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Monthly Archives: August 2006

PIC MCU kit cuts development costs

Thursday, August 31, 2006

Microchip Technology has announced that its PICkit 2 development programmer now supports in-circuit debugging of selected PIC microcontrollers, allowing anyone to begin developing with PIC MCUs quickly and inexpensively. The $49.99USD PICkit 2 Debug Express Kit includes a 44-pin PIC16F917-based demo board, a programmer, USB cable, and CDs. Its in-circuit debugging capabilities include halt, single [...]

Filed in Software/Development Tools | | Comments (0)

Cholesteric LCDs, tiny 1.3-Mp imager, RF MLCC, disk-drive enclosure

Thursday, August 31, 2006

Today’s new product picks at Electronic Products: Segmented and graphical cholesteric LCDs from Kent Displays have a viewing area of 7 x 27 mm A CMOS image sensor from Avago Technologies is the first 1/5-in. optical format, 1.3-Mpixel small-form-factor device An 0805-size RF multilayer ceramic capacitor from AVX features an ESR of less than 0.01 [...]

Filed in ICs & Discrete Semis, Optoelectronics, Packaging & Connectors, Passive Components, Product News | | Comments (0)

Light sensors, hi-cap switcher, BTSC decoder, HDMI 1.3 receiver/transmitter

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Today’s new product picks at Electronic Products: Light-to-digital-output sensors from Intersil have a 380 to 770-nm visible light range An ac/dc switcher from Rubycon America uses a bank of double-layer capacitors to retain power for a minimum of 4 s A digital BTSC TV-sound decoder from AKM Semiconductor eliminates many of the components needed in [...]

Filed in ICs & Discrete Semis, Optoelectronics, Power Sources, Product News | | Comments (1)

Fone Phun

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Port-O-Rotary is an old rotary telephone that’s been converted to cellular service by Spark Fun Electronics (Boulder, CO) — a prototyping-supplies company started four years ago by a group of Colorado students. Not only does the company sell converted phones (at prices from $400 to $500), but also a complete $200 kit that will let [...]

Filed in Boards & Peripherals, ICs & Discrete Semis, Packaging & Connectors, Product News | | Comments (0)

Wedge LED lamps, RGB LED array, USB+Power interconnect, RoHS-type vents

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Today’s new product picks at Electronic Products: Wedge-based LED lamps from JKL Components eliminate maintenance issues in products that have to perform outdoors or in places difficult to access An RGB LED array from TT electronics OPTEK Technology can deliver almost any color at up to 221 lm A shielded I/O interconnect system from FCI [...]

Filed in Optoelectronics, Packaging & Connectors, Product News | | Comments (0)

Terrorist-free shipping

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has contracted L-3 Communications (New York, NY) to provide 30 cargo-container security-device prototypes for field testing. The devices would automatically detect threats that no other sealed-cargo screening technology can discover in real time. Designed to give officials an early warning of potential cargo theft, product tampering, or the presence [...]

Filed in Industry News, Sensors & Transducers, Technology News | | Comments (0)

New imaging technology peers deeply into how a fuel cell operates

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Here’s a good example of your tax dollars at work… Thanks to a new and improved imaging instrument at the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), scientists now can conduct detailed surveillance on the comings and goings of water inside hydrogen fuel cells—a piece of intelligence key to making the technology practical [...]

Filed in Technology News | | Comments (0)