News

• Depletion-mode MOSFET kick-starts power supply 1/2/2008

  Many switch-mode power supplies use “kick-start” circuits to initialize their offline operation. These circuits may be simple resistors, such as International Rectifier’s (www.irf.com) ....

  Use the MCLR pin as an output with PIC microcontrollers 1/2/2008

  Although microcontroller manufacturers try to offer designers products that almost exactly fit the needs of their designs, another output pin is often necessary. This situation particularly occurs in small designs using ....

  Microcontroller drives LCD with just one wire 1/1/2008

  HD44780 LCDs are the most popular alphanumeric displays in embedded systems. The only downside is that they use six I/O pins in 4-bit nibble mode and as many as 11 pins in 8-bit mode. Earlier Design Ideas have described ....

  Transimpedance synchronous amplification nulls out background illumination 1/1/2008

  Light sensors find use in a host of important applications, spanning from consumer electronics, such as ambient-light measurements and exposure control for cameras, to scientific instruments, such as optical-absorption ....

  Coding SPI software 1/1/2008

  A variety of peripheral devices in modern embedded systems, such as EEPROMs, ADCs, DACs, real-time clocks, thermal sensors, and display and communication controllers, have synchronous serial interfaces. These interfaces’ ....

  Thermoelectric-cooler unipolar drive achieves stable temperatures 1/1/2008

  MTosetx etngineers know about the solid-state refrigerators called Peltier devices—or, more commonly, TECs (thermoelectric coolers)—and how they can actively cool temperature- sensitive electronic components, ....

  Battery monitor also enables constant-power-boost converter 1/12/2007

  Some microcontrollers permit operation below a supply voltage of 3V. This feature allows powering directly from a 3V alkaline or lithium battery without the voltage drop and leakage current of a regulator. It is important ....

  Circuit for measuring motor speed uses low-cost components 1/12/2007

  ThTiesx Dt esign Idea uses a microcontroller, a 16x2-key LCD, and a rotary encoder to measure and visualize the speed of a motor (Figure 1). You measure the rotor speed ....

  Routines directly measure microcontroller-bus clock 1/12/2007

  The Freescale HC08 and newer HCS08 microcontroller families have versatile peripheral modules. Their clock generators are no exceptions. They range from the internal clock, which frees I/O pins, to external crystals or ....

  Autozeroed amplifier with halved noise needs few components 1/12/2007

  The Analog Devices (www.analog.com) AD8553 autozeroed instrumentation amplifier has a unique architecture in that its two gain-setting resistors have no common junction (Reference ....

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