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New Library from Microchip Brings Touch and Gesture Functionalities to Familiar Microcontrollers

New Library from Microchip Brings Touch and Gesture Functionalities to Familiar Microcontrollers

Touch displays often require specialized touch controllers to drive displays, which can bump up the cost of final products. To mitigate cost increases, Microchip has just released a free touch library for use with most PIC, AVR, and SAM microcontrollers.


News May 31, 2018 by Robin Mitchell
Exactly How Schmitt Trigger Oscillators Work

Exactly How Schmitt Trigger Oscillators Work

This article is intended to help readers understand the good and the bad traits of Schmitt Trigger RC oscillators, which are especially important because they are present in the internal oscillator in popular MCUs.


Teardown Tuesday: BB-8 by Sphero

Teardown Tuesday: BB-8 by Sphero

In this teardown, we dismantle a BB-8 droid (or, at least, an RC toy version) to see what's inside.


News May 15, 2018 by Mark Hughes
NXP Semiconductors OM40002 Development Board for LPC8N04 MCU | New Product Brief

NXP Semiconductors OM40002 Development Board for LPC8N04 MCU | New Product Brief

NXP’s OM40002 is a development board for the NFC-enabled LPC8N04 Arm Cortex-M0+-based MCU.


MCUs Eye Software Add-Ons to Boost IoT Security

MCUs Eye Software Add-Ons to Boost IoT Security

Security is becoming a key beneficiary in the evolution of software development kits (SDKs) in the IoT era.


News May 14, 2018 by Majeed Ahmad
Save for Your Own Royal Wedding (of Sorts) with the Gentleman Maker’s Savings Incentivizer

Save for Your Own Royal Wedding (of Sorts) with the Gentleman Maker’s Savings Incentivizer

In this project, we'll use a Raspberry Pi to create a responsive piggy bank that belittles you when you slack on your savings!


Projects May 10, 2018 by Robin Mitchell
SiP, SoC, SoM, CoM—What’s the Difference?

SiP, SoC, SoM, CoM—What’s the Difference?

What's the difference between SiP, SoC, SoM, and CoM?


News Apr 02, 2018 by Chantelle Dubois
Microsoft Experiment Looks Into the 7 Properties of Highly Secured Devices for IoT

Microsoft Experiment Looks Into the 7 Properties of Highly Secured Devices for IoT

A team from the Microsoft Research New Experiences and Technologies (NExT) Operating Systems Group has been working on methods to introduce high level security in IoT microcontrollers, coming up with a list of seven properties they believe are essential for protecting devices and could be easily implemented by any manufacturer.


News Mar 29, 2018 by Chantelle Dubois
An Electronically Resettable Hot Swap Smart Fuse from ON Semiconductor

An Electronically Resettable Hot Swap Smart Fuse from ON Semiconductor

ON Semiconductor offers their new hot swap smart fuse which is an electronically resettable and programmable in-line fuse for high-current applications.


News Mar 07, 2018 by Nick Davis
How to Generate Manchester-Encoded Data in Hardware and Firmware

How to Generate Manchester-Encoded Data in Hardware and Firmware

This article discusses implementation details for a simple yet effective technique that can improve your digital communication.


USB Type-C: An Autonomous Port Controller with I2C and GPIO Control

USB Type-C: An Autonomous Port Controller with I2C and GPIO Control

In this article, we look at ON Semiconductor's FUSB303, which is a fully autonomous USB Type-C controller.


News Feb 26, 2018 by Nick Davis
Design a Custom Microcontroller Programming and Testing Board

Design a Custom Microcontroller Programming and Testing Board

In this article we’ll discuss the design for a custom microcontroller programming/debug/extension PCB and we’ll look at an example project.


Projects Feb 25, 2018 by Robert Keim
Makeblock Neuron: A Study in Modular Design

Makeblock Neuron: A Study in Modular Design

The Makeblock Neuron is a collection of magnetically linked blocks that provides a reliable, easy to use experimentation platform for young inventors.


News Feb 11, 2018 by Mark Hughes
Are Designers Still Using the Vortex86? Two Places an Old CPU Showed Up at CES 2018

Are Designers Still Using the Vortex86? Two Places an Old CPU Showed Up at CES 2018

Among the robots and self-driving cars at CES 2018, a bit of old technology made a surprising appearance: the Vortex86 Series CPU.


News Feb 08, 2018 by Mark Hughes
Capacitive Control Panel PCB Design Considerations for TI’s MSP430FR2633 Microcontroller

Capacitive Control Panel PCB Design Considerations for TI’s MSP430FR2633 Microcontroller

This article provides a closer look at the PCB design considerations and programming of a custom capacitive touch interface device.


Solving the Power Challenges of Integrating Multiple GbE Interfaces

Solving the Power Challenges of Integrating Multiple GbE Interfaces

An exploration of how new mid-range FPGAs can perform bridging functions for Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) links while addressing the issue of low power consumption.


Simplify Your Life with an Analog Window Detector

Simplify Your Life with an Analog Window Detector

This article, part of AAC’s Analog Circuit Collection, presents a simple yet effective replacement for ADC-based window detection.


Building a Capacitive Touch Interface with the Texas Instruments MSP430FR2633

Building a Capacitive Touch Interface with the Texas Instruments MSP430FR2633

The MSP430FR2633 is a low-power microcontroller with multiple GPIOs and capacitive touch pins. This project creates a circuit that supports a custom capacitive touch panel with LED and haptic feedback.


Projects Jan 12, 2018 by Mark Hughes
Designed for Aerospace Applications: A Radiation-Tolerant Microcontroller from Microchip

Designed for Aerospace Applications: A Radiation-Tolerant Microcontroller from Microchip

Microchip's ATmegaS64M1 AVR microcontroller offers enhanced radiation protection, an extended temperature range, and increased reliability for space and aerospace applications.


News Jan 10, 2018 by Nick Davis
The Hardware Side of Bioinformatics: Protein Sequenator to Raspberry Pi

The Hardware Side of Bioinformatics: Protein Sequenator to Raspberry Pi

Computational biology turned sequencing into a routine laboratory process, and today computer technology helps analyze a wide variety of molecular biology information.


News Jan 03, 2018 by Chantelle Dubois