by Matthew Balance, Mentor, a Siemens Business Nuts and bolts. So prosaic, yet so fundamental and essential. They can be reused, mixed-and-matched in endless ways. All those old jars and tins full of leftover nuts, bolts, and screws have saved many trips to the hardware store. Yet, if not for standardized gauge, thread count, and […]
FAQ
Signal Integrity and high-speed design challenges: interview with Mentor’s Todd Westerhoff
At DesignCon 2019, I met with Todd Westerhoff, HyperLynx high-speed design analysis product manager at Mentor, a Siemens Business. Todd has over 38 years of experience in systems modeling, simulation and signal integrity. Prior to joining Mentor, Todd held senior technical and management roles at SiSoft, Cisco and Cadence. We spent time talking about current […]
IoT standards: The End Game
by Cees Links, Qorvo Quite regularly I get the question: with all these standards around, what should I choose? Zigbee, Thread, Bluetooth Mesh, or Wi-Fi? Or maybe LoRa? Or is it better to wait for 5G and NB-IoT? Of course, these questions create confusion and slow down the adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT). […]
What is the difference between an ECG, EEG, EMG and EOG?
An electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG), electroencephalogram (EEG), electromyogram (EMG) and electrooculogram (EOG) all measure biopotentials, the electrical output of human activity. However, the amplitude and bandwidth of the measurements varies for each of these. The table shows the values for each biopotential group according to the article “Biopotentials and Electrophysiology Measurements” in The Measurement, Instrumentation, […]
Understanding total harmonic distortion measurements
Most electronics engineers and technicians have a good understanding of total harmonic distortion (THD). But there are a few elusive details that come into play during THD measurements. THD is the ratio of the sum of the powers of all harmonic components to the power of the fundamental frequency. Properly speaking, the fundamental frequency is […]
Filters, Part 2: SAW and BAW devices for RF
Part 1 of this FAQ looked at the basic available electronic filters – analog, switched capacitor, and digital – and briefly reviewed the attributes of each. As the frequencies to be filtered reach to 1 GHz and well beyond, while the selectively needed also became narrower, these filter approaches can no longer support many of […]
How AC power sources get synchronized
Today’s huge ac grids consist of many separate generators with new ones continually coming on line. When a generator is powered down for maintenance or even temporarily disconnected, it must resynchronize upon rejoining the grid, generally by automatic means with manual backup instrumentation in place if needed. The process of synchronizing ac power sources to […]
Considerations for battery-powered designs
How can you make your resume really stand out? This has been the topic of books, articles, class assignments, and blogs for decades. It came up in conversation one day, and a friend of mine had a unique story. I’ve included it below, with some edits. “With so much written on the topic, there is […]
LoRaWAN security design tips: Designing with a stand-alone security chip
With the growth of the Internet of Things, cyber attacks are increasing at an alarming rate (Figure 1). Key provisioning, a process of key generation and device authentication, is a critical part of establishing security. Whoever holds the key will be able to access the payloads, i.e. the valuable data stored in the application server(s). […]
8-bits and counting: 8-bit MCUs are still going strong
Microcontroller units (MCUs) never stop evolving; a more functional, featured MCU follows every model. Embedded systems have grown with continually growing MCU technology, yet there are many traditional MCUs that are still selling in high volumes. Atmel 8051 is one of those legendary MCUs which have developed a considerable demand in the market. The Atmel […]