Project Analog - January 2008 - (Page 3) Viewpoint Making SenSe of SenSorS By Murray Slovick mslovick@hearst.com Contents and ESD (electrostatic discharge) protection and shielding in order to provide an accurate measurement. Not to make this sound easy. As we discover in the article “System Integration Issues in Temperature Measurement Circuits,” there are quite a few factors to consider. Deployment of wireless temperature-monitoring networks via simple plug-and-play operation is the subject of Richard Comerford’s report “Wireless Sensor Networks Jump into the Market.” As Comerford points out wireless sensor networking has always made sense: it lets you put a sensor anywhere without the hassle and cost of running wires all over, especially in applications where the installation of wires is not feasible due to space or physical constraints. Contributing to the development of wireless sensor networks, Comerford notes, was the finalization and implementation of the ZigBee Alliance’s specification for a low-cost, low-power, two-way wireless communications protocol. This enabled vendors to integrate all the wireless sensor network components needed in a single chip. Whether you are an expert or just a novice, temperature measurement is an important topic and we hope this edition of Project Analog helps you to evaluate the many sensor and circuit options available. Finding new, better ways to do old things has become the mantra of today’s engineer. “Better” in the electronics vernacular usually means faster, smaller, lighter and less expensive. Recent developments in sensor technology certainly fit all of these requirements. Lots of embedded applications depend on input from sensors, and often the performance of the entire system can be determined by the quality of these inputs. Viewpoint Wireless sensor networks Temperature sensing technology Analog news “Better” in the electronics vernacular usually means faster, smaller, lighter and less expensive. In particular, in this issue we focus on temperature sensors, which are used in embedded systems for thermal monitoring and protection as well as management applications. There are numerous technologies and sensors available for measuring temperature, among the more popular are thermistors (or temperature-sensitive resistors), RTDs (resistance temperature detectors) and thermocouples. For the designer developing a temperature sensing system, in addition to evaluating the sensor along with accompanying conditioning circuitry he or she also must consider system integration issues such as the location of the sensor (e.g., moving the processor closer to the sensor), how to interface the sensor device to a microcontroller and EMI (electromagnetic-interference) noise Microchip analog page Thermal management overview Sample center microchipDIRECT Reference designs/ app notes Technical training • 3 · projeCt analog · jan 08 http://www.microchip.com http://www.microchip.com/analog http://www.microchip.com/analog http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=2543¶m=en021419&pageId=79 http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=2543¶m=en021419&pageId=79 http://sample.microchip.com/Default.aspx?testCookies=true http://www.microchipdirect.com/catalogselection.aspx?returnURL=default.aspx http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=1469&filter1=function&redirects=appnotes http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=1469&filter1=function&redirects=appnotes http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=1423
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