March 2011

Let’s pretend for a moment that you’re a design engineer at a company making an industrial control device or a medical instrument.  You’ve got the digital portion of your design pretty well nailed, but there is a 4mA to 20mA process control loop and some isolation issues that you’re a little concerned about.  Although you could design some analog circuits to solve these problems, you’re really a digit-head.  It would take a lot of your time, and you’re not sure you would get it right the first time.  What to do? Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI) has solved your problem.  ADI has recently introduced an expanded version of the company’s Circuits from the Lab^TM reference circuits.  These are not reference designs.  They don’t tell an engineer how to design an entire system.  Rather, they provide lab-tested circuit designs for some common analog circuits that give design engineers problems.  Some examples are ADC drivers, DAC outputs, RF or IF circuits or isolation circuits.  A complete list is available on the ADI website. In addition to the circuit design, ADI also provides circuit documentation test data and is now offering PCB layout files, software device drivers and, in some cases, evaluation hardware.  The purpose is to provide a deeper understanding of the circuit so that an engineer can easily trouble-shoot any glitches that might crop up.

The strongest earthquake ever recorded in Japan occurred Friday at 2:46 PM local time.  The earthquake and resulting tsunami were so powerful, the island shoreline was moved 8 feet!  Following the massive 8.9 earthquake was a tsunami that unleashed further devastation.  In the ensuing hours, additional damage reports coming from Japan reveals how damaging this quake really was.  Two nuclear facilities with a total of five reactors received severe damage.  One facility that contains three reactors is an older GE design commonly found in the U.S. as well.

As of today, there have been two explosions.  An explosion shattered the building housing the nuclear reactor on Saturday.  Although government officials are claiming that the metal containment vessel surrounding the reactor is still intact, clearly the situation is getting worse, not better.  Rods have been exposed twice, resulting in a partial meltdown.  At this point, the best case scenario will be to stop the nuclear reaction, cool the facility down, encase it in concrete, and abandon the facility.  This would leave Sendai in an electricity deficit from the closure of 3 to 5 reactors.  This certainly will cause some problems for the semiconductor and related manufacturing facilities in this area as they are electric power hogs.