Latest IC Design Articles and Videos

Tips and techniques for incorporating EFM8 microcontrollers into your custom hardware.

Tips and techniques for incorporating EFM8 microcontrollers into your custom hardware.

An FPGA is a crucial tool for many DSP and embedded systems engineers. However, the learning curve when getting started…

An FPGA is a crucial tool for many DSP and embedded systems engineers. However, the learning curve when getting started can be fairly steep. This project introduces the Quartus II and ModelSim software suites as well as a background on FPGA design flow for system on chip development. The development board used was a Terasic DE1-SoC, which has the Altera Cyclone V SoC chip. This IC contains an FPGA and an integrated ARM Cortex A9 as a hard processor system.

Impress your friends and family by learning how to implement a finite state machine in VHDL

Impress your friends and family by learning how to implement a finite state machine in VHDL

An AC-DC wall adaptor gets disassembled to see what components are used to build it, then the purpose of each component…

An AC-DC wall adaptor gets disassembled to see what components are used to build it, then the purpose of each component is analyzed.

This article covers information essential for understanding and designing the hardware needed for an I2C bus.

This article covers information essential for understanding and designing the hardware needed for an I2C bus.

This article covers the essential characteristics and prominent advantages of the Inter–Integrated Circuit (aka I2C)…

This article covers the essential characteristics and prominent advantages of the Inter–Integrated Circuit (aka I2C) serial-communications protocol.

Take a few minutes to characterize a light dependent resistor (LDR) and you can build a simple and reasonably accurate…

Take a few minutes to characterize a light dependent resistor (LDR) and you can build a simple and reasonably accurate light meter can be built using an LDR and an Arduino.

The internet is chock full of amazing resources for electrical engineers. We've rounded up some of the best ones.

The internet is chock full of amazing resources for electrical engineers. We've rounded up some of the best ones.

Tiny Arcade has launched a tremendously successful Kickstarter campaign with their ingenious blend of novelty and…

Tiny Arcade has launched a tremendously successful Kickstarter campaign with their ingenious blend of novelty and quirkiness. Learn all about it!

Here's a rundown of three boards best suited for beginning to intermediate FPGA designers. Some boards cost thousands of…

Here's a rundown of three boards best suited for beginning to intermediate FPGA designers. Some boards cost thousands of dollars, and it’s unrealistic to compare a board of that cost to a board that a hobbyist would likely choose, so this comparison looks at three popular boards in the sub-$90 price point.

This article discusses style mistakes in PCB layout that can make assembly and debugging PCBs difficult. This is vital…

This article discusses style mistakes in PCB layout that can make assembly and debugging PCBs difficult. This is vital for designers!

The boost converter is a DC-DC converter used to created an output voltage that is higher than the input voltage. Boost…

The boost converter is a DC-DC converter used to created an output voltage that is higher than the input voltage. Boost converters are also used to drive LEDs placed in series in products like LED flashlights. The boost converter suffers from vulnerability to a short circuit load. Learn how to protect them from shorts!

NXP demonstrated its Thread Platform at ARMTechCon last week. Based on the JN5179 wireless MCU, with Secure Element, NFC,…

NXP demonstrated its Thread Platform at ARMTechCon last week. Based on the JN5179 wireless MCU, with Secure Element, NFC, Thread encryption, its own dc/dc converter and featuring ARM's mbed OS, the Platform makes secure home automation application design a whole lot easier.

In the last installment, we built the hardware to control an AC waveform with a TRIAC as the first step in a DIY solder…

In the last installment, we built the hardware to control an AC waveform with a TRIAC as the first step in a DIY solder reflow oven. This tutorial continues the project by showing you how to set up the low-level hardware to measure temperature, read the zero-cross detector, drive the TRIAC, and print to the serial terminal using a USART.

Connecting a PICAXE to the IoT through an ESP8266 module is easy once you know the process. Here are the details you need!

Connecting a PICAXE to the IoT through an ESP8266 module is easy once you know the process. Here are the details you need!

Insight into the November ARM conference and advice from Mike Muller, ARM's CTO, on how to be successful with the IoT.

Insight into the November ARM conference and advice from Mike Muller, ARM's CTO, on how to be successful with the IoT.

Having introduced the general negative feedback structure, we will now demonstrate that negative feedback has a…

Having introduced the general negative feedback structure, we will now demonstrate that negative feedback has a beneficial effect on two important characteristics of amplifier circuits.

Part two of a series of articles on building a robot that can follow lines or walls and avoid obstacles! This time we'll…

Part two of a series of articles on building a robot that can follow lines or walls and avoid obstacles! This time we'll be covering PCB design.

Part one of a series of articles on building a robot that can follow lines or walls and avoid obstacles!

Part one of a series of articles on building a robot that can follow lines or walls and avoid obstacles!