EE HomePage.com Educational & Career Development Resources for Electrical and Electronics Engineers

MEMS Accelerometers
This is a nice, 17 page, introduction to MEMS accelerometers. It starts with a basic introduction to MEMS, moves on to capacitive plate sensing and demodulation, sensor noise characteristics, applications and MEMS fabrication.

System and Circuit Design for a Capacitive MEMS Gyroscope
This 279 page PhD Thesis from the Helsinki University of Technology discusses 1 and 2 degree of freedom resonators, the Coriolis Effect, mechanical-thermal noise, and bulk and surface micromachining. It reviews a number of published microgyroscopes, discusses synchronous demodulation, resonator excitation, capacitive readout and more.

Theory and Design of Micromechanical Vibratory Gyroscopes
This 20 page excerpt from The MEMS/NEMS Handbook provides a "general approach to the analysis of the dynamics and errors of different types of micromechanical vibratory gyroscopes as well as calculation of their performances for application in the design of such gyroscopes."

Robust Micromachined Vibratory Gyroscopes
This 257 page PhD Thesis does a nice job of explaining the theory of MEMS angular rate sensors (AKA gyroscopes). It provides a basic introduction to the Coriolis response, which forms the theoretical basis for vibratory gyroscopes. It discusses different types of suspension structures, damping effects, drive mechanisms, etc.

Design And Analysis Of MEMS Angular Rate Sensors
This 81 page Master's thesis from the Indian Institute of Science (2006) discusses different MEMS gyro designs (two for out-of-plane motion, and two for in-plane motion), damping mechanisms, equivalent lumped parameter models and simulated results.

Studies on CMOS Digital-to-Analog Converters
This 276 page thesis surveys D/A architectures, covering basic D/A conversion, behavioral modeling, current-steering D/A converters and oversampling D/A converters.

The Design of Band-Gap Reference Circuits: Trials and Tribulations
This brief article by Bob Pease gives a quick introduction to band-gap circuits, and progresses to discuss layout problems, startup problems, oscillation issues, voltage errors and modeling problems.

Control of Stepping Motors - A Tutorial
This web-based tutorial on stepper motor control has hidden depths you won't notice when opening the page. But take the time to click on the links in the "Index", and you will find a nicely illustrated set of tutorials done from a practicioner's perspective.

A Practical Guide to Low Power Design
This free 168 page text published by PowerForward.org discusses the design of low power ICs with an emphasis on the use of the Common Power Format (CPF).

Phase Noise: Theory versus Practicality
This article from the April 2008 issue of Microwave Journal "discusses different time bases and their properties, crystal oscillator properties, phase noise definition and calculations, ways to reduce phase noise in oscillator design, real oscillator phase noise plots, and outside noise/interference effects on phase noise. It will be shown that phase noise is unavoidable but manageable."

Open Verification Methodology
Mentor Graphics and Cadence Design Systems collaborated on the "Open Verification Methodology", which they have now offered up for public consumption. The OVM website states "The OVM is based on the IEEE 1800 SystemVerilog standard and supports design and verification engineers developing advanced verification environments that offer higher levels of integration and portability of Verification IP. The methodology is non-vendor specific and is interoperable with multiple languages and simulators. The OVM is fully open, and includes a robust class library and source code that is available for download."

Understanding the LIN PHY layer
If you know how to use a basic UART, but can only go "Duh" when the subject of LIN communications comes up, then take a 5 minute coffee break and read this quick and dirty introduction to LIN communications. It will help you to bridge the gap.

Quadrature Encoding Explained
Quadrature encoding is a method for conveying speed and direction data encoded in only two signals. This EEHP tutorial shows how the signals might be generated, and how to interpret them.

BTC M850 Optical Mouse Teardown
At EEHP, we both do and read product teardowns for their educational value. This report looks at the inner workings of an optical mouse, providing both theory and implementation details.

Make Your Next Design As Solid As A Rock
If you need a quick introduction to crystal oscillators, this article is for you. Four pages of text and figures introduce you to the topic and discuss oscillator options and specifications you should know about.

BRL-CAD
From the BRL-CAD website: "BRL-CAD is a powerful cross-platform Open Source combinatorial Constructive Solid Geometry (CSG) solid modeling system that includes interactive 3D solid geometry editing, high-performance ray-tracing support for rendering and geometric analysis, network-distributed framebuffer support, image and signal-processing tools, path-tracing and photon mapping support for realistic image synthesis, a system performance analysis benchmark suite, an embedded scripting interface, and libraries for robust high-performance geometric representation and analysis."

SAGE: Open Source Mathematics Software
Sage is a comprehensive open-source mathematics software suite that has the mission statement "Creating a viable free open source alternative to Magma, Maple, Mathematica, and Matlab".

Autodesk Alias Studio Personal Learning Edition
Autodesk AliasStudio Personal Learning Edition is a special version of the AliasStudio 3-D design tool; providing free access for non-commercial use. The free version of the tool offers almost every feature included in the full commercial version.

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