Wireless protocols that are widely used in the IoT have a lot of common attributes. Multiprotocol SoCs able to run them all can simplify many kinds of wireless designs. TOM PANNELL, Senior Marketing Director, IoT Products| SILICON LABS We have many innate expectations for controlling the myriad devices and systems in our lives. When I enter […]
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Thwarting hackers on the IoT
A few best practices can drastically improve the security of IoT devices and help maximize the benefits they provide. CHRISTOPHE TREMLET, SCOTT JONES MAXIM INTEGRATED The news back in March was certainly alarming – WikiLeaks announced it had internal CIA documents revealing that the spy agency had found a way to access Android and Apple […]
Supervisory IC vs. RC circuit: delaying MCU start-up until supply voltage is good
Engineers use external microcontroller (MCU) supervisory circuits as a fail-safe to ensure that their systems operate in a safe manner when unforeseen, unpredictable events occur when their systems are sent out “into the wild,” that is, when their systems are no longer in a controlled environment. (Here, we will consider microprocessors and central processing units […]
Top microcontroller threads on EDAboard.com — March
(editor’s note: Intrigued by the problem? Have a similar challenge? Have a question or another solution? Then click the “Read more” link and follow the conversation on EDAboard.com or log in to EDAboard and participate in the microcontroller forum thread.) SCR bridge control – I am using a PIC18F4520 to control an SCR bridge. I […]
Pardon the interruption: speeding up responsiveness
Many of the abilities that modern digital electronics enable rely on the fact that common processors can perform millions or billions of operations every second. This blindingly fast speed can make it appear that a device is handling many operations at once when in fact, it is rapidly following a sequential set of instructions, often […]
Overview of embedded systems
An embedded system is much more than a computer, because they often must have a real time response and several constraints to work within a given system that is tailored by industry and function. Real-time operation requires a response to input within microseconds. Delays in responding, termed latency, are often unacceptable, especially in real-time systems. […]
Teardown: Inside the
Anki Overdrive racecar set
Robotic race cars make clever use of software and infrared optics to follow lines slyly hidden on the track. Leland Teschler, Executive Editor The Overdrive starter kit we analyzed contains sections of track that can go together in various ways and can even include jumps. An interesting feature of the track is that its sections […]
Using a digital input to read an analog signal without an ADC
If you are out of Analog Inputs (AIs) on your MCU, or do not have any AIs at all, it’s possible to rig together a way to read analog signals that use varying resistance levels, even if you only have digital inputs (DIs). As an example, let’s assume that the varying resistance device is a […]
Developing a mixed safety-critical
IIoT robotic arm
Robots that can man-handle car bodies incorporate several safe guards to protect workers. New software architectures have evolved to make these systems reliable and easy to manage. Muhammad Shafique | Mentor Graphics • Embedded Systems Div. The industrial automation industry is rapidly making use of today’s heterogeneous multicore system-on-chip (SoC) architectures. These multicore environments help […]
What does an eye diagram or eye pattern on an oscilloscope mean?
Eye diagrams are a quick, visual means of identifying signal integrity issues before moving on to more refined analysis. They help with the effective analysis of serial data and offer both qualitative and quantitative insight regarding the data communications signal path itself and what might be affecting signal integrity. Circuit designs that reach the prototype […]
