A closer look at the first made-in-China 5G chip from Huawei
Huawei’s new system-on-chip (SoC) for 5G smartphones manufactured at SMIC’s 7-nm process node is making waves in the trade media, and it’s widely hailed a victory for China in the backdrop of semiconductor technology restrictions imposed…
AI-driven flows ease Arm Neoverse V2 design
Cadence has fine-tuned its AI-driven RTL-to-GDS digital flow, as well as its AI-driven verification flow, for the Arm Neoverse V2 CPU. The company also created corresponding 5-nm and 3-nm Rapid Adoption Kits (RAKs). These tools not only help…
Flip-flop plus choke comprise simple and cheap inductive sensor
Sensors that detect and track small metallic objects are handy gadgets, whether used to route workpieces on an assembly line or comb a beach for “treasures” lost in the sand. A typical sensor design consists of an inductor integrated into…
A sneak peek at chiplet standards
The scaling of system-on-chip (SoC) architectures is hitting the wall, paving the way for die-to-die interconnect in heterogenous single-package systems commonly known as chiplets. But while these chiplet-optimized interconnect technologies…
An LED display adapted for DIY projects
This expandable LED display for a microcontroller in Figure 1 has a simple interface with only 6 data/control wires and can be easily accommodated to a DIY design. The display has static indication.
Figure 1 The expandable LED display for a…
Hall ICs conserve power in battery-operated devices
Unipolar Hall effect switches from Diodes operate over a supply range of 1.6 V to 5.5 V with an average supply current of just 1.1 µA at 1.85 V. The low-power devices are designed for proximity sensing in battery-powered devices, including…
Automotive Hall ICs have high voltage tolerance
Two series of Hall effect ICs from Rohm have a withstand voltage of 42 V, enabling direct connection to a vehicle’s primary 12-V battery power supply. High withstand voltage contributes to improved reliability under battery power, which can…
Dual SiC MOSFET handles 2200 V
Toshiba has begun volume shipping of the MG250YD2YMS3, a dual SiC MOSFET module with a drain-source voltage rating of 2200 V for use in industrial equipment. Intended for 1500-VDC applications, such as photovoltaic power systems and energy storage…
Software automates mobile app testing
Eggplant 7.0 from Keysight enables quality assurance (QA) teams to test mobile apps on multiple devices and operating systems simultaneously. The enhanced automated test software can test more than 7500 operating system and device combinations…
mmWave chip enables multibeam multiplexing
Fujitsu has developed a mmWave chip that supports multibeam multiplexing (excluding polarization multiplexing) for use in the radio units (RUs) of 5G base stations. The technology enables up to four beams to be multiplexed by a single chip through…
Arduino’s newest gambits: Connectivity, industrial designs
Arduino has made its next move to bolster connectivity offerings by joining the AWS Partner Network (APN), a global community of over 100,000 cloud partners from more than 150 countries. It’s aimed to boost the Arduino PRO product line introduced…
RLD-based astable 555 timer circuit
In the classic configuration and most variants of the astable 555 multivibrator circuit, the timing characteristics are based on the charging and discharging of a capacitor. However, it can be argued that since the exponential voltage of a capacitor…
