Latest Stories

Briefs
Data Acquisition

Dynamically Reconfigurable Software-Defined Radio for GNSS Applications

Historically, the military has used special- purpose Global Positioning System (GPS) radios for radio navigation. This has the disadvantage of locking users into fixed technology solutions designed to meet a fixed set of requirements. Software Defined Radios (SDR) have the...

Briefs
Electronics & Computers

CMOS-Memristor Hybrid Nanoelectronics

The memristor is the fourth fundamental passive electronic device in addition to the resistor, capacitor, and inductor. By integrating with complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) devices, memristors show promise for development of revolutionary new nanoelectronic computing architectures with...

Briefs
Electronics & Computers

Managing Security in FPGA-Based Embedded Systems

Field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) combine the programmability of processors with the performance of custom hardware. As they become more common in critical embedded systems, new techniques...

Feature Image

Briefs
Electronics & Computers

Using High-Level Language to Implement Floating-Point Calculations on FPGAs

The scientific community is interested in using field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) for scientific computations because they can be targeted for specific...

Feature Image

Products
Mechanical & Fluid Systems

MEMS Gyroscope

Analog Devices (Norwood, MA) has released the ADIS16136 iSensor® digital MEMS gyroscope, which provides 3.50/hr typical bias stability in a module consuming less than 1 watt and weighing 25 grams. The tactical grade (below...

Feature Image

Products
Electronics & Computers

MIL-DTL 38999 Series III Connectors

ITT Interconnect Solutions (Santa Ana, CA) has developed a MIL-DTL 38999 Series III connector. The KJAYA Series connector utilizes lightweight aluminum shells that provide a sealed, watertight, and airtight...

Feature Image

Products
Electronics & Computers

OpenVPX Reference Platform

Elma Electronic (Fremont, CA) offers the VPX-300, an OpenVPX reference platform that provides interoperability among 3U VPX boards. The OpenVPX backplane profile provides two separate clusters through a data and...

Feature Image

Products
Electronics & Computers

Membrane Switches

APEM Components (Haverhill, MA) has announced a range of customized, ergonomic, low-power membrane switches. The switches can be made with either non-tactile or tactile feedback through sound and light indication. The membrane...

Feature Image

Products
Electronics & Computers

Evaluation Boards

Bourns (Riverside, CA) offers two evaluation boards for RS-485-port interfaces. The boards use Bourns® TBU® High-Speed Protectors (HSPs), GDTs, TVS diodes, and MOV products. The Bourns RS-485EVALBOARD1 includes two Bourns®...

Feature Image

Products
Electronics & Computers

Data Review Tool

The PeerReview Complete™ tool from SmartBear Software (Beverly, MA) allows engineers to share, review, and annotate schematics, 2D drawings, diagrams, images, HTML, and other digital content. PeerReview Complete features...

Feature Image

Products
Electronics & Computers

32-Bit Microcontrollers

Microchip Technology (Chandler, AZ) has announced low-pincount, 32-bit PIC32 microcontrollers (MCUs) that provide 61 DMIPS of performance in packages 5 × 5 mm. The PIC32 “MX1” and “MX2” MCUs feature dedicated...

Feature Image

Articles
Electronics & Computers

Improving Software Reliability in Satellite and Spacecraft Applications

In the space industry, much of the effort to refine system engineering processes has been done by hand using tools as divergent as Microsoft PowerPoint to IBM Rational...

Feature Image

Articles
Electronics & Computers

Designing High-Speed, Rugged Data Recorders

High-speed recorders represent a major share of electronic instrumentation found in commercial, industrial, scientific research, government, and defense applications. Each system captures specific...

Feature Image

Briefs
Photonics/Optics

Wide-Field Imaging System and Rapid Direction of Optical Zoom

A breadboard system has been developed for demonstrating nonmechanical zoom using flexible thin films. The project consists of three major task areas: material characterization,...

Feature Image

Briefs
Sensors/Data Acquisition

Energy-Scalable Protocols for Battery Operated Micro Sensor Networks

Networks of microsensors can greatly improve environment monitoring for many civil and military applications. Multiple sensors provide fault tolerance and can provide valuable...

Feature Image

Briefs
Electronics & Computers

Prognostic Health Management for Avionics System Power Supplies

Electronic systems such as electronic controls, onboard computers, communications, navigation, and radar perform many critical functions onboard military and commercial aircraft....

Feature Image

Products
Electronics & Computers

Graphics Processor

AMD (Sunnyvale, CA) has introduced the AMD Radeon™ E6460 discrete graphics processor. With support for up to four simultaneous displays, the E6460 GPU enables an immersive experience with desktop-level 3D graphics and...

Feature Image

Products
Electronics & Computers

Rad-Hard FPGAs

The rad-hard and rad-tolerant reprogrammable Virtex®- 5QV FPGA from Xilinx (San Jose, CA) supports specified Total Ionizing Dose (TID) and characterized Single-Event Effects (SEE). The space-grade field programmable gate arrays...

Feature Image

Articles
Electronics & Computers

Extensible Processing Platforms: Giving Designers the Best of Both Worlds

Creating a new field programmable gate array is no small feat. FPGA vendors spend tens-of-thousands of man-hours simply researching markets to determine the feature set a...

Feature Image

Articles
Electronics & Computers

Event-Driven Processor Programming

Almost since computers were invented, interrupts have been a common programming method to deal with real-time tasks. An interrupt causes a processor to stop the running task, and to execute an interrupt...

Feature Image

Articles
Electronics & Computers

Choosing a Capacitor for Use as a Switch-Mode Power Supply Filter

Input filter caps need to be able to supply a quick burst of energy and to suppress noise generated in the switch circuit. Important considerations for the input filter cap are...

Feature Image

Products
Electronics & Computers

Power Supplies

XP Power (Sunnyvale, CA) has announced two additions to its AC-DC power supplies: an encapsulated singleoutput ECE series, and multiple output models of the existing ECL product line.

Feature Image

Products
Electronics & Computers

Timing Design & Verification Tool Suite

Symtavision (Braunschweig, Germany) has launched SymTA/S 2.4, a major new version of its tools suite for system-level timing design and timing verification. SymTA/S2.4 incorporates a wealth of new and...

Feature Image

Products
Electronics & Computers

Sensor Signal Conditioner

The ZSSC3008 signal conditioner integrated circuit (IC) from ZMD AG (Dresden, Germany) features enhanced onboard diagnostics and second-order linearity correction. The calibrated ZSSC3008 and a specific sensor are...

Feature Image

Products
Electronics & Computers

Encryption Processor

Enova Technology Corp. (San Jose, CA) has announced its ninth-generation X-Wall DX processor, a real-time hardware encryption device. The processor encrypts all USB mass storage class (MSC) devices at USB 2.0 wire speed...

Feature Image

Articles
Aerospace

Prototyping with Multi-Layer Boards

As electronic components continue to move increasingly into surface- mount packages exclusively, prototype manufacturing firms are seeing a shift in the fabrication and assembly work needed to implement...

Feature Image

Articles
Electronics & Computers

From Reference Board to Rugged Military SBC

Intel processor reference designs are developed by Intel to assist engineers in the design of Intel processor-based products. The less a design deviates from the reference design, the easier the...

Feature Image

Articles
Electronics & Computers

Graphics Performance vs. Power Consumption in Embedded Systems Design

The rapid evolution of technology has given embedded developers more options than ever before in designing embedded graphics systems. The consumer electronics market, most...

Feature Image

Briefs
Electronics & Computers

Open Network Architecture for Army Vehicle Electronics

Army vehicle electronics networking is complex and challenging due to vendor-specific devices and interfaces. Military vehicles require 100% network uptime and security. The network must reduce vehicle clutter, focus on saving soldiers’ lives, and provide minimum latency. Battle requirements...