Dave looks at the current measurement front end of a typical multimeter and figures out how to redesign it for lower burden voltage.
It’s not quite as easy as you might think, there are comprimises and traps for your players.
And something you probably didn’t know about HRC fuses.
µCurrent ARTICLE
Multimeter fuse and diode protection VIDEO
Multimeter input protection tutorial VIDEO
Forum HERE
X-FAB Silicon Foundries has today announced that it will acquire the assets of Altis Semiconductor, a specialty stand-alone foundry located in the Greater Paris area, out of insolvency proceedings. With both companies serving complementary markets and applications, this acquisition roughly doubles the company’s 8-inch capacity to meet the growing demand for its manufacturing technologies, as ...
Read full article: X-Fab to buy assets of Altis
New York University scientist have used MRI scanning to view inside batteries “One challenge we wanted to solve was to make the measurements 3D and sufficiently fast, so that they could be done during the battery-charging cycle,” Said Professor Alexej Jerschow. “This was made possible by using intrinsic amplification processes, which allow one to measure small ...
Read full article: Look inside a battery while it charges
D-Wave Systems has released some more details about its proposed 2,000qubit quantum computer, at the company’s inaugural users group conference in New Mexico. The processor, intended to available next year, has doubles the number of qubits over the previous generation D-Wave 2X system, which was available for shipping in August last year. “The new system ...
Read full article: 2,000 qubit quantum computer next year?
Plessey has teamed up with French firm Segula Technologies to demonstrate a heart-rate based driver alertness monitoring system at next week’s Paris Motor show. The sensors are integrated into the seatback, and provide earlier warning of drowsiness or health issues than systems based on eye or head movement. The UK-based firm’s sensing technology, known as ...
Read full article: Plessey puts sensors in cars to monitor drivers
Arrow has signed an agreement with IoT secure connectivity specialist Electric Imp to sell its IoT platform across Europe. Electric Imp’s platform includes full-life cycle secure connectivity, interoperability and managed operations. It can be used to move from a prototype to secure production and then to maintenance and update of field-deployed devices for years. Electric ...
Read full article: Arrow and Electric Imp spot big industrial IoT opportunity
TSMC sees scaling as a fundamental strategy, according to co-CEO Mark Liu reported in Digitimes. Currently on 16nm, TSMC will be in volume production on 10nm by the end of this year, said Liu. In early 2017, TSMC starts risk production on 7nm. The company is currently engaged in 5nm process development, said Liu, and ...
Read full article: TSMC on Moore’s Law trail to 2nm
Maxim aims to increase manufacturing productivity with the Pocket IO programmable logic controller (PLC) development platform. The platform aims to deliver the smallest form factor and highest power efficiency for next-generation PLC designs. Lost productivity is a common concern for Industry 4.0 designers challenged with keeping a manufacturing line running 24 hours a day, 7 ...
Read full article: Maxim enables Industry 4.0
A monkey has copied text from the New York Times and Hamlet at up to 12 words per minute via a brain interface, claims Stanford University. The researchers are Processor Krishna Shenoy and Dr Paul Nuyujukian. “Our results demonstrate that this interface may have great promise for use in people,” said Nuyujukian (pictured). “It enables a ...
Read full article: Brain-sensing allows monkey to type at 12 words per minute
There have been bigger things printed, but few will be as tough as an excavator cab printed in carbon fibre. A student engineering team from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign won a design competition for the cab, and was on-hand to watched it being printed using carbon fibre-reinforced ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene). The cab is ...
Read full article: 3D printing on a grand scale
Imagination Technologies Group, owners of PowerVR-brand graphics processors and MIPS-brand microprocessors, is to sell its Pure digital radio business. “The Pure business, with its assets and liabilities, is being sold on a cash and debt free basis to AVenture AT, an Austrian company, for £2.6m in cash,” said Imagination. “The buyer has also been granted ...
Read full article: Imagination sells loss-making Pure
Barium strontium titanate (BST) has been deposited on-die to produce tuning capacitors. Previously, the high-k dielectric has always been too lossy to be of use, according to researchers at University of California, Santa Barbara. “The catch is that the deposition of complex oxides, such as barium strontium titanate, is problematic because of the high temperatures and ...
Read full article: Unruly material tamed for on-chip tuning capacitors
GlobalFoundries has joined the 5G Lab alliance which has about 50 members including Vodafone, National Instruments, Nokia, Rohde & Schwarz, NEC, Claas, Ericsson and Deutsche Telekom. GloFo intends to offer its FD-SOI process technology to the mix of technologies required to implement 5G. “We are pleased that we are now working with the 5G in ...
Read full article: GloFo joins 5G Lab
Toshiba has added two new N-channel devices to its U-MOS IX-H family of high-efficiency, high-speed switching MOSFETs. The TK3R1E04PL and TK3R1A04PL can help designers to improve performance and reduce power consumption in power supply applications such as DC-DC converters and the secondary side circuits of SMPS AC-DC power supplies. The TK3R1E04PL (TO-220 package) and TK3R1A04PL ...
Read full article: Toshiba adds to n-channel MOSFETs.
Linear Technology is aiming at RF and microwaves with a log-responding RMS to DC converter chip which can achieve 1dB accuracy and 35dB dynamic range. Dubbed LTC5596, it responds at 29mV/dB from -37 to –2dBm, at better than ±1dB error over -40 to 125°C from 200MHz to 30GHz, with ±1dB flatness. Linear dynamic range is ...
Read full article: 100MHz to 40GHz log RMS power detector
An open source software reference design for the design of secure IoT node device such as sensors and ARM controllers has been introduced by Linaro, developer of open source software for the ARM architecture. Linaro has worked with ARM, Canonical, Huawei, NXP, RDA, Red Hat, Spreadtrum, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and ZTE on the new IoT ...
Read full article: ARM open source group address IoT software confusion
e2v has signed a supply agreement with gallium nitride power transistor manufacturer GaN Systems which will see the UK firm supplying power transistors to the aerospace and defense sectors. e2v specialises in supplying the hi-rel markets with semiconductors and evaluation boards. According to Mont Taylor, vice-president of business development at e2v: “Our aerospace and defence ...
Read full article: e2v signs GaN deal to cut weight in hi-rel designs
TDK has introduced its QM series of AC-DC power supplies – the first 1200W to 1500W rated modular series to have full MoPPs isolation, and claimed to have the lowest acoustic noise available on the market at that power level. Having both medical and industrial safety certifications, the QM is suitable for a wide range ...
Read full article: TDK launches QM series AC-DC power supplies.
A DIY computer kit is being sold by London-based Kano. Kano has sold 150,00 kits to 80 countries including one to Steve Wozniak. Backers of Kano include Martin Sorrel of WPP, Lord O’Neill formerly of Goldman Sachs and HMG, Marc Benioff of SalesForce, and Index Ventures, Backing amounts to $19 million. Founder Alex Klein shares ...
Read full article: The Lego of computing
Inside the cheap arse Jaycar SL3467 “Rave” DMX controlled RGB LED disco party lights scored for $1 from the dumpster sale. Did Dave get ripped off?
Advanced processing – processing at 40nm or below – accounts for half the revenues at TSMC and GloFo, says IC Insights. In 2016, 54% of TSMC’s 2016 revenue and 52% of GloFo’s revenues are expected to come from
Read full article: <40nm processing drives foundry sales
Silicon Labs is sampling a family of Wireless Gecko modules focused on mesh networking applications with support for ZigBee and Thread software.
Read full article: Si Labs sampling Gecko wireless module with Thread and ZigBee support
Imagination Technologies has licensed the full range of UltraSoC semiconductor IP and software. The agreement allows Imagination customers to incorporate UltraSoC’s real-time trace and control capabilities into their SoC products, providing intimate visibility of the internal operation of the device with very little silicon overhead. It also enables Imagination to significantly enhance its development flow, ...
Read full article: UltraSoC licenses Imagination
Imec, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), and Zentrum für Sonnenenergie- und Wasserstoff-Forschung Baden-Württemberg (Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research, ZSW), today announced that they have fabricated a thin-film solar module stack made up of perovskite and Copper Indium Gallium Selenide (CIGS) with a conversion efficiency of 17.8%. The module surpasses the highest efficiencies of ...
Read full article: Imec solar module has 17.8% conversion efficency
Shanghai Huali Microelectronics (HLMC), the foundry company majority-owned by Shanghai’s local government, is to build a second fab, reports Digitimes. The fab is expected to start running 28nm wafers in 2018 and be capable, when fully equipped, of running 40k wpm. HLMC’s Fab 1 is a 35k wpm fab running 65nm, 55nm, 40nm and 28nm ...
Read full article: State-owned China foundry HLMC to build second fab
Power semiconductor start-up e-peas of Liege, whose ICs are aimed at increasing the amount of energy harvested by energy scavenging devices and reducing the energy consumption of power consuming blocks within wireless sensor nodes, has put its first chip on the market. The AEM10940 aims to maximize the efficiency of power-scavenging devices. The chip has ...
Read full article: e-peas launches first chip
Antenova of Hatfield has introduced a miniature antenna for global navifation systems (GNSS) such as GPS. Called Beltii (part SR4G013), it is 15.6 x 3.3 x 4.4mm and covers 1,559-1,609MHz. “The antenna has been cleverly designed to work over a very small ground plane on a small PCB, where it can be placed in a corner ...
Read full article: Antenova tackles GNSS with FR4 antenna
SiTime is launching MEMS oscillators which claim to deliver: • 30 times higher dynamic performance for small cells, microwave backhaul, Synchronous Ethernet and optical equipment • 10 times better dynamic stability, 1 ppb/°C, which replaces costly OCXOs in IEEE 1588 applications • 20 times greater vibration resistance which ensures continuous system operation • 30 times ...
Read full article: SiTime launches MEMS-based Elite Platform oscillators
What is an oscilloscope?
What is it useful for?
How is it used?
What is the difference between an old school analog and a modern digital storage oscilloscope?
Rigol DS1054Z is a good basic digital scope
How not to blow up your oscilloscope VIDEO
Mysteries of X1 Oscilloscope Probes Revealed VIDEO
Vertical Confusion VIDEO
AC Trigger Coupling VIDEO
Forum HERE
Fujitsu Laboratories has streamlined the internal memory of GPUs to support neural networks in a development which has doubled the accuracy of machine learning. Recent years have seen a focus on technologies that use GPUs for high-speed machine learning to support the huge volume of calculations necessary for deep learning processing. In order to make ...
Read full article: Fujitsu streamlines GPUs to double deep learning accuracy
Analogix, the Santa Clara HDMI connectivity specialist, has been bought by Beijing Shanhai Capital Management and China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund for $500 million. Customers for Analogix’ mixed-signal semiconductor ICs for display applications include Apple, Samsung, LG, Microsoft, Google, Lenovo, Dell, HP, Asus, and HTC. The majority of Analogix’ engineering operations are located in ...
Read full article: Analogix sold to China
UK lighting LED maker Plessey has introduced its first lighting module which includes its ‘Steller’ beam-forming technology to reduce height, in this case to 5.6mm. The 82mm disc, first member of the Orion PLWS3000 series, emits 3,000 lm from an 82mm diameter module while achieving a +/-12.5°beam. Including losses in the built-in optics, efficacy is over ...
Read full article: Plessey squeezes 3,000 lm and optics into 5.6mm thick module
We are in the middle of National Coding Week, and it is not too late to get involved. This is its third year and we are half way through it. Estimates suggest 3,000 people will have taken part by the end. Some of the remaining events are: Fri 23rd Manchester – Taster coding sessions Sat ...
Read full article: National Coding Week: get involved this weekend
Eaton has announced TV supercapacitors with 3-volt (V) cells claimed toincrease stored energy capacity and power by 20% compared to 2.7V cells. Working either in conjunction with or as standalone alternatives to batteries, TV supercapacitors help reduce maintenance requirements and can provide a longer life and cost-effective energy storage for applications that require extremely reliable ...
Read full article: Eaton TV supercapacitor has 3V cells
2016 will be another big year for M&A – but only because of three large deals in Q3:,ARM-SoftBank, ADI-Linear and Renesas-Intersil, says ICInsights. The three deals had a collective value of $51 billion. 2015 was the all-time high for M&A with deals worth $103.8 billion. So far this year, the total value of M&A deals ...
Read full article: 2016 M&A second only to 2015 thanks to Q3 deals
Stanley has introduced a tiny screw and thread pair (known as a micro-fastener) for waterproof and vibration-proof wearables and portables. “Since water-resistant standards play a big role in making expensive handheld and wearable digital devices more durable, the industry has adopted the IPx7 rating, which protects against immersion in water for 30 minutes at a ...
Read full article: Fastener for waterproof handhelds and wearables
Cornell Dubilier has shown considerable initiative in setting aluminium electrolytics against banks of wet tantalum capacitors in high-reliability long-life applications by creating what it claims is the world’s only hermetic aluminium electrolytic capacitor with a glass-to-metal seal. Called MLSH Slimpack, the hermetic products are based on Dubilier’s non-hermetic Flatpack series, which it has been supplying ...
Read full article: Tough capacitors
Four finalists in the of Design Council Spark’s 2016 Awards will share up to £200,000 to help bring their innovative products to market. Last night, as part of the London Design Festival, Design Council announced the 2016 Spark Awards: Nick Webb, Matt Sparrow and Matt Dyson have answered the needs of sleep-deprived parents everywhere with ...
Read full article: Design Council names star inventors at London Design Festival
This furry caterpillar-like image could represent an important breakthrough in flexible semiconductors for displays and solar cells. It is a semiconductor with a double helix atomic structure, similar to that which is the basis of DNA. A team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has discovered a double helix structure in an inorganic material. ...
Read full article: German researchers show double helix in semiconductors
RS Components has signed a distribution agreement with XP Power and now stocks around 2500 product lines from the manufacturer. The XP offering available via RS consists of a broad range of AC/DC power supply products from 5 Watts to 3000 Watts including: ITE and medical Level VI efficiency desktop and plug-in type external power ...
Read full article: RS signs XP
Dialog’s DA14580 SmartBond SoC is in the Tile Slim – a 2.4mm thick Bluetooth tracker – which allows a user to ring their Tile to locate a misplaced item, or view an item’s last known location on a map. It can also tap into Tile’s community, the world’s largest lost-and-found network, to help them find ...
Read full article: That which is lost is found again, thanks to Dialog.
UltraSoC, the SoC debug specialist, is to support products based on the RISC-V open-source ISA. UltraSoC is supporting the RISC-V Foundation, the non-profit corporation that directs the development and drives the adoption of the RISC-V ISA, which some call “the Linux of the semiconductor industry”. ”We’re delighted to be able to support RISC-V, and we’re ...
Read full article: UltraSoC to support RISC-V
Wind River has announced a VxWorks real-time operating system (RTOS) client for the IBM Watson IoT platform. This is part of the IBM and Wind River collaboration aimed at IoT deployments amongst industrial customers – offering what the pair call ‘edge-to-cloud recipes’ designed to simplify the development of smart connected devices. “This integration marks the ...
Read full article: Wind River integrates VxWorks with IBM’s Watson IoT service
The chip industry will sink another 3.8% this year, said Malcolm Penn, CEO of Future Horizons at IFS 2016 in London this morning. “I t looks like the best number for this year, by my mathematics, is minus 3.8%,” said Penn, “that’s five years in a row that the chip market hasn’t recovered.” “Why?” asked ...
Read full article: Five grim years
Linear Technology has announced 100V to 30V bi-directional two phase synchronous buck or boost controller, intended for cars with 48V+12V dual battery electrics. “12V automotive systems are reaching their 3kW power limit due to the ever-increasing demand for more electrical devices. A proposed standard, LV148, combines a secondary 48V bus with the existing 12V system,” ...
Read full article: 250A bi-directional converter for 12/48V dual-battery automotive
Electronics Weekly’s IoT Design 2016 event took place in London last Thursday, at CodeNode. ‘Making IoT work for us’ was the title, and a notable theme that emerged across the conference was the promising development of the Internet of Things (IoT) in smart buildings. IBM It started with IBM’s emerging technology specialist Nick O’Leary (pictured ...
Read full article: IoT Design 2016: Smart Building good: smart Home bad
Intel has teamed up with London-based IoT services company Telit Communications to create a series of system development platforms for the industrial internet of things node designs. Intel will adopt Telit’s deviceWISE IoT device management architecture for its IoT platform which it will use to support the design of IoT nodes for remote machine monitoring ...
Read full article: Intel teams with UK web company for industrial IoT
Fujitsu Laboratories and the Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute have today announced the development of a new method to simultaneously convert the wavelengths of wavelength-division-multiplexed signals necessary for optical communication relay nodes in future wavelength-division-multiplexed optical networks, and have successfully tested the method using high-bandwidth signal transmission in the range of 1 Tbps. In the conventional ...
Read full article: Fujitsu and Fraunhofer demo 1Tbps transmission
Rohm will show matrix-style LED headlamp controllers at Electronica in Munich in November. Matrix headlamps use an array of LEDs to allow arbitrary beam shapes to be produced – dip, main, anything in between, and anti-dazzle dark spots withing beams. “Matrix/Pixel LED dynamic front lights and dynamic sequential turn indicators mark the latest developments in ...
Read full article: Electronica: Rohm gets into LED headlights
The Architects of Modern Power (AMP Group) consortium today announced an additional standard aimed at establishing common mechanical and electrical specifications for the development of advanced power conversion technology for distributed power systems. The ‘gigaAMP’ standard, introduced to provide a higher current option in a land-grid array (LGA) footprint, builds on the previously-released ‘picoAMP’ standard, ...
Read full article: AMP Group announces gigaAMP standard
