Your Electronics Open Source

This demo shows how to set up a procedure for identification of a DC Motor with permanent magnets aimed at digital torque control.

The ever decreasing scale in microelectronics
Ever since the beginning of the microelectronics era there has been an eternal quest to reduce the characteristic features on the devices: some devices are now in qualification states on the sub 40nm gate oxide range for an scheduled commercial release towards the end of the year, and there are a lot of efforts in the sub 30nm range. But Moore’s Law, as this continuous drive to reduce sizes has come to be called, applies not only to the dimensions on the silicon. It spreads down through the whole microelectronic supply chain, into pcb packages, system integration and final devices.

This blog describes my idea about integrating MMC/SDIO in embedded systems, including software in host controller and card controller running in SPI mode. Although I do not have full source code to demonstrate, theoretically it is realizable.
Flash Cards Everywhere
All kinds of flash cards are parts of our digital lives. They are used everywhere in mobiles, cameras, mp3s and DVD players. These cards are offering more storage memory space in much lower price. Technically these cards are quite mature to be integrated into many devices. However the engineers can not find suitable open source stack solutions because of legal issues from the corresponding flash card associations.

The question is how to find extra timers in a complex application while a standard microcontroller usually has only two or three timers?

Touch Screen

The touch screen technology is widely used in PDA, smart phone, PMP, ATM, information kiosk and many other equipments in industrial, medical and commercial environment. Actually the technology enables these devices are not new, which was invented by Dr. Samuel C. Hurst in 1971. But it becomes more hotter after the release of popular iPhone and iPod. With new patents filed for the touch screen technology, Apple brings a new wave to this mature segment and more companies are involved in this revolution with improved interactive UI, silicons, assembly modules and software components.

Conventional Touch Screen

The implementation of a touch screen includes resistive, capacitive, infrared, surface acoustic wave, optical imaging, acoustic pulse, and other technologies. The kit usually is made up of panel module, and a controller, which measures the touch events by frequency, voltage or current, encodes and transmits to the host controller and drivers in host controller. Different touch screen technologies are suitable for different environments.

I first learned of the STM32 Primer at a technical seminar presented by STMicroelectronics. The STM32 Primer is designed to provide a complete toolset for STM32 that is fun and easy to use. Give it a try and learn about the features of the STM32 and the powerful ARM Cortex™-M3 core.

Providers are recharging the market with new GPS devices.

The Scripting languages are deployed in many operation systems, either in UNIX/Linux or Windows. These languages are developed for general purpose process automation and web programming. But you can consider using them for the software development process in many ways. Among these languages, awk and Perl are suitable for automate and speed up software development for embedded systems. Because many embedded systems only have cross tool chain, without powerful IDE supports for process automation. Here I will show you why we need them and how these tools help us.

USB-Stick as development systems.

It's the fad of the moment and, we, as designers, do love these Gadgets!
But what they are? Are Development Tools in USB Stick format simply toys or are they offering a complete and reliable debug system?
Surely the latter, because the capability (some of them have an ARM on board) and the versatility make a quality product highly useful for the developers. Some time ago I had the opportunity to "test" the Texas Instruments' Stick USB, the Ez430, related to the MSP430 Low Power Microcontroller, and I have to say that this "Gadget" (please note the quotes) surprised me, for its capabilities and easy of use. After 10 minutes I was already in step_by_step debug with my first application on Stick! (Ok, I did flashed a LED under interrupt while I had controlled the inputs in polling with debounce software, but the start-up times were reduced to a few minutes!!! )
Also, the really low costs of these Development Tools (I will not call them gadget anymore) allows you to evaluate any system before you start to design ..... starting from $ 10 and almost none of the presented Tools exceeds 50$
As far as I remember, TI with MSP430 was the first to launch this "fashion", and now the market is full of these Development Sticks, so I decided to see which new micros we can play ...(Ooops!) work with , to evaluate and then design, develop and go into massive production.
(The correction was necessary, otherwise, distributors and representatives will not give us any more Stick )

When I first visited one of our famous TV manufacturers in China, I had no idea about the software capability of their software team. When I demonstrated my company's TV software for their evaluation, the software leader was surprised to see the modular software programming in many individual files. The software manager even commented, "Your software structure is very stupid, why do you put all of these functions into smaller files, instead of one single file? It is very head to find the variables in different files and requires longer compiling time." I was almost choked by his words. But I could not argue with our customer face to face, it is very harmful to our business. So I let him to find the real answer, which way is stupid anyway?

A web widget is a mini-web application you can put in your web page, blog or social profile that can quickly and easily provide your visitors with, user specific information , extra functionality, and even a bit of fun and games.

I never handled an iPod touch until a few days a ago. But a friend of mine received as birthday present the media player iPod Touch and so I had the chance to analyze it. What can I say? It's very thin and surprising. Once you start using it, you can not leave it! The iPod touch has a reduced size: height 110mm, width 61.8mm and only 8 mm thick. Weighs only 120 grams. The 3.5 inches widescreen format display has a resolution of 480 x 320 pixels at 163 ppi. The iPod touch provides Wi-Fi wireless connectivity (802.11b/g) - the only iPod to have it. It is also provided with the lithium ion integrated battery that guarantees up to 24 hours of music and up to 5 hours of viewing video and web browsing. It can be charged through USB connection. With the iPod Touch you can listen to music, play movies and it can also be used to wirelessly surf the Web. All that really lacks is the ability to call another person. Surely you'll say: "Ok! We already know these things !" But I propose you to watch inside the iPod touch, to understand what makes it so strong.
Without no doubt is based on MEMS (micro electro-mechanical systems) from ST, products which I heard to the ST-NEWS2008 Silverstar Seminar and I wrote something in STM32 Primer - The Inteligent Butterfly.

by Mauro Ceresa, [Assipe] , Future Electronics
Tools and information to simplify designing products based on power LEDs.

In the myriad of parameters and curves that characterise the performance of a LED, it is necessary to define the set points from which the other major features can be gleaned, to obtain the final result: the real efficiency and reliability of our application.

A diary, a hobby, a game - so we started. Before I liked to say "diary" but now I like more "blog" - this word seems more serious and challenging for the work that we do. It 'a blog on electronic design.

Every day we have guests from all over the world - more than six thousand people a day read our post (in the Blog or Resourcessection), downloading our Projects and Datasheet.

Your Electronics and Open Source past PR4 from a PR5 and we are well placed in all the major Social Network. The average time of the visit and is grown because we have improved the contents and we have optimized the layout.

By Editorial Staff [DESIGN IN]

The LED using, in lighting applications, is becoming more and more attractive and the possibility of using the powerline directly, as a source of power supply, is becoming more and more interesting. Moreover, if the circuital solution allows a compact implementation that can be placed in the same volume of a standard lamp screw, it becomes more interesting.