iRVision®, Robot Link, and Collision
Guard. As many as 10 of them can be
linked through a network exchange of
robot positional data, and each can
be removed from its stand for integration into another machine. For details
and videos of FANUC bots in action,
drop by www.fanucrobotics.com.
input voltages from 4.5V to 17V,
allowing it to manage space-constrained 5V and 12V point-of-load
designs such as wireless base stations
and high density servers. Specs also
call for accuracy of + or - 1% over
temperature and 95% power
efficiency. Suggested pricing is $1.95
in 1,000 unit quantities. NV
MACHINE INTERFACE
MADE EASY
microcontroller, which features up to
40 MIPS performance, 128 kB of
Flash, 8 kB of RAM, and a full
complement of integrated peripherals.
For advanced HMIs, the kit includes
an OLED array display that is
supported by the free Microchip
Graphics Library, low-cost audio and
speech playback capability for user
prompts, and user-input capabilities.
For intelligent sensor processing
development, the kit board has a
tri-axial analog accelerometer
interfaced to the PIC24H, along with
example applications such as motion-sensitive gaming. The best part is that
you can pick it up for $59.98 at
www.microchipdirect.com.
INDUSTRY AND
THE PROFESSION
CLONE MAKER
GOES CHAPTER 11
■ Design your own machine
interfaces and sensor processors
with the MPLAB Starter Kit.
SMALLEST DC/DC
CONVERTER
INTRODUCED
If you’re interested in human- machine interfaces and intelligent
sensor processing designs, Microchip
Technology has a deal for you. The
recently released MPLAB Starter Kit
for PIC24H MCUs “includes everything needed to develop and evaluate
human-machine interfaces and
intelligent sensor processing for
embedded designs.” The kit is based
on the PIC24HJ128GP504 16-bit
If you’re tight on space and need a step-down DC/DC converter, you
might be interested in the latest model
SWIFT™ power management IC from
Texas Instruments ( www.ti.com).
Billed as the industry’s smallest single-chip, 6-A, 17-V step-down synchronous switcher with integrated FETs,
the TPS54620 is about half the size of
the usual multichip converters in a 3. 5
mm sq QFN package. The 1.6 MHz
monolithic DC/DC device supports
The protracted legal battle between Apple and Mac clone builder
Psystar ( www.psystar.com) appears to
be over, at least for now, as the latter
filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy late in
May. This effectively put a stop to
Apple’s lawsuit, which was scheduled
for a November trial. Psystar claimed
to have assets of less than $50,000
and somewhere between $100,000
and $500,000 in debts, with the
biggest creditor being the law firm that
has been defending it against the copyright infringement suit. The company
claims to have solid plans for continuing
in business, however, and as of this
writing is still online and selling its
machines, which start at $599 for a box
with a 2.5 GHz dual-core E5200 processor, 2 GB of memory, a 500 GB drive,
and OS X Leopard preloaded.
FACEBOOK WORTH
BIG BUCKS
Reportedly, social networking site Facebook ( www.facebook.com)
was experiencing some growth-related
cash flow issues earlier this year and
alleviated the problem by selling a
1.96% share in the company to Digital
Sky Technologies for $200 million.
A quick consultation with a pocket
calculator reveals that, assuming the
investors aren’t complete idiots,
Facebook must be worth a little better
than $10.2 billion. That may sound
pretty high but, in fact, Microsoft
shelled out $240 million for a 1.6%
bite of the company in 2007, which
would indicate that Facebook was
worth $15 billion at the time. Either
way, that’s a nice chunk of change for
a company that doesn’t have to manufacture, package, or ship anything.
14
August 2009
