New on Embedded.com
Exclusives
Vadim Konradi, Silicon Labs
Understanding electromagnetic interference sources in touchscreens
Kevin Rhoads, Kontron
Use Smart Services to take advantage of M2M connectivity
Joel K. Young, Digi International
Web services puts M2M in The Cloud
Highlights
Moving toward an open-standard platform for M2M development
ESD & EMI gets up close & personal
Xilinx's Virtex-7 2000T FPGAs
Editor's Note
Intel has proclaimed this week the fortieth anniversary of the microprocessor. For a 40-year-old, it is holding up quite well, thank you, if other news this week is to be believed.
On the X86 front, Intel rolled out two 6-core Sandy Bridge CPUs and unveiled the 50-core X86 Knight's Corner coprocessor. Not to be outdone, AMD launched its 4- to 16-core Opteron 5670 and 6276 X86 processors. ARM, the X86's nemesis in the embedded market, also showed off its alternative architecture muscle by announcing an 8-way ARM graphics core, and Arm-licensee Nvidia is working on an ARM-based supercomputer for the Spanish. And TI showed its supercomputing capabilities with low power 160 to 512 GFLOPS performance on the Keystone x66 DSP architecture. Also, LSI and Fujitsu said they are working on a Sparc-based multicore processor for supercomputing.
In “Xilinx's Virtex-7 200T FPGAs ,” Jack Ganssle provides his impressions of the new FPGA architecture. Other recommended embedded commentary this week includes “Moving toward an open standard for M2M development,” by Susan Rambo, “What's worse: incorrect documentation or none?” by Bill Schweber, and “Interference – cost tradeoffs and cheating” by Doug Grant.
If you are a fan of good tech videos watch “New Microchip PIC32MX1-2 starter kit up close and personal , ” featuring Chris Ciufo, Director of Content (Embedded), and “Microchip CLC Demo at ESC Boston , ” in which he talks to Microchip's Fanie Duvenhage about the use on PIC MCUs of a new configurable logic cell (CLC) feature.
Design How Tos
Understanding electromagnetic interference sources in touchscreens
Vadim Konradi of Silicon Labs reviews the various EMI problems associated with projected-capacitance touchscreens in today's portable devices. The author then outlines design and optimization techniques to deal with the interference coupling paths.
Use Smart Services to take advantage of M2M connectivity
In this Product How-To article, Kevin Rhoads of Kontron explains benefits of using the company's M2M Smart Services Developer Kit to accelerate the creation of wireless smart services applications and provide a pre-validated platform for M2M software.
Web services puts M2M in The Cloud
Web services are one way to connect devices and sensors to the extended Internet, where objects talk to other objects. Here's a primer on how Web services work for machine-to-machine applications.
Design capacitive touch systems for robustness and manufacturability
In this Product How-To design article, Jean Viljoen of Azoteq, details the EMI and other challenges of designing capacitive touch user interfaces and how to use the company's ProxSense auto tuning technology to negate the need for calibration.
Understanding the security framework behind RSA SecurID
This article takes you through the two-factor authentication-base RSA SecurID security protocol – not to be confused with the RSA public key cryptographic mechanism – and how to use it for providing secure remote access for a user to a network resource as well as some potential vulnerabilities to guard against.
Add graphics without using a dedicated graphics controller
The author describes the various means by which integrated peripherals on a microcontroller along with graphics libraries enable embedded designers to push down costs by driving an LCD display without a graphics controller.
Combine power feed and data link via cable for remote peripherals
It is possible to combine power distribution and high-speed data transmission by sharing a shielded twisted pair cable. A power feed network is necessary at both ends for power injection and extraction. By properly designing this network, and managing power supply switching noise, performance degradation is minimized.
Energy harvesting and renewable energy sources
Energy harvesting is hot, and the Power Solutions: Smart Energy Technologies and Techniques Virtual Event by EETimes will address major issues associated with the design and integration of solar- and wind-harvesting systems.
How to know if your SSD will go the distance
Increased adoption of data-intensive applications is driving a move to high-performance SSDs in enterprise data centers. But the focus on speed has overshadowed concerns about SSD endurance. Emerging technology enhancements can mitigate these issues.
Power Tip 41: Powering DDR memory
Understand the special requirements and tradeoffs when supplying this unique load
SIGNAL CHAIN BASICS #59: Saving power and minimizing heat with power supply volume control
Understand how PSVC can reduce dissipation and increase run time, without affecting performance
Embedded Systems Bookshelf
Excerpts
Embedded Books Reading Room Bernard Cole's favorite links to book excerpts.
Reviews
Engineer's Bookshelf Airport fiction blows. A look at books other engineers are reading and why you should read them, too. Recommend and write a review yourself. E-mail Brian Fuller.
Jack Ganssle's Bookshelf A list of book reviews by Jack Ganssle, contributing technical editor of Embedded Systems Design and Embedded.com.
Max's Cool Beans Clive “Max” Maxfield, the editor on Programmable Logic DesignLine, often writes about interesting books.
Product News
Atmel brings stylus interface to tablets, mobile handsets
In a bid to revolutionize mobile and embedded consumer device touch-based user interfaces, Atmel has developed the maXStylus of stylus touch controllers.
element14 launches new ARM-based development kit
element14 has a new ARM-based development kit for designers using the Arm Cortex-A8 based DaVinci digital media processor from Texas Instruments.
ADLINK Technology releases PC/104-Plus and EPIC SBCs with Intel Atom E600 and Intel Core i7 Processors
ADLINK Technology, Inc., has released its latest Ampro by ADLINK Extreme Rugged CoreModule 720PC/104-Plus Single Board Computer (SBC) with Intel Atom Processor E600 Series and the Rugged ReadyBoard 910EPIC SBC with 2nd Generation Intel Core i7/i5/i3 and Celeron processors.
AS3922-based NFC MicroSD features integrated antenna and active booster
austriamicrosystems has announced a solution, developed in cooperation with Infineon Technologies AG, that enables NFC (near field communication) data transfer on removable secure elements using a micro-antenna design.
Atmel launches industry's first single-package MCU with LF-RFID reader
The ATA5505 from Atmel Corporation is an AVR microcontroller (MCU) with an RFID reader block and 16kBytes of in-system self-programmable Flash.
New Atmel capacitive touch controller has 10″ proximity sensing range
The QTouch AT42QT2120 has a proximity sensing range of over 10 inches (25cm), the Atmel claims is the touch controller market's longest proximity sensing range.
Resettable low-voltage electronic fuses ease hot-swap design, provide warning
STMicrelectronics STEF05 and STEF12 provide graceful 5/12V fusing, indicator, recovery
Precision dual sensor op amp features high voltage, low noise, near-zero drift
Maxim MAX44251 includes autozero technology, 20V range, minimal offset
New dsPIC33E a
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