Test Your EQ—Issue
#164
Each month, Test Your EQ presents
some basic engineering problems for you to test
your Engineering Quotient. What's your EQ?
|
Problem
1—Suppose
you wanted to achieve GPS accuracy (approximately 10 m)
using traditional celestial navigation with a sextant
and a chronometer. What kind of accuracy in these instruments
would be required?
Answer
Problem
2—Conversely, real sextants have an accuracy
of approximately 0.1 arc minute, and real chronometers
have an accuracy of about 0.2 s. What level of positional
accuracy does this give you?
Answer
Problem 3—When configuring a software tool for
JTAG (boundary scan) chain access to multiple devices
on a PCB, what is the one piece of information you need
up front for each device?
Answer
Problem
4—Even without information about the instruction
register lengths, can a JTAG software tool count the number
of devices in a JTAG chain? How?
Answer
Problem
5—How much power does it take to operate a typical
home shower for bathing?
Answer
Problem
6—What are the key requirements for the main
diode in a discontinuous-mode switching regulator? What
about a continuous-mode regulator?
Answer
Problem
7—Give the exact reason that 56 kbps is the theoretical
maximum data rate for a telephone modem.
Answer
Problem
8—Capacitors have many non-ideal
characteristics. In addition to leakage (parallel resistance),
there are series resistance and inductance and temperature
coefficient of capacitance. Another relatively obscure
problem is called “dielectric absorption.” What is it?
Answer
Published March 2004
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