Dear Sir/Madam

springtime starts a new life cycle in nature after the cold winter period every year. A similar cycle marks the embedded industry which starts to new “life” every spring caused by the related electronic exhibitions. Enjoy this newsletter about embedded electronics as well!

Wolfgang Patelay
Technical Editor, EPN

At Glance, in this issue

1. Products News 2. Articles 3. Design Tips 4. Market Research 5. Book of the Month

1| Product News

Unified Development Software (Altium Europe)
The latest release of Altium Designer includes a number of enhancements aimed at unifying design flows in order to achieve greater end-to-end product-development efficiency. Altium Designer 6.6 addresses the challenges of linking electronics designs to mechanical design and product manufacture.
Click here

COM-Express Modules (Congatec)
The Conga-B945 high-performance COM-Express module has Intel Core Duo technology and dual-channel memory support. It features 2x2GHz processing speeds and 2Mbytes L2 cache. PCI-Express, Serial ATA and Gigabit Ethernet I/Os multiply overall system performance.
Click here

Peripheral Controller (Oxford Semiconductor)
Oxford Semiconductor has introduced a high-speed USB peripheral controller designed to help maximise data-transfer speeds of memory-rich portable products, including smart phones, media players, PDAs, and GPS systems. Compatible with USB-specification revision 2.0, the OXU200 supports communication with PC and laptop host systems at the high-speed USB data rate.
Click here

2.2" Display (Data Modul)
For a wide range of applications, distributor Data Modul is offering the Hitachi TX06D57VM0AAA 2.2" TFT display, which possesses strong optical-performance traits. The manufacturer guarantees 3 years of product availability for this module to satisfy customers' requirements for long-term product lifespan.
Click here

2| Articles

Connecting Systems to Displays: What We Got Here is Failure to Communicate
Continuous technological evolution is the inevitable consequence of vendor´s desires to maintain and profit at healthy levels. When such a product progression results in regressive experiences for end users, however, its sustainability is uncertain. Senior Technical Editor Brian Dipert investigates the situation in his article in EDN for systems featuring new digital interfaces.
Click here

WiMax Gains in Mobile Game, but 4G lurks
Both notebook-PC users and consumers carrying increasingly powerful smart phones or connected PDAs love wireless-data services. Editor in Chief Maury Wright describes in his article that a clear gap exists between relatively short-range wireless- LAN or Wi-Fi networks and the wireless WANs that cellular carriers deploy and shows a possible solution.
Click here

3| Design Tips

Implement a stepper-motor driver in a CPLD
Freescales heavily used but obsolete SAA1042 stepper-motor-driver IC, this Design Idea by Stephan Roche describes a CPLD-based implementation of a stepper-motor driver that can also replace the driver in SAA1027- or UCN5804B-based designs.
Click here

Add a simple disable function to a panoramic-potentiometer circuit
In audio-mixing applications, one frequently required function involves mixing a monaural or single-channel source into a stereosound field. The widely used circuit in Lawrence Mayers Design Idea performs this function by dividing the monaural signal between the two stereo channels and varying each channel's gain between zero and M such that at R7's centered position, each channel's gain is 0.707M.
Click here

4| Market Research

Competition and Replacement Market Drive New Features in Satellite Set Top Boxes
As the satellite television market continues to grow and mature, the set top box (STB) industry as a whole is slowly rolling out new features and services, reports In-Stat. Interactivity, HD, and DVR functions are growing facets within the satellite industry as a means to increase average revenue per user (ARPU) and reduce customer churn, the high-tech market research firm says. These are, in turn, being addressed by STB manufacturers.
Click here

5| Book of the Month

Neural and Fuzzy Logic Control of Drives and Power Systems, by Marcian N Cirstea et al
The authors guide readers quickly and concisely through the complex topics of neural networks, fuzzy logic, mathematical modelling of electrical machines, power systems control and VHDL design. Unlike the academic monographs that have previously been published on each of these subjects, this book combines them and is based round case studies of systems analysis, control strategies, design, simulation and implementation.
Click here