EEJournal

feature article archive
Subscribe Now

Create Awesome GUIs with Microchip’s Ensemble Graphics Toolkit

by Max Maxfield
October 29, 2020

I’m sure you are familiar with Monty Python’s classic Four Yorkshiremen sketch, but it’s always worth revisiting one of its incarnations on YouTube. This is a parody of the way in which older folks delight in engaging in nostalgic conversations about their humble beginnings and difficult childhoods.

In this sketch, we meet Obadiah, Ezekiel, Josiah, and Hezekiah, all of whom hail from the county of Yorkshire in England. I’m not sure why, but I always had the … Read More → "Create Awesome GUIs with Microchip’s Ensemble Graphics Toolkit"

Why Universities Want RISC-V

Sometimes It’s Not About The Technology or The Performance
by Jim Turley
October 27, 2020

“Learning is not compulsory… neither is survival.” – W. Edwards Deming

New microprocessor designs often emerge from universities. But how often do processors go back into universities? 

It’s a new decade, so a new processor is in fashion. Like hemlines and boy bands, processors rise and fall in popularity. There was the RISC Age. Then the VLIW Era. The Decade of DSPs. Now, it’s all RISC-V. 

There are plenty of reasons for RISC-V’s popularity, … Read More → "Why Universities Want RISC-V"

Create Your Own RTOS in 1 Hour (Part 1)

Many Processors Can Do Their Own Task Switching in Hardware
by Jim Turley
October 26, 2020

“What fresh hell is this?” – Dorothy Parker

Want a fun late-summer project? Looking for a source of frustration? Need a quick hack to polish up your programming resume? Let’s create our own RTOS using the built-in hardware features of the x86 processor family and very little code. 

Calling this an “RTOS” might be overselling it a bit. A real, real-time operating system will have lots of advanced features that this won’t have. This is more of a scheduler or task … Read More → "Create Your Own RTOS in 1 Hour (Part 1)"

Flex Logix Joins the Race to the Inferencing Edge

by Max Maxfield
October 22, 2020

Have you noticed that there seem to be a lot more products flaunting the fact that they are “Gluten Free” on the supermarket shelves these days? This sort of thing is obviously of interest to the estimated one person out of a hundred who has Celiac disease and is therefore intolerant to gluten, but do these product labels convey useful information or is it just noise dressed up to look like information?

When I first saw these labels, I assumed that the manufacturers had found some way to remove … Read More → "Flex Logix Joins the Race to the Inferencing Edge"

Find Your Keys in Nothing Flat

NXP’s Trimension Chips use UWB for Location Finding
by Jim Turley
October 21, 2020

“Location, location, location.” – Real estate mantra

Ultrawideband (UWB) is the proverbial twenty-year overnight success. The concept has been around for a long time, but it’s only now starting to hit the big time. 

UWB takes a shotgun approach to wireless communications. Rather than beam a relatively strong signal within a narrow band, like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, TV, radio, and almost everything else, it spreads a very weak signal over a very wide range of frequencies. It’s wide and weak instead of … Read More → "Find Your Keys in Nothing Flat"

Cadence Brings Clarity to EMI

System-Level Solver Slashes Sim Times
by Kevin Morris
October 20, 2020

EMI is the ghost in our machines, the phantom of our electronic operas. We create our systems with a specific purpose, and our engineering efforts aim to hone and optimize toward that goal. At the same time, lurking in the copper traces and wayward return paths are silent specters seeking to derail our plans. They haunt our designs undetected, biding their time until the final day of reckoning, when they make their presence known, trashing our schedules and wreaking havoc on our best laid plans. 

They say there are two … Read More → "Cadence Brings Clarity to EMI"

Best and Worst Smart Home Interfaces

An Unplanned Trial of Several Products Reveals Big Differences
by Jim Turley
October 19, 2020

“’Easy to use’ is easy to say.” – Jeff Garber

My tech-savvy kids are preparing to move to another country, so I just inherited a lot of “smart home” gadgets that won’t work in their new place. Now I’ve got a box full of smart connected electrical outlets, Wi-Fi wall switches, wireless security cameras, and other gizmos. Hey, free toys! But configuring them all back to back was an exercise in frustration – with a few notable exceptions. 

Naturally, every single device … Read More → "Best and Worst Smart Home Interfaces"

Updating the Centuries-Old On/Off Switch

Menlo Micro Reinvents the Lowly SPDT Switch
by Jim Turley
October 14, 2020

“I’m so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark.” — Muhammad Ali

In the Beginning, there were electrons. Then came wire. Then the switch. And it was good. 

At some level, wires and switches are all we need to make digital electronic systems. Submicron transistors are the switches and stacked metal layers are the wires. Progress, eh? 

But some systems … Read More → "Updating the Centuries-Old On/Off Switch"

If AMD Buys Xilinx

What Happens to FPGAs?
by Kevin Morris
October 13, 2020

Six years ago, we speculated about what would happen if Intel were to buy Altera. A year later, they did, and a lot of our speculation came true – Intel has leveraged Altera technology to defend their dominance of the data center, the FPGA market has changed direction, and the Altera culture has been largely assimilated into the larger Intel pool. The decades-long feud between Xilinx and Altera has cooled.

Two years ago, we … Read More → "If AMD Buys Xilinx"

featured blogs
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Gyroscopic Precession (But Were Too Afraid to Ask)
Jan 29, 2026
Most of the materials you read and see about gyroscopic precession explain WHAT happens, not WHY it happens....
More from Max's Cool Beans...