The four Rs of efficient system design
by Juergen Jaeger and Shawn McCloud
New design languages and new chips and systems mean a whole new set of design gotchas for today's developers. Once-simple tasks become difficult and, thankfully, once-difficult tasks become easy. This article for senior designers looks at newer high-level design techniques and how they can improve logic and system design.

How to create beam-forming smart antennas using FPGAS
by Deepak Boppana and Asif Batada
If you could squeeze two or three times more cellular telephone conversations into the same amount of bandwidth, how much would that be worth? To most wireless companies, the answer is, millions of dollars. The art and science of “beam forming” allows normal cellular towers to aim their radio waves at the right user instead of off in all directions. The result is more efficient use of bandwidth and more happy customers. In this article, FPGA design experts explain how beam forming works and how to implement it in standard FPGA chips.

Understanding analog to digital converter specifications
by Len Staller
Confused by analog-to-digital converter specifications? Here's a primer to help you decipher them and make the right decisions for your project.

Analyst's Corner
ESL to drive design automation markets
by Daya Nedamuni
Electronic system level tools, the next big change in design-automation tools, will enable concurrent hardware and software design.

Break Points
Electromagnetics for firmware people
by Jack G. Ganssle
A firm grasp of electromagnetics, now the foundational science of all digital engineering, is important as systems get faster.

Up2Speed
Reset supervisors
by Christopher Leddy
This article on the basics of reset supervisors is a good refresher for engineers who've gotten rusty and a primer for managers who want to hone their technical skills.

#include
Be understood
by Jim Turley
“BBC English please!” said a recent immigrant to the United States when confronted with some of our garbled American accents. If only there were such a phrase that applied to embedded systems programming jargon. Jim explains why it's worth your while to speak plain English, not tech-speak.