The Best of SemiApps

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Each month we bring you our best online postings on new ASICs and how to design them into the systems you are buildingwhether they be consumer, computer, industrial, automotive, or communications systems. Our choices, as presented here, are based on what other engineering readers like you looked at most during the previous few weeks. For of the best of Semi Apps, visit SemiApps.com/Thismonth,

Readers Choice: The Best New Application-Specific ICs

Targeting a wide variety of battery-based applications, Maxim Integrated Products new MAX8804Y/MAX8804Z are said to be the smallest, dual input Li+ chargers. Requiring only 6 mm2 of board space, these chargers also integrate proprietary thermal-regulation and constant-current constant-voltage circuitry to eliminate overheating during fast charging and simplify hardware design. The robustness and integration of these tiny chargers make them ideal for use in cell phones, smartphones, and other handheld devices in which safety, charging speed, and size are of significant concern.

Also targeting low power applications such as portable multimedia products is AKM Semiconductor’s 24-bit audio digital-to-analog converters with an integrated headphone amplifier. These latest additions to the Audio2go family meet the required fidelity now expected for mobile phones and other portable devices with integrated music players, combined with multiple new advanced features compared to previous-generation ICs.

Engineering Blogs of the Month

With the advent of low-cost consumer-oriented Wi-Fi radios, from now on there will be no need to boot-up the PC, says Prem Rajalingham, senior product manager of Frontier Silicon, in his very popular SemiApps blog. Instead, listeners will be tuning into it using your familiar portable radio, hi-fi system, or boom box radio; an evolution in consumer electronics that we believe will help make Internet radio omnipresent.

Predicting that there is a new era in home radio emerging, Rajalingham says there are major advantages to Internet radio. It breaks location constraints, delivering a multitude of diverse content from all over the world and with listen-again/podcast services, users are free to access their favorite programs outside of the normal broadcast schedule.

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Another extremely popular blog last month involved the graphics display technology in new vehicle navigation systems. Dan Landeck, manager of graphics display control products, at Fujitsu Microelectronics America sparked the interest of lots of SemiApps readers in his discussion of the new generation of graphics display controllers that are emerging. According to Landeck, this year we are seeing controllers with video and audio multimedia support built right into the processor, along with high PCI bandwidth, dual-display output, and video upscaling and downscaling, to enable display of a full-screen mode of multimedia pictures at high resolutions.

Design Classics Library: Application Notes of Note and MoreNEC Electronics Corporation, and Beijing Cycle Century Digital Technology Co., Ltd. (CCDT) launched a turnkey solution for set top boxes (STBs) that enables STB manufacturers to bring new systems to market with minimal cost and effort. The solutions, based on NEC Electronics’ EMMA 2SL/S single-chip MPEG decoder, are designed primarily for satellite broadcast but can be adopted to fit terrestrial and cable broadcasts as well. The solution is compliant with the DVB-S MPEG2 standard used throughout Asia and Europe, and is compatible with both PAL and NTSC broadcasting standards, as well as VBI teletext.White Paper for Medical Ultrasound

Medical ultrasound systems are believed to be among the more sophisticated signal processing machines in widespread use today. Though analogous to radar or sonar, they operate at RF speeds that are orders of magnitude slower than radar and faster than sonar. Over time, ultrasound systems have become increasingly portable, with some even evolving into ultracompact palm-sized devices. Analog Devices is offering an application note on what’s being called “A revolutionary solution for portable ultrasound.” It’s based on ADI’s AD9271, an 8-channel, 12-bit, 10-MSPS to 50-MSPS front end.

Also on the medical front, RF transceivers now enable implantable medical devices. Implantable medical devices enabled by the MICS (Medical Implant Communications Service) standard are just starting to appear in the marketplace. This article from AMI Semiconductors provides a brief summary of the FCC rules governing MICS devices, introduces a low-power 402 to 405-MHz RF transceiver for MICS applications, and discusses implications for the future of implantable medical devices.

Marty Gold

Our choices, as shown above, represent what visitors to SemiApps.com looked at most in recent weeks. Visit www.SemiApps.com/Thismonth. ■