“Device DNA” can protect your design and embedded code from cloning, overbuilding, and reverse-engineering while still using outsourced manufacturing and assembly facilities.

Measuring low currents can be tricky. Clever analog-design techniques and the right parts and equipment can help.

Today’s embedded design engineer is faced with the challenge of ever-increasing system complexity. A typical embedded design may incorporate various analogue signals, high- and low-speed serial digital communication, and microprocessor buses, just to name a few. Serial protocols such as I2C and SPI are frequently used for chip-to-chip communication, but cannot replace parallel buses for all applications.

Early Switch-Mode Power Supply (SMPS) designs used a standard approach referred to as “Voltage Mode” operation. A ramp generator drove one input of a voltage comparator, and the error signal from the error amplifier/ loop-filter drove the other input