August 2012 – EEJournal

Towards One Less Antenna?

August 21, 2012

Right at the beginning of this last year, we took a look at WiSpry; they make a MEMS-based tuning product for dynamically adjusting the antenna matching characteristics dynamically as things change. Things like grabbing the phone in the natural (but wrong) place. Not that that would ever happen; I’m sure such phones would always “just work.” But… just in case…

Such capabilities sound great in theory, but WiSpry recently ran an actual test – one that can& … Read More → "Towards One Less Antenna?"

What’s New at 20 nm

by Bryon Moyer

August 20, 2012

We talked in a separate piece today about Synopsys’s multi-source clock synthesis technology, but that was only one of several pieces of new technology in their new package. Among other parts of the release were the following non-trivial items:

Double patterning: it’s real now. It’s not used for every layer, just the bottom few layers. But it’s no longer something that will come someday: it’s here.
In the past, metal was … Read More → "What’s New at 20 nm"

Being Ahead Puts You Further Ahead

by Bryon Moyer

August 20, 2012

We love the underdog. David slays Goliath. All of that. And we love the myth that hard work and a better idea will always win. When we win, we take credit for deserving the win due to our hard work. (We tend not to credit any accompanying luck or support from others or the existence of infrastructure for any of our success.)

So if that’s the case, then anyone should be able to knock us off our pedestal with yet harder work and a yet better idea, right? Well, not in real life. If any … Read More → "Being Ahead Puts You Further Ahead"

A Standard for Standards

by Bryon Moyer

August 7, 2012

Ever wanted to create your own embedded-sysems standard? If you’ve spent any time at all participating in standard-setting organization’s meetings, you know that’s going to be a tough chore. The process is slow, the players have conflicting agendas, and the process can be tedious.

But there’s a new group here to help. The Standards Group for Embedded TEchnologies (SGET, www.sget.org) is a sort of meta-group of embedded companies that work together to submit their proposals to the larger standards bodies. By joining SGET, you … Read More → "A Standard for Standards"

Location Simulation

by Amelia Dalton

August 3, 2012

Spirent is getting involved in the sensor world as it crosses with their series of GNSS (satellite navigation) simulators. Inertial sensors, compasses, and satellites can work together, correcting each other and providing backup when the satellite signal is too weak or disappears inside a building.

Spirent’s SimSENSOR MEMS is a simulator intended to allow testing and tuning of the sensor fusion algorithms that combine the satellite and sensor signals to provide a unified location verdict. In particular, they focus on dealing with noise (use of an Allan variance model is part of what they consider … Read More → "Location Simulation"

An Internet Connection for Analog Sensors

by Amelia Dalton

August 2, 2012

The concept of sensors isn’t new; they’ve been around for a long time. Some of them might seem big and bulky as compared to some of the new MEMS-based upstarts, but they’ve long been important for logging data and monitoring processes.

Many newer sensors are typically built with connectivity in mind, but older ones weren’t. And they’re typically analog. So Lantronix has just announced their xSenso analog device server, which allows you to connect an analog sensor to the internet.

It provides datalogging and remote … Read More → "An Internet Connection for Analog Sensors"

Coast-to-Coast Nanotechnology

by Kevin Morris

August 1, 2012

Much of the early work on technology is, of course, done in universities. And schools are increasingly collaborating to be more effective. Cornell and Stanford, in particular, are effecting a bicoastal partnership (OK, to those on the East Coast, Ithaca is probably far enough west – being on the foreign side of the Hudson at a latitude where the coast proper has migrated even further east – to qualify as also being on the West Coast, but bear with me.)

They gave a bit of a presentation recently showing what they’re working on. It’ … Read More → "Coast-to-Coast Nanotechnology"