Each week, the editor of Planet Analog finds items of interest and then features them in two sections, entitled “Also of Interest” and “Elementals”. Each cites items from publications outside the Planet Analog and EETimes portfolios.

“Also of Interest” and “Elementals” is an extension of our belief that engineers are interested in on-going tutorial on obviously relevant topics, as well as the serendipity of exploring topics which are not directly related to their jobs, but which will broaden their knowledge and sometimes spurs innovative and creative approaches. The first box highlights a items of general interest to the engineer, while the second highlights basic and tutorial electronic-engineering material.

Among the publications we check are IEEE Spectrum , Machine Design , Design News , Laser Focus World , EDN , Electronic Design , NASA Tech Briefs , Portable Design , and Physics Today , plus others.

Consider these items as “online-only” extras, and worth a look. (Please note: there are also links to the previous weeks' editions, at the bottom).

Also of Interest:

• Digital prototyping has become an essential tool to speed design cycles:
  “Spend Your Time Engineering, Not on Differential Equations,”
  Machine Design , December 11, 2008
• If you want a crash simulation involving plastics to yield useful results, it is important to model the material behavior appropriately:
  “FE Update: Simulating Plastics in Drop and Crash Tests,”
  Machine Design , December 11, 2008
• Advances in optical microscopy have enabled unprecedented achievement in metrology and imaging.:
  “Nanaoscale Metrology: Scatterfield optical imaging enables sub-10 nm dimensional metrology,”
  Laser Focus World , January 2009
• Vision for an unmanned aerial vehicle is critical to that vehicle performing its intended task, often in a hostile setting that is unsuitable for manned aircraft:
  “UAV Vision: Rigors of unmanned aerial vehicles challenge vision technology,”
  Laser Focus World , January 2009
• Uncured composite material is intertwined with metal studs, then cured:
  “Improved Joining of Metal Components to Composite Structures,”
  NASA Tech Briefs , January 2009

Elementals:

• Here are a number of manufacturers' recommendations and other notes on design, handling and processing of circuits on common substrate materials:
  “Design Notes for Laminates and Other Substrate Materials,”
  High Frequency Design , December 2008
• A brief look at few of the most common areas where decisions must be made, such as dynamic range, bandwidth, power consumption, cost, and analog vs digital:
  “A Few Common Design Tradeoffs,”
  High Frequency Design , December 2008
• Tune and test DDR memory:
  “Double data rate memory poses a tradeoff between performance and stability,”
  Test & Measurement World , December 2008
• Motorola's latest LANPlanner builds on its established predictive design technology, and helps you ease into 802.11n adoption:
  “Design for a Wi-Fi Future with LANPlanner,”
  Desktop Engineering , January 2009

Previous Editions:

• February 16, 2009
• February 9, 2009
• February 2, 2009
• January 26, 2009
• January 19, 2009
• January 12, 2009