National Instruments is hosting itsLabVIEW Developer Days 2013 at nine locations across the UK and Ireland between May and June.

Technical sessions range from the the introductory to the advanced, and are accompanied by in-depth topic presentations, product demonstrations and hands-on sessions. There is also the opportunity to network with local colleagues and engineers.

The locations are as follows:

Newbury, Wednesday 8th May
Fareham, Tuesday 14th May
Bristol, Thursday 16th May
Cambridge, Tuesday 21st May
Birmingham, Thursday 23rd May
Glasgow, Tuesday 4th June
Wilmslow, nr Manchester, Thursday 6th June
Limerick, Tuesday 11th June
Dublin, Thursday 13th June

New users are invited to discover the NI LabVIEW platform, build their first LabVIEW application, perform data acquisition and analysis, and discover how their application can join the Internet of Things and be controlled remotely.

Experienced users can improve the look of their applications by learning UI tips and tricks, find  out about tools for managing software engineering challenges in LabVIEW, learn how to integrate accurate measurements, and use software engineering tools complementary to LabVIEW.

You can view a PDF of the full schedule for the NI Developer Days 2013.

An event concerning the energy and electronics sector, Smart Grids Paris, runs from 4 – 6 June at CNIT Paris La Défense.

It promises to examing “key issues that affect the industry both up- and down-stream of smart meters”, such as production, transmission and distribution of electricity, on the one hand, and consumer services on the other.

The organisers write:
On an international level, we put the emphasis on the smart grids projects which are led in different countries. The aim is to provide suitable input for energy professionals to help them develop their own smart grids project in their relative environment and benchmark against other countries.

You can see the programme of round tables »

You can view a list of speakers »

For more information, visit www.smartgridsparis.com/

Agilent Technologies is hosting a complimentary full day seminar in Stockport on Wednesday 5 June. It is called ‘Back to Basics RF and Digital Measurements workshop‘

Who should attend the workshop? It is aimed at engineering students in their penultimate year, recent engineering graduates and technicians, experienced R&D engineers moving towards RF or digital, and technicians and engineers involved in design and test.

“Engineers working today in education, communications, wireless, aerospace and defence industries are faced with increasingly complex measurement challenges and rapidly changing technology. A strong foundation in basic measurement techniques is essential for success. This seminar will improve your understanding of basic RF and digital measurements, including real applications, thus improving your efficiency and effectiveness whether you are in R&D or design & test.”

Application and product experts from the company will be on-hand to give demonstrations and technical presentations says Agilent.

Register for the workshop »

Contact the organisers »

It runs 9:00 – 16:30 at Agilent’s Manchester base (Lakeside, Cheadle Royal Business Park, Stockport, Cheshire, SK8 3GR).

Avnet Memec has announced a series of hands-on workshops focusing on the SmartFusion2 SoC FPGAs (pictured).

The one-day events will feature educational presentations combined with hands on design labs suitable for engineers who are both new to FPGA design and those wishing to enhance their knowledge.

Workshops are being held throughout May and June in Germany, Sweden and the UK:

7th May 2013 – Poing, Munich

14th May 2013 – Stuttgart

21st May 2013 – Malmo/Lund

23rd May 2013 –  Stockholm

11th June 2013 –  Stevenage

13th June 2013 – Newbury

Each event will demonstrate the techniques and tools needed to create a basic SmartFusion2 SoC FPGA design that integrates a flash-based FPGA fabric, a 166MHz ARM Cortex-M3 processor, DSP blocks, SERDES transceivers, DDR controllers, eSRAM, eNVM, and security processing accelerators.

To assist future designs all participants will receive a complimentary SmartFusion2 Starter kit at the end of the day.

National Instruments is hosting its LabVIEW Developer Days 2013 at nine locations across the UK and Ireland between May and June.

Technical sessions range from the the introductory to the advanced, and are accompanied by in-depth topic presentations, product demonstrations and hands-on sessions. There is also the opportunity to network with local colleagues and engineers.

The locations are as follows:

Newbury, Wednesday 8th May
Fareham, Tuesday 14th May
Bristol, Thursday 16th May
Cambridge, Tuesday 21st May
Birmingham, Thursday 23rd May
Glasgow, Tuesday 4th June
Wilmslow, nr Manchester, Thursday 6th June
Limerick, Tuesday 11th June
Dublin, Thursday 13th June

New users are invited to discover the NI LabVIEW platform, build their first LabVIEW application, perform data acquisition and analysis, and discover how their application can join the Internet of Things and be controlled remotely.

Experienced users can improve the look of their applications by learning UI tips and tricks, find  out about tools for managing software engineering challenges in LabVIEW, learn how to integrate accurate measurements, and use software engineering tools complementary to LabVIEW.

You can view a PDF of the full schedule for the NI Developer Days 2013.

Avnet Memec has announced a series of hands-on workshops focusing on the SmartFusion2 SoC FPGAs (pictured).

The one-day events will feature educational presentations combined with hands on design labs suitable for engineers who are both new to FPGA design and those wishing to enhance their knowledge.

Workshops are being held throughout May and June in Germany, Sweden and the UK:

7th May 2013 – Poing, Munich

14th May 2013 – Stuttgart

21st May 2013 – Malmo/Lund

23rd May 2013 –  Stockholm

11th June 2013 –  Stevenage

13th June 2013 – Newbury

Each event will demonstrate the techniques and tools needed to create a basic SmartFusion2 SoC FPGA design that integrates a flash-based FPGA fabric, a 166MHz ARM Cortex-M3 processor, DSP blocks, SERDES transceivers, DDR controllers, eSRAM, eNVM, and security processing accelerators.

To assist future designs all participants will receive a complimentary SmartFusion2 Starter kit at the end of the day.

National Instruments is hosting its LabVIEW Developer Days 2013 at nine locations across the UK and Ireland between May and June.

Technical sessions range from the the introductory to the advanced, and are accompanied by in-depth topic presentations, product demonstrations and hands-on sessions. There is also the opportunity to network with local colleagues and engineers.

The locations are as follows:

Newbury, Wednesday 8th May
Fareham, Tuesday 14th May
Bristol, Thursday 16th May
Cambridge, Tuesday 21st May
Birmingham, Thursday 23rd May
Glasgow, Tuesday 4th June
Wilmslow, nr Manchester, Thursday 6th June
Limerick, Tuesday 11th June
Dublin, Thursday 13th June

New users are invited to discover the NI LabVIEW platform, build their first LabVIEW application, perform data acquisition and analysis, and discover how their application can join the Internet of Things and be controlled remotely.

Experienced users can improve the look of their applications by learning UI tips and tricks, find  out about tools for managing software engineering challenges in LabVIEW, learn how to integrate accurate measurements, and use software engineering tools complementary to LabVIEW.

You can view a PDF of the full schedule for the NI Developer Days 2013.

National Instruments is hosting its LabVIEW Developer Days 2013 at nine locations across the UK and Ireland between May and June.

Technical sessions range from the the introductory to the advanced, and are accompanied by in-depth topic presentations, product demonstrations and hands-on sessions. There is also the opportunity to network with local colleagues and engineers.

The locations are as follows:

Newbury, Wednesday 8th May
Fareham, Tuesday 14th May
Bristol, Thursday 16th May
Cambridge, Tuesday 21st May
Birmingham, Thursday 23rd May
Glasgow, Tuesday 4th June
Wilmslow, nr Manchester, Thursday 6th June
Limerick, Tuesday 11th June
Dublin, Thursday 13th June

New users are invited to discover the NI LabVIEW platform, build their first LabVIEW application, perform data acquisition and analysis, and discover how their application can join the Internet of Things and be controlled remotely.

Experienced users can improve the look of their applications by learning UI tips and tricks, find  out about tools for managing software engineering challenges in LabVIEW, learn how to integrate accurate measurements, and use software engineering tools complementary to LabVIEW.

You can view a PDF of the full schedule for the NI Developer Days 2013.

In their 11th year the Elektra European Electronics Industry Awards will once again showcase the achievements of the year in the European electronics industry, presenting best-practice in important areas such as innovation, sales growth and employee motivation.

This year the awards will recognise the achievements of new engineering talent and the work of universities. This is the life-blood of the industry and will be honoured alongside a showcase of the best new products, technology innovation and company performances of the year.

An independent panel of judges will assess the quality of all entries and the winners will be honoured at a Gala Dinner which takes place on Wednesday 27 November 2013 at the Grosvenor House Ballroom, Park Lane, London.

To Enter

The entry process is straight-forward and designed to be as speedy as possible. Entries will be judged on their merits by a panel of independent judges.

Entries should include a supporting statement of up to 500 words (maximum) and at least one high resolution image (300dpi, JPG/EPS).

Enter »

Key Dates

Closing Date – 28 June 2013

Elektra Awards Ceremony and Gala Dinner & Christmas Party – 27 November 2013

A one-day course on 3DTV, the first of its kind, was held at the College of North West London, earlier this month.

The course was attended by TV engineers engaged in television  reception and broadcasting from different parts of the UK.

Samsung was represented by their European Product Support manager.

‘3D television is now a commercial reality that is expanding rapidly’ said course tutor Fawzi Ibrahim. ‘Today it is essential for engineers and technicians working in the field of television to be familiar with the principles behind 3D and its applications to television broadcasting, streaming and reception’.

‘The response to the course was very pleasing and the feedback very extremely encouraging’ said Ibrahim. ‘Another course is planned for 16th July this year’.

Organised by TV Diagnostics, the course covered the principles behind our perception of depth through stereoscopic 3D techniques: active and passive, 3D encoding: frame compatible format, 2D + Depth techniques, 3D displays: spatial and sequential, Micro-polariser (uPol) and culminating with examining block diagrams and schematics of commercial 3D TV receivers, LCD and plasma.

The course ended with a hands-on session to back up the theory, examined various waveforms and testing voltage levels with a spot of fault finding using both plasma and LCD 3D TV receivers.

Course tutor Fawzi Ibrahim is author of several books on television and video technology and he describes how manufacturers are implementing 3D technology in their TVs:

The stereoscopic 3D technique presents the viewer with two separate images: one for the right eye and another for the left eye representing the two images that would be viewed by the right and left eyes.

The idea is to create the illusion of depth by shifting the objects to the left or to the right relative to the other image. When the two images are shown simultaneously to the respective eyes, this displacement produces a retinal disparity, or parallax causing or the perception of depth.

The original encoding of the two images relied on what is known as ‘colour shifting’ in which the left and right images are colour coded using a pair of colours such as red/green or red/cyan.

It produces the lowest quality 3D image compared with any of the other systems and hence has been shunned by manufacturers.

Instead, 3D broadcaster have opted for a frame packing system known as frame-compatible format in which the two left and right images are squeezed into a single 1920 x 1080 HD frame.

As for the actual display panel, some manufacturers (Samsung, Sony and Panasonic) went for conventional plasma or LCD 2D panels to display the left and right images sequentially. This requires the viewer to wear active glasses to shut alternate lenses in sync with the left and right sequence.

LG and JVC opted for an expensive new panel with a micro-polariser attached to the front. Both images are displayed simultaneously on alternate pixels or alternate lines.

Each image is then lined up behind different polarisers on the screen. All that is then required to view the 3D image is a simple pair of polarised glasses, with the appropriate polarisation mode in each lens.

Manufacturers are working on the second generation 3D TVs using a display screen capable of delivering multiple views from different perspectives, not just a single pair of left and right images, but eight or more images of the same scene captured from different positions; all of that and without the need for glassware.

Email fawzi@talktalk.net for more details.

The fourth ElectroTest Expo is taking place on Tuesday 26th March at the Rose (Ageas) Bowl in Southampton.

The exhibition and seminar sessions focus on PCB debug and test technologies  and is organised by a group of test and measurement and ATE companies including National Instruments, Pickering, Tektronix, JTAG Technologies, Pico Technology and Amfax.

The free-to-attend event aims to cover a wide variety of aspects of test and measurement, from the modular instrumentation platforms used for building systems to the software that is used to develop, sequence and run test code modules.

Seminars

A key topic for National Instruments at the event’s seminar programme is role FPGA-based systems have in processing and analysis within test systems.

For example, Jeremy Twaits, the Automated Test Product Manager at National Instruments will be presenting on the trend towards heterogeneous computing within test systems, and he will discuss how FPGAs have given rise to “software-designed” instruments, which are fully user-customisable because the firmware is determined by a personality deployed to an on-board FPGA.

”By tweaking and editing the deployed code, an engineer can design the exact instrument functionality they need, by adding additional signal processing, custom triggering schemes or even new communication protocols,” said Twaits.

The company will demonstrate its first software-designed instrument, the Vector Signal Transceiver, as well as further examples of modular instrumentation based upon the PXI platform.

James Stanbridge from JTAG Technologies will describe the features and benefits of using boundary scan test.

“Even though JTAG boundary scan has been established as an IEEE standard for over 20 years there still remains a thirst for information about this board test method,” said Stanbridge.

Nick Hickford from Pickering Interfaces believes there can be benefits from using LXI and USB communications interfaces in conjunction with PXI-based test systems. “This can improve overall system flexibility and the cost effectiveness,” said Hickford.

Derek Maclachlan from Tektronix will present a paper describing how test methods can optimised to address the different wireless protocols and frequencies in use around the world.

A3DI is a new concept in the inspection of surface mount device and BGAs and Dave Hall from Amfax will describe the technique which uses laser profiling and patented BGA inspection in production test and reworking.

Stuart Murlis from Pico Technology will describe how USB oscilloscopes can offer an affordable approach to measuring high-speed circuits. Victor Fernades of Geotest will highlight the importance of integrating software into the test environment.

Exhibition

The event will present users with an opportunity to see recently introduced test systems from a number of suppliers.

Tektronix will demonstrate its MDO4000 series of mixed domain oscilloscopes which now includes two new entry level models.  Combining the capabilities of an oscilloscope and spectrum analyser, the instruments can capture time-correlated analogue, digital and RF signals.

The new MDO4014-3 and MDO4034-3 models offer four analogue channels, 16 digital channels and one RF channel. With prices starting at £8,110, the new models offer lower analogue bandwidth of 100MHz or 350MHz respectively.

www.tektronix.com

Aeroflex will be exhibiting its 5820 Multifunction ATE with rack-mount option, which will be equipped with a sample configuration of both third party PXI and native Aeroflex cards.
A demonstration of ‘Parallel Device Programming’ will feature on the stand. This will use cards in the 5820 system, and will show that multiple devices can be programmed as rapidly as a single unit, and how the system removes the need for inflexible programming pods required by other ATE systems.

”Simple code changes within the test program allow reuse of the test hardware to measure different Boundary scan capability from leading vendors such as Goepel or JTAG can also be incorporated into the same 19in chassis.

www.aeroflex.com

Pico Technology will demonstrate for the first time its first PC  scope with a USB 3.0 interface.

The PicoScope 3207A is a two channel USB oscilloscope with 250MHz bandwidth, 1Gsample/s sampling rate, 256Msamplwe buffer memory and a built-in function generator. Basic timebase accuracy is ±2 ppm.

Other features include digital triggering and equivalent-time sampling, which boosts the effective sampling rate to 10Gsample/s for repetitive signals.

The higher spec model, the PicoScope 3207B has 512Msample buffer memory and an additional 32k-sample arbitrary waveform generator with 100Msample/s update rate.

The PicoScope 3207A and 3207B USB 3.0 oscilloscopes are priced at £1099 and £1199 including a set of 2 probes.

www.picotech.com
How about testing an assembled PCB by loading its FPGA with temporary intellectual property (IP), and using it to test connections?

This is just what JTAG Technologies will demonstrate with its “CoreCommander for FPGAs” boundary scan test bridge. It is based on VHDL code that allows engineers to bridge from the standard JTAG test and programming port (TAP) to proprietary IP cores like DDR controllers, Ethernet MACs and USB controllers.

“The capacity of the simple low-speed boundary-scan register to cope with sophisticated command and control requirements has diminished to the point that tests can be compromised,” said the firm. “By harnessing the horsepower built into devices like microprocessors and now FPGAs, JTAG testing is again re-energised allowing the connections to timing sensitive devices to once again be fully tested and at functional speeds.”

The base of the tool uses a translator block to access proprietary IP cores through commonly implemented bus structures such as ‘Wishbone’, AMBA, Avalon and CoreConnect.

This translator block, provided as a VHDL module, can be either permanently or temporarily programmed into a gate-array. Linker software provided with the module automatically links the translator block with IP blocks to build the complete test design to be programmed in the FPGA.

www.jtag.com
National Instruments will show for the first time its second vector signal transceiver, a software-designed architecture that can be modified with LabView.

The PXIe-5645R vector signal transceiver has a differential or single-ended I/Q interface, which enables the testing of both the RF and baseband signals of a device with a single instrument.

The transceiver has a 65MHz to 6GHz frequency range, 80MHz instantaneous bandwidth and offers 24 I/Q channels.
A baseband I/Q interface samples 16-bit data at 120MS/s with up to 80MHz of complex bandwidth, and it is configurable as differential or single ended.

This is the second in a range of software-designed instruments. The first instrument was the PXIe-5644R RF vector signal transceiver, without the digital I/Q data module.

www.ni.com/vst