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Discusses why the advent of electronic displays has not resulted in the paperless office. Evolution of computer displays; Analogy of paper to clay tablets; Difficulty of migrating data from older to newer storage technologies. INSET: IT'S ABOUT POWER.

Features an engineering sample display of electronic-paper with a display of 160 pixel per inch developed by Philips Corp. and E Ink Corp. Resolution of the electronic paper; Incorporation of electronic ink technology in the paper; Response of particles in electronic ink to an electric field.

A personal narrative is presented which relates the author's experience of working with servo controls for winding rolls of paper, 20 feet in width, from pulp to paper and processing, with emphasis on a no-contact tension-control system with an ultrasonic-transceiver circuit.

The article discusses the importance of ink technology to printed electronics. The author states that disposable-battery testers added into the product or packaging is considered one of the first widely used printed-electronics applications. These low-cost, interactive testers depend on conductive inks to form a resistive-heating and temperature-responsive inks to provide the display. Electronic paper is another display technology that benefits from printed electronics. Electronic paper has the capacity to reflect light like ordinary paper.

The article features Paper Jamz, a toy electronic guitar that provides approximation of an electric guitar. Power is provided by three AAA batteries, while sound is through its 1 1/2-inch speaker. It is approximately 30-inch long, screen-printed with artwork on its plastic guitar-shaped shell. To prevent short circuits and overheating of the battery assembly and the circuit, a positive-thermal-coefficient (PTC) over-current- and overtemperature protection circuit, is provided.

The article features the color-e-paper technology by Philips Research that allows personalization of electronic devices with potential for use in large "e-wallpapers." The capabilities generated by this technology are discussed along with its application in e-skins for small devices. Its potentials in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), or computed tomography (CT) scanners, and in ambience-creation are discussed. Also mentioned is the basis of e-skin technology particularly in controlling motion using an electric field or electrophoresis.

The article reports on the imminent arrival of high-definition (HD) video based on the contents of papers to be presented at the 2009 International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC). It is noted that underlying technology in broadband communications to support the demanding data stream is now in silicon. The imminent arrival of HD video is supported by sufficient wireless bandwidth to deliver the bit stream, along with sufficient band flexibility to work with whatever broadband signal is available at the moment.

The article features a printer assembly with infrared laser diode and an ink that absorbs infrared wavelengths but is transparent to visible light, developed by researchers at Commissariat à l'Eacute;nergie Atomique of Monts, France. The company based the ink on pigment from Sigma-Aldrich. The printer cuts paper at a speed of less than 1 meter per second, far slower than commercial systems, which use kilowatt-range carbon-dioxide lasers and achieve cutting speeds of approximately 1000 meters per second. However, the technology is suitable for many desktop applications and low-volume needs.

Reports on the Virtual Socket Interface Alliance's release of a white paper on intellectual property protection for use in the semiconductor industry. Potential infringement issues identified; Types of deterrents; Detection schemes.

Comments on the dilemma concerning the use of either paper or plastic in information storage systems. Focus on the efforts of the `New York Times Magazine' towards making a time capsule, to be sealed in 2000 and opened in a thousand years; Media lifetime of the materials to be store in the capsule; Problems in digital storage; Viability of the documentation.

A personal narrative is presented which explores the author's experience of designing and assembling a remotely controlled test system for data-acquisition probes.

The article features a film-based, a bendable material from Fujitsu Ltd. and Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd., that displays text and color images and consumes no power when displaying them. Fujitsu officials say that the power to change an image is so low that the weak radio frequency energy in contactless integrated circuit cards can deliver that energy to the device. The substrate material has three layers and delivers more vivid images than do standard reflective liquid crystal displays, because the material uses no color filters or polarizing layers.

Comments on the emergence of electronic books. Effects of electronic books on the popularity of printed book; Advantages of electronic books stored in laptop computers; Objections of librarians on electronic books.

The article discusses the challenges faced by e-readers to be as quick as paper and as quick as LCD-based devices. It notes that high-performance microprocessors enables better usability and new use scenarios for e-readers who require a high-performance processor even for text only. It indicates the use of electrophoretic or electronic paper, displays (EPDs) by most e-readers which has more benefits over LCDs for reading e-books. It suggests that new e-readers will need high-end processors as speed becomes higher with physics remaining the bottleneck.

This paper presents a reprint of the article "Phase Steps: Overcome Slim Testing Margins," by Stefan Walther and Guido Schulze, which appeared in the October 2007 issue of "Test & Measurement World." It introduces a novel approach that applies a multiple-strobe technique, each slightly shifted in phase relative to clocks and data, to accurately test and characterize signals in input/output (I/O) interfaces, such as double data rate synchronous dynamic random access memory (DDR SDRAM). Briefly discussed are options wherein an automated test equipment (ATE) system can determine the phase of the transitions in the clock and in the data signals while it monitors the error count. To illustrate this, a series of diagrams that show the phase of output-clock and data transitions were supplied. INSET: SOURCE-SYNCHRONOUS INTERFACES.

This article presents a case study that deals with the handling of a DC bulk power problem through the iCool™ voltage regulator module (VRM) connector. Early test data of this new VRM connector concept was well received with potential customers, but they also pointed out two problems. The prototype had retained the insert and rotate latching approach typical of single in-line memory module connectors, which occasionally prevented the VRM from being located in the best position on the motherboard. Either the chassis walls or the processor heat sink prevented module insertion to the connector. A second issue found that VRM designers required a module PCB of 0.062. With no methodology existing, Molex developed a procedure to demonstrate the reliability since this could be a showstopper if not proven. The comprehensive solution has been well documented in a paper written by Dr. Bob Malucci of Molex titled Current Rating for Multi-Path Power Module Connectors. Basically, Molex took the approach of combining actual end-of-life environmental contact resistance data with actual current temperature rise data in a random yet statistically significant predictive methodology.

This paper deals with the skepticism surrounding the Worldwide Interface for Microwave Access (WiMax) in 2005. WiMax is a metropolitan-area-network technology that fits between wireless local area networks, such as 802.11, and wireless wide area networks, such as the cellular networks. Bandwidth generally diminishes as range increases across these classes of networks. WiMax, proponents, however, do not believe that a nationwide rollout in the U.S. is a prerequisite for success. Many developing nations have no entrenched wired infrastructure and no plans to dig ditches and install one. The less-than-$100 price point is precisely what Intel hopes to enable with its Rosedale chip, according to Joe English, director of marketing for the Broadband Wireless Division of Intel. According to English, the Rosedale design focused on low-cost customer-premises equipment, whereas other WiMax chip developments target enterprise or base-station applications, as well. With programmability as a requirement, one would also expect field programmable gate arrays to be players in the WiMax base-station space. But, Asif Batada, strategic marketing manager for Altera's wireless business unit, claims that the bulk of the interest he is seeing is for the still-under-development 802.16e standard or mobile flavor of WiMax. Part of the negative aura has come from grumbling about the WiMax Forum's certification process. The wild card in the mobile-WiMax equation is how the technology aligns with cellular technologies. INSET: WiBRO WILL FIRST ROLL OUT IN SOUTH KOREA.

This article provides information on the most popular Ethernet systems. In the 1970s, Bob Metcalfe and David Boggs, then researchers at the Palo Alto Research Center of Xerox Corp., were working on a system to interconnect the company's computers and printers at a data-transmission rate of 2.94 megabytes per second. Their 1976 paper describes the broadcast-communication system for transporting packets of data among locally distributed computer systems that they dubbed Ethernet. With vendors annually shipping an estimated total of 300 million ports, Ethernet pervades business and local-area-networking in general. Automation engineers will quickly acknowledge its long struggle for acceptance in the face of field-bus technologies, principally due to intrinsic-safety issues. This situation remains a bone of contention within the process-control industry, in which many deployments restrict Ethernet to data-collection and back-office duties. But a host of silicon vendors include Ethernet ports on their microcontrollers, on which the technology continues to make in-roads into the deeply embedded-system space. Elsewhere, Ethernet continues its challenge for metropolitan-area data transport, with many vendors offering bridge chips to facilitate connections with wide-area backbone technologies, such as synchronous optical network or synchronous digital hierarchy. INSET: ETHERNET TARGETS LAN/WAN DIVIDE.

Focuses on the use of ground-current control in high-speed circuits. Performance reduction in the implementation of electronic circuit designs on paper; Charge conservation; Power-supply distribution impedance.

The article discusses the highlights of a six-day International Microwave Symposium (IMS). The Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (IEEE MTT-S), sponsor of the IMS, challenged students to create designs that function at professional level. The design competition included high-efficiency-power-amplifier, low-noise amplifier and packaged-ultrawideband-filter. Another segment of the IMS is the student-paper competition which benefits both the students and professionals who work with them.

Focuses on the use of ceramic dielectric by capacitor vendors instead of using paper dielectric. Reasons for using ceramic dielectric; Advantages of making the dielectric thinner; How multilayer ceramic capacitors achieve their high density per area and high volumetric efficiency. INSET: START WITH TEXTBOOK BASICS.

The article offers brief information on the Turbo Light waterproof LED panel indicators and the Turbo Miniature Piezoelectric Alarms from Floyd Bell Inc. and the electrical insulating bobbins from Precicsion Paper Tube Co.

The article offers brief information on electronic products, Ultra TM Loud Piezoelectric Alarms from Floyd Bell Inc., the Dielectric Insulating Tubing from Precision Paper Tube Co., and the Very High-Resolution 29MM F/3.0 lens for measurement from Universe Kogaku Lenses.

The article focuses on the result of a research on the use of carbon nanotube structures in creating a family of thin, paper-like batteries and supercapacitors, conducted by researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New Jersey. Researchers found that an electrode material, a dielectric material and a non-reactive matrix to support the two are key factors in determining batteries, capacitors and devices. They developed a very-low-effective-resistance electrode with an effective surface area by diffusing carbon nanotubes into the paper used in batteries. This electrode can be used to make multi-cell batteries or capacitors.

The article talks about safety standards that govern X/Y EMI capacitors input filter design. Topics include the International Electrotechnical Commission standard for EMI capacitors, self-healing as the reason behind the need to use film for safety capacitors, and example of EMI suppression capacitors using metalized film or paper.

The article previews the Thinergy solid-state, paper-thin, rechargeable batteries.

The article offers lists of electronic products including automatic distortion analyzer Krohn-Hite Model 6900B from Krohn-Hite Corp., Announcer™ Series alarms from Floyd Bell Inc., and coil winding Mylar™® Insulating Tube from Precision Paper Tube Co.

The article focuses on environmental responsibilities of distributors in the electronics industry. According to Barry Litwin, senior vice president for marketing at Newark, aside from improving their competitiveness, they see it as a sound business practice. Electronic distributors have embedded environmental policies into their corporate culture, practicing everything from paper and package recycling to reducing their carbon footprint, according to the author. The investment community is also rewarding companies with good environmental responsibility recordings, the author said.

The article describes the development and implementation of a programmable-logic-device-based interface that can connect a personal computer's parallel port to as many as eight switches and four stepper motors. Each rotation of the two-winding stepper motors requires a sequence of four mechanical steps that one produce by applying a pair of long pulses to the motor's windings. The personal computer reads the busy, paper or select register to determine which of the switches is active.

This paper addresses the limitations of integrated circuit boost regulators. One can extend a boost regulator's output-voltage range by adding an external transistor that has been a higher breakdown voltage than the regulator. However, the internal design of a typical boost regulator's control circuitry often prevents direct drive of an external transistor's base or gate. As an alternative, one can add an external higher voltage transistor by connecting it in a cascode configuration. Most boost regulators feature a peak-current-control method that reduces the number of external components and thus shrinks the overall printed circuit-board area of the converter circuit. One can add a higher voltage metal oxide field-effect transistor (MOSFET) for applications that require an output voltage higher than the internal transistor's breakdown voltage. The cascode circuit also can produce any output voltage that is within the drain-to-source breakdown-voltage rating of MOSFET.

The article discusses developments in battery chemistries as of May 13, 2005. Portable devices and motive applications, such as transportation, are pushing new developments in battery chemistries, particularly lithium (Li)-based technologies. Some of these "new" products are not really new. Fuel cells have been around for a long time, although their application in portable devices is fairly recent. Ultracapacitors are finding new uses as an adjunct to batteries. Carbon nanotubes and thin-film batteries are just emerging and could find niche markets. And hybrid battery solutions are taking the route of combining technologies to address "power hungry devices." Micro fuel cells are expected to function similarly to batteries, but with a performance potential for energy storage and power delivery that far exceeds current Li-ion and Li-polymer batteries. Fuel cells are being developed for several applications, with camcorders and notebook computers being likely "first candidates." A number of small companies are developing thin-film batteries to address the small form factors required of many portable devices. Power Paper Ltd., Infinite Power Solutions, Cymbet Corp., Excellatron Solid State, and VoltaFlex are developing products for portable computing, medical, telephony devices, medical, radio frequency identification system and smart cards. Some hybrid battery systems are being designed for specific portable markets. Tadiran Batteries has developed a hybrid battery which uses lithium-thionyl chloride chemistry in tandem with a unique hybrid layer capacitor. Most companies making alternative energy storage products are targeting specific markets that are likely to benefit from the added features of the technology.

This paper describes a simpler way to automatically turn off a battery after a preset on period to save battery life. When one apply a nine volts battery to the circuitry, the output of IC1A goes high because the initial voltage on C1 is zero. A P-channel metal oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET), Q1, is off, and the output IC1D goes high, which in turn charges C5 through R2. With the values shown, the turn-off takes approximately six minutes. Alternatively, one can manually turn off the MOSFET switch by pushing S1. Because the value of C2 is fairly large, D1 provides a quick discharge route, and R4 limits the discharge current. This circuitry consumes less than 0.2 microampere of power during standby operation. Because the MOSFET switch has a low on-resistance, it has only a two-millivolt loss when the load current is 100 milliampere.

This paper describes a keypad interface that frees microcontroller input/output pins. In most keypads, pressing a key closes a contact that bridges two lines in an xy matrix. The pulse's width is proportional to the number of the pressed key, and the microcontroller identifies the pressed key by measuring the pulse's width. IC2, a complementary metal oxide semiconductor LMC555 version of the popular 555 timer, operates as a monostable one-shot multivibrator. In the circuit's resting state, a transistor internal to IC2 at Pin 7 shunts C6 and the output of IC2 at Pin 3 remains at logic low. The output of IC1 goes from five to zero volt, which in turn triggers Pin 2 of IC2. The smallest relative change in pulse width occurs at the longest pulse ratio, 110/1,320 or 8. 33 percent. This ratio provides sufficient margin to allow use of standard ±one percent tolerance or better components that are ±0.5 and ±one percent. The keypad circuit's output pulse drives the external interrupt input, RA2 of a Microchip 16F630 microcontroller. As a safeguard against erroneous data, the routine returns an error code if the pulse width falls outside certain limitations.

Presents a paper which shows how to create a power-on reset that operates below 2.6 volts, using a circuit that combines 1.2 volts reference and a micropower regulator. Voltage which battery-powered systems operate; Information on the power-on-reset function.

The article examines how a poor understanding of buying behaviors restricts greater Web-based activity along the electronics supply chain. A 2005 white paper published by Martin Christopher and John Gattorna urges supply chains to develop a pricing strategy by customer-segment type. Suppliers can relay online information and offer call-in centers, distributors may hire engineers for customer support, and original-equipment manufacturers can negotiate preferred pricing terms.

The author reflects on the notion that next generation of engineers are more focused on smartphone applications than technological breakthroughs. He cites meeting young innovators wrestling with real-world problems during National InstrumentsWeek Graphical Systems Design Achievement Awards. He believes that Peritec Inc.'s Naoki Hoshino's paper on developing an electromagnetic interference (EMI) desktop evaluation system has long-term implications thereby earning him the Editor's Choice honoree.

The article focuses on a device that can produce electricity by harnessing the piezoelectric properties of a biological material. The U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientists are working a device that can generate electricity using a paper-thin generator. The power is generated using harmless viruses that convert mechanical energy into electricity.

The article discusses a paper presented by Geoff Potter, a power technologist at Texas Instruments at the "Designing with LEDs" about the impact of power supply and light emitting diodes (LED) on the lifetime and reliability of LED-lighting assembly. Potter considered the LED as the shortest-lived, least-reliable component in the assembly. He also noted the solder joints problem in LED lighting caused by to many systems on chips (SOCs) designs.

The article discusses the highlights of the Acoustical Society of America Conference that was held in Salt Lake City, Utah, in June 2007. According to the author, thermoacoustic devices convert heat directly into intense sound waves with relatively high efficiency. This thermoacoustic effect can be used by physicists to cool a system by converting its wasted heat to sound. The papers presented at the event discussed the construction and optimization of thermal-sound generators, as well as the energy-capture devices that went with them.

The article reports on the paper presented by Subhasish Mitra of the Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, about a circuit-design technique that could make carbon nanotubes useful. According to the author, carbon nanotubes must align with circuit patterns in order to be useful for designers. Mitra and his team created a way to form functioning logic circuits from a random tangle of nanotubes on the surface of a die. A program was also created that can automatically generate the pattern of good and bad cell locations in the grid.

This article presents information related to the electric and electronic circuit designs. The Association for Computing Machinery's annual SIGGraph event will be held on August 6, 2007 at the waterfront convention center in San Diego, California. Around 26 papers covering topics from 3-D-image capture to video processing. The Design Automation Conference held in June 2007 had a disappointing attendance. Observers points out that semiconductor inventories continue to be excessive and have once again cut their outlooks for the industry.

The article discusses the highlights of the 2007 Advanced Automotive Battery Conference, which took place in Long Beach, California on May 16 through 18, 2007. It offered four days' worth of technical papers analyzing the challenges inherent in adapting lithium-ion batteries, the favored battery technology for consumer electronics portables. Automobiles, including electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in-hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) use these batteries.

This article recounts the discovery of floppy disks. Floppy disk research started around 1965, and, by 1975, IBM was shipping the peripheral to load microcode into the execution units of its 370 mainframes. The random-access capabilities of the floppy would quickly preempt cassette, cartridge, paper-tape and other removable media and become widespread far beyond the IBM world. Floppy drives would quickly move down the miniaturization curve to 5.25- and 3.5-inch versions. Moreover, capacity would increase to hundreds of megabytes.

The article presents an update on issues related to the computer industry in the U.S. The upcoming Audio Engineering Society Convention in San Francisco, California in October 2006 will include a product exhibition, paper sessions and tutorials. Details are given regarding the development of a videophone by Bell Laboratories in 1956. The consensus among forecasters for 2006 seems to be that the year will come in somewhere from 5 to 8% higher than the previous year. DRAM shipments dominate the top-line growth rate.

This paper highlights the Wireless Connectivity (WiCon) show held in London, England in May 2005. At the WiCon, Mike McCamon, executive director of the UWB Forum, described as an utter mess the current situation of competing personal-wireless-connectivity standards. He likens the proliferation of standards to the situation in wired networking around 1990. The show provided a snapshot of progress toward functional ultra wideband (UWB) in its native mode, Freescale operated a streaming-video demonstration with a claimed 100-megabyte per second link spanning 15 to 20 meters. This demonstration employed the first multichip implementation of its direct-sequence UWB silicon, and the company promises further integration. Visitors could also file transfer over a wireless-Universal Serial Bus link using first silicon of Staccato Communications' single-chip all-complementary metal oxide semiconductor offering. Staccato envisages the technology's reaching the market on a time scale that would see external adapters for file transfer from PC to external hard drive early in 2006 and reaching high-end mobile-phone platforms in 2007.

This paper introduces two new emulator systems from Tharas Systems Inc. that use multiprocessor systems on chips (SOC). The single-user Hammer S-Class emulator has a capacity of 16 million gates and targets hardware designers needing to speed event-based verification. Its multiuser Hammer M-Class emulator has a 64 million-gate capacity and targets hardware engineers who want to verify their designs, and, through the new Virtual Connect add-on, software engineers, wishing to get a jump on software development. According to Richard Curtin, senior vice president of marketing and business development for Tharas, the new systems improve on the company's previous offering, the Hammer 100 system, on just about all fronts. Curtin attributes the speed and capacity improvements to the company's placing 32 of its Hammer 100 custom processors on one SOC. This approach increases the capacity and exponentially speeds the emulators and allows Tharas to offer the systems in a form factor the size of a big toaster. Tharas also custom-designed the instruction set to handle Boolean operations for simulation. Custom instruction-set simulation speeds emulation. The company has also worked extensively on the compiler to help users quickly load their designs onto the emulator systems.

This paper features the insulation multimeters from Fluke Corp. The company's 1587 and similar 1577 insulation multimeters ease the task because they combine a full-featured digital multimeter (DMM) with a one-kilovolt insulation tester in a compact one pound handheld device, thus eliminating the need for a separate instrument. Despite the high voltage, four standard AA batteries power the unit, the company specifies them to last for 1,000 insulation tests. The device features a remote test probe, which solves the perennial problem of "I sure could use another hand here." A trigger on the probe lets one actuate the test without having to reach over to the DMM itself. The meter self-checks before it initiates the insulation test and disables the test if the circuit is live with more than 30 volts. The meters, with switchable, intense backlighting and one-inch display digits, come in impact-resistant cases and accept a Fluke-supplied magnetic hanging system so one can stick them onto a nearby chassis or cabinet where the meter is not only convenient to both see and use, but also out of the way.

This paper reports that Mentor Graphics Corp. has introduced the Questa verification tool. The product adds to the ModelSim simulation kernel engines for assertions, constraint-random testbenches, and code coverage. With Questa and help from standards group Accellera, users have a commercial tool that allows them to apply newer verification languages and methods to their designs and shrink overall verification time. Beta customers have field-tested the Questa technology, which Mentor has been developing for more than two years. Mentor offers Questa SystemVerilog for $28,000 for a perpetual license and Questa Advanced Functional Verification for $42,000 for a perpetual license.

This paper features the PM0402T and PM0603T chip inductors from JW Miller. Magnetics measure 1x0.5x0.35 millimeter and 1.5x0.8x0.45 millimeter, respectively. These inductors, fabricated with photolithographic-design techniques, have tolerance of ±two percent and are available in one to 68 nH at 100 megahertz, typical charge at 300 megahertz is 17. Minimum self-resonant frequency is six gigahertz, and the devices can handle maximum direct currents of 70 to 800 milliamperes depending on nominal inductance value. The PM0402T and PM0603T inductors sell for 11 cents and 18 cents, respectively.