Low-noise circuitry is critical to image quality of medical ultrasound, an indispensable diagnostic tool. Efficiency versus noise It may seem that if there is a tradeoff between power-supply noise versus potential efficiency, the need for ultralow noise in the ultrasound application should prevail. After all, a few more tens of milliwatts of dissipation should not […]
FAQ
What embedded protocols can you use for optical connectivity?
Communication protocols and protocol stacks like peripheral component interconnect express (PCIe), compute express link (CXL), Aeronautical Radio, Inc. 818 (ARINC 818), Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (JEDEC) standard 204/B/C/D (JESD204B/C/D), Fibre Channel and so on, are formal descriptions of digital message formats and rules. They are separate from the physical transport layer, although some protocols […]
Minimizing electrical noise to improve medical-ultrasound images, Part 2
Low-noise circuitry is critical to image quality of medical ultrasound; an indispensable diagnostic tool. Despite the conceptual simplicity of the underlying principle, a complete, high-end ultrasound imaging system is a complicated device (Figure 1). The ultimate performance of the system is largely determined by the transducer and analog front end (AFE), while post-processing of the […]
Minimizing electrical noise to improve medical-ultrasound images, Part 1
Low-noise circuitry is critical to the image quality of medical ultrasound, an indispensable diagnostic tool. Ultrasound technology, a widely used non-invasive tool in medical diagnostics and other applications, has shifted from static to dynamic images and from black-and-white to color Doppler images. These important enhancements are largely due to the introduction of digital ultrasound technology […]
Circuit boards don’t behave the way you think they do
Circuit designers increasingly must concentrate on the design of transmission lines, or the “spaces” between traces, instead of the “wires” on a circuit board. By Daniel Beeker, Technical Director, Automotive Field Applications Engineering, Senior Member, IEEE, NXP Semiconductors When it comes to the design of printed circuit boards, the industry focus has been on the […]
What are insertion loss and return loss and how can I measure them?
These basic RF measurements often uncover system problems in wired and wireless communications. If you observe a signal traveling from a source to a load through a passive system of some sort, you will notice that the signal attenuates by the time it reaches the load, and you will also notice that some of the […]
How can you minimize BERs?
Bit error ratios (BERs, sometimes called bit error rates) measure the ratio of incorrectly received bits in a data stream to the total number of bits in the stream. BERs are an unfortunate fact of life for digital and communication system designers and can be minimized and controlled, but not eliminated. BERs are related to […]
Why should you be using rigid-flex PCBs rather than flex PCBs in your next project?
Rigid-flex or rigid-flexible PCBs are the preferred interconnection circuits in today’s electronics. They have simplified the PCB assembly with superior mechanical stability and electrical reliability features. The driving factors for their popularity are reduced product weight, compact packaging, and quick assembly. Rigid-flex PCBs were designed primarily for critical interconnections in […]
How can TinyML support sustainability on the edge?
Sustainability can be in the eye of the beholder. That’s certainly true for the question of how can TinyML (tiny machine learning) support sustainability on the edge? From a societal perspective, The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) believes that TinyML can help to achieve its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). From an engineering […]
What is the MIPI I3C interface and where might I use it?
I3C improves on I2C through higher speeds and backward compatibility You’ll often want to interconnect two chips on a circuit board, and a standard interface can help you design efficiently. Engineers working at a division of Philips thought so back in 1982, so they developed the Inter-Integrated-Circuit interface, which they dubbed I2C. Of course, things […]
