IQ-Analog - EEWeb

EEWeb
PULSE
Mike Kappes
President and CEO
IQ-Analog
INTERVIEW
EEWeb.com
EEWeb.com
Issue 64
September September 18, 2012
Electrical Engineering Community
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EEWeb PULSE TABLE OF CONTENTS
Mike Kappes
IQ-ANALOG
Interview with Mike Kappes - Founder, President and CEO of IQ-Analog
Featured Products
Preparing Our Next Generation of Young
Engineers for Success
BY STEVE DARROUGH WITH ZILOG
The importance of teaching students the relationship between specialized micro-elements and
the total process of product design.
Homemade Tools - Part 1
BY PAUL CLARKE WITH EBM-PAPST
An outline of how to design your own tools that will help you pursue your own unique task.
RTZ - Return to Zero Comic
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EEWeb PULSE
49
EEWeb | | Electrical Engineering Community
Mike
Kappes
IQAnalog IQ-Analog

How did you get into electrical
engineering and when did you
start?
My uncle is an MIT graduate in
Mechanical Engineering and he
sparked an interest in gadgetry at an
early age. My wish list for birthdays
was always loaded with items from
Edmund Scientific. I had a natural
curiosity about how things worked
and the fact that my parents could
provide no clear answers made
electronics all the more interesting.
I had several science projects in my
youth culminating in the permanent
dismantling of a personal computer.
What have been some of your
influences that have helped
you get to where you are
today?
My mom was a former biochemist
from NASA who would take me on
field trips to science labs at local
universities. I realized there was
still a lot of mystery as to how things
worked and that electronics in
particular was an exciting field with
a lot of mystery. While other kids
may have liked Captain Kirk, I was
a fan of Spock. He knew everything
about everything. Kirk was just
bumbling around in the darkness.
How did you decide to start
your own company?
I have worked in multiple chip
companies— several of them
start-ups—and I developed a lot
experience in analog circuit design
for communications. Along the
way, I developed an emphasis on
data-converter technology, which
was becoming more and more
important in these systems. As an
engineer, I’ve always aspired to
change the world in some small
way. I decided I wanted to start a
group that developed a new class
of data converters that leveraged
digital signal processing to enhance
performance with greater efficiency.
When I first started out, it was a little
bit of a shock because I went from
having a stable salary to no income
with only a few months of cushion.
I was lucky to find a short-term
project with a local company as a
design engineer working on-site for
them. After that project was done, I
had a technology component that I
owned which I could leverage for
the next project. From there, it was
one project after the other until I
had licensed enough intellectual
property to other companies to afford
to build our team. It has steamrolled
in the last 3-4 years to where we have
the critical mass to balance our IP
licensing business with advanced
research and development of the
technology need to roll out our own
integrated circuit product line.
How many employees do
you have at IQ-Analog and
how you would describe the
culture?
We currently have seven employees.
It’s a fun place to work. We are
addressing client problems that
are difficult to solve. We are very
service-oriented and we all interact
with our customers. As a result of the
personal relationships we develop,
we have heightened responsibility
and ownership of our engineering
activities. If the customer’s
expectations are not fully met, then
there is a personal consequence to
that. The oppposite is also true that
their is a great sense of satisfaction
in solving complex problems for our
clients.
What particular technologies
are you licensing to other
companies?
We develop intellectual property (IP)
that is used to perform some form of
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INTERVIEW
analog interface or data converter
function on a client’s integrated
circuit product. It is all analog hard
macro circuit design. We develop
the circuit architectures, perform
the circuit design and layout and
package the IP as a software bundle
ready for integration. We are a very
hardware-focused company and we
like to take our own test-chips into
the lab and do testing to validate our
performance expectations.
Engineering prowess
has created the
largest corporation
in the world out of
humble beginnings
in a garage. I
don’t think we
give [America]
enough credit for
our contributions
to society.
Our company is currently working
on the advancement of analog
interface technologies, in particular
data converters, for 4G base station
equipment. Data converters are
marching up the signal chain
replacing RF components while
enhancing data rates and system
performance. We are working
to provide more advanced data
converters to enable higher
performance and lower cost cellular
networks.
5

EEWeb PULSE
What kinds of companies are
buying your IP?
We have licensed our IP around
the globe for a myriad of
applications. The trend lately has
been toward servicing femtocell
and picocell products which are
essentially consumer-grade cellular
basestations. We have also seen
a lot of attention from companies
developing semiconductors for
wireless transceivers that provide
data back-haul from base-station
to base-station. Integration has
historically been the pathway
to enable lower cost wireline
communications systems (ethernet,
DSL, etc) and the same is holding
true for wireless communications. It
is a natural evolution enabled both
by advances in process technology
and the the ingenuity of creative
engineers doing more with the
transistors made available to them.
Do you have any note-worthy
engineering experiences?
I have over 20 patents in analog
circuit designs. My greatest
accomplishment to date has been
building IQ-Analog into a company
that enabled me to attract worldclass
engineering talent. Our
greatest accomplishment together
is yet to come.
What challenges do you
foresee in our industry?
The biggest issue I see as an
entrepreneur is the scarcity of other
emerging start-up semiconductor
businesses. This is not a good sign
but is indicative of the vacuum left
behind when venture capitalists
vacated semiconductors about 5
years ago. There has been no source
of capital to fill this void. I would like
to see a federal government initiative
to keep our edge in semiconductors
over emerging countries who are
6
EEWeb | Electrical Engineering Community
My greatest accomplishment to date
has been building IQ-Analog into a
company that enabled me to attract
world-class engineering talent.
Our greatest accomplishment
together is yet to come.

investing state dollars and creating
an uneven global playing field.
Is there anything that you
have not accomplished yet,
that you have your sights on
accomplishing in the near
future?
That’s a big question. Obviously,
I want to take my company to new
heights and reward our employees
for all of the hard work we have
invested over the last 7 years. After
that I’d like to contribute to our local
community. Qualcomm has been
a fantastic corporate role model in
the San Diego community. I’d like to
follow their lead in an appropriately
smaller way.
Do you have any advice for
the electrical engineering
community?
I believe that America is still the
leader in creative and independent
thinkers. Engineering prowess has
created the largest corporation in
the world out of humble beginnings
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INTERVIEW
in a garage. I don’t think we give
ourselves enough credit for our
contributions to society. It is an
honorable profession and I think we
need to be sure this message gets
across to the next generation. ■
Visti IQ-Analog’s website:
7

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O C T O B E R 2 2 - 2 5 , 2 0 1 2
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Expert Panel: The Auto Industry
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Model-based Development
Simulation: Expert Insights into
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Cost Effective HIL for Rapid Prototyping
Virtual HIL test/ISO 2626 using
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Introduction to Velocity Lab
Infotainment & Instrumentation
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QuantiPhi for RL78: The Fastest
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Simulation: Moving Development
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Active Safety Solutions
Graphic System Design Considerations
Insights into MCU & Mixed Signal
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Working with AUTOSAR
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Improve a Product’s User Experience
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MICON Racing – Qualify using
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HEV/EV Traction Motor Control Lab
Computing Architecture
Renesas Next-generation
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The Core Difference: When the
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RH850 & RL78: Introducing the Next
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Benchmarking using EEMBC
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Connectivity
Industrial Ethernet
Instant Connectivity for the
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PLM-1 Modem
Renesas Connecting through
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CMX TCP-IP
LibUSB: Create a Solution Without
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CAN In a Day:
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IR and Bluetooth Connectivity
Using the RL78
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Getting Started with Renesas
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Introduction to e2studio, The New
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Getting the most out of the Renesas
Demonstration Kits (RDKs)
Trends in Embedded Software
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High-performance Compiler
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Getting the Most Out of the GNU
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Getting Started with e2studio, The New Eclipse-based IDE
from Renesas
Introduction to the RX Arduino
Using Embedded Tools for I2C, SPI,
and USB Debugging and Development
on the Renesas RX63N RDK
Seeing Inside your Target at
Run-time with µC/Probe
Advanced Debugging with
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Migration from HEW to Eclipse
Migration from Cube Suite to Eclipse
Using Software Building Blocks for
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VectorCAST Tools:
A Complete Test Environment for
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Using a Renesas Code-generation
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e2studio Advanced Topics
Advanced Debugging on RX with
IAR Embedded Workbench
Security
NFC Ecosystem and Solutions
Hardware Roots of Trust –
A Foundation for Security
Security Solutions for the
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Security Solutions Part 1: Javacard
Applet Development Training
Security Solutions Lab 2: Secure
Host Firmware Upgrade using
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Human Machine
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Audio Solutions on the RX MCU
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Enhance Embedded Designs with
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Using Altia to Design a GUI and
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Extreme Makeover with the RX600:
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Direct-drive LCD Software
Integration for the RX62N/RX63N
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Industrial Controls GUI Application
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Flat Panel Displays: Touch Panel
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Flat Panel Displays: How to Overcome
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IGBT vs. Mosfet:
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How to Make Your House Smarter
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Optical Isolation, SSR Switching,
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Know your Precise Position with
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Using ThreadX and IAR Embedded
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Introduction to RoweBots’
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Embedding USB: Implementation
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FreeRTOS Lecture
Rapid Development on the Renesas
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Introduction to Python
Software Development with an Open
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HTML5 HMI Development with QNX
Developing Next-gen Automotive
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Getting Started with Micriµm’s
µC/OS-III Kernel
Embedding TCP/IP: Working
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Introduction to the .NET Micro
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System Design
Technologies
Are all Batteries Created Equal?
A/D Converter Fundamentals
Designing Modern Medical Systems
Digital Filtering on a MCU
Infinite Runtime: Energy Harvesting
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Moving from 8-bit to 32-bit MCUs
Battery Management
ADC Resolution: Myth and Reality
Exploring the Safety Features of
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Increase the Dynamic Range and
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RL78 Project Configuration Tips
RX Project Configuration Tips
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Creating Virtual EEPROM on
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Embedded Systems Bootcamp

EEWeb PULSE
Preparing Our N
of Young Enginee
Success
Steve Darrough
IXYS-ZILOG - VP of Marketing
H ow can the engineering industry help the
next generation of young engineers get prepared
for their real-world careers in product design? As
we teach the bright young minds of engineering,
who may be already be experts in their own
specializations, about the micro-elements of
components and platform development, it is also
crucial to help them understand the relationship
between these specialized micro-elements and
the total process of product design.
12 28 EEWeb | | Electrical Engineering Community

TECH ARTICLE
ext Generation
rs For
Visit www.eeweb.com
13 29

EEWeb PULSE
The general complexity of most technology naturally
encourages engineers to specialize within their
particular areas of system design. Because most
technologies are so complex, it often takes a specialized
team to work on the particular elements of a design.
An example of this scenario is the hardware element,
which can be segmented into areas such as power and
control, and even further into more specialties of solar
cells, motor control, and data management. Even in
addition to these areas, there is a need for design of
software applications, development environments, and
other elements. All of these elements of a technology
can be further segmented into functional areas such
as wireless communication, code libraries, and often
many other dependences. A young engineer may find it
beneficial to specialize in one of these areas, and ignore
the work of other areas entirely. However, in order to truly
be successful, he still must have some understanding of
the overall process of product development, as well as
the ability to work with engineers and others involved in
product development.
When first entering the workplace, one of the
challenges young engineers face is to be tasked with
designing new systems; they quickly come up against
many different types of challenges as to how they must
manage their interactions given these dependencies.
Typically, if one team is working on a power system or a
communications transport block, this team may have a
different perspective, knowledge set, or understanding
(based on their area of focus) than that of another team
involved in the development of a different aspect of the
same product. Individual teams may witness that each
of the other key teams has requirements or processes
that are different in some ways than their own. This is
why it is critical that new engineers develop a broad
understanding of how the company’s groups are each
working together toward completing a new product.
Marketing, Sales, Engineering, Manufacturing, and
Fulfillment — each have different SOPs and processes
they follow in delivering their teams’ element of
focus within the context of the final production result.
Engineers should be taught about the importance of
different areas of product development, and offered an
overview of their function, preferably before entering
the workforce, in order to avoid costly and ineffective
mishaps.
One of the ways to help young engineers develop a
broader focus is to encourage the many fine engineering
universities to educate their students early on about
process. Learning about process is great training for the
14 EEWeb | Electrical Engineering Community
real world. However, the focus is often put on teaching
engineers to be productive as quickly as possible,
which may seem to benefit a company quickly, as young
professional engineers hit the ground running and
begin producing results quickly. However, even if these
students are encouraged to begin rowing as fast and
hard as they can, the results are empty unless they are
rowing together with the group. Most of us engineers
who are well into our careers have witnessed a wide
variety of experiences and have learned to more-or-less
row together, but for those just coming out of school,
suddenly being asked to think about process and work
with others (rather than simply focus on their one small
specialty area) can be quite challenging.
So what can we do about helping prepare and together
proactively “invest” in the next generation of talented
engineers coming into the workforce? I propose a few
ideas – things we all can consider:
• Don’t wait. Get involved now with educational
platforms that are designed to hit the mark for students.
• Offer up reference designs that are relative to today’s
technology trends.
Zilog Educatio

nal Platform
• Promote special engineering programs that support
the schools. Don’t just throw a few dollars at it; instead,
get your senior engineers to participate to some extent
in those programs.
IXYS and Zilog currently administer an engineering
program in the Philippines with 65 young engineers
who are looking at entire system designs, and who are
designing solutions as teams. Through this program,
students build an understanding about “the entire
process. “ The goal is to get students to understand
that although engineering is a critical part of achieving
optimum results, the process of product development
works best when all aspects of a project are considered
and there is interdependency between different
groups. Students in the program learn that a singular,
linear development process – as opposed to a parallel
process involving interaction with multiple groups –
may ultimately slow a project down (and possibly even
cause critical areas and loss of key reasoning) and in
the end can create new, larger, problems that will hinder
the final result.
These days, when Zilog hosts our “meet and greet”
presentations to students, we first present a holistic
TECH ARTICLE
overview of our university program. The presentation
begins by completely examining the developmental
stage of product development and proceeds to examine
the process all the way through to the launch of the
product and even examines the customers will actually
be buying the product or service. We next define
the entire process and explain how each part of the
organization works in tandem to achieve the best result
of producing a competitive product. All departmental
groups and/or stakeholders are identified as to their
contributions so that the big picture is well-defined.
To cement understanding as to why we’re focusing
on these process points, we also share examples of
missteps or areas in which past programs endured
serious setbacks due to lack of understanding, lack of
communication, and/or plain old sandbox politics.
All of this is food for thought no matter your role, be
it Senior Engineering Manager running your own
development environment, or Executive Director
determining how you will invest in the next generation
of talented engineers. Helping new engineering hires
come to understand the complete developmental
lifecycle as it relates to producing real-world
applications will likely improve the success of your own
products and businesses. The most important resource
in any company is its people. The better engineers,
employers, and teachers understand a company’s
systems and how much more can be accomplished by
working in teams, the need for investment in a broad
education will be clear. Hopefully one day we will see
the results of such education manifest itself in both the
acceleration of new designs and improved end results.
About the Author
Steve Darrough is Vice President of Marketing at
IXYS- Zilog. Steve joined Zilog in 2008. Responsibilities
include management of Zilog marketing presence
from brand to product development and driving the
strategic campaigns for demand creation and growth.
Steve possesses more than twenty years of technical
engineering and marketing management experience,
leading branding and marketing programs. Prior to
coming onboard with Zilog, Steve held marketing
management and technical engineering roles at Intel
Corporations for over 14 years where he had several
teams driving new technologies directly relating to the
current products initiatives, his teams drove worldwide
programs in evangelizing new technologies and
accelerate adoption. Steve has a Marketing Degree
from the University of Oklahoma.
Visit www.eeweb.com
15

1.2A High Efficiency Buck-Boost Regulators
ISL9110, ISL9112
The ISL9110 and ISL9112 are highly-integrated Buck-Boost
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and provide excellent efficiency due to their fully synchronous
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The ISL9112 supports a broader set of programmable features
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The ISL9110 and ISL9112 require only a single inductor and very
few external components. Power supply solution size is
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switching frequency, which further reduces the size of external
components.
July 13, 2012
FN7649.2
VIN =
1.8V TO 5.5V
C1
10µF
STATUS
OUTPUTS
5
8
7
ISL9110IRTNZ
PVIN
6
VIN
10
MODE
9
EN
BAT
PG
GND
11
VOUT
VOUT =
3.3V/1A
1
LX1
L1
2.2µH
LX2
FB
12 C2
10µF
PGND
3
FIGURE 1. TYPICAL APPLICATION
4
2
Features
• Accepts Input Voltages Above or Below Regulated Output
Voltage
• Automatic and Seamless Transitions Between Buck and Boost
Modes
• Input Voltage Range: 1.8V to 5.5V
• Output Current: Up to 1.2A
• High Efficiency: Up to 95%
• 35µA Quiescent Current Maximizes Light-load Efficiency
• 2.5MHz Switching Frequency Minimizes External Component
Size
• Selectable Forced-PWM Mode and External Synchronization
•I 2C Interface (ISL9112)
• Fully Protected for Overcurrent, Over-temperature and
Undervoltage
• Small 3mmx3mm TDFN Package
Applications
• Regulated 3.3V from a Single Li-Ion Battery
• Smart Phones and Tablet Computers
• Handheld Devices
• Point-of-Load Regulators
Related Literature
• See AN1648 “ISL9110IRTNEVAL1Z, ISL9110IRT7EVAL1Z,
ISL9110IRTAEVAL1Z Evaluation Board User Guide”
• See AN1647 “ISL9112IRTNEVAL1Z, ISL9112IRT7EVAL1Z
EvaluationBoard User Guide”
EFFICIENCY (%)
100
95
90
85
80
V IN = 3V
V IN = 5V
Get the Datasheet and Order Samples
http://www.intersil.com
V IN = 2.5V
75
VOUT = 3.3V
70
0.01 0.05 0.25 1.25
IOUT (A)
FIGURE 2. EFFICIENCY
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Homemade
Tools Part 1
Whether you’re a full-time engineer or a hobbyist, it’s
important to recognize the value and potential of your
tools. Even more useful than simply understanding
the value and proper use of tools, however, is knowing
how to build your own specialized tools, or ones that
will work well for new, perhaps unforeseen tasks. It is
also helpful to be able to build your own tools if you are
working with limited resources. Homemade tools can
be very valuable items, and knowing how to make your
own tools can free you from many limitations.
18 28 EEWeb | | Electrical Engineering Community
In the first part of this miniseries, I will outline the
process of designing and constructing a tool that will
help me pursue a unique task- in this case, remote data
logging. I hope to demonstrate that you can use off-theshelf
kits to build your own specialized, and possibly
more effective, tools.

Paul Clarke
Electronics Design
Engineer
TECH ARTICLE
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The purpose of this exercise is to focus on the process
of building new tools and reusing kits, rather than to
focus on the particular product itself. The particular
tool I am building is simply a vehicle with which I will
demonstrate the process of building new tools.
Figure 1: Magazine Hobby Project
My aims are a little extreme for a data logger—what I
want is a unit that can monitor analog and digital inputs,
but the data that I gather must both be recorded locally
and also available for downloading later. I’d also like to
be able to do this remotely, and to be able to start and
stop the logging at set time intervals. And — of course
— all of this has to be done wirelessly.
What I really need is a box that can be dropped anywhere
– even a place where power is no available—that can
carry out the local instrument recording. Because of
these special requirements, I will need to build a tool of
my own specifications.
The exact number of inputs for my project does
not matter because this is an example project, but
considering how many inputs you need is a good place
to start when building such a tool.
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After determining what your needs are, you should look
for a cost-effective platform to build your tool on. For
example, if you want to make your own multi-channel
logic analyzer, you would probably want to consider an
FPGA-based board. In my case, because analog inputs
and data storage are both important, kits such as the
Arduino, AVR, Microchip, and mbed boards jump to
mind. All of these have analog inputs, free programming
environments, available code to add on, and even welldocumented
interfaces for storage devices like USB
flash drives.
Kits like the Microchip development boards tend to be
focused on an application. Programming directly onto a
micro can also be too time-consuming—it will take time
to add libraries, debut, etc. For these reasons it’s easy
to see that the mbed and Arduino platforms stand out
as being quick and easy to work with, and since I want
some storage, the mbed seems to be the best choice for
this my example project. Not only does it have its local
file system that can store data, but it can also be used in
conjunction to an external USB Flash drive – it doesn’t

Figure 2: Mbed
need any hardware besides a physical connector. The
mbed is also quite fast, which should make grabbing
values from the ADC and digital inputs fast too — how
fast is yet to be seen.
Next on my detail list is the need for wireless capability.
There are, once again, lots of different wireless units
available that run on various protocols. For example,
I could use a network like WiFi, but I think this option
would require too much overhead, so instead, a simple
serial communication will work just fine. One of the
most popular serial communication modules around is
the Xbee.
Figure 3: Xbee
Xbee modules allow for complex mesh networks, or as
my project requires, direct point to point. However, this
also means that at the other end of the link, I will need
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the same type of Xbee compatible device to talk to my
computer – though that shouldn’t be a problem as Xbee
compatible devices are easy to make or buy.
My little project is coming together. In Part 2, I’ll take the
next step of starting to build the hardware and outlining
what else I will need as I proceed.
About the Author
Digital Electronics Engineer with strong software skills
in assembly and C for embedded systems. At ebmpapst
I’m developing embedded electronics for thermal
management control solutions for the air movement
industry. These controllers monitor environmental
inputs like Temperature, Humidity and Pressure and
then control the speed of our fans based on various
profiles. Our controls also interface with other systems
over RS232/485 or TCP/IP as well as a host of other user
or control interfaces.
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