Design Guides
Collection of articles to help you design better embedded systems.
Selecting The Right Operating System for Your Next Embedded Design
From robots, cars, home appliances to calculators, thermostats, ATMs and mobile phones, embedded systems are everywhere. And at the heart of almost every embedded...
Implementing Capacitive-Touch Interfaces in Low-Cost LED Lighting Designs
In recent months, there has been a move to integrate capacitive-touch and capacitive-proximity user interfaces (UIs) into lighting applications. The simplicity of the UI,...
An Introduction to Plesiochronous Digital Hierarchy
Delivery of services like telephony, voice-over-IP, video streaming, telemedicine, broadcasting of TV programmes, high-speed file sharing, online banking, online video gaming, online education and...
Network Protocols and Smart Sensors: An Introduction to Wireless Sensor Networks (Part 2 of 2)
Read Part 1
A wireless sensor network is a communication system which senses and gathers information from a certain area and sends it to where...
Handling 20nm Design Challenges
1. Complex double-patterning lithography
Complex double-patterning lithography in 20nm process requires rule-aware placement and routing in order to ensure the ability to colour mask correctly...
How to Reduce Power Consumption in Battery-Powered Devices
Over the last few years, we saw numerous new battery technologies being proposed by different research institutes. There was news of flexible Li-ion batteries...
What’s New in Software Design Tools for Embedded Systems
Since hardware designs are now being churned out in large numbers, it has become challenging for designers to increase the adoption rate and at...
A Guide to Modern FPGAs
Design architects are now more comfortable selecting a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) as the central piece on the board. Given the quantum of vendor...
Using Optics to Optimize Your Machine Vision Application
Basics of machine vision optics
The field of view (FOV) should cover all features that are to be inspected with tolerance for alignment errors. Features...
Charging Batteries Wirelessly in a Compact, Efficient Manner
Wireless Power System: An Overview
As shown in Figure 1, a wireless power system is composed of two parts separated by a gap: transmit circuitry,...
Designing with FPGAs: FPGA-Embedded Processors (Part 5 of 5)
FPGA devices are suitable for implementing parallel algorithms. However, sequential algorithms, especially those that do not demand large processing power, are easier to implement...
Designing with FPGAs: Clock Management (Part 4 of 5)
The focus in this article is on clock management in field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). It talks about the digital clock manager (DCM), which is...
Processor Selection for Embedded System
When we began working on this article, the first question in our mind was about what made it worthwhile to spend time on this....
Designing with FPGAs: An RS232 UART Controller (Part 3 of 5)
The first and second parts of the article discussed the implementation of I2C master controller and LCD display using FPGAs. The focus in this...
Designing with FPGAs: Interfacing an LCD (Part 2 of 5)
The first part of the series discussed the implementation of I2C controller using an FPGA. The focus in this part is interfacing FPGA with...
Designing with FPGAs: I2C Master Controller (Part 1 of 5)
Nowadays, field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are widely used in a variety of embedded applications as they offer complete system solutions on a single...
How to Protect Telecom Networks
Network failures, whether due to human error or faulty technology, can be very expensive for users and telecom service providers alike. As a result,...
How to Ensure Product Reliability
Electronic devices containing delicate components can be easily damaged, unless they are rugged. A truly durable electronic device or gadget is one that substantially...