EngineerZone Spotlight

IEC 61800-5-2 is an industrial standard which covers the functional safety of variable speed drives. In effect it tells you how to build a safe motor control circuit. In this blog I will discuss an example circuit found in Annex B of IEC 61800-5-2 to...

In April's post, you may have read that our support forums have been blooming with questions and answers. As we approach the summer months, many people take time off for rest and relaxation, but our support forums have not shown any signs of slo...

Welcome back to our quarterly blog post series, ADI's New Product Round-up. This blog shares...

I’m going to start this blog with a Steven Hawking quote “Someone told me that each equation I included in the book would halve the sales.” Nevertheless, I decided to proceed with this topic but there is only one equation and I will...

You've probably heard of the saying... April showers bring May flowers. In EngineerZone, did April questions bring timely solutions? Many of our forums suggest that they did. Our support forums are blooming with questions and answers...

I was trying to decide on the topic for this month’s safety matters blog, so I went for a run and I decided to do the blog on the topic of diagnostics. Other contenders were two different book reviews or something on reliability predictions for...

Spring has a way of reenergizing humans and the community. In EngineerZone, this past month has reinvigorated our products, applications, and design...

What is time? Everybody knows what it is, but it is hard to explain what it is to someone else. The opening sentence in the Wikipedia entry for time isn’t bad – “Time is the indefinite continued progress of existence and&n...

Although February is the shortest month of the year, EngineerZone was not short on content or knowledge sharing. A well-deserved shout-out goes to...

Here is one for the functional safety nerds. I find that every time I study the diagrams for 1oo2 and the matching equations I realize some new insights. I have tried to capture some of my understanding and insights in the blog below. I am sure there...

Stay up-to-date on the latest new products from Analog Devices! Introducing our quarterly blog post series, Product Round-up. This blog will provide a summary of products featured in press releases from the previous quarter, so you can stay well...

It's a new year, and we're rounding up the top viewed content in EngineerZone in the past month. This list will bring you the most popular blog posts, hottest threads, and more. From functional safety to radio, there is something for everyone...

In my first blog of 2021, I will go back to a purely technical topic and discuss the functional safety of 4/20mA networks. I often make use of 4/20mA examples to explore functional safety questions due to their simplicity and the fact that...

After a year of functional safety blogs, this is my last one of the year. It is a Christmas blog if you like. Similar to last Christmas this blog has a somewhat tenuous connection to functional safety but there is a connection. I like to imagine myse...

When Lee de Forest invented the first electronic amplifier tube (the Audion) in 1906 the iconic inventor gave us the foundational invention needed to kick-start the development of long-distance telephone, radio, radar, and the first computers. Since ...

Several blogs ago, I devoted a blog to a review of the book, Digital Woes: Why We Should Not Depend On Software. This blog is also a book review, but the book, Paper Safe: The Triumph of Bureaucracy in Safety Management, is much more recent...

Today I will be writing about the ADRF5740 attenuator, one of the newest solutions from Analog Devices designed for 10 MHz to 60 GHz communication systems. The ADRF5740 does what its name suggests, it attenuates – lowers - the strength of incom...

Smoke detectors are a key part of any fire escape plan. Join ADI on Twitter to ask a question live on Wednesday, November 11th at 10 AM Eastern Time. Grainne Murphy, Marketing Manager Industrial and IoT Solutions Group, Brian Coffey, P...

A while back (actually a long while back), when we were planning a new family of ultra-low power, high performance industrial DAC’s, we surveyed our customer base and one reoccurring theme we heard was “how can you make Functional Safety ...

Failure of a system can result from deliberate or non-deliberate means. The deliberate means are handled by our cyber security colleagues and functional safety is generally more concerned with failures caused by non-deliberate random and systematic f...

The following scenario was recently presented to me: A sleepy father finally gets his fussy baby to sleep when a smoke detector, possibly sensing steam from an over-heated bottle of formula, blares a needless, high-pitched alarm. The baby – and...

I recently had the pleasure of hosting a panel at the virtual IEEE International Microwave Symposium to discuss RF and microwave design challenges and emerging trends across several markets, including aerospace and defense, instrumentation and wirele...

Economies of Scale is so easy to understand even those of us who have trouble balancing a checkbook can grasp the concept. Increasing output can lower the cost of production, thereby increasing profits and lowering the price of goods to the consumer....

Could MacGyver bring down a surveillance drone hunting him using only a speaker? Although seemingly impossible, the ever-resourceful MacGyver could not only take over a drone, but also eavesdrop on your conversations and track your movements – ...

Verilog is an HDL (hardware description language). The other common HDL is VHDL. These languages are used to design and verify digital circuits. The topic of today’s talk is to explore whether these HDL are software in the sense of IEC 61508-3,...