Super-small radio SoCs are being paired with innovative battery technologies to bring inexpensive medical electronics online. Adrie Van Meijeren, Low Power Connectivity • Dialog Semiconductor The Internet of Things (IoT) has disrupted many industries in short order. However, when it comes to adopting the IoT, the medical and pharmaceutical space has largely been held back. […]
FAQ
How to test USB4 designs
Designers must look at and characterize the entire Type-C ecosystem when testing USB4 designs. Jit Lim • Keysight Technologies The USB Type-C connector has received significant adoption with ubiquitous standards like USB, DP, and Thunderbolt. The next-generation variant of USB is USB4. USB4 will transmit and receive on all four lanes of the Type-C connector […]
Selecting the right Bluetooth Low Energy SoC
Tricks of the trade for optimizing the energy consumption of BLE chips affect memory size, clock speed, operating modes, and other factors determined during the initial design. Emmanuel Sambuis, Silicon Labs It can be challenging to optimize Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) applications for minimal energy consumption. An understanding of BLE and the underlying system-on-chip (SoC) […]
Overview of electrical measuring instruments – Part 2
In a recent column, we gave a quick review of some basic instrumentation common to most engineering work benches. Here are a few more instruments found in many engineering labs. Curve Tracer The curve tracer is a member of the oscilloscope family of measuring instruments. In its CRT or flat screen display, the user sees […]
More dangerous than the virus? Converting manual resuscitators to ventilators
The shortage of respiratory ventilators in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic has lead to numerous efforts aimed at turning hand-operated plastic pouches called bag-valve resuscitators into makeshift ventilators. The resuscitators, also called Ambu bags, are generally on-hand in large quantities. They are designed to be operated by hand, by trained technicians, to inflate patient […]
Overview of electrical measuring instruments
Here’s a quick review of some basic instrumentation common to most engineering work benches. Ammeter The ammeter is the basis for many other electrical measuring instruments. Whether you are measuring volts or ohms, essentially inside the instrument you are measuring current. Measurement of current in a circuit is somewhat problematic because all the electrical energy […]
Another Covid causality: The James Webb telescope
NASA has announced it will pause work on the James Webb Space Telescope because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The launch is still currently on the books for 2021, but there are questions about whether that date will hold. The James Webb Space Telescope, successor to the Hubble and Spitzer instruments, was originally scheduled to […]
AI inference on MCUs? Yes, with development kits
The microcontroller, the most widely deployed computing platform, is ready to welcome the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution. Really? For a start, MCUs don’t have enough storage space needed to hold the neural network-based trained models, and they don’t have enough RAM to carry out inference operations based on these models. Microcontrollers are known for limited […]
How to test for Covid-19 in 45 minutes
The FDA recently authorized use of a fast test for the Covid-19 virus that reportedly can finish up in about 45 minutes. The test was developed by Cepheid, a molecular diagnostics company that is part of Danaher Corp. The beauty of the new test is that it runs on existing Cepheid hardware called the GeneXpert […]
The hot wire anemometer, Part 2: Implementation
The hot wire anemometer for measuring fluid speed offers unique advantages but also has some challenging use issues. Part 1 looked at the basic principles of the hot wire anemometer. This part contains the discussion with issues related to calibration and practical concerns. As with so many other sensors, the HWA looks simple enough: It […]