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December 2008 Archives

December 1, 2008

Q5 interview - Steve Rawlins, Anglia

03dec08rawlins.jpgThe latest Q5 interview is now online, with the CEO of semiconductors, passives and e-mech distributor Anglia.

Steve Rawlins gives his view of the components market as it faces up to the challenges of an economic slowdown.

He also talks about Europe becoming more attractive as a location for manufacturing, lengthening lead times on some products, and which end markets are the most active right now.

The five questions this week are:

1. How would you characterise the UK components market, particularly in the light of concerns over the global economic slowdown?

2. Will the recent M&A activity in the UK market raise challenges or opportunities?

Continue reading "Q5 interview - Steve Rawlins, Anglia" »

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on December 1, 2008 5:08 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

December 3, 2008

An Engineer in Wonderland - You want magnetics how fast?

 

An Engineer in Wonderland has a new home. You can find this particular entry here. If you wish to leave a comment, please do that on the new blog.

 

TDK museum.jpgSee all 'Engineer In Wonderland' posts

TDK knows a lot about magnetics, having been set up in 1935 as the world's first commercial producer of the stuff.

A few years ago, I can remember standing by a TDK engineer when he heard that a 2 or 3MHz (I can't remember which now) dc to dc converter chip had been introduced.

"Are you sure?" he asked incredulously.

He went on to say that, although raising frequencies was great for reducing size, efficiency could suffer when you push magnetic materials so far up the spectrum.

But if anyone could make ferrites efficient at 3MHz, TDK could - and probably already had, somewhere in its vast organisation.

Fast forward - and I can imagine eyebrows were once more raised in Japan when Analogue Devices recently introduced the ADP2121, a buck regulator that is designed to operate at a stunning 6MHz.
 

Continue reading "An Engineer in Wonderland - You want magnetics how fast?" »

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on December 3, 2008 10:47 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

ElectronicsWeekly.com Blog Awards 08 - The Winners

TDK museum.jpgElectronics Weekly has completed its search for the best electronics blogs, and here are the results of the first ever Electronics Blog Awards (which exclude our own blogs, please note). Congratulations to the worthy winners!

There were three categories (Electronics Hardware, Electronic Gadgets and Mobile Comms) and having boiled down the list of contenders into a short list, a popular vote was completed. The aim was to provide electronics professionals with a comprehensive list of the most popular and useful writers on the web, so you could do worse than bookmark these sites...

Electronic Hardware

Blogs that cover details of electrics hardware - whether complexity of components, build processes or home-brew circuits - can be nominated for the Electronics Hardware category.

WINNER:

WINNER:

Pradeep Chakraborty's Blog

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on December 3, 2008 9:57 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

December 4, 2008

An Engineer in Wonderland - Charger power waste. Did they miss a trick?

 

An Engineer in Wonderland has a new home. You can find this particular entry here. If you wish to leave a comment, please do that on the new blog.

 

nokia power consumption star chart.jpgSee all 'Engineer In Wonderland' posts

Call me fussy, but I do not like designs that throw away power.

Particularly designs that consume stand-by power.

High stand-by power, even if it is to save a few pence in manufacture, is sloppy design.

Some big players in the mobile phone industry:  LG Electronics, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson recently got together to come up with a star rating for charger standby consumption.

The ratings are:

* * * * *     = 30mW
* * * *     > 30 to 150mW
* * *     > 150 to 250mW
* *     > 250 to 350mW
*     > 350 to 500mW
No Stars > 500mW

Don't get me wrong. This is a fine idea and should be applauded - if only set-top box makers could get anywhere near this.

Continue reading "An Engineer in Wonderland - Charger power waste. Did they miss a trick?" »

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on December 4, 2008 10:49 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Reader book review - Network Coding : An Introduction

network coding.jpgNetwork Coding : An Introduction, Tracey Ho and Desmond S. Lun (Cambridge University Press, ISBN-13: 9780521873109) £30.00

We made a call for book reviews, and that call has been answered. Here is the first:

Network coding is one of the emerging approaches in the fields of information and communication theory that offers the possibility of revolutionising the way in which communications networks are constructed and operated.

The basic premise is as follows : data from multiple sources in traditional networks are usually transmitted separately across a network from source to destination. The Network Coding approach applies a 'code' to each individual data item, and then combines the coded items together into one item. The receivers then effectively use the codes to solve a set of linear equations to retrieve the information for all the data they are interested in.

The implications for systems that use routeing / buffering, provide broadcast / multicast services (TV, live events etc) are immense.

It is to this background that the authors attempt to provide an overview of the key concepts.

Continue reading "Reader book review - Network Coding : An Introduction " »

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on December 4, 2008 12:43 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

December 8, 2008

An Engineer in Wonderland - Statistics are like sharp things (idiots should not be trusted with them)

 

An Engineer in Wonderland has a new home. You can find this particular entry here. If you wish to leave a comment, please do that on the new blog.

 

cc stats generic - twitter stats.jpgSee all 'Engineer In Wonderland' posts

Some things drive me to fist-clenching frustration, bordering on despair.

A remarkable amount of this happens to me when I hear what politicians do when they are trusted with statistics.

A few years ago I was up in the far north of Scotland, in a cafe next to Loch Eriboll.

By the way, if you have a small motorcycle, I reckon the road up the west side of this Loch is the best in the UK.

Anyway, I was chatting to a local small-scale commercial fisherman who said he had given up trying to catch fish and gone over to lobsters - or crabs, I can't remember which - after he saw a huge ocean-going trawler come into the loch in a desperate search for a catch.

Continue reading "An Engineer in Wonderland - Statistics are like sharp things (idiots should not be trusted with them)" »

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on December 8, 2008 1:12 PM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

A call for book reviews - the full list of available books

coverpage - mimo waireless comms.jpgWe've had a number of requests regarding reader book reviews. To make things easier, here are all the titles from Cambridge University Press that we currently have up for review.

Each one is available for free, and all we ask in return is a publishable review to a length of at least 300 words, outlining the strengths or weaknesses of the book.

Basically, advising your peers on the worthiness or otherwise, of a purchase.
  • [TAKEN] Wireless Internet Security, Architecture and Protocols, by James Kempf, ISBN 978-0-521-88783-0 (£35.00) [TAKEN]
  • [TAKEN] RFID Technology and Applications, by Stephen B. Miles, Sanjay E. Sarma, ISBN 978-0-521-88093-0 (£60.00) [TAKEN]
  • Iterative Receiver Design, by Henk Wymeersch, ISBN 978-0-521-87315-4

Continue reading "A call for book reviews - the full list of available books" »

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on December 8, 2008 2:02 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

December 10, 2008

Embedded RFID and Power SoCs

Blue and Purple RFID tag.jpgDon't miss two useful In-Depth articles that now feature on the site, regarding RFID tags in embedded designs, and Power SoCs.

RFID in embedded designs: Your move
"Radio Frequency Identification technology has the potential to become a common and important element in embedded-system design. In addition to the traditional role of the technology in inventory management, recent advances in RFID tags and high-speed, long-range readers allow embedded-system designers to easily incorporate features such as access control, counterfeit prevention, simplified payments, medical authentication, dynamic pricing, product histories, and remote asset tracking."

Continue reading "Embedded RFID and Power SoCs" »

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on December 10, 2008 11:42 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

December 11, 2008

Reader book review - Resource Allocation for Wireless Networks

resource allocation for wireless networks 2.jpg
Resource Allocation for Wireless Networks: Basics, Techniques and Applications, Zhu Han and K.J. Ray Liu (Cambridge University Press, ISBN-13: 9780521873857, £50.00)

Radio resource management (RRM) is one of the key aspects of radio comms systems. RRM is the difference between a base station or radio terminal causing network interference or wasting electrical power; the difference between a telephone call being as clear as day or a noisy hiss; the difference between a network operator being able to support five or fifty users in a coverage area.

Highly mathematical/algorithmic in nature, RRM is one of the "dark arts" of radio comms systems, and the authors of this book attempt to bring light to the subject matter.

The book is structured in three parts. Part I is an overview of the various aspects of radio comms systems, and the general/specific issues that require/trigger RRM solutions. Part II is a summary of mathematical fields such as combinatorial optimisation, game theory, time-honoured in problem-solving. Part III considers specific RRM problems (antenna arrays, radio channel allocation etc).

Continue reading "Reader book review - Resource Allocation for Wireless Networks" »

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on December 11, 2008 10:19 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

December 16, 2008

Q5 interview - Linda C. Rae, Keithley Instruments

Linda_Rae_COO Keithley.jpg
The latest Q5 interview is now online, with executive vp and chief operating officer at the test and measurements company Keithley Instruments.

Linda C. Rae talks to Electronics Weekly about the state of the test and measurement world today, the challenges facing test engineers, and making the job of test simpler for the customer. The five questions this week are:

1. What is the state of the test and measurement world today?

2. So what are the challenges these conditions create for test engineers?

Continue reading "Q5 interview - Linda C. Rae, Keithley Instruments" »

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on December 16, 2008 1:39 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

December 18, 2008

Forecasting the future, to a decimal point

calendar generic.jpgAn excellent article by David Manners on the fallability of analysts and their future forecasts - Gartner forecast ridiculous, says Future Horizons

They might be armed with a mountain of data and have the best analytical models but no one can anticipate the future, especially to a decimal point.

"Frankly anyone's number for next year, including ours, is a pure guess. No one in the world has a model. If they say they do they're lying", said Malcolm Penn, CEO of Future Horizons.

Continue reading "Forecasting the future, to a decimal point" »

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on December 18, 2008 2:38 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

About December 2008

This page contains all entries posted to Electro-ramblings in December 2008. They are listed from oldest to newest.

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