rlcZONE Archive of engeniusBLOG
Aug 03, 2009 at 00:00
Given the rapidity of advancing technology, especially the incredible gate counts of today's ASICs and FPGAs, it's a wonder working engineers can keep up (that's where EN-Genius.net helps). I thought of this recently when performing some CMOS logic troubleshooting.
The circuitry I encountered was very outdated, but it worked, faithfully fulfilling the application requirements it was originally designed for. A large packaging panel housed a number of logic daughterboards. One such board was built with lots of 4000 Series and 7400 Series TTL logic. These ICs converted analog discriminator outputs into logic levels that were ultimately used to drive process control loops and indicators.
Out To Pasture?
Now, lest you laugh at what most certainly was antiquated electronics, remember this: the customer was happy with the system's reliable... -- Click Here to Read More >> Posted in rlcZONE
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Jun 29, 2009 at 00:00
Okay, so the US Congress is moving on a bill to foster the sale of new fuel-efficient cars and trucks. Dubbed CARS, for Customer Assistance to Recycle and Save, the cash-for-clunkers rebate looks like it might be available at car dealers sometime soon. If CARS passes Congress and gets the President's signature, the government will dish out vouchers valued from $3500 to $4500 to car dealerships. So, if you trade-in an eligible vehicle and purchase a new one, they will pass along that hefty discount. Of course, the new car must meet or exceed specified fuel economy improvement standards. The idea is to replace older vehicles with new ones that use less fuel, while giving the struggling automobile industry a shot in the arm. The seed money for the CARS program, to the tune of $4 billion, is part of the government's $800 billion so-called stimulus package. If you buy a new car, and your old gas guzzler Click Here to Read More >>Posted in rlcZONE
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Jun 01, 2009 at 00:00
The electrical department at my local big box home equipment store stocks myriad compact fluorescent lamp offerings. There are CFLs in standard incandescent lamp shapes, as well as globular lamps. In fact, there are so many CFLs that it's hard to locate conventional incandescent lamps anymore! CFL buyers are enticed with rebates and low prices, and I must admit I've taken the bait. We've retrofitted just about every candelabra socket in our house with CFLs of one form or another. While CFLs cut energy consumption, there are drawbacks. When improperly disposed, mercury contamination can be a problem. CFLs also have a warm-up period that can be annoying if you want immediate full intensity lighting. CFLs are somewhat vibration sensitive, too, and don't seem to be available in a range of color temperatures (warm to cool). There are companies now offering alternatives, however. The list of LED suppliers is growing exponentially. Hardly a day goes by withou... -- Click Here to Read More >>Posted in rlcZONE
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Apr 20, 2009 at 00:00
In the autumn of 1978 I attended a Motorola Integrated Circuit Division press conference. Back in those heady days it wasn't unusual for semiconductor houses like Moto to hold lavish and extravagant press events, often at far-out venues such as New York City's Windows On The World restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center. Ice sculptures, greetings by long-legged scantily clad models at the door, champagne, and endless platters of seafood delicacies were the rule. At this particular conference Motorola rolled out its first 64 kbit dynamic RAM. Robert Dennard's one-transistor, one-capacitor memory cell revolutionized the embryonic microcomputer industry, and Motorola was rejoicing. I still have one of those devices sitting on my desk, encapsulated in clear plastic. The engraving on this memento from Moto reads: "64K Dynamic RAM, First... -- Click Here to Read More >>Posted in rlcZONE
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Mar 16, 2009 at 00:00
If you haven’t noticed, lighting is undergoing a quiet revolution that may ring the death knell for light bulb jokes. By now, everyone is familiar with high-intensity LED flashlights, LED automotive brake lights, and solid-state emergency lamps. It’s plain there are fundamental changes happening that are as revolutionary as the cold-cathode fluorescent lamp itself. In the realm of multi-color LEDs, there's a lot of activity. We recently reported on Osram’s nifty MultiLEDs. Another company making clever illumination products is Luminus Devices. Luminus’ PhlatLight solid-state light sources combine LED and laser technologies. Unlike garden variety LEDs that emit light through epoxy encapsulants, these LEDs emit light directly. Why are they called PhlatLights? The s... -- Click Here to Read More >>Posted in rlcZONE
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Feb 09, 2009 at 00:00
As automobile companies in the US clamor for taxpayer bailout dollars, they’re extolling the virtues of hybrid vehicles and imminent electric cars such as the Chevrolet Volt. In spite of the fact that test drivers adored General Motors' ill-fated EV1 electric vehicles, GM contends its predecessor design was unworkable and too expensive. So, while GM and other carmakers pitch their wares and thrash about for funds, developers elsewhere in the world are implementing some sensationally different techniques for powering vehicles. Simply PneumaticOne of the most fascinating developments is the compressed air engine. In France, University of Orleans students are already building prototypes. These hybrid pneumatic engines use conventional fuel, but contain an extra intake valve dedicated to compressed air. If a car is braking or coasting, the en... -- Click Here to Read More >>Posted in rlcZONE
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Nov 24, 2008 at 00:00
Everyone surfs the Web these days when looking for suppliers of components and devices. In fact, it makes me wonder why major distributors such as Arrow, Digi-Key, and Mouser send out those monstrously expensive telephone book size paper catalogs. When I peruse supplier Web sites, I’m often astonished at the policies companies have with respect to sampling. Some firms, such as Analog Devices and CoilCraft, eagerly send you samples. CoilCraft even ships them by Federal Express. Other outfits, such as Fairchild Semiconductor, seem less than enthusiastic about sending samples, erecting all sorts of obstacles, making it tough to test and evaluate products hands-on. A lot of companies will not send samples to technicians or students. Worse, most will not sample to hobbyists or Radio Amateurs. Don't companies realize that ham radio enthusiasts and hobbyists are often engineers? Moreover, today's student may be tomorrow’s engineer or purchasing agent. Click Here to Read More >>Posted in rlcZONE
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Nov 03, 2008 at 00:00
The adage there's nothing new under the sun may be true, but sometimes that which we know can take on new shape and meaning. Such is the case with graphene, a material comprised of a single plane of atoms “pulled” from conventional graphite. The inverse way of conceptualizing this is that common graphite is made up of layers of graphene. Jointly discovered by Dr. Kostya Novoselov and Professor Andre Geim at the School of Physics and Astronomy at The University of Manchester in England, graphene can actually form molecule-sized transistors. This breakthrough is so important that Novoselov and Geim were awarded the Europhysics Prize for Condensed Matter Physics for discovering graphene and its electronic properties. Especially intriguing is that as you make graphene transistors smaller, they will likely tend to outperform silicon devices. Researchers are Click Here to Read More >>Posted in rlcZONE
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Sep 15, 2008 at 00:00
"This is one emergency we can't drill our way out of." – Oil man T. Boone PickensLet's face it. The world currently produces about three times more oil than it discovers in a given period. It doesn't take a mathematician to understand we're using oil faster than it can be replaced. Nonetheless, there's little reason to believe the geopolitics of petroleum will change anytime soon. We all know the demand for oil is primarily fueled (pun intended) by transportation. Populations are growing, and there's a worldwide clamor for automobiles, especially in industrially-developing countries such as India and China. Many more gasoline-powered vehicles on the roads of the world will offset improvements in vehicle efficiency. Petroleum consumption will rise, and rise exponentially. If present trends continue unabated, experts warn the wo... -- Click Here to Read More >>
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Jul 14, 2008 at 00:00
Sometimes it's the little things that wreak havoc on an otherwise perfectly good design. This happened to me while deploying tunable RF bandpass filters ahead of a high-level receiver mixer. The filter design looked good on paper and proved O.K. on my Tonne Software simulator, so I went ahead and ordered samples of miniature shielded adjustable inductors that looked like they would fill the bill electrically and mechanically. I might add that the well-known inductor company I ordered these coils from was quite accommodating. It actually sent the samples all the way from China by way of Federal Express. Gratis. Now that's my idea of service. With the bandpass filter board etched, drilled, screened and ready for soldering, I mounted my samples, soldered down the associated capacitors, and proceeded to sweep the assembly to determine its actual passband characteristics. The results were encouraging, but it seemed... -- Click Here to Read More >>Posted in rlcZONE
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Jun 02, 2008 at 00:00
German manufacturer Mann-Hummel says it intends to be the first automotive parts supplier to offer all-plastic oil pans for cars. These parts are a third lighter than their steel or aluminum counterparts, so their lightness would ostensibly contribute to a vehicle’s fuel mileage, and thereby help reduce carbon emissions. Significantly, Mann-Hummel claims its injection-molded pans can also include integrated components such as lifetime no-change oil filters. The plastic sumps are also anticipated to be less costly than their metal predecessors. Now, I don't know about you, but I'm already surrounded by non-biodegradable plastic, and I'm not sure I want much more of it. Mann-Hummel plastic oil pans notwithstanding, our household already has its share of polyethylene bottles, Nylon toothbrushes, polypropylene food containers, polyurethane moldings, plastic bags, polycarbonate electronics enclosures, and those pesky plastic packaging peanuts that electrostatically stick t... -- Click Here to Read More >>Posted in rlcZONE
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Apr 28, 2008 at 00:00
Like many places in the world, water quality is an issue here in northern New England. Our ocean beaches and rivers are a source of tourist revenue and recreation for locals, so we have town Conservation Commission volunteers taking water samples a few times every week, trying to pinpoint sources of pollution into our streams and onto our seashore. The water samples are sent to a local lab for analysis, then plans of action are drawn up. Oftentimes, a strategy for abatement involves a homeowner, local farmer, or horse rancher. Farm runoff from animals and defective septic systems are sometimes pinpointed as culprits where high bacterial counts are found. One of the techniques used to determine if a septic system or treatment plant is polluting a watercourse is the detection of so-called optical brighteners. These dyes are found in water that contains effluent from a home laundry. The optical... -- Click Here to Read More >>Posted in rlcZONE
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Mar 10, 2008 at 00:00
Americans are paying through the nose for gasoline, and a heckuva lot of petrol poker chips now reside in banks in the Middle East. That’s a cause for concern and relief. A country that’s investing its oil wealth in the American Grand Style is Dubai. Smack dab in the middle of the Middle East turmoil, Dubai shapes up as a clone of glitzy America. Although the little oil-rich country churns out a quarter of a million barrels of oil a day, Dubai is attracting tourists so it can derive its entire gross domestic product from non-oil sources. The plan is to host 15 million tourists by 2010. A theme park alone is anticipated to pull a few hundred thousand visitors a day. Here's the promotional pitch, straight from Dubai's web site. "Dubailand is set to be the ultimate entertainment and tourism destination in the world. Committed to ent... -- Click Here to Read More >>Posted in rlcZONE
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Feb 11, 2008 at 00:00
If you’re like most folks, you probably subscribe to an e-mail reflector or two. My subscriptions include engineering digests, but I also receive e-mails about dogs, British cars, toy trains, ecology, hiking, and conservation. The e-mails in these reflectors sometimes make me wonder whether the senders have computers equipped with spelling and grammar checkers. As a writer, I've come to expect that when ideas are exchanged for public reading, there should be some minimal conformance to the rules of grammar. Stumbling across writing blunders, such as the use of the pronoun "your" instead of the contraction "you're," irks me. Lately I’m seeing the use of "a couple" instead of "a couple of." Now, the word “couple” is followed by “of” and a plural noun, in which case it's a plural statement. For example, you would say, "There are a couple of cars in the garage." (In informal uses, ac... -- Click Here to Read More >>Posted in rlcZONE
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Dec 03, 2007 at 00:00
The world's got a heroin problem, and US cell phone companies are part of it. Thanks in part to top-notch cellular communications, Osama bin Laden is hauling in cash with which to buy expensive and sophisticated (presumably nuclear) weapons. Opium production is skyrocketing. A report released by the Bush administration reveals that Afghanistan's crop is now at a record high, with nearly 6000 tons of opium produced annually. With failed efforts to eradicate growing and production, Taliban-supported Afghani growers are sourcing 90% of the world's heroin. According to former NATO supreme allied commander General James L Jones, it's the drug runners who usually engage in combat with US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. "They make sure the roads stay open, and they get to where they want to go, whether it's through Pakistan, Iran, up through Russia, or all the known trade routes." A recent World Bank report, as well as a United Nations Office on Drug... -- Click Here to Read More >>Posted in rlcZONE
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Oct 29, 2007 at 00:00
The personal computer is a remarkable piece of evolutionary engineering, isn’t it? The latest PC on my desk, clocking its Intel Core 2 Duo 6420 processor at over 2 GHz, fills my bill for fast Web surfing and Photoshop artwork manipulation, and even makes short work of small circuit simulations. Best of all, it set me back less than a kilobuck. By all commercial standards, a PC like mine is rather up to date and state-of-the-art.
Or is it?
Just like the 8088-equipped personal computers most folks cut their teeth on back in the 1980s, the Achilles Heel of this machine is its rotating machinery. The box is endowed with a 3.5-in. floppy disk (for office-to-basement Sneaker Net runs), a CD-ROM/DVD drive that sounds like a banshee at midnight when it revs up, and a Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 hard drive.
The Seagate drive, spinning at 7200 rpm, offers huge capacity, low head seek times, and splendidly fast transfer rates. I must admit I get an indescribable sort... -- Click Here to Read More >> Posted in rlcZONE
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Oct 01, 2007 at 00:00
About to pay my barber, I dug into my pocket and pulled out my money clip. It was stuffed with a needlessly bulky collection of one-dollar bills. My barber said he could use singles, so he exchanged my haircut for a wad of bills, and I got a crisp $10 note in return as well.
While this bit of money laundering was going on, my barber quipped that our high-finance exchange was like Monopoly -- adding that the venerable Parker Brothers board game is now electronic. Players bank their stash using mag-stripe plastic cards, he said.
What's this? Monopoly has gone e-Monopoly? For a graying gamer like me, who would play Monopoly with traditional little wooden houses and hotels (even plastic ones) and lots of multi-colored paper Monopoly cash tucked under the Park Place and Boardwalk end of the board, this was nothing short of incredible.
Wincing to myself (those of you who regularly read my Editorials know I like antiques and old stuff), I was reminded how pervasive ... -- Click Here to Read More >> Posted in rlcZONE
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Nov 06, 2006 at 00:00
EN-Genius Network is pleased to welcome you to this new ZONE.
rlcZONE will offer the coverage of the passives in our industry in a way that has never been seen before. The typical approach to this sector doesn't even require an engineer at the helm: you take all the press releases that you receive, take a paragraph or two out of them to describe the new product and then add a news release photo if you have the space for it.
That's not how it is going to happen in this space.
We will be offering that most popular difference that has gained support, trust and respect at analogZONE (which is now a part of the EN-Genius Network) by putting our necks on the line by actually analyzing products in reviews. Those reviews will examine the products in what, how and why they are there; will critique where necessary; will condemn vaporware; will consider the accuracy of the pricing for the ma... -- Click Here to Read More >>Posted in rlcZONE
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