The Best of SemiApps

The Ultimate Resource for Building Next-Generation Systems

SemiApps allows electronics design engineers to easily and quickly find product vendors who provide chipsets, application-focused ICs, customizable or programmable platforms and specialized components for particular applications. Each month we bring you our best online postings (www.semiapps.com/thismonth) . Our choices, as presented here, are based on what other engineering readers like you looked at most during the previous few weeks.

Readers Choice: The Best NewApplication-specific ICs

Have you ever realized how much application-specific functionality is built into new microcontrollers? Take a look at the new home appliance MCU from Winbond Electronics. The company’s W541 series of microcontrollers provides a typical solution for use in home appliances such as remote controllers, thermometers, pedometers etc. The user experience is made even more convenient through the code programming and editing features.

Among the other products that drew heavy visitor attention in the past month are Cypress Semiconductor’s PSoC mixed-signal array evaluation kits for pyroelectric infrared (PIR) motion detection and I2 C port expansion. The PIR motion detection Evaluation Kit contains all of the hardware and software necessary to implement motion detection applications using a PIR motion sensor intelligently controlled by one Cypress PSoC device-the CY8C27443.

Engineering Blogs of the Month:

Steve Kennelly’s blog on the future of implanted electronic medical devices racked up not only the highest number of clicks for the month but also the most comments from visitors to SemiApps.com.

The senior manager, medical products group at Microchip believes it’s up to the companies who develop, design, manufacture, and market the coming generations of implantable electronic devices, as well as the doctors who implant them, to make sure that they don’t lose the trust of the public.

Blogger Manuel Alves from Freescale Semiconductor recently sparked some controversy with his question of why choose 16-bit microcontrollers for automotive applications? In the midst the industry trend to upgrade directly from 8-bit MCUs to 32-bit devices, Alves believes there is lots of reason to stick with the 16-bit generation, especially in automotive applications.

National Semiconductor’s Rick Zarr created lots of interest with his very recent blog on the challenges of handheld video. In addition to the extremely important issue of minimizing the power requirements for full-motion video, Zarr raises the issue of what it takes to move that uncompressed video to a display. He says there are several issues that plague video streams which include EMI, routing, and driving LCD glass.

Design Classics Library: Application Notes of Note

Reference Design for MicroTCA

Actel’s reference design for its Fusion mixed-signal FPGA aimed at MicroTCA applications enables designers to drastically reduce risk, component count, and time to market.

MicroTCA is a standard that reduces the cost of telecommunications, industrial, medical, and military equipment.

Net seminar on high-speed clocking architecture

Altera invited system designers to learn about high-speed clocking architecture and oscillator selection for its newest FPGAs. In high-speed or wide-bus interfaces, such as gigabit transceiver or high-speed memory interfaces, room for clock uncertainties and variations is small. Unfortunately, we live in a world where clock oscillators do have frequency variations and are exposed to jitter. The company offered a net seminar that covers various clock network topologies for FPGAs as well as a detailed discussion of jitter, its components and causes.

Reference design for appliance application s

International Rectifier offers the IRADK31 reference design for appliance applications. This kit includes a fully assembled and tested demo board along with applicable datasheets and application notes. ■

Find out what else visitors to SemiApps.com looked at most at www.SemiApps.com/thismonth/