EngineerZone Spotlight

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,...

Eager to increase the yields of their crops and improve margins on their business, farmers have embraced tech. One example is the GPS-guided tractor or harvester. There’s even a new term for this trend - Precision Agriculture. You’re not...

Where the data is born. Have you heard that phrase before? Coined right here in our cyber security organization, it evokes imagery of tiny 1s and 0s nestled in cribs. Ok, illustrative metaphors aside, it really does perfectly explain ADI’s posi...

Solar panel arrays can be seen everywhere these days. Just outside my office workers are finishing the installation of a large solar array on top of a new parking garage here at Analog Devices’ Wilmington campus. In my neighborhood I see severa...

2020 and the lockdown restrictions due to COVID-19 has made me think a lot more about my personal safety. I have watched closely how technology has reacted to safety needs. I’ve seen examples of innovation being pivoted quickly to healthcare ne...

The path of the photograph as we know it today began a thousand years ago when Iraqi scientist Abu Ali Al-Hasan Ibn al-Haytham built a device, later known as a camera obscura, which projected images onto a wall. It wasn’t until the late 1830s w...

Today’s automotive market is not the same old “tried-and-true” supply chain that has existed for decades. New carmakers, such as those in Silicon Valley and China, are entering the market with radically new vehicle architecture...

Reducing noise in electronic circuits has been a challenge for designers since 1844 when, from the Capitol dome in Washington, D.C. Samuel Morse tapped out “What Hath God Wrought” in Morse Code to a waiting audience at Baltimore’s U...

This week I started reading a paper entitled “Certification cost estimates for future communications radio platforms”. I really like the V model given in the paper as it shows a nice way of capturing software, hardware and an ASIC develop...

One of the greatest challenges facing designers of very high frequency receivers is accurately and quickly determining the strength of the incoming signal. Anyone who enjoys watching a TV show on their favorite streaming service knows the frustration...

Remember those colored building bricks from our childhood? Countless hours spent clicking, creating, and then dismantling to start again. The ease in which we could create a world and then take it apart just as quickly. What if evaluating tech soluti...

“Ouch! That hurt.” You bet it hurt, with thousands of volts of electricity discharging from our fingertips to that doorknob. Lucky for us, the electro-static charge may be high in voltage but very low current, so all we hurt is our pride...

By September 16th, 2017 the people on the island of Puerto Rico were aware of a large hurricane heading across the mid-Atlantic towards the Caribbean. No stranger to the destructive power of hurricanes, long-time residents still trembled at reports o...