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This app note from Texas Instruments focuses on understanding and interpreting datasheets for logic ICs. [via]
To assist component and system-design engineers in selecting Texas Instruments (TI) standard-logic products, this application report is a synopsis of the information available from a typical TI data sheet. Information includes a brief description of terms, definitions, and testing procedures currently used for commercial and military specifications. Symbols, terms, and definitions generally are in accordance with those currently agreed upon by the JEDEC Solid State Technology Association for use in the USA and by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) for international use.
Understanding and interpreting logic IC datasheets - [Link]
Based on scientific research, the distance of a thunderstorm can be statistically calculated from the observation of lightning flashes and thunder sounds. The US National Weather Bureau suggests the 30-30 rule when lightning is imminent: when a flash is seen and the thunder is heard less than 30 seconds later, the storm is within 10 km.
The AS3935 from austriamicrosystems is a programmable Lightning Sensor IC that detects the presence and approach of potentially hazardous lightning activity in the vicinity. It detects intra-cloud activity as well as cloud to ground flashes, often enabling risk to be evaluated for approaching storms. The new chip detects lightning activity as it approaches from up to 40 km away which provides a much longer distance for lightning warning. In addition, the device identifies and rejects interference signals from common man-made sources such as: fluorescent lighting, motors, microwave oven, switches, etc.
The flexible IC allows for configurability that allows the part to work both indoors as well as outdoors, just changing the gain setting in a register. [via]
World’s First Lightning Sensor IC Detects Lightning up to 40 km Away - [Link]
Two independent touch switches housed in a single 8 pin chip. Power supply between 2V and 5V. New version 2.0 has Individually configurable momentary or latching operation.
Have you have ever wanted to add a simple touch switch to your project? Well now you can with our touch switch IC you can now add momentary or locking touch switch functionality.
Outputs can be momentary or latching
- For momentary operation connect the CFG1 / CFG2 pin to Ground.
- For latching operation, connect the CFG1 / CFG2 pin to +VDD.
Touch Switch IC - [Link]
The SMD Codebook is a comprehensive internet database of the two and three letter codes used to mark small surface mount parts. This is an indispensable resource for repairing and reverse engineering SMD circuits. [via]
SMD devices are, by their very nature, too small to carry conventional semiconductor type numbers. Instead, a somewhat arbitrary coding system has grown up, where the device package carries a simple two- or three-character ID code. Identifying the manufacturers’ type number of an SMD device from the package code can be a difficult task, involving combing through many different databooks. This HTML book is designed to provide an easy means of device identification. It lists over 3,500 device codes in alphabetical order, together with type numbers, device characteristics or equivalents and pinout information. Sometimes I’m asked to put IC information in the codebook. There is some information about ICs – but first and foremost the codebook is intended for discrete devices. Some ICs have been included, usually these are 3/4 pin devices or RF circuits I’m interested in.
Identify surface mount part codes online - [Link]
Sam Byford writes:
NEC has been developing its organic radical battery (ORB) technology for a while, and today it unveiled the latest iteration. The newest ORB is a 0.3mm (0.012 inch) flexible battery that’s designed to fit into integrated circuit (IC) cards, commonly used for public transport payment, credit cards, and suchlike. Standard IC cards are 0.73mm thick, meaning the addition of a battery shouldn’t prove too taxing on your wallet. Furthermore, the battery can be printed directly onto the IC card as part of the manufacturing process, and the surrounding 0.05mm polymer film can incorporate circuit boards with small components like antennas.
0.3mm thin ‘organic radical battery’ can be printed - [Link]
Basics: Open Collector Outputs @ Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories – [via]
One of the joys of working with basic digital electronics– and logic gate ICs in particular –is that it almost works like building with a set of Lego blocks: One output goes here, which connects to the next input here, and so forth until it does what you wanted.
If you’ve played with chips like these, you’ve probably also come across chips with “open collector” outputs. And if not, they’re worth knowing about. Open-collector outputs form the basis of a number of clever tricks for level-shifting and interfacing between different types of logic, and from logic to other types of electronic circuits.
In what follows, we’ll work with the SN7407N, which is one of the most basic ICs with open-collector outputs. We’ll discuss what it means to have “open collector” outputs, and show some of the different ways that they are used.
Basics: Open Collector Outputs - [Link]
In 2010 Maxim acquired Teridian Semiconductor to create a device portfolio for Smart Metering applications. Recently a new device was added, the 78M6631, which is a highly integrated three-phase power measurement and monitoring system-on-chip (SoC) with a 10 MHz 8051-compatible processor core. Designed for a wide variety of applications requiring three-phase power and quality measurements, it is available with preloaded firmware that supports both delta and wye (Y or star) three-phase configurations. [via]
3-Phase Power Monitor on a Chip - [Link]
Here’s a comprehensive guide to IC packages from Texas Instruments. The list includes everything from standard 3 pin TO-220 to 732 pin ball-grid-array packages. Dimensions and pin spacing are provided on all of them. [via]
App note: In depth IC packaging reference - [Link]
EEVblog made a SMD hand soldering tutorial. In the video Dave explains how to solder small SMD capacitors and resistors, all the standard size pitches for ICs up to a 0.5mm pitch, as well as some tips how to use large thermal pads, like adding thermal paste or preheating the board and the IC. [via]
Surface mount soldering tutorial - [Link]
SAN FRANCISCO – Apple Inc is famous for relying on low-cost Asian manufacturers to both source and assemble its popular gadgets, but the consumer device giant recently started receiving a critical component in its iPad and iPhones from closer to home – Texas.
The A5 processor – the brain in the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 – is now made in a sprawling 1.6 million square feet factory in Austin owned by Korean electronics giant Samsung Electronics, according to people familiar with the operation.
One of the few major components to be sourced from within the United States, the A5 processor is built by Samsung in a newly constructed $3.6 billion non-memory chip production line that reached full production in early December.
Nearly all of the output of the non-memory chip production from the factory – which is the size of about nine football fields – is dedicated to producing Apple chips, one of the people said. Samsung also produces NAND flash memory chips in Austin…
Made in Texas: Apple’s A5 iPhone chip - [Link]
