A few weeks ago, in our “Environmental Embeddedness“ article, we discussed the Microsoft Windows Embedded Student ChallengE, where student design teams were asked to design and develop embedded systems capable of giving something back to the world – preserving, protecting, or enhancing the environment. This week, we caught up with one of the winning teams in order to get more insight into the kind of product development process that could go through marketing requirements definition, specification, development, debug, and testing, even … Read More → "Students Throw Down the Gauntlet"

The well-known benefits of ceramic material include: high hardness and mechanical strength; wear and corrosion resistance; dimensional stability over a wide range of temperatures; ability to withstand high working temperatures; good electrical insulation and excellent dielectric properties. However, until recent advances in CIM technology, production engineers and product designers did not view ceramics as a viable option for complex parts requiring tight dimensional tolerances.

Limitations of Earlier Technology

Manufacturing small, intricate shapes in volume before the advent of CIM had significant limitations. The obvious challenge for ceramics is the inherent fragility of parts … Read More → "Ceramic Injection Molding Produces Complex Parts With Tight Tolerances"

Once the embedded computer came on the scene, however, the game changed rapidly. Because most product-specific features could now be implemented in hardware, the physical difference between products began to diminish. Block diagrams of almost every type of product from mobile phones to GPS receivers to digital cameras to high-end washing machines started to look surprisingly similar. In today’s typical system, there’s a processor or two, a few peripherals, the least memory we can get away with, and a bus or switch fabric stitching it all together. The secret sauce is no longer contained in … Read More → "System Design by Swarm"

At some level, the business of running any big international corporation is largely the same. In high technology, however, the mundanity of macromanaging a large organization often insulates executives from the actual technology challenges faced by both their customers and their own engineers. At Altium, they do things a little differently. Nick is an electronics engineer at heart, and his company provides design automation software aimed at helping the average working engineer get his job done better and faster. In order to accomplish that goal, Nick feels that everyone working to deliver that capability, himself included, needs to walk … Read More → "A Mile in Their Shoes"