In Milwaukee Next Wednesday - Attend Avnet's Embedded World

Please attend our Avnet Embedded World event next Wednesday - www.em.avnet.com/avnetgreatlakes_embeddedworld 

Bluetooth Low Energy Training

Are you getting started in Bluetooth Low Energy, have you already done a few designs?  TI has some training videos depending on your experience.  Check it out at this link - link.

What's your Bluetooth low energy expertise level? (Which training is right for you?)

Check out the new Zynq board - MicroZed

Team, For $199 you can get the new Zynq FPGA with a lot of great peripherals in this great development board called - MicroZed.  Zynq is the new SoC from Xilinx with two ARM A9 application processors combined with programmable logic.  This board comes with a license to the design tools and can even be customized to be used directly into products. To learn more check out this link - link.

Need a DIY Solder Stencil - Use a Soda Can!

Even though solder stencils are available from low cost sources, I did find a useful article outlining how to go through and make your own solder stencil.  It uses a soda can and uses Eagle as the EDA layout tool to explain the in depth tutorial.   Check out the link - link.

New Atmel Software Framework Released

I spent some time this week playing with the new SAM4S, SAM4L, and SAM D20 new ARM microcontrollers from Atmel.  The new software tool in Atmel Studio made it easy to create simple projects.  The framework is the Atmel Software Framework and it allows you to add perhiperal features in a straight-forward manner.  Check out more at the link - link.

Maxim Turns 30!

I missed the day as I was on vacation but I found a good link with a video talking about the history of Maxim Integrated - [link]

Understanding Slew Rate of Op-Amps

Bruce Trump writes:

Slewing behavior of op amps is often misunderstood. It’s a meaty topic so let’s sort it out.
The input circuitry of an op amp circuit generally has a very small voltage between the inputs—ideally zero, right? But a sudden change in the input signal temporarily drives the feedback loop out of balance creating a differential error voltage between the op amp inputs. This causes the output to race off to correct the error. The larger the error, the faster it goes… that is until the differential input voltage is large enough to drive the op amp into slewing.

Slew Rate – the op amp speed limit - [Link]