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 […]
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Teardown: The Garmin Forerunner 220 sport watch and heart monitor
Chest-mounted electronics do a more accurate job of counting heart beats than do optical sensors on the wrist. That’s one of the conclusions to come out of a close look at this sport watch aimed at runners. Leland Teschler Executive Editor A sport watch from Garmin called the Forerunner 220 is basically a runner’s watch […]
General tips on debugging embedded hardware
When you first start out after graduating from college with a B.S. in electrical engineering, you have a bright, shiny new degree that might not be exactly what you expected. You had to take a series of fundamental courses in math and science for the first year or two. The third year is spent learning […]
How Mr. Robot hacked the IoT
The popular TV drama Mr. Robot once portrayed a penetration of a building automation system. Security experts say the same exploit could have happened in real life. Leland Teschler Executive Editor In 2015, TV viewers who tuned into episode five (having the catchy title “eps1.4_3xpl0its.wmv”) of a series called Mr. Robot watched the main character […]
Multicore processors terminology
Multicore processors have two or more processors in the same integrated chip. Early on in practical applications, multiple cores were used independently of each other. Concurrency isn’t as much of an issue if cores are not working in tandem on the same problem. Supercomputers and high-performance computing (HPC) saw multiple cores first. One difference between […]
Top microcontroller threads on EDAboard.com — February
(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.) External interrupt for PIC16F882 – Program for PIC16F882 MPLab X IDE is not working on […]
The security of connected devices
Take an MCU and add Bluetooth or Wi-Fi connection to the internet and you have an Internet of Things (IoT) device, and smart devices that are connected to the internet are everywhere. Smartphones, home automation, fitness bands, and products like the Amazon Echo are all examples of IoT. The problem with millions of internet-connected MCUs […]
What are compilers, translators, interpreters, and assemblers?
Translators, compilers, interpreters and assemblers are all software programming tools that convert code into another type of code, but each term has specific meaning. All of the above work in some way towards getting a high-level programming language translated into machine code that the central processing unit (CPU) can understand. Examples of CPUs include those […]
Mid-range, power- and security-optimized FPGAs aim to make FPGAs great again
The number of FPGA manufacturers is relatively small so — like suppliers in any number of electronic components and systems markets — increased competition has lead to an even more increasing need to develop products with differentiating features. Now add in the IoT-inspired move from homogeneous to heterogeneous computing where we see intelligence being pushed to the […]
What is differential signaling?
Differential signaling is used in many communication schemes including HDMI, USB, DVI, CAN, LVDS, and more. Differential signaling uses two wires and therefore two signals accomplish transmitting a series of bits from one point to another. In the figure below, the first image demonstrates single-ended signaling, which uses a single wire and pulses 0s and […]
