Analogue and Discretes

The ‘Bell Swoosh’ will determine the pattern of the semiconductor industry recovery, according to Dave Bell, CEO of Intersil in a talk to the Globalpress Summit Conference in Santa Cruz today.

Linear Technology has introduced a front-end over-voltage and over-current protection chip that stops errant power supplies blowing up portable electronics. "Overvoltage events can occur due to power adapter failure or faults...

Protection from electrostaic discharge in hot-swappable systems can be implemented both on and off the board, writes Richard Wilson To protect hot-swappable boards from electrostatic discharge, Rittal has come up with an electrostatic discharge (ESD) facility which is designed to remove all built-up charge from the front panel of the plug-in board and so brings the panel to protective earth potential. ...

The high-side current source from austriamicrosystems works with up to 2x500mA with two LEDs in serial configuration and up to 720mA with one LED

"The acquisition will significantly increase our overall industrial business, which will become our largest end market at approximately 31% of revenue," said Intersil CEO Dave Bell

Guest columnist Harry Holt, applications engineer at Analog Devices, believes that two into one is a relevant question when designs need more than one operational amplifier

Analog Devices has introduced industry's most accurate monolithic digital-to-analogue converter. Designed in Edinburgh, the AD5791 20bit DAC has 1ppm resolution and accuracy, sub 1ppm noise and 1µs refresh.

Pushed by power efficiency requirements, integrated audio amplifier architectures are settling down, with Class-D at the top end and Class-AB at the bottom, leaving a little gap in the middle where Class-G is flourishing.

Accelerometers, compasses, gyros and RF switches can be made cheaply in the metal layers over CMOS , claims Barcelona-based Baolab Microsystems.

The chip includes a transmitter, receiver, and active filters in a 3x3mm TQFN package. “This is x100 smaller than discrete designs,” said Maxim