Magazine

Sarnoff Corporation has announced the development of four new analog-to-digital (A/D) converter macro cells for embedding in CMOS designs in which high-precision, high-speed operation at low power is important. The 8-bit, 10-bit, 12-bit, and dual 6-bit designs are available for licensing by...

Transparent furnaces are being developed for use in research on properties and processing of materials at high temperatures. Full optical access to the interiors of furnaces is intended to provide the capability for nonintrusive diagnosis and feedback control of the subtleties of high-temperature...

A worksheet has been constructed within the Microsoft Excel software system for converting raw particle-fallout data into percentages of obscuration; that is, percentages of areas obscured by particles on surfaces. These obscuration levels are needed for assessing contamination levels in...

A proposed analog/digital circuit would improve the accuracy of determining the time of occurrence of a peak in an analog waveform. In the past, the time of occurrence of the peak was determined by comparing the magnitude of digital data samples. The time or clock pulse associated with the peak...

DANST-PC is version 3.01 of a computer program for analysis of the statics and dynamics of spur-gear systems. ["DANST" signifies "Dynamic Analysis of Spur Gear Transmissions." A previous version was described in "Computing Stresses in Spur Gears," NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 19, No. 12 (December...

The rectangular-cross-section blades of a centrifugal secondary impeller in a ventricular-assist blood pump would be replaced with blades of wavy cross section, according to a proposal. As explained below, the resulting modification in the flow pattern would reduce the tendency toward...

High-performance electronic circuits would incorporate self-checking features for detection of radiation-induced single-event latchups (SELs), according to a proposal. The basic SEL-detection scheme calls for redundant circuitry and a current-voting scheme similar to voting schemes that...

In a proposed optical microscope, the focusing optics of a conventional microscope would be supplanted by a combination of a microchannel filter and an advanced electronic image sensor. Elimination of focusing optics would eliminate the need for the time-consuming focusing operation, making it possible to...

Simple optical devices called "scattering reticles" have been invented for calibrating Phase Doppler Particle Analyzers (PDPAs), which are optical instruments that analyze scattered light to determine the sizes and velocities of droplets. A scattering reticle comprises a polymeric...