Articles
Art and Technology
July 20, 2011 7:21 am | CommentsI must admit I am still surprised when I see technical people dismiss art as useless. Art is not only a pleasant esthetic, it is often essential to design. A recent online discussion about a pair of antique “singing bird” pistol-shaped music boxes reminded me of the issue. These devices not only had insanely complex bellows-and-gears works to accomplish the “singing bird” part, but in addition the “pistols” were inlaid with just about every precious thing you could cut and glue to something.
Customizing COTS Testing Systems
July 12, 2011 8:07 am | CommentsTurning Off-the-Shelf Components into an Application-Specific, Total Data Acquisition Solution By definition, the off-the-shelf modular instruments (VME, PXI, VXI, CompactPCI, PCI, etc.) used to create automated test and measurement systems are designed to be general purpose, programmable, and flexible enough to handle a variety of input ranges and types, speeds, and functions.
Three Terminal Filter Capacitors Simplify Designs, Reduce Component Counts
July 12, 2011 7:43 am | by Ron Demcko, Application Engineering Manager at AVX Corp | CommentsIt is worthwhile to take some time and look at the role a three terminal FeedThru capacitor filter can play in today’s designs. Three terminal capacitors are now broadly accepted in designs ranging from satellites to cell phones, automobiles to SMART grid controllers.
Amplifier Test Software Simplifies Test and Certification of RF Amplifiers
July 6, 2011 11:25 am | CommentsBoonton has launched “Amplifier Test Bench”, a new software package that simplifies test and certification of RF Amplifiers. Amplifier Test Bench supports analysis of pulsed and linear amplifiers; furthermore it measures gain over frequency and gain over input power. The software supports both fast Boonton peak power meters 4540 and 4500B and a variety of standard generators.
Performance of LEDs
July 6, 2011 9:09 am | CommentsQuestion : How can today’s LEDs be improved to provide better performance (brighter, longer life) while at the same time lowering energy consumption? By: Brian Witzen Sr. Field Technical Manager Sharp In commercial buildings, lighting accounts for a substantial portion of the energy budget and total energy cost.
CCI Solves Crucial Cell Site Interference Issues with Latest Analyzer Solutions
July 5, 2011 8:53 am | CommentsLeading provider of wireless base station enhancement products, Communications Components Inc. (CCI), has now launched its PiMPro family of analyzers in EMEA, which enable mobile network operators (MNOs) to remove the adverse affects of Passive Intermodulation (PIM) – a form of interference - from their networks, and prevent it from damaging quality of service (QoS) and customer experience.
New Measurement Solution For Optical Transmitter Compliance Testing Offers the Highest Bandwidth Optical Waveform Analysis and Increased Accuracy
June 29, 2011 11:12 am | CommentsAgilent Technologies introduced a new measurement solution for optical transmitter compliance testing on the Agilent 86100D digital communications analyzer. The solution offers the industry’s highest bandwidth optical waveform analysis and increased accuracy. The DCA provides a new approach, known as system impulse response correction, or SIRC, which enables multimode optical receivers with bandwidths in excess of 25 GHz and single-mode receivers with near 100-GHz bandwidths.
Military Electronics: Improvements in Network Technology
June 29, 2011 6:32 am | CommentsQuestion: What types of improvements need to be made in network technology/architecture that can provide improved performance and capabilities in military applications? By: Mukesh Kumar, Multicore DSP Marketing Manager, Texas Instruments With the Department of Defense taking a more net-centric approach to communications, the focus is on the implementation of the Global Information Grid (GIG) project.
Increasing Complexity of Devices Under Test (DUTs) - Boom or Doom for the Test Engineer
June 27, 2011 7:05 am | CommentsFrost & Sullivan's Industry Director Jessy Cavazos and Industry Analyst Prathima Bommakanti, along with guest speaker Matthew Friedman, Senior Product Manager for Automated Test at National Instruments, have completed extensive analysis on the electronic test equipment market. The experts will lead a short teleconference about new findings that affect the market, followed by a live question-and-answer session.
The Brainstorm - Data Security
June 20, 2011 11:02 am | CommentsThe Question: "The constant movement of data increases a company’s exposure to the risk of data loss. What type of solutions can help cost effectively identify and protect an organization’s critical data from internal and external threats?" By Will Aguilar, Director, Product Management for Wireless, Enterasys Networks The growth of mobile devices in the enterprise has been explosive and drives end-users’ expectation they will be able to access business services anywhere, anytime in the office, campus, or remotely.
Field-to-Lab Testing Equals Better Real-World Performance for Mobile Devices
May 13, 2011 11:15 am | CommentsThis case study will describe an application of the Azimuth Systems Field-to-Lab (FTL) Solution by a market-leading handset manufacturer. Real-world drive testing is very expensive; lab testing is much less expensive and faster -- provided that the real world can be emulated with sufficient fidelity.
Will Femtocells or Wi-Fi Save Mobile Networks from the Data Deluge?
May 12, 2011 6:30 am | CommentsPeople love their smartphones. The convenience of having access to the Internet anywhere and at any time is extremely compelling. In an effort to stoke the fires of demand, the industry is actively improving the offerings. For example, new smartphones now have stunningly high resolution screens to make it more compelling for people to watch videos – and consume mobile data.
RF/IF Amplifiers and VGAs Cover The Entire Signal Chain
May 12, 2011 6:23 am | CommentsBy Ashraf Elghamrawi, Analog Devices ( www.analog.com ) The amplifier is one of the most versatile building blocks used in RF/IF signal chains today. They are commonly used throughout designs to overcome signal losses incurred from passive mixers, filters, baluns, and other passive elements. Since these losses occur across the entire signal chain five main families of amplifiers have been developed by Analog Devices.
OpenVPX Beamforming System Case Study from Pentek
April 27, 2011 7:59 am | CommentsBeamforming is a signal processing technique that utilizes an array of sensors to achieve directionality, increase the strength of transmitted signals and improve the quality of received signals. Beamforming is extensively used in communications, radar, direction finding, countermeasures, weapons systems, oil and mineral exploration, and medical imaging and treatment.
Custom IF SAW Filters for Sirius Satellite Radio Receivers
April 13, 2011 11:08 am | CommentsProblem Solvers - Filters By Jidong Dai, Ph.D., Mike Ferguson, Frank Perkins RFM, and Bob Dockemeyer, Delphi Sirius Satellite Radio broadcasting utilizes highly elliptical orbit (HEO) satellites, resulting in superior coverage over North America where the service is targeted. However, even with superior coverage, there are still areas where the satellite signals are blocked, like city centers with many skyscrapers, overpasses, and areas with strong interference signals.
