Monthly Archives: March 2011

Exploring ABC Electronics in Minneapolis

Posted on March 29, 2011 by Stephen Trier

Exciting stuff is going on at work, but as often happens, excitement involves a bit of overtime. I spent last week in the Twin Cities, working with two test engineers to evaluate an ASIC during the day, and working on … Continue reading →

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Skywired’s new tutorial section

Posted on March 23, 2011 by Stephen Trier

I’m happy to announce a new tutorials section here on Skywired!  A click on “Tutorials” on the menu bar above will take you to a list of Skywired’s how-tos and explanations.  The first tutorial is about how to solder fine-pitch … Continue reading →

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Freescale’s SDR on a Chip

Posted on March 18, 2011 by Stephen Trier

Freescale has introduced a very nifty part, the MC13260 SoC Radio, where SoC is “System on a Chip”.  Picture for a moment a complete transceiver on a chip, including an 100 MHz ARM processor, a programmable DSP modem, a frequency … Continue reading →

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Building the ProASIC 3 nano FPGA board

Posted on March 15, 2011 by Stephen Trier

After a busy week spent traveling for work and a morning digging out from a surprise snowstorm, I had a great weekend with my family. It was Sunday night before I heated up the soldering iron and got down to business building the ProASIC 3 nano FPGA board.

I started with the toughest component, the FPGA. Its central location and low height means …. Continue reading →

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The FPGA boards are here… and they’re purple!

Posted on March 6, 2011 by Stephen Trier

Despite my last post mentioning the lateness of the breakout boards, it turns out they had already arrived.  The mailer was stuck between two magazines in the mail, so my wife and I missed seeing it.  I had hoped to … Continue reading →

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