Welcome to the Electronics Weekly "How to..." index of technical articles. This is a selection of in-depth, engineer-oriented content that guides you through such areas as:
- adding 3G radio to embedded devices
- improving oscilloscope resolution
- improving oscilloscope resolution
- designing motor control on an FPGA
- improving power supply energy efficiency
- using high-current integrated-switch power-regulator ICs
- designing a ZigBee front-end circuit
- choosing an LED for lighting
- developing SMP-friendly code
- calculating power in FPGA design
- selecting the right white LED driver
- choosing the right analogue switch
- optimising mobile power efficiency
- testing high-power LEDs
- verifying power-cycled SoCs for checking and coverage
- specifying a connector for power rating
- choosing the right power supply
- succeeding with ultra-small QFN packages
- reading a semiconductor data sheet
- selecting video op amps
As well as Electronics Weekly's own articles, we also bring you some of the best from the rest of the Web, so bookmark this page for future reference!
Electronics Weekly How Tos
How to add 3G radio to embedded devices [29 Jan 2010]
Following are the key decisions to help you best integrate 3G technology with your existing hardware and software. In five steps.
How to improve oscilloscope resolution [27 Nov 2009]
For some oscilloscope applications, you need to measure a large dynamic range of values, and at the same time you need fine resolution to measure small changes in a parameter.
How to improve oscilloscope resolution [25 Nov 2009]
Discussion of low-power and energy-efficient design often revolves around specific design techniques, such as power shut off (PSO) and multi-flop implementation, or around specific tool capabilities for low-power, such as clock gating.
How to design motor control on an FPGA [14 Nov 2009]
With roadmaps for processor/DSP technology offering increasing performance you might wonder how FPGAs could be the next stage in the evolution of motor control.
How to use high-current integrated-switch power-regulator ICs [11 Nov 2009]
Switching regulators with integrated power transistors provide simplicity, require few components, and make compact step-down power supplies. Few of these devices can supply more than 5A load current, so, when designing with these high-current integrated-switch regulators, you must consider thermal management, bypassing of the supply voltage, and board layout.
How to improve power supply energy efficiency [5 Nov 2009]
A growing trend in the power conversion world is "green". Governments and industry organisations are introducing more stringent regulations every year, as people become increasingly aware of the need to use less energy.
How to design a ZigBee front-end circuit [20 October 2009]
The performance of even the best sensor can be degraded by poor design of the signal conditioning circuit that interfaces its output to the digital processors at the heart of the system.
How to choose an LED for lighting [26 May 2009]
With developments made in the efficacy of white LEDs in the past few years, LED technology is driving the future of lighting.
How to develop SMP-friendly embedded code [13 May 2009]
Recent years have seen a rapid increase in the use of multicore devices in the PC market. This trend is now being replicated in the device software environment with dual-core and many-core devices being released by a wide range of silicon vendors.
How to calculate power in FPGA design [8 July 2008]
As FPGA devices include more logic, memory and special functions, such as memory interfaces, DSP blocks and multiple high-speed SERDES channels, and move to successively leading edge process technologies, they increasingly challenge system power requirements.
How to select the right white LED driver [22 May 2008]
The growing adoption of LEDs as a lighting source in different applications has simultaneously driven the demand for LED driver ICs to power them. To understand the obstacles for the design and manufacture of these LED driver ICs, it is necessary to understand what a white LED requires in order to produce light.
How to choose your next power supply [16 November 2007]
When specifying power supplies, today's customers invariably want four things - small size, reliability, ease of control and, of course, value for money...
How to optimise Class D amplifiers for mobile power efficiency [20 November 2007]
Consumer demand for flexible audio features and hi-fi sound from mobile phones has led to handset audio chip designers having to optimise the Class D amplifier to meet the noise and power management demands. Robert Hatfield explains...
How to select the right analogue switch [6 July 2007]
The adoption rate of analogue switches continues to increase across a broad range of end equipment including consumer electronics (mobile and audio applications), industrial systems and networking equipment.
How to be covered for WEEE regulations [8 November 2007]
The UK WEEE regulations apply to ten product categories. The regulations have an indicative example of products under each of the categories, but it is not exhaustive.
How to manage FPGA prototyping [2 November 2007]
The obvious reward for the FPGA prototyper's hard work is a bug-free Asic design ready in time for the tape-out. However, another benefit of prototyping is that the software embedded into the Asic or SoC can be integrated with at-speed hardware much earlier in the project.
How to specify a connector for power rating [20 March 2007]
The task of specifying a connector is not simply a matter of selecting the right power or current capability; there is an ever growing array of connector options available for a wide range of applications. When considering a particular application, the designer needs to gather all the relevant information together in order to weigh up the options available and select the most suitable connector.
From around the Web...
How to build your own UPS [16 May 2007]
Going in search of a decent, cost effective UPS that could run all the electronics in an office for at least a few hours.
How to simplify debugging and documenting wireless applications [20 November 2007]
Debugging even the most rudimentary functions can render traditional analysers useless but PC-based analysers with flexible bus-level decoding facilities can greatly reduce cycle-to-cycle debugging time.
How to succeed the first time with ultra-small QFN packages [31 October 2007]
The QFN form factor delivers a number of advantages over other SMT packages. It is generally smaller and its centre pad provides better grounding and thermal properties.
How to speed FPGA debug with measurement cores and a mixed-signal oscilloscope [28 June 2006]
In which a packet communications system is analysed, and glitches on an external serial channel are linked to a crashing state machine inside the FPGA.