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November 2009 Archives

November 30, 2009

Add ElectronicsWeekly's News Widget to Your Own Site


ElectronicsWeekly.com now has an easy new way to add the latest electronics news to your website or blog. We have updated our News (and Products and Blogs and Jobs) Widget.

It is free to use and easy to add to your site. Simply click the 'GET THIS' button, and copy the javascript code to drop it in your own website. (It automatically expands or shrinks to fit the available space.)

Continue reading "Add ElectronicsWeekly's News Widget to Your Own Site" »

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on November 30, 2009 8:14 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

November 2, 2009

Q5 Interview - Maria Marced, TSMC

TSMC Maria Marced.JPG
The latest Q5 interview is now online, with the president of TSMC Europe.

Maria Marced talks to Electronics Weekly about roadmaps, best practices, the semiconductor upturn, and the challenges that face foundries...

The five questions this week are:

1. What is the TSMC roadmap for advanced, derivatives and mainstream technologies?

2. There are now many design considerations that are part of the time-to-market challenge.  What are some of the best practices that TSMC is implementing to meet those considerations?

Continue reading "Q5 Interview - Maria Marced, TSMC" »

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on November 2, 2009 1:21 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

November 4, 2009

Photo Story - 3D solar cell research

Georgia Tech 3D solar cell x100.jpg
A new Photo Story has been added to our index - an insight into the work of researchers at Georgia Tech, who have made a three-dimensional photovoltaic cell based on optical fibre.

"Using this technology, we can make photovoltaic generators that are foldable, concealed and mobile," said Professor Zhong Lin Wang. "Optical fibre could conduct sunlight into a building's walls where the nanostructures would convert it to electricity. This is truly a three dimensional solar cell."

Take a detailed look in our photo story

Continue reading "Photo Story - 3D solar cell research" »

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on November 4, 2009 3:13 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

November 5, 2009

Weird & Wireless: Passive antennas and gain

cc antenna setup.jpgWelcome again to the wonderful but sometimes weird world of wireless comms, written by Joel Young, CTO of Digi International.

Since most antennas are passive devices, how can they actually have gain?

Before I knew anything about the language of radios, this was always puzzling to me. I always thought I understood it for those fancy, powered antennas. It always seemed to make sense that some powered antenna would have an amplifier in it that would enhance the signal going out or in.

But the whole concept of a passive antenna was a mystery.

So, for those of you that are in the dark, but afraid to admit it, the only thing you really need to do is to think in the language of radios.

Continue reading "Weird & Wireless: Passive antennas and gain" »

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on November 5, 2009 10:45 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

November 9, 2009

Elektra Awards - The awards in detail, and photos

elektra 09 promo close up.jpgThe Elektra Awards for 2009 are almost upon us, and hopefully we will see you at the event. Indeed, we are now running a series of stories highlighting the individual awards, beginning with:

* Elektra Awards 2009 Finalists (R&D Award)

* Elektra Awards 2009 Finalists (Embedded System Product)

Also, ahead of the event itself - at Lancaster London Hotel at Lancaster Gate, 1 December - we've created photo galleries of last year's winners, and attendees of the event in Munich, at Electronics. Take a look, and see if you can see any friends or colleagues!

* Elektra Awards 2008 Winners

* Elektra Awards 2008 Attendees


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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on November 9, 2009 3:31 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

November 10, 2009

Q5 Interview - Geir Førre, Energy Micro

11nov09GeirFørre.jpg
The latest Q5 interview is now online, with the CEO of Energy Micro.

Geir Førre talks to Electronics Weekly about the company, which has just launched its first semiconductor product, a very low-power ARM Cortex-M3-based microcontroller.

See also: Photos: Energy Micro's EFM32 MCU

The five questions are:

1. How would you characterise the needs of the 32-bit MCU market?

2. What's the basis of your claim to have created the world's most energy-friendly microcontroller?

Continue reading "Q5 Interview - Geir Førre, Energy Micro" »

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on November 10, 2009 10:47 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

November 11, 2009

Weird & Wireless: "Line of Site" changing closer to the receiver

weird n wireless line of sight 101109.jpgWelcome again to the wonderful but sometimes weird world of wireless comms, written by Joel Young, CTO of Digi International.

How does "Line of Site" change for a given distance as one gets closer to the transmitter and receiver?

In a previous post we discussed the notion of a Fresnel Radius which defines the "stay clear" area as the sort of official definition of "Line of Site." In this case one of the things that I pointed out was that this stay clear zone got bigger with respect to wavelength and distance. In doing so I showed a picture similar to the one below.
 
The Fresnel Radius R above at the midpoint between transmitter A and receiver B was √(Λ D) / 2, where Λ was the wavelength and D and R are all measured in meters. Since that time I have received a number of queries about how this radius changes as one gets closer to the transmitter A and receiver B.
 

Continue reading "Weird & Wireless: "Line of Site" changing closer to the receiver " »

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on November 11, 2009 10:25 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

An Engineer in Wonderland - Arduino and brake lights

 

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.

 

Arduino.jpgArduino is intriguing.

It is a simple cheap development system, including microcontroller hardware, for developing processor-based control systems.

I have never used such a thing, for my imagination ends at BASIC and assembler coding, but it looks likes with Arduino you could string a programme together pretty quickly without having to learn how which bits in the ADC do what (said Alice bitterly).

Continue reading "An Engineer in Wonderland - Arduino and brake lights" »

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on November 11, 2009 11:41 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

November 12, 2009

Debugging FPGA designs

Check out an interesting feature article we have just uploaded, regarding FPGA designs - Debugging FPGA designs harder than you think

The main points to note are:

  • Issues that arise during FPGA debugging include the quality of RTL (register-transfer-level) code, the quality of the IP (intellectual property), the quality of results from the synthesis engine, and the quality of results from the place-and-route engines.
  • It's common in FPGA IP to use two representations - one for high-level simulation and the other for the actual implementation.
  • IP models you use for simulation may differ in significant ways from the corresponding models the place-and-route software uses.

Continue reading "Debugging FPGA designs" »

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on November 12, 2009 2:56 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

November 17, 2009

Q5 Interview - Jon Treanor, Conduit Partners

Jon Treanor headshot Sep 09.jpg
The latest Q5 interview is now online, with the CEO of Conduit Partners.

Jon Treanor talks to Electronics Weekly about the Carbon Trust Incubator programme, support for low carbon innovations, and the benefits UK electronics companies can expect...

The five questions are...

1. Conduit has recently been appointed as a Carbon Trust Incubator Partner. Can you describe the programme and its aims, and your role in it?

2. What type of low carbon innovations are eligible for this free support?

Continue reading "Q5 Interview - Jon Treanor, Conduit Partners" »

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on November 17, 2009 8:25 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

November 18, 2009

Picture Gallery - The smartest business smartphones

HTC-Touch2 100.jpgA new Picture Gallery has been added to our index - a look at the smartest business smartphones currently available. We've written about most of them, at least tangentially, but here is a pictorial overview.

From the HTC Hero and Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 to the Palm Pre and the Motorola DEXT. Not forgetting, the iPhone 3GS or the BlackBerry Storm 2...

View the smartphone photos

Continue reading "Picture Gallery - The smartest business smartphones" »

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on November 18, 2009 8:14 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Certification & Test: Where have all the ZigBee products come from?

zigbee logo.gif
Welcome to a new series of posts on the topic of test and certification. This post is by Jon Harros, ZigBee Business Manager at TRaC

In the last month, the number of approved products listed on the ZigBee website has doubled, and my company has also seen a massive growth in the number of products being submitted for certification. What has caused the sudden interest?

I think it's down to the maturing ZigBee certification process, and specifically the introduction of new certification routes for some of the key standard profiles.

Until the introduction of the SE profile last year, ZigBee products could only be certified with manufacturer-specific profiles, pretty much guaranteeing that one manufacturer's products would not work with anyone else's devices.

Continue reading "Certification & Test: Where have all the ZigBee products come from?" »

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on November 18, 2009 10:51 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

November 19, 2009

Weird & Wireless: Differences between lumens, lux, candelas and watts

cc candle.jpgWelcome again to the wonderful but sometimes weird world of wireless comms, written by Joel Young, CTO of Digi International.

When I go the store to buy light bulbs, I keep running into all of these different measurements. What is the difference between lumens, lux, candelas and watts and why should I care?

Different from the rest of the electromagnetic vocabulary, the most important thing to remember about the terminology around visible light is that it is a complete human construct related to our own perceptions.

In other words, the notion of visible light and associated colour only exist because we have eyes, i.e. antennas that tune into these frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum. Now, once we accept this, the notion of all these units starts to make sense.

Continue reading "Weird & Wireless: Differences between lumens, lux, candelas and watts" »

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on November 19, 2009 10:33 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

November 23, 2009

In-depth - Electronics and energy-efficient computing

energy efficient computing.jpgCheck out a new In-Depth article added to the site, written by Lee Harrison of Peritus Power - Standards lead push toward energy-efficient computing

Points covered include:

    * The ac/dc power-conversion step in the overall power chain for server farms can yield some of the most significant gains in power efficiency.
    * To meet industry standards, manufacturers have taken different approaches, including using interleaved PFC (power-factor control), bridgeless PFC, and resonant topologies.
    * Thanks to its 0V switching losses, higher switching frequencies, and smaller footprints, resonant-converter topology may be able to achieve Energy Star Platinum standards.
    * For the near future, silicon will remain the dominant switchingsemiconductor material, and gallium nitride will start to make inroads over the next year.

Continue reading "In-depth - Electronics and energy-efficient computing" »

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on November 23, 2009 10:27 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

November 24, 2009

Digital Life: What's so Smart about Smart Meters?

ANSI_smart_meter 1.JPG
Check out an interesting blog about "smart meters" by one Simon Taylor, who describes himself as a "photographer and technologist".

He considers how the term means different things to different people, and how a clear definition of use and - more importantly - access to the data - has not been fully specified.

He begins:

Continue reading "Digital Life: What's so Smart about Smart Meters?" »

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on November 24, 2009 11:18 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Q5 Interview - Gideon Wertheizer, CEVA

Gideon Wertheizer CEO CEVA.jpg
The latest Q5 interview is now online, with the CEO of CEVA, a licensor of silicon IP platform solutions and DSP cores.

Gideon Wertheizer talks to Electronics Weekly about mobile handset design, the crossover with netbooks and the true potential of software-defined radio...

The five questions are...

1. Describe CEVA's business & technology in 2 sentences.

2. How is the approach to mobile handset design changing?

Continue reading "Q5 Interview - Gideon Wertheizer, CEVA" »

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on November 24, 2009 11:28 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

November 25, 2009

Certification & Test: Is above 1GHz the new Wild West?

wild west theme park.jpgWelcome to a new series of posts on the topic of test and certification. This post is by Steve Hayes, EMC & Safety Managing Director at TRaC.

Is the spectrum above 1GHz open for anyone, just like the old Wild West?

EN55022:2006 introduces radiated emission requirements above 1GHz for the 1st time, but the delay in withdrawing the old 1998 version, means that there are no test requirements above 1GHz.

Continue reading "Certification & Test: Is above 1GHz the new Wild West?" »

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on November 25, 2009 10:49 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

November 26, 2009

Weird & Wireless: CFL, LED, and the incandescent bulb

cc light bulb.jpgWelcome again to the wonderful but sometimes weird world of wireless comms, written by Joel Young, CTO of Digi International.

I keep hearing about CFL and LED. What's the difference between these types of light technology and the classic incandescent bulb? Which is the best?

Of course, in today's world, we are all being encouraged to discard those ancient incandescent bulbs for the new compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) and light emitting diodes (LED), which for most of us seem really expensive to buy.

I admit that I never really liked the traditional tube fluorescent lights, probably because first, I always have trouble getting the bulbs in - it seems that I always have them out of alignment and second, I usually buy cheap lights that have ballasts that go bad. But I must admit, now that I've started using the screw in CFLs (like the one pictured), I've had quite a change of heart.

Continue reading "Weird & Wireless: CFL, LED, and the incandescent bulb" »

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on November 26, 2009 10:15 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

About November 2009

This page contains all entries posted to Electro-ramblings in November 2009. They are listed from oldest to newest.

October 2009 is the previous archive.

December 2009 is the next archive.

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