If you’ve ever been in a hospital bed, or seen a loved one in a hospital bed, hooked up to a cluster of electronic sensors; the thought has to have crossed your mind, “A person could get a bad electrical shock from one of those.”  Analog Devices has introduced a low cost solution to help [...]

Microchip Technology Inc. is introducing two 8-bit MCU families and one 16-bit family.  According to Microchip, these MCUs provide the world’s lowest sleep power, even lower than the already low sleep power figures for its existing nanoWatt XLP 8-bit and 16-bit MCU families.  The new MCUs can operate in a deep sleep mode using down [...]

The RFCMOS, BiCMOS, BCD and analog market is an area of the semiconductor industry that has never been viewed as mainstream.  These markets have traditionally depended on proprietary products and technologies which demand a significant investment of time and brain power.  Many companies shied away from this segment because it just wasn’t sexy enough, or [...]

On May 14, 2009 Texas Instruments announced it had acquired Luminary Micro, the leading supplier of ARM Cortex-M3 based microcontrollers.  The Stellaris family of Cortex-M3 MCUs will be added to TI’s product portfolio.
The entire Luminary Micro team in Austin, TX is joining TI.  The Stellaris family will become a brand name within TI.  The tools [...]

In the middle of a financial crisis, automobile makers worldwide are facing an enormous gamble.  While sales and profits are at a low point, they are being forced by events to invest in hybrid electric vehicles that have an unproven demand.�
Taxpayers are angry.  They believe that their tax money is being used to rescue car [...]

http://www.automotivedesignline.com/guest_blogs/
Picking on US automakers today seems like piling on, but I have a beef.  Why do US companies always seem to be the last companies in the world to adopt new automotive electronic technologies?  There are many examples, but two will suffice.  In the mid nineties it was J1850 for multiplexing.  The world was [...]

Who could have imagined Chrysler Corp. being rescued by Fiat?  When Fiats last appeared in the US automobile market, they were viewed by most US drivers as quirky little cars from Italy with maintenance problems.�
I owned a Fiat 124 Sport Coupe during the late sixties.  For the time, it was a great car.  It had [...]