http://www.electronicdesign.com/analog/what-s-all-prank-stuff-anyhow Who says engineers don’t have a sense of humor? Remember the WOM, inspired partly by the Umac 606 phantasatron? The DEAD diode? Many of the early analog electronic greats were inveterate pranksters – and sometimes the prank made the papers and history. This article tells the story of some famous electronics design pranks. →
https://www.amihotechnology.com/lorawan-cellular-nb-iot-power-consumption-comparison/ The intent of this post is not to say which technology is better or worse. But, rather to show how Cellular IoT and LoRaWAN complement each other. Battery lifetime is by far one of the most important considerations for LPWAN applications because often it is very expensive to replace batteries physically. It will ruin →
https://www.edn.com/design/power-management/4460362/Finding-the-right-power-supply-technology-for-your-design In 2016, each person on the planet purchased an average of 111 semiconductor chips or integrated circuits. As the number of chips climbs, so does the need for greater power, space, and cost efficiency. In response, power device manufacturers have continued to evolve silicon-based technologies and develop new, wide bandgap materials such as gallium-nitride →
http://www.nickhunn.com/13-companies-announce-nb-iot-chips/ With thirteen different companies bringing chips to market, that’s an investment of around $200 million. Add to that the costs of the standardisation process, infrastructure development and initial market trials and it’s clear that somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion has already been spent on getting NB-IoT to the point where it is →
https://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/benchtalk/4460355/In-praise-of-the-common-base–Bench-quickie The common-base configuration is so little used, it doesn’t even register on many engineers’ radar. It is hard tp really learn and internalize a circuit until I have a need for it, and have done at least some small hands-on activity with it. This article describes how to test this type of circuit. →
https://thenextweb.com/contributors/2018/02/21/batteries-holding-tech-breakthroughs-whats-happening-now/ Despite incremental advancements, batteries haven’t changed all that much over the past decade. Major brands are investing in better environmental efficiency, and small tweaks that improve storage and performance, but the typical “battery” is still fundamentally the same. There is stagnation in the realm of batteries. →
https://blog.hackster.io/build-your-own-touchscreen-ic-tester-for-just-25-7f10fab3815b IC testers help you identify an unknown IC by testing its input and output against a database of known components. You can follow Akshay Baweja’s tutorial to build your own. The total build cost should be around $25, and you’ll need a Arduino Mega 2560, a touchscreen display with an SD card slot, an →
https://www.edn.com/design/test-and-measurement/4460312/High-speed-digital–112-is-the-new-56 EDN magazine reports that at DesignCon 2018, 112 Gbps was all over the conference and exhibit hall. Even just a year ago, engineers were still talking more about 56 Gbps speeds than 112. This year, all agree that 56 Gbps speeds have been achieved. It’s time to move on. OIF-CEI 4.0, which included clauses →
Just received those Potato chips that work like classic TTL logic but up to ~1GHz. Hopefully they will work on my TDR circuit. I should try the chip in this →
https://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/rowe-s-and-columns/4460291/NRZ-is-dead–but-not-everywhere PAM4 modulation is everywhere. “Five years ago, PAM4 was a concept” “PAM4 is being deployed everywhere except in short-reach links.” “DSP is enabling PAM4 optical channels” PAM4 has won the battle in fiber-optic and other medium and long-reach applications. →