Blog

DC Motor: I-V Identification and torque control

Ionela — Tue, 13 May 2008 11:52:13 +0200

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

Enabling 3D microelectronics platforms: MCMs

froa0112 — Tue, 13 May 2008 01:20:01 +0200

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.

Integrating MMC/SDIO Support in Design

allankliu — Fri, 09 May 2008 04:58:24 +0200

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.

Timer and Timers

allankliu — Fri, 09 May 2008 02:35:47 +0200

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

allankliu — Thu, 08 May 2008 16:14:39 +0200

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.

STM32 Primer - The Intelligent Butterfly

Ionela — Sun, 04 May 2008 21:48:37 +0200

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.

New comers in GPS technologies

froa0112 — Thu, 01 May 2008 23:24:23 +0200

Providers are recharging the market with new GPS devices.

Software Development Automation with Scripting Languages

allankliu — Thu, 01 May 2008 02:46:13 +0200

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.

Microcontrollers USB-Stick Tool

Emanuele — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:26:02 +0200

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 )

Makefile

allankliu — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 04:29:30 +0200

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?