning to System-on-Chip architectures to shorten design cycle time, reduce component count, and reduce product cost in medical applications. To read more, click the download link below or visit Embedded.com.

PSoC 5 as a Magnetic Card Reader

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 16:04:45 -0600

A good Magnetic Card Reader requires reliable and accurate performance across a variety of different environments and card swipe speeds; regardless of the physical condition of the card. There are three essential elements of a magnetic card that must be implemented in order to ensure this performance: (1) automatic gain control (AGC) to automatically adjust the amplitude of the input waveform to maximize dynamic range; (2) accurate peak detection and raw data decoding; and (3) preventing noise in the system from causing erroneous readings.

Using a PGA and an ADC, the input waveform can be measured and scaled to maximize the dynamic range of the system; which will allow a wide range of input waveforms to be detected. This article will also show what techniques can be used to accurately detect peaks in the input waveform to read the essential information from the magnetic card. Lastly, creative techniques on how to eliminate false readings due to noise in the system will be discussed. To read more, click the download link below or visit: EE Times.

Optimizing reliability and power efficiency in embedded wireless systems

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 02:55:25 -0600

The use of wireless technology in embedded-system applications, such as industrial monitoring and control, home automation, remote control, and medical equipment, continues to grow rapidly, and the number of new applications that are adopting wireless is growing even faster. These wireless systems are currently demonstrating a trend of adopting 2.4-GHz technologies because of worldwide unlicensed operation, faster data rates, and other inherent benefits over less-than-1-GHz technologies. The drawback is that these systems will all be competing with each other for airspace, as well as with other prevalent 2.4-GHz systems, such as Wi-Fi, cordless phones, and Bluetooth. It is inevitable that all of these 2.4-GHz wireless systems will eventually interfere with each other and increase the chance of communication failures. Thus, it is no longer sufficient for RF engineers to build a radio and protocol stack that can just wirelessly transmit and receive data without any defense mechanisms for interference. Designers must implement intelligent techniques so that embedded wireless systems are in fact reliable in the increasingly congested 2.4-GHz spectrum. To read more, visit EDN.

Integrating Power and Control Offers Flexibility and Simplicity for Lighting Applications

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 04:42:28 -0600

In uncertain economic times, the message given to design engineers is clear: save money. In LED lighting designs, that message needs to be even clearer, as the LEDs themselves take up a large portion of the bill-of-materials (BOM). One particular new device to the market helps provide a necessary cost-down solution, Cypress’s PowerPSoC, the world’s first embedded power controller.

PowerPSoC provides an unprecedented level of integration for customers, containing four channels of internal current sense amplifiers rated at 6 MHz, four 2 MHz hysteretic controllers independently configurable as buck, boost, or buck-boost, and four low-side n-FETs rated at 1A, 32V each. Not to be content with only the output stage, PowerPSoC also includes a 32V internal input regulator. To read more, click one of the download links below.

Learning about Capacitive Proximity Sensing by Building a Theremin

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 08:27:09 -0600

Capacitive Proximity Sensing is a method to determine how close two items are to each other. In many cases, it is used in user interfaces to measure the distance a finger is from a sensor. Capacitive sensing is useful in many applications because it provides an input method with no moving parts.

Often when learning a new technology, it helps to have a project in mind that is simple enough that the majority of design and troubleshooting is directly related to implementing the technology. It can also help keep an engineer’s interest and drive going when the project is interesting and exciting. To this end, this article describes how to make a rudimentary Theremin – a musical instrument with two controls: pitch (frequency) and volume (amplitude) – to illustrate the basics of working with capacitive sensing. To read more, click the download link below or visit EN-Genius.

Beyond-IR: Remote Controls for Home Entertainment

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 08:26:13 -0600

It is amazing that we’re in the 21st century and reliant on a near 30-year old, one-way, line-of-sight-limited technology to control our bleeding edge consumer electronics products like our multi-thousand dollar plasma big-screen TVs and other entertainment systems.

The alternative to infrared remote control technologies is RF-based remote controls. RF-based remote controls overcome three major limitations of infrared technologies: line-of-sight and range; one-way communications; and high power consumption. Let’s take a look at each of these limitations and attempt to better understand why the primary interface to our home entertainment, the remote control, continues to be based on a 1980s era technology and how this will change, especially with the introduction of the RF4CE consortium and standards. To read more, click the download link below or visit Digital Home DesignLine.

Making USB Flash drives secure: Why and How

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 16:46:57 -0600

The USB based memory devices referred to as USB flash drive or “thumb drive” or “pen drive” have indeed revolutionized the way data storage and portability have evolved. Since their inception in 2000, millions of these devices have been manufactured and sold in all corners of the globe. Statistically speaking, approximately 173 Million units of such USB based flash drives were manufactured in the year 2008 alone.

Of late, one of the major challenges facing individuals as well as corporations regarding the USB flash drives is that of data leakage and theft from these devices. There have been a number of cases ranging from misplaced to stolen or misused flash drives reported which have resulted in losses up to 2.5 Million USD from a single such incident! In the light of such occurrences, there is a need to make the USB based flash devices more secure and ‘leak proof.’ To read more, click the download link below or visit: Embedded.com.

Intelligent LED lighting control with thermal monitoring

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 17:35:03 -0600

With new LED lights, one of the most difficult, demanding, and costly section of a design is thermal management. Without sufficient thermal management, the results can be catastrophic, ranging from leaving you in the dark to setting a building afire. Thermal management of LED lights, however, is one of the most difficult, demanding, and costly section of a design. This article will discuss how to implement negative temperature coefficient (NTC) thermal management to achieve safer LED designs that consume less power. To read more, click the download link below or visit: Power Management DesignLine.

Personal Training 32-bits at a Time

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 17:30:36 -0600

As 32-bit microcontrollers become more prevalent and affordable, device manufacturers are coming up with new means to utilize the added horse power. An example of this are personal training devices which a runner can strap to their arm to determine the amount of calories expended, total distance traveled, and total vertical feet climbed. These devices have traditionally been data mining devices which relied on an application running on a personal computer to analyze the data and return the runner’s performance results. Now, by utilizing 32-bit microcontrollers, designers are able to efficiently perform the necessary on board calculations to give the runner feedback to motivate and enhance the workout. To give real world examples, Cypress’s PSoC 5 microcontroller will be referenced. To read more, click the download link below or visit: Low-Power Design.

On-Board Failure Logging (OBFL)

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 17:24:33 -0600

Board failure at customer sites or in the field can happen for many reasons, and reconstructing the exact failure at the failure site continues to be a challenge for developers. To assist in troubleshooting failures, all board environment variables and failure messages should be logged and stored at the time of a board failure so that the root-cause for the board failure can be determined at a later point in time. This article describes a structured approach to adding on-board failure logging (OBFL) capabilities to facilitate reproduction of failure on Field Return boards. It highlights the importance of OBFL, categorizes failure log data by defining OBFL Records, reviews the organization of failure logs in persistence memory, and outlines the system software support needed for storing and retrieving OBFL data. To read more, click the download link below or visit: Industrial Control DesignLine.

Design Reuse - It is Time for New IP Creation Tools

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 17:19:14 -0600

For many years design reuse has been touted as an essential part of completing projects on-time and on-budget. This idea is not new and the expression “don’t reinvent the wheel” is used in high-tech environments the world over for very good reasons. However, design reuse is typically approached either from a solely hardware (microprocessor cores, reusable IP peripherals, hardware acceleration, and so on) or software (RTOS, protocol stacks, run-time libraries and so on) perspective, but rarely both. Why is that and how can it change? To read more, click the download link below or visit: SOCcentral.

Firmware for Multichannel HBLED Systems

Mon, 24 May 2010 04:48:52 -0600

High-brightness LEDs are revolutionizing the lighting industry by adding valuable flexibility, intelligence, and higher efficiency to lighting systems. LEDs give designers the ability to create white light fixtures with color temperature control. The CRI rating and the color gamut size for any fixture are two important specifications. Many systems improve CRI and gamut size by using multiple channels of HBLED colors. Generally, the more channels of color there are the higher the CRI and the larger the color gamut is of that system. Unfortunately, system complexity increases with each HBLED color channel that is added.

This article discusses methods for managing the complexity of systems that have four or more HBLED channels. There are many tradeoffs between the software implementations used for controlling the HBLED channels to produce desired colors. These tradeoffs are discussed and guidelines are given for selecting the right method given a set of lighting system specifications. To read more, click the download link below or visit Electronic Design.

Adaptable Embedded Wireless Design with CyFi

Fri, 07 May 2010 06:51:57 -0600

Embedded systems designers are quickly realizing the benefits of going wireless, including reductions in cable costs, aesthetics and ease of installation. These benefits are seen across a multitude of applications, to include: low-power wireless sensor networks, industrial process monitoring and automation, home automation, automatic meter reading and many other applications. Unfortunately, wireless solutions often come with barriers or challenges such as reliability of wireless connectivity, distance limitations due to signal range, complexity of designing-in or attaching a wireless solution, and the dire need for low-power consumption to maximize battery life.

Cypress’s new CyFi Low-Power RF solution, however, addresses all of these challenges in an uncompromising way. It provides a highly reliable, longer range solution that is extremely simple to design and operate, and offers the best system power-efficiency in the market. To read more on this topic, click the download link above.

Designing Low-Cost Single/Multi-Cell Li-ION Battery Chargers

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 19:21:05 -0600

Li-ION rechargeable batteries, with a projected yearly market growth rate of approximately 20%, are widely used in smart phones, portable media players, and digital still cameras. This battery type is widely adopted because of its high energy density on both gravimetric and volumetric basis, low self discharge rate, and low maintenance. Li-Ion batteries are also lighter in weight than NiCad and NiMH batteries. On the other hand, the material nature in the Li-ION cell also introduces higher safety risk: the LiNiO2 layer in the battery cell introduces high voltage and high energy during decomposition. Therefore, safety has always been the focus of Li-ION battery chargers design, and the batteries are usually assembled with a built-in thermistor and protective circuit. To read more, click the download link below or visit: Low-Power Design.

Precision Analog Reference Voltage from Smaller, Low-cost Mixed Signal Devices

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 19:17:52 -0600

In certain applications, even though all the signal processing is performed in the digital domain, an analog reference voltage is required. For example, consider a system with an ADC range of 0 to 5 V and input signal value of ±20 mV. This input signal cannot be measured directly with the ADC. Rather, a DC offset has to be added to input signal using an external reference voltage to shift it into the range of ADC. The offset is then compensated for by the firmware after the measurement is taken. With limited analog capability and no analog output pins, creating an output analog voltage reference is a challenge. This article will show how to support an analog voltage reference in small-sized chips with no analog output pins, with the use of only a few external passive components. To read more, click the download link below or visit: EN-Genius.

Embedded Digital Filtering

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 18:58:56 -0600

The increasing availability of affordable microcontrollers with analog-to-digital front ends continues to change how embedded systems are being designed. Often termed ‘mixed-signal microcontrollers’, these devices consolidate both control and digital signal processing functionality onto a single device. Such programmable “system on chip” technology not only simplifies application architectures, it accelerates development by eliminating the need to communicate between chips, and by enabling engineers to write application code within a single development environment. To read more, click the download link below or visit: RTC Magazine.

Improving RAID Performance and Reliability with Non-volatile Write Journals

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 18:46:50 -0600

When RAID was first introduced, the term was defined as “Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks”. It has now become a blanket term for data storage schemes with better fault tolerance and input/output (I/O) performance than a single disk drive or ‘Just a Bunch Of Disks’ (JBOD). RAID commonly represents a system consisting of many storage disks that are accessed by servers through high speed communication channels. The I/O performance of disk drives has always been the major bottleneck for any system requiring access to huge amounts of storage and there were several efforts being made at that time to increase the throughput of disks through mechanical means. Such efforts, however, led to cost increases of these highdensity, high-speed disks, making them unaffordable for small businesses. To read more, click the download link below or visit: RTC Magazine.

Bridge Architecture - Revolutionizing Dual Mode 4G Cellular Modem Dongle Design

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 18:27:12 -0600

3G modems are becoming increasingly prevalent these days as people strive to stay connected wherever and whenever. Today’s modem dongles usually has 3G connectivity capability and also the possibility of including an SD card to double as a thumbdrive. However, as the 3G modem market increases in size, so have the number of players in that market. Today’s 3G modem design has gone beyond a single processor design with designers trying to incorporate multiple usage models from 3G and WiFi/Wimax or also GSM/CDMA capable modems in order to provide a competitive edge through extra features and usage models. With the increase in multiple features, designers are seeing an issue when they intend to provide simultaneous usage. Thus many are turning to using a bridge to solve their design problems. To read more, click the download link below or visit: RF DesignLine.

Acceleration of Program Execution: EE POV

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 18:17:54 -0600

In the current market trend, we are in constant pursuit to make any application faster. The same trend persists for program execution in a System-on-Chip (SoC) application. The execution of program involves measuring input, processing the data, and displaying/transmitting the output. Here, input and output times depend on the peripheral ports and the processing of data depends on the implementation and CPU speed. In most SoC applications, it is the signal processing that consumes the majority of execution time. Use of extensive mathematical libraries for processing data is expensive in terms of both CPU time and memory usage. If the input and output are expected to be in a specified range, developers can optimize the data processing with the use of Look-Up-Tables (LUTs). The time spent to build the LUT will go into the one-time cost of design, rather than CPU overhead for every execution. In scenarios where the LUT method is feasible, its use depends on the tradeoff between execution time versus design time, and accuracy verses memory usage. This article discusses these tradeoffs between different methods of implementations and considers thermistor sensing and Proportional-Integral-Differential (PID) as case studies. To read more, click the download link below or visit: EDN.

What will next generation embedded design look like?

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 04:44:32 -0600

Embedded designers need to get to market ahead of their competitors. To have an early market advantage and re-use their investments in knowledge and tools as much as possible, their selected architectures and design platforms have to be flexible and adaptable. These tools and components must enable to support significant last minute changes (indeed, continuous changes), as well as be able to utilize industry standard eco-systems to take advantage of a large developer community and standard tools. To read more on this topic, click the download link above or visit Embedded.com.

Achieving Flexible Power Management for Embedded Systems

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 14:24:28 -0600

Embedded designers today are facing more and more pressure to increase battery life and at the same time offer more features. One only needs to look at the rapid increase of functionality in mobile handhelds for verification. It has become clear that battery chemistries are not improving at the needed rate to fulfill these requirements. This places the pressure squarely on silicon vendors to deliver better performance at lower power. As if this dilemma wasn’t challenging enough, designers face strict time to market requirements posed by shrinking design cycles.

Moreover, green movements are requesting a reduction in battery waste, which translates to embedded systems that require fewer battery changes. There are also government regulations (Example: Energy Star) across the globe to reduce stand-by current in appliances. The next generation of embedded systems is going to need extremely low active and sleep power consumption while simultaneously increasing the amount of flexibility and programmability needed to meet time-to-market requirements. To read more, click the download link below or visit Embedded Computing Design.

Add Capacitive Sensing to a Digital Handset

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:09:39 -0600

Manufacturers are focusing on innovative techniques for replacing space-consuming buttons and switches without compromising the cell-phone user interface (CPUI). A powerful reduction technique adopts capacitive sensing into the CPUI.

Capacitive sensing enables lower cost, robustness, flexibility, and an intuitive CPUI without breaking compatibility with existing form factors and feature sets. Capacitive sensing functions can be combined with other standard functions, such as white LED driving and battery charging to further drive cost down. To read more on this topic, view the full article on CommsDesign.

The Joy of Precision Analog: True System-on-Chip Performance

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:27:10 -0600

As systems increase in complexity, engineers have a need to incorporate more components, both analog and digital, into a single device while maintaining the integrity of the design. New mixed-signal microcontrollers are emerging which integrate more precision analog components than previous generations. Utilizing these next generation mixed-signal microcontrollers allow for designs which reduce BOM costs, save board space, protect IP, and provide more flexibility for change throughout the design process. Now mixed-signal microcontrollers have ADCs with a precision upwards of 20-bits, amplifiers with lower offset voltages, and 0.1% voltage references.

Previous generations of mixed-signal microcontrollers allowed for an increased level of integration in a design, but often those featured analog components did not have enough precision for many designs. Low-end analog designs benefited from the integration, but mid- and high-end designs still required external analog components. Newer generations of mixed-signal microcontrollers have improved their analog components, and therefore are allowing mid- and some high-end designs to take advantage of the benefits of a device incorporating both digital and analog signals. To read more, click the download link below, or visit Embedded.com.

Five Building Blocks of an Efficient High Brightness LED Driver

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:49:38 -0600

As High Brightness LEDs penetrate almost all avenues of the lighting market, constant current drivers are being offered by various semiconductor manufacturers. To tap the full potential of HBLEDs, care must be taken to pick a driver IC that is capable of meeting the flexibility and control required by today’s applications. In applications such as theatrical lighting, it is necessary to facilitate a high dimming resolution while dynamically adjusting the current to account for fluctuating power sources and operating temperature. To read more, click the download link below or visit Electronic Design.

Wireless Survivor's Guide: Surviving 2.4GHz at Low Power

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:37:54 -0600

What do wireless sensor networks, industrial wireless sense and control and the growing demand for personal area networks have in common? Two-things: Wireless and ultra low-power. Historically these two have always been contradictory to each other due to the physics and energy required to transmit signals as well as recently in response to the growing number of wireless solutions—spectrum congestion. This article details the challenges of operating in the 2.4GHz spectrum while maintaining a very low power consumption budget. It introduces active power management and reliability as two factors of maintaining a low power budget while still surviving the interference challenges of the 2.4GHz spectrum. To read more, click the download link below or visit RF Globalnet.

Differentiating Your LED Design

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:30:42 -0600

As the LED market continues to grow, pressure increases for lighting manufacturers to stay ahead of the curve, especially with hundreds of new players jumping in to take advantage of the $2 billion dollar potential. Many have little experience with electronics, being more familiar with standard florescent and incandescent bulbs. The literally million dollar question for these companies becomes how to set their lighting design apart from all the other competitors out there.

This article will explore several examples of differentiating what appears at face value to be a simple LED design. Each of these examples deserves far more space than can be devoted to here, but should serve as a starting point for additional creativity. The key to this step is the addition of basic intelligence to the circuit, generally in the form of a microcontroller. Intelligence is necessary to take advantage of what LEDs offer as much to white light designs as to color. To read more, click the download link below or visit Embedded.com.

Introducing an Evolutionary Leap in Embedded Design: System-Level Programmability

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 10:46:31 -0600

How many embedded projects have you worked on that successfully transitioned between lifecycle phases of the project without major rework of system designs, bill of materials, layouts, etc.? If you’re answer is less than 100%, as the majority of the embedded world is, then you should open your mind to a new methodology to embedded design that will save you countless hours, dollars and headaches. In this article we’ll explore the embedded design challenges you face on a day-today basis and, in a pragmatic manner, how you can overcome with true system-level programmability. To read more on this topic, click the download link below.

Efficient Design of a Brushless DC Fan with a Programmable System-on-a-Chip

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 16:01:29 -0600

As more industrial and consumer products get smaller, the need to remove the heat in an efficient, quiet way becomes increasingly important. A programmable system on a chip produces an efficient, cost-effective means for accomplishing this. This article looks at how to efficiently design a brushless DC fan using a PSoC.

A typical intelligent DC fan has four wires; power (red), ground (black), a PWM input to set fan speed (blue), and a tachometer output (green). The host system requests a specific speed by setting the duty cycle of the PWM and verifies the correct operation with the tachometer feedback. Measuring the ambient temperature allows the fan to run as slow and as seldom as possible. It comes at the cost of a thermistor. To read more, click the download link below or visit Industrial Embedded Systems.

Clearing the Confusion on Battery Life and Range for 2.4-GHz Low Power RF

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:17:36 -0600

Designers of low-power RF portable products must address two important criteria that deeply affect their choices for a wireless technology: battery life and range. The good news is that there is a multitude of standard and proprietary 2.4-GHz wireless technologies for designers to choose from. The bad news is that evaluating how each meets the battery life and range requirements for an application can be extremely challenging. Most designers are forced to sift through misleading marketing and datasheet specifications, including transmit current, receive current, sleep current, and range.

This article explains why these specifications are misleading and how they can lead designers to choose non-optimal approaches. It will show how to accurately evaluate power consumption and range, how to use link budgets, and how to work with current profiles to maximize sleep time, minimize retries, and avoid interference. To read more, click the download link below or visit RF Design Line.

Dynamic Reconfiguration: Transformers in the embedded world

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 17:14:29 -0600

The market has recently experienced an explosion in the number of embedded devices pervading everyday life, from iPods and PDAs that people carry to wireless presentation tools and digital organizers that help one organize oneself better to wireless sensor networks deployed for environment monitoring. As the world continues to go embedded, devices continue to grow smaller in size with an increasing number of battery-powered embedded devices also entering the market. Manufacturers are constantly driven to find new ways of decreasing the component count on an embedded device in order to reduce its size, reduce power budget to increase battery life and to reduce cost of manufacturer to be competitive in a crowded market. These requirements of embedded systems have forced semiconductor manufacturers to develop new technologies and tools to achieve these objectives. To read more on this topic, click the download link above or visit Embedded.com.

Metallic spring sensors serve as rugged, reliable capacitive sensors

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:47:25 -0600

Capacitive sensing provides a robust alternative to traditional mechanical switches. However, some applications cannot accommodate the physical implementation of a printed circuit board directly under an overlay or attached to the device case. Examples of such applications are "white goods" such as cooktops, washing machines, refrigerators, microwave ovens, and others, as well as various vehicle electronics, such as radio sets, TV tuners, dash boards, and seat occupant detectors.

Metallic spring sensors may be used as an alternative to solid conductive sensors. This allows placement of the PCB at a distance from the overlay while providing a reliable sensor connection even under operating conditions of strong vibration or sharp temperature changes. In addition, springs provide added functional possibilities, such as backlighting, and combinations of mechanical and capacitive buttons. To read more, visit EDN.

Go Analog With Microcontrollers

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:37:37 -0600

Most microcontrollers are paired with discrete analog components—analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), amplifiers, filters, digital-to-analog converters (DACs), and comparators, to name a few—to achieve filtering, signal conditioning, and signal conversion in systems like those that require interfaces to analog sensors or the filtering of noisy signals. To help alleviate the complicated design challenges often associated with discrete analog component implementation, a trend has emerged among semiconductor companies to integrate more of these functions into a microcontroller or microcontroller-like device. To read more, click the download link above or visit Electronic Design.

Code optimization tips for 8-bit microcontrollers

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 18:29:22 -0600

You are the project leader for a highly successful consumer product. One day you are asked to upgrade all of the devices in the field to add the latest "must have" feature. However, when you attempt to compile the new code you see the dreaded message "Program Memory Overflow". You've already turned on all of the optimizations in the compiler to make the last upgrade fit. Now you're stuck. Here are optimization techniques that have saved designers up to 10% of their code size, allowing new features and bug fixes to fit into program memory that is always just a bit too small. To read more on this topic visit EDN.

Reliability vs. power in embedded wireless applications: What datasheets don't say

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 18:19:03 -0600

The measure of an embedded wireless application’s power consumption is not the simple sum of its parts as one might think. While this has been the typical means of comparing and selecting components for a given application, this basic means of obtaining a quantifiable metric to compare fails to adequately capture the true measure of how these components will interact and perform as a system. The focus must be on the wireless system’s power consumption and how well a given wireless solution minimizes this costly resource. The often overlooked but equally important system attribute that drives down a wireless system’s power consumption is reliability. Reliability, in this sense, is the measure of a system’s ability to communicate data from point A to point B in a single attempt. This illustrates how reliability and power consumption in embedded wireless applications are related as well as how to optimize reliability and power efficiency. To read more, click the download link below or visit Mobile Handset DesignLine.

Top Five Selection Criteria for Industrial Wireless Technologies

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 16:51:23 -0600

Wireless applications clearly present significant benefits to the industries they serve, such as enabling new monitoring and control capabilities, adding flexibility to existing capabilities and reducing cost of operations and process management. In response, many different wireless solutions and applications are sprouting up across the spectrum to address this growing industrial demand. That said, however, the industrial space presents a unique set of challenges that many traditional wireless solutions are just not specifically designed for, such as high-reliability, low system power consumption and the ability to survive in an RF-unfriendly physical environment, all while being cost-effective. The growing usage of wireless technologies also becomes a challenge as there are many different applications fighting for the same RF-space, thus leading to an overly crowded spectrum and compounding the existing industrial challenges. With these unique challenges in the industrial space as well as the challenges that wireless applications present, how does one compare existing solutions and ensure they are adequate in addressing their environments? Let’s take a look at five of these top variables to address this question. To read more, click the download link below or visit Industrial Control DesignLine.

Programmable Analog for High Power LED Color Mixing Applications

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 10:18:05 -0600

Programmable analog circuitry adds analog functionality to reprogrammable digital electronics. The combination provides flexibility to end users and offers unique advantages to designers in particular applications. For instance, High Power LED color mixing applications have relatively loose timing requirements, but there are nine parameters that need to be measured in a typical RGBW (red, green, blue, white) application: four LED forward voltage signals, four LED current waveforms, and the board temperature. Each signal type requires a different signal conditioning topology. The optimal solution to measure each signal accurately is programmable analog. For more information on this topic, click the download link above or read the full article on Programmable Logic DesignLine."

A 2.4-GHz WirelessUSB Radio-on-a-chip For Human Interface Devices