To resolve design issues, it may be necessary to question the root source of some fundamental accepted practices and assumptions. From an early age, we all are taught some basic truisms. For example, we learn that the “normal” typical oral human-body temperature is 98.6⁰F (conveniently, that’s 37.0⁰C). Many decisions, such as concluding that someone has […]
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Semiconductor manufacturing: past, present, and future
Understanding the past, present, and future of semiconductor manufacturing and what it means for the components that make it work. By Lawrence Crynes, Ph.D., Market Manager, Semiconductor, Swagelok Company Moore’s Law predicted that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit (or microchip) will need to double every two years while the cost of computing […]
Designing voice recognition into IoT devices
More and more user interfaces now consist of a conversation. New development hardware makes it easier to ‘talk’ to devices without physically touching anything. Scott Choi, Knowles Corp. More and more IoT devices these days will understand what you say when you talk to them. Voice is still in the early phases of adoption, however, […]
Getting one wire to do more, Part 4 – headphone wire as antenna
Using one wire in two very different roles is widely done, requiring some simple circuity and basic components. Using a headphone wire as an FM antenna The earliest portable AM/FM portable radios used two antennas: an internal long wire wound on a ferrite core for the lower-frequency AM band (550-1600 kHz), and a “whip” antenna […]
Getting one wire to do more, Part 3 – Powering the antenna LNA
Using one wire in two very different roles is widely done, requiring some simple circuity and basic components. Providing DC power to an antenna amplifier via an RF coaxial cable In most applications where the antenna is located at a distance from the radio receiver front end, it is desirable or necessary to add a […]
Getting one wire to do more, Part 2 – Phantom power for the microphone
Using one wire in two very different roles is widely done, requiring some simple circuity and basic components. A classic engineering objective is to figure out a way to get one set of wires to provide a second function at little cost. This second part in the series looks at phantom power in more detail. […]
What’s all this triplen harmonics stuff?
Unless your background is in ac power, it’s possible you haven’t run into the term triplen harmonic. Triplen harmonics have to do with the third harmonic. Even-numbered harmonics do not normally exist in power systems due to symmetry between the positive and negative halves of the ac cycle. It is the odd-numbered harmonics that engineers […]
Simple double-duty: How to get one wire to do more, Part 1: The rationale
Using one wire in two very different roles is widely done, requiring some simple circuity and basic components. It makes a lot of sense to use an individual single copper cable and its connection between two points to do more than it initially intended, especially if that additional function is aligned with the primary function […]
Flexible connectivity lets IoT flourish
Designers have choices when it comes to creating new IoT designs, and connectivity choices will depend on the constraints of the design.
How has sensing changed in industrial automation? (Part 1)
The Industrial Revolution or what we might call Industry 1.0 started over 250 years ago. In 1771 Richard Arkwright, today known as Father of the Factory System, used water to power the first fully automated spinning mill. One hundred years later, the automotive assembly line initiated the Second Industrial Revolution or Industry 2.0 with significantly […]