Your Electronics Open Source

This demo shows how to set up a USB connection between the PC and the FLEX board. The aim is to control the dsPIC LED and the PIC18 LED system from the host PC. The dsPIC LED is controlled by the SPI communication with the PIC18.
The application is divided into three parts:
1. In the first part a brief description of the USB set-up is provided. The aim is to give a brief overview of the USB protocol.
2. The second part concerns the dsPIC side with the use of the SPI connection with the PIC18.
3. The third part concerns the PC side application. You can download a simple application under Windows (XP or Vista) to communicate with FLEX in order to switch on and off both LEDs of dsPIC and PIC18.

This software implements a TCP/IP stack demo usable with FLEX boards. It enables communications with the board over an ethernet cable, using a variety of protocols. Here are some of the protocols included in the demo: DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol), FTP (File Transfer Protocol), HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol), SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol), Secure NTP (Network Time Protocol), Telnet.
The demo was produced adapting the Microchip Technology Inc. TCP/IP Stack (version 4.18) and the related application notes.
This is the list of hardware components needed to use the demo:

The embedded internet is very common in latest electronics devices. The embedded web server used to be a hot topic since this technology can leverage common information technology infrastructure, including modem, Ethernet, PPP dial-up and web browser; there is no need to install any software on client computers. A lot of consumer electronics have already installed with embedded web servers, from router, switch, internet radio to NAS and IPTV. In the industrial field device market, ARC predicts that over the next five years, IP/Ethernet will dominate all field connections except for the final connection to the lowest level sensors and actuators. Besides to tftp and telnet, embedded web server is the most common technology used in both consumer and industrial electronics devices, especially for the classic "head-less" embedded systems, which has limited or no display at all.

This demo demonstrates a procedure for image acquisition from a camera equipped with serial interface on CMOS levels using FLEX.
FLEX is a platform board for embedded modular systems that exploits the potential of Microchip family’s dsPIC DSC microcontroller. It is an ideal board for developing real-time applications because the onboard dsPIC33FJ256MC710 microcontroller supports advanced real-time kernel, such as the Evidence Srl’s Erika Enterprise.

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.
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.

This article shows how to set up a procedure for identification of a DC Motor with permanent magnets aimed at digital torque control. In this applications are used: L298 (see the datasheet) - a dual full-bridge driver designed to accept standard TTL logic levels and drive relays, solenoids, DC and stepping motors and ADM3202/ADM3222/ADM1385 - transceivers ideal for battery-powered portable instruments.
The application is divided into two parts:
1. The dsPIC implements a simultaneous sampling of voltage and current and sends the data via serial bus to a remote PC;
2. The PI controller is used to control the current (directly) and the torque (indirectly) with appropriate characteristics of strength.
On the PC side, the data are processed with a specific software for the system identification.
The methods are: subspaces method (with generic I/O data), PEM method (to refine the model) and residual analysis (to validate the model)

I was a marketing engineer for Philips microcontroller. To offer training courses for our customers is included in my job description. I still remember a good question from one of my customers. It demonstrates how our universities have misguided our students. The question is how to find extra timers in a complex application while a standard microcontroller usually has only two or three timers? The answer is simple. You have to create the additional timers in software. Yes, software timers. You will know that the timer takes a quite big area in the silicon when you look at the silicon picture and find the timer part. This is a cross section view of a Cypress microcontroller. The reason why a microcontroller can not have too many timers is that it takes silicon space and money. BTW, have you saw a lot of real time timers in a computer? No, you can only see one real time timer with a battery. All other timers are software timers implemented in software. After all, software timers should be implemented in the system. But how to implement software timers with one hardware timer?

[Ionela, from Your Electronics Open Source]
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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.

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.

[Ionela, from Your Electronics Open Source]
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.

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?

For those of you lucky enough to have attended CeBIT2008 this past March in Hanover, you might have seen another series of GPS devices debut: the next two additions to the GPS lineup for Navigon Max series: 2100 and 2120.

[Ionela, from Your Electronics Open Source]

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 we do. It's a blog on electronic design.

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Today, the boundaries between the general purpose PCs, the servers and the embedded systems are more blurred. These computers are sharing same platforms, same peripherals. For example, an x86/Mac PC can be used as a server, an x86/PowerPC CPU can be used in an embedded system like portable navigation device (PND). On the other way, the popular embedded processor StrongARM was a powerful desktop PC processor for the DEC workstation, and the embedded systems often also act servers, like NAS (Network Attached Storage). As same as the hardware suppliers, the OS suppliers port their products into the desktop PCs, servers and embedded systems.

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.