USB has become the most successful PC peripheral interconnect ever defined, with over 10 billion USB 2.0 products installed today. Still, despite its convenience, USB has never been either the fastest or the lowest-power interconnect protocol out there. USB 3.0 seriously attempts to address both of those problems. USB 3.0 promises a "SuperSpeed" data rate of 5Gb/sec, a 10x improvement over USB 2.0 while at the same time reducing power consumption. How can they do that you ask? More

Over the past few years, electronic ink has been showing up in an increasing number of end-user products. Approximately ten years ago, there were a couple of competing approaches to implementing electronic ink, but E-Ink's approach has found the most visible success of moving from the lab and viably existing in production level products, such as e-readers, indicators for USB sticks or batteries, as well as watch, smart card, and retail signage displays. More

ON Semiconductor Completes Acquisition of CMOS Image Sensor Business Unit from Cypress
 ON Semiconductor has completed its acquisition of the CMOS Image Sensor Business Unit (ISBU) from Cypress Semiconductor in an all cash transaction for approximately $31.4 million, subject to adjustment under the purchase agreement.

 Imec reports reconfigurable radio solutions enabling low-power spectrum sensing and low cost
 Imec presents a digital front-end component for low-cost and low-power spectrum sensing, paving the way to power-efficient cognitive radios and networks. The new results support industry's search for increased flexibility and reliability for their next-generation wireless devices.

 Skyworks Powering Multiple LTE Platforms
Skyworks Solutions, Inc. today announced that its extensive LTE product portfolio continues to gain traction with leading handset OEMs and smart phone providers and is at the heart of several new, yet unreleased 4G devices slated for launch later this year.

 MediaTek Adopts Mentor Graphics Calibre PERC as its ESD and Circuit Reliability Verification Solution
 Mentor Graphics Corporation today announced that MediaTek, Inc. has adopted the CalibreR PERC product as its solution for electrical rule checking (ERC) to help ensure comprehensive electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection and increase overall product reliability.

 First Android operating system port available as open source code
 Power.org, the open collaborative organization that enables, develops and promotes Power Architecture technology, announces the first Android operating system (OS) port available as open source code for the embedded community.

 VIA Technologies Adopts Mentor Graphics Calibre PERC for Critical ESD Checking
Mentor Graphics Corporation today announced that VIA Technologies, Inc. is adopting the CalibreR PERC electrical rule checking product to ensure that electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection meets established guidelines to help prevent circuit failures and design re-spins.

 Accellera Approves New Version of Electronic Design System Modeling Standard
Accellera announced today that its Board of Directors approved a new version of Accellera's Standard Co-Emulation Modeling Interface (SCE-MI) specification as a new Accellera verification standard. Version 2.1 speeds up electronic design verification since it allows a model developed for simulation to run in an emulation environment and vice versa.

Fundamentals of Solar: Grid Connected

Photovoltaic (PV) solar technology is at the heart of the multi-billion dollar clean/green/renewable energy industry, powering everything from road signs to entire cities. This course covers the fundamentals of grid-connected PV systems, with the aim of providing engineers with a good overview of the technologies, topologies and electronics that make up such systems.

Fundamentals of Microcontrollers

EE Times Fundamentals course provides an introduction to microcontrollers (MCUs) including usage and selection of the devices. The course also includes a video explaining showing how to get started with an mbed evaluation kit.