Jay Diepenbrock

If you are missing your engineering tools, or would like to build up your home lab, or want to finally work on that hobby electronics project you’ve put off for the last five years, or you want to introduce your kids to the thrill of measuring or simulating, now would be a good time to consider our list of free or very low-cost hardware and software simulation tools.

There seems to be more standards every day, and some have rumored that there is a movement to merge or consolidate some existing standards. We will examine some of the standards and how they came to be. For starters, we will limit ourselves to three main types of standards in the industry: on-board or internal, input/output (I/O), and networking. I/O and networking are similar, but networking standards typically apply to longer distance links than I/O standards. There is, as often happens, overlap between these types, and some, such as PCI-express, have standards that apply to more than one of them.

Wondering about the practical uses of the proposed IEEE P370 standard? This  paper shows some applications of the draft IEEE P370 standard in order to demonstrate its effectiveness for interconnect measurement.

The fixtures used to characterize interconnects in complex systems can have a significant effect on the measured data, read on to get the background and perspective on IEEE P370. Check out this Outstanding Paper Award Winner from EDI CON USA 2018.

Many of us are familiar with the IEEE for its technical conferences, and development and publication of technical standards.  A far smaller number of us know that it’s also a humanitarian organization, with a motto of “Advancing Technology for Humanity.”  This article is about that little-known aspect of IEEE.