Xilinx launches signal integrity website

24 October 2001 Analogue, Mixed Signal, LSI

Xilinx has announced what it says is the first website dedicated to signal integrity and the challenges engineers face as they design high-speed logic.

The Xilinx Signal Integrity Central site ( www.xilinx.com/products/signal_integrity.html) provides information on the fundamentals of signal integrity; PC board design and power supply considerations, simulation tools; and thermal characteristics.

"Engineers face far more difficult engineering challenges today than they did just a few years ago. Feature size reduction, and the need for reduced power consumption, have driven core voltages down from the old standard of 5 V to the 1,5 V range. This change in voltage and signal frequency content requires us to use new design practices and take into account electrical effects that could previously be ignored," said Erich Goetting, Vice President and General Manager of the Xilinx Advanced Products Division. "Xilinx is addressing these technical issues to help get design engineers over the technical hurdles and allow them to complete their designs quickly."

Signal integrity issues in high-performance designs have become a major concern in many companies. According to the company, with frequencies above 300 MHz and rise times of a few hundred picoseconds, engineers are now facing noise and signal reflections that complicate PC board design. These challenges affect performance, system development, and product introduction schedules.

Xilinx created the site to provide the necessary information to engineers to make the right design choices. They can also obtain the background to develop a cost-effective design with the minimum number of components. Previously, engineers could over- design a system. For example, to achieve acceptable levels of power supply noise, an excessive number of capacitors would be used - needlessly increasing cost and board complexity. Conversely, high performance designs that work in the lab could become problematic when stressed by changing environmental conditions.

For further information see www.xilinx.com/products/signal_integrity.html, or contact Kobus Botes, Memec SA, (021) 674 4103, [email protected]

Further reading:

A new era in modular I/O solutions
Rugged Interconnect Technologies Analogue, Mixed Signal, LSI
Aerospace and defence system designers are demanding scalable and high-performance I/O solutions and while traditional mezzanine standards have proven reliable, they often fall short of meeting modern bandwidth, size, and flexibility requirements.

Read more...

---

High voltage instrument op-amp
iCorp Technologies Analogue, Mixed Signal, LSI
The SGM621B is a high accuracy, high voltage instrumentation amplifier, which is designed to set any gain from 1 to 10 000 with one external resistor.

Read more...

---

High-speed SAR ADC simplifies design
Altron Arrow Analogue, Mixed Signal, LSI
The ADI AD4080 simplifies data converter integration by integrating a low drift reference buffer, low dropout regulators and a 16K result data FIFO buffer.

Read more...

---

2-wire quad voltage output DAC
Altron Arrow Analogue, Mixed Signal, LSI
The DAC has a 2-wire serial interface that operates at clock rates up to 400 kHz, and this interface is SMBus compatible, allowing multiple devices to be placed on the same bus.

Read more...

---

Dual-channel ADC for RF applications
RFiber Solutions Analogue, Mixed Signal, LSI
The ARF0471 from Advanced RF is a dual-channel, 14-bit, 3 GSPS ADC, which features an on-chip buffer and sample-and-hold circuit.

Read more...

---

Infineon launches Edge Ai software solution
Altron Arrow Analogue, Mixed Signal, LSI
Infineon has introduced DEEPCRAFT, a new software solution category brand for Edge AI and machine learning, after the company recognised the huge potential of Edge AI for the market.

Read more...

---

16-bit voltage output denseDAC
Altron Arrow Analogue, Mixed Signal, LSI
The AD5766 uses a versatile four-wire serial interface that operates at clock rates of up to 50 MHz for write mode, and is compatible with SPI, QSPI, MICROWIRE, and DSP interface standards.

Read more...

---

AFE enables the software-defined factory
Avnet Silica Analogue, Mixed Signal, LSI
With its software configurable analogue inputs, where each input can be configured for voltage, current, resistance, or temperature, NXP’s N-AFE enables a new level of flexibility.

Read more...

---

Precision voltage reference
Altron Arrow Analogue, Mixed Signal, LSI
The ADR1001 is a fully integrated, ultra-low drift, buried Zener precision voltage reference solution in a single chip.

Read more...

---

Microphones enable low-power always-on state
Avnet Abacus Analogue, Mixed Signal, LSI
TDK Corporation has announced its InvenSense SmartSound T5848 I2S microphones to enable intelligent keyword, voice command, and sound detection at ultra-low power.

Read more...

---