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Issue #235 February 2010 — Wireless Communications
Task Manager
Choose Your Own Design Adventure, by C. J. Abate
Priority Interrupt
Feature Creep, by Steve Ciarcia
New Product News, edited by John Gorsky
FEATURE ARTICLES
RFID-Based Liquid Control (Part 1)
Working with Off-the-Shelf Components
by Brian Millier
With this article series, you’ll learn how to build an RFID-based controller for monitoring dispensed liquid nitrogen from a tank. Operated in a laboratory setting, the system also bills customers for what they use. This article details how to get started with some off-the-shelf components and simple code. p. 16
Keywords: RFID, reader, tank, USB, Excel, ATmega32, LCD, RS-232, RTC, Viniulum VDRIVE2, MC14052, DS1307
(A link to the article will be emailed to you.)
FPGA Embedded Microcontroller Environment
by John Clayton
If you want to set up a simple custom microcontroller development environment, this article is for you. As you’ll see, all you need to get started with FPGA-based embedded design is a PC, some HDL coding/synthesis tools, and an FPGA board. p. 24
Keywords: FPGA, microcontroller, PIC16F84, VHDL, IP core, development, UART, blocks, debugging, breakout board, XC2S200E
(A link to the article will be emailed to you.)
Floating Point for DSP
by Bruce Land
For DSP and other fine-grained parallel operations, you need to pick a floating-point representation and implement five basic operations. The 18-bit floating point described here allows up to 70 floating-point multipliers and around 150 floating-point adders to be placed on an FPGA. p. 46
Keywords: DSP, floating point math, FPGA, Cyclone II, IEEE-754, conversion, Matlab
(A link to the article will be emailed to you.)
Advanced Encryption Standard
Understanding AES Without Math
by Monte Dalrymple
Does the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) confuse you? Try taking the complicated math out of the picture and approaching it from a hardware point of view. This will make the encryption/decryption process a little clearer and help you ensure your data is protected. p. 54
Keywords: AES, encryption, algorithm, operations, key, history
(A link to the article will be emailed to you.)
COLUMNS
SILICON UPDATE
A Winning Hand
Betting on the ARM Cortex-M3
by Tom Cantrell
Thirty-two-bit flash MCUs are the hottest game in town. The stakes are high, but so is the opportunity presented by billions of sockets to fill. Top MCU suppliers are placing their bets on ARM Cortex-M3 and putting their chips—of the silicon variety, naturally—on the table. p. 30
Keywords: Cortex-M3, Stellaris 9000 series, Tempest Class, LPC1300, LPC1700, SAM3U, mbed, STM32W, motor control, TMPM370, green, EFM32G
(A link to the article will be emailed to you.)
ABOVE THE GROUND PLANE
Totally Featureless Clock (Part 1)
WWVB Simulator
by Ed Nisley
Ed began constructing a Totally Featureless Clock for a friend by first building a WWVB simulator. That’s mostly a simple matter of software. But there’s also the analog chain: a crystal oscillator, a steep filter built around a MAX274, and a feeble power amp driving a bar antenna. p. 38
Keywords: Clock, WWVB, simulation, PWM, frame, carrier generation, Duemilanove, MAX274ACN, filter, modulation, CMMR-6P-60
(A link to the article will be emailed to you.)
THE DARKER SIDE
Living with Errors
An Introduction to Forward Error Correction
by Robert Lacoste
Forward error correction (FEC) algorithms are commonly used in disk encoding, RAM chips, GSM mobile phones, and more. But what is FEC? This article introduces the topic of FEC, and Hamming FEC encoding and decoding in particular. With this information, you’ll be knowledgeable enough to use FEC algorithms in a future project. p. 62
Keywords: FEC, forward error correction, algorithm, data transmission, NRZ, AWGN, Gaussian, Nyquist limit, Hamming Code, convolution coder
(A link to the article will be emailed to you.)
FROM THE BENCH
Sun Tracker (Part 1)
Create a Directional Light Sensor
by Jeff Bachiochi
You can check your watch, cell phone, or the Internet for the time. But if you want a more interesting time-keeping device, try building a “sun tracker.” That’s right. You can tell the time with the sun and a directional light sensor. The sun’s readily available; you just need to build an efficient system around an MCU and light sensors. p. 68
Keywords: Sun, directional light sensor, ISL29102, Eagle, PCD creation, SMT, PWM servo
(A link to the article will be emailed to you.)
PREVIEW
Issue #236 March 2010 — Robotics
◊ Serial Network Hub (Part 1): Network Topology and Design Planning
◊ Design and Program a Microbot
◊ A Sensor System for Robotics Applications
◊ Calibrated Decibel Meter Design
◊ RFID-Based Liquid Control (Part 2): Monitoring System Implementation
◊ LESSONS FROM THE TRENCHES Putting C Language to the Test (Part 1): A Sudoku Puzzle-Solving Program
◊ FROM THE BENCH Sun Tracker (Part 2): Start Tracking
◊ SILICON UPDATE Tales from the Crypto: A Look at Embedded Design Security
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