In this week’s Fish Fry, we’re following a microcontroller yellow brick road to a land where analog reigns supreme. Dave Smith (Texas Instruments) joins us to discuss the details of the “Smart Analog Combo” included in in the MSP430 family, the benefits of the configurable signal-chain elements inherent in this solution, and why the … Read More → "Adventures in Micro Land"
“The hot side stays hot and the cool side stays cool” – McDonald’s pitch for the short-lived McDLT
Ah, the quaint old days, back when you assembled the analog and digital parts of a system out of separate components. The analog side got the analog parts … Read More → "Analog Functions Made from Digital Circuits"
A couple of years ago, we covered a company that was working to make power supplies more efficient. Today we update that story. But… if you take the company name today and try to find the old article, you’ll have a hard time: they’ve changed their name from Semitrex to Helix.
With that detail out … Read More → "A Wooden Stake?"
Back in February, we previewed the new Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ RFSoC. At the time, we were pretty optimistic about the potential of these devices, as they promised to deliver some very high-value integration of the analog and digital components of a 5G RF signal chain. Well, apparently, the “preview” days are … Read More → "RFSoCs FTW"
Most of us think about capacitors the way a chef thinks about salt – knowing that it’s never the star of the show, having a keen awareness that you need just the right amount, being vaguely conscious of the fact that there are multiple, subtly different types… When we’re debugging our board, there are often times when something mysteriously isn’t working right. When all … Read More → "Aggressive with Passives"
OK, you’ve just been assigned a new project. There’s a cell that’s in need of Monte Carlo variation analysis. You’re looking for 6σ accuracy – 1 failure in a billion. So you run the numbers, and you find that you’re going to need 5 billion separate simulations. Yes, that’s with a “B.” No, retreating to a less aggressive node won’t help; this number is independent of … Read More → "Machine Learning Hits EDA"
