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Intel’s Infineon Wireless Acquisition: Why so Cheap?
The announced $1.4 billion Intel acquisition of Infineon’s Wireless Solutions Business (WLS) is only 1x annual revenues, and some Wall Street analysts consider this a “fire sale.” Why so cheap? I’ve read the scenarios by Wall Street and the European press that the divesture will allow the surviving Infineon Technologies AG to better concentrate on its more profitable automotive and industrial chip business, but I don’t think that’s the whole story.
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Fundamentals of High Level Synthesis—Part 2
One of the most important features of HLS for tuning design performance is Loop Unrolling. However, it is necessary first to discuss what constitutes a “loop” in C++. Loops are the primary mechanism for applying high level synthesis constraints as well as moving data, or IO, into and out of an algorithm. The style in which loops are written can have a significant impact on the quality of results of the generated hardware. More...
A Practical Guide to Adopting the Universal Verification Methodology—Part 2
In HDL, such as Verilog and VHDL, static elaboration of the instances hierarchy occurs before simulation starts. This ensures that all instances are in place and connected properly before run-time simulation. In SystemVerilog, classes are instantiated at run time. This raises a few questions: When is it safe to start traffic generation and execution? When is a good time to assume that all the UVC components have been created? and What TLM ports can be connected?
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How to Simplify the Design of an RF Remote Control
The most common remote controls use infrared (IR) technology because of the relatively low cost of IR components, but these IR-based controls suffer from many drawbacks including requiring line-of-sight pointing, limited operating angles, short transmission range, reflection problems and high current consumption associated with the IR LEDs, which leads to low battery life. RF remote controls resolve these issues and are appearing in greater numbers because consumers are demanding a much better user experience. More...
Taming the Synchronous Buck-Switching Waveform
The synchronous buck converter achieves high efficiency by replacing the Schottky clamp diode with a low-side MOSFET. This MOSFET has a very low drop across the switch. However, because its internal diode is not a Schottky, when it turns off and the high-side MOSFET is turned on, a large ringing in the waveform occurs. This ringing could be over twice the input voltage and is in the range of 50 – 100 MHz. This ringing can continue for several cycles creating system wide noise. More...
A Practical Guide to Adopting the Universal Verification Methodology—Part 1
The UVM is first and foremost a methodology and collection of best practices for functional verification. As mentioned before, the UVM library is a capable and mature enabler of this high-level methodology. While the library classes and engines can be used in arbitrary ways, we highly recommend following the UVM as prescribed in the following chapters, as they suggest a proven recipe for successful verification. More...
Fundamentals of High Level Synthesis—Part 1
One of the common misconceptions held by people is that synthesizing hardware from C++ provides users the freedom of expressing their algorithms using any style of C++ coding that they desire. When designing using high-level C++ synthesis, it is important to remember that we are still describing hardware using C++, and a “poor” description can lead to a sub-optimal RTL implementation. This chapter attempts to cover the basics of high level synthesis, and to show what designers can expect from a given coding style. More...
Integrated MPPT Charge Controller and LED Driver
 Solar charge controllers form an interface between solar panels and batteries in a solar power system. These controllers regulate the charge provided by the solar panels to the batteries. Development efforts in the area of charge controller technology have continually aimed at enhancing system performance and reducing system cost. Maximum Power Point Tracker (MPPT) based charge control systems are an outcome of these efforts. More...
The Future of Electric Aircraft
 It can only fly for 15 minutes but it is a breakthrough all the same. Improved batteries have finally made a manned electric helicopter a reality. It follows rapidly on announcements of all electric fixed wing aircraft from Germany (PC-Aero), France (EADS), Italy (SkySpark), China (Luneec) and the USA (Sonex etc) and an historic 24 hour flight by Solar Impulse powered entirely by the sun. Solar Impulse has the wingspan of an Airbus (over 200 feet) and carries 11,628 solar cells to power four motors. More...
Nuclear Reactor Renaissance
Electric utilities aren't known for daring, and you can't reasonably expect them to risk several billion dollars on a reactor without a track record. On the other hand, you can't pin hopes for a nuclear renaissance on designs that were fresh back when color TV and transatlantic jet travel were novelties. You need the promise of something much better, and no fewer than a dozen advanced reactor designs are in the running to offer it. More...
iPhone 4 Meets The GripOfDeathInator
 Spencer Webb, antenna designer and president of AntennaSys, blogs about his own tests for the iPhone 4 and the challenges of getting quantitative results. "What about the Consumer Reports "Duct Tape" fix? Yep, it will help. Any insulator over the "gap" area of the antenna is going to help in direct proportion to its thickness. I think Consumer Reports was going for style points in the selection of Duct Tape. Nice move - they sure dominated the news cycle. But, hey, Consumer Reports guys: you don't do radiated tests in a shield room. That's like measuring the light output of a desk lamp in a house of mirrors." More...
Resistive Touch Sensing Primer
Resistive touch sensors consist of several panels coated with a metallic film, such as ITO (indium tin oxide), which is a transparent and electrically conductive. Thin spacer dots separate the panels from each other. When something, such as a finger (gloved or bare) or a stylus presses on the layers, it causes the two panels to make contact and closes an electrical circuit so that a controller can detect and calculate where the pressure is being applied to the panels. The controller can communicate the position of the pressure point as a coordinate to the application software.
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Solar-Powered Plane Flies for 26 Hours
Slender as a stick insect, a solar-powered experimental airplane with a huge wing span completed its first test flight of more than 24 hours on Thursday, powered overnight by energy collected from the sun during a day aloft over Switzerland. The organizers said the flight was the longest and highest by a solar-powered craft, reaching an altitude of just over 28,000 feet above sea level, at an average speed of 23 knots, around 25 miles per hour.
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The iPhone 4: Can You Hear Me Now?
Apple has been taking a lot of flack recently for reception problems with the iPhone 4—much of it for denying a problem that was immediately obvious to iPhone users. Steve Jobs’ reaction to being told about dropping calls when you hold the phone a certain way was reportedly, “Just avoid holding it in that way.” Their recent explanation is b.s. More...
Low-Power Wireless Launches 'Hands On' Section
Silicon Labs is known for its low-power microcontrollers as well as its wireless devices. So it’s only natural that they’d focus on low-power wireless, for which the Si1000 is their flagship product. When you have 10 minutes to spare and a fresh cup of coffee, check out the video where we check out the Si1000. More...
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