Processor-based Design News & Articles

News and technical information for designers and developers who select microprocessors, microcontrollers, DSPs, and DSCs (digital signal controllers) for embedded designs, as well as developers that specify, generate, test, and maintain software for such systems.

• Celebrating engineering: EDN names 2010 Innovation Award winners

  EDN Staff, May 3, 2011
  
  
  EDN bestows its 21st annual Innovation Awards, honoring a diverse group of electronics engineers and the ground-breaking products they have produced.  More

• DSPs power the race to 4G

  Mike Demler, Technical Editor, April 21, 2011
  Next-generation base stations speed mobile connectivity with SDRs, hard-coded accelerators, and multicore CPUs.  More

• An introduction to acoustic thermometry

  Jim Williams and Omar Sanchez-Felipe, Linear Technology, April 21, 2011
  Use an ultrasonic transducer to measure air temperature in an olive jar.  More

• Increase efficiency in embedded digital-I/O lines

  Vasile Surducan and Emanoil Surducan, National Institute for R&D of Isotopic and Molecular Technologies, Cluj-Napoca, Romania; Edited by Martin Rowe and Fran Granville, April 21, 2011
  Multiplex IO lines and drive LEDS without ghosting.  More

• Modulating a reference allows maximum-value search for phase detection

  Chien-Hung Chen, Hui-Shun Huang, Jyi-Jinn Chang, and Tai-Shan Liao, National Applied Research Laboratories, Hsinchu, Taiwan; Edited by Martin Rowe and Fran Granville, April 21, 2011
  Modulating a reference and target signal lets you find the maximum modulation based on modulation phase.  More

• Take engineering education in context

  Kevin C Craig, PhD, April 21, 2011
  Engineers practice engineering in context, so why is it taught out of context?  More

• USB 3.0 controller embeds microcontroller for customized applications

  Mike Demler, Technical Editor, April 12, 2011
  Cypress Semiconductor’s new EZ-USB FX3 for USB 3.0 applications combines a flexible peripheral controller with a USB 3.0 PHY interface that provides a data pipeline as fast as 5 Gbps.  More

• ARM versus Intel: a successful stratagem for RISC or grist for CISC's tricks?

  Brian Dipert, Senior Technical Editor, April 7, 2011
  
  
  ARM and its licensees are striving to expand their overall market presence by tackling Intel’s x86 in servers and client desktop and laptop computers. Intel has responded by attacking ARM on its own turf: handsets, tablets, and the like.  More

• The e-reader paradox

  Franck Nicholls, Freescale Semiconductor, April 7, 2011
  E-book readers require high performance, even to just display text.  More

• Dual ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore features 28-nm, low-power programmable logic for high-end embedded systems

  Mike Demler, Technical Editor, March 17, 2011
  The Zynq-7000 family of EPP devices target high-end embedded-system applications.  More  

         

• Surpassing the bandwidth limitations of cache-based processing architectures
  
  Daniel Proch, Netronome, March 17, 2011
  As bandwidth increases and security threats evolve, network infrastructures must support 10 and 40 Gbps of throughput, with deeper intelligence. Traditional cache-based processors don't suit use in data-plane processing once it scales to millions of flows per second. An alternative tightly couples network flow processors and x86 CPU cores. More
  
• Impedance: an essential multidisciplinary concept
  
  Kevin C Craig, PhD, March 17, 2011
  
  
  The impedance principle is core to connecting mechanical subsystems, but mechanical-engineering education and practice have neglected it. More
  
• Active multiplexing saves inputs
  
  JB Guiot, Mulhouse, France; Edited by Martin Rowe and Fran Granville, March 17, 2011
  Add an inverter to reduce current and diodes to route inputs to a microcontroller's inputs as needed. More
  
• CPUs in FPGAs: many faces to a trend
  
  Ron Wilson, Editorial Director, March 3, 2011
  Whether as synthesizable soft cores or hard cores on the die, CPUs are showing up in more FPGA designs, bringing with them important challenges for designers. More
  
• High-performance DSP-IP cores are ready for LTE-Advanced
  
  Mike Demler, Technical Editor, March 3, 2011
  Tensilica's new ConnX BBE64-128 DSP IP cores for SOC design extend the BBE family to meet requirements for the emerging LTE Advanced standard. More
  
• Monitor PWM load current with a high-side current-sense amplifier
  
  Maurizio Gavardoni and Akshay Bhat, Maxim Integrated Produtcs, March 3, 2011
  An innovative circuit allows you to monitor diodes' recirculating and power-supply current. More
  
• Windows on ARM: for Intel, probably no cause for alarm
  
  Brian Dipert, Senior Technical Editor, March 3, 2011
  Looking at the suppliers’ road maps, you might wonder why Microsoft is bothering to break away from its x86-exclusive embrace. More
  
• Design provides single-port-to-dual-port SDRAM converter
  
  Yu-Chieh Chen, Instrument Technology Research Center, National Applied Research Laboratories, Hsinchu, Taiwan; Edited by Martin Rowe and Fran Granville, March 3, 2011
  Read and write operations won't interfere with each other. More
  
• Bicolor LED indicates 10 states
  
  Abel Raynus, Armatron International, Malden, MA; Edited by Martin Rowe and Fran Granville, March 3, 2011
  Using a combination of color and blinks, you can indicate as many as ten conditions. More
  
• Relay driver switches two relays with one pin
  
  Gunther Kraut, PhD, Egmating, Germany; Edited by Martin Rowe and Fran Granville, March 3, 2011
  Logic 1, logic 0, and high-Z make for three possible states: forward, reverse, and off. More
  
• NAND 201: the continued evolution of NAND flash
  
  By Jim Cooke, Micron Technology, February 18, 2011
  More
  
• From the real world to the digital world
  
  Kevin C. Craig, PhD, February 17, 2011
  Digitization, including sampling and quantization, is universal and essential in engineering. More
  
• A wrench in the works
  
  Whitham D Reeve, Reeve Engineers, February 17, 2011
  A young engineer in training learns the hard way that carbon dust burns and to use his voltmeter first. More
  
• The Nexus One: Google hits a smartphone home run
  
  Brian Dipert, Senior Technical Editor, February 17, 2011
  More than a year after its unveiling, the Nexus One remains a leading-edge product, and represents a substantial leap in capability beyond the T-Mobile G1. More
  
• Fully depleted SOI shows its stuff in CPU design
  
  By Ron Wilson, Editorial director, February 10, 2011
  An ARM Cortex M0 paper design suggest that FDSOI could be a strong contender at 20 nm. More
  
• Intel shipping error-ridden chips again, cites demand
  
  By Suzanne Deffree, Managing editor, news, February 8, 2011
  Intel stressed that only computer makers that have committed to shipping the Intel 6 Series chipset in PC system configurations that are not impacted by the design issue will be receiving these shipments. More
  
• Understanding embedded-system-boot techniques
  
  Mohit Arora and Varun Jain, Freescale Semiconductor, February 3, 2011
  Boot-up, the sequence of steps that a system performs between when you switch on power and load applications, is simple in theory but often complex in reality. The main job of a boot loader is to load the operating system, but software and hardware engineers view this process in different ways. More
  
• The design-to-cost imperative and customer value
  
  Mike Demler, Technical Editor, February 3, 2011
  Engineers are constantly challenged to meet aggressive performance specs and to produce designs that don’t exceed cost targets, an approach that may be insufficient to ensure product success. More
  
• Control an LM317T with a PWM signal
  
  Aruna Prabath Rubasinghe, University of Moratuwa, Moratuwa, Sri Lanka; Edited by Martin Rowe and Fran Granville, February 3, 2011
  Set a regulator's output voltage under microprocessor control. More
  
• Hardware-based virtualization eases design with multicore processors
  
  Satish Sathe, AppliedMicro, January 20, 2011
  Offloading queue and traffic management to hardware reduces design complexity, improves application efficiency, and maximizes performance. More