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Friday, June 29, 2007

New Trends in RFID

Some active RFID tags include sensors such as temperature logging to monitor the temperature of perishable goods. Other sensors that have been married with active RFID include humidity, shock/vibration, light, radiation, temperature, and atmospherics like ethylene.

Non-silicon tags made from polymer semiconductors are currently being developed by several companies (PolyIC Germany, Philips Semiconductors Netherlands). If successfully commercialized, polymer tags will be roll-printable, like a magazine, and much less expensive than silicon-based tags.





Related Posts

http://www.hitechno.info/2007/06/operation-of-rfid-tag-example.html

http://www.hitechno.info/2007/06/applications-of-rfid-tags.html

http://www.hitechno.info/2007/06/problems-of-rfid-tags.html

http://www.hitechno.info/2007/06/new-trends-in-rfid.html

Problems of RFID tags

  1. No standard universal protocol defined yet, for the responding frequencies of RFID tags. (Frequencies in USA are currently incompatible with those in Europe or Japan).
  2. Security Problems – The tags which are world readable may pose a risk to privacy, military security etc.
  3. Since RFID systems make use of the electromagnetic spectrum they are relatively easy to jam using energy at the right frequency.
  4. Collisions may occur between readers and/or between tags.
  5. Implanted tag, to a person, can be read without his permission.

Related Posts

http://www.hitechno.info/2007/06/operation-of-rfid-tag-example.html

http://www.hitechno.info/2007/06/applications-of-rfid-tags.html

http://www.hitechno.info/2007/06/problems-of-rfid-tags.html

http://www.hitechno.info/2007/06/new-trends-in-rfid.html

Applications of RFID tags

Most common applications of RFID tags can be summarized as follows.

  1. Product tracking and identification – as a replacement for barcodes and barcode readers, library management systems, identification badges (American Express Blue™ credit card), container management systems in ports
  2. Passports – can keep records of the travel history (time, date, and place) of entries and exits from the country (e-passport Malaysia)
  3. Animal tracking – Implanted RFID tag can track the position of an animal
  4. Automotive – Long range access controlling of vehicles, embedded in keys to avoid duplicates(Honda CBR RR, Toyota Camry 2007, Toyota Avalon 2006, Lexus GS), Anti theft ignition system (Honda Civic, Ford Mustang)
  5. Automatic Logging, Security Systems – Implanted RFID tag can be used to log in to a PC or a Server with required hardware, and can be used for security systems (Banks)

Related Posts

http://www.hitechno.info/2007/06/operation-of-rfid-tag-example.html

http://www.hitechno.info/2007/06/applications-of-rfid-tags.html

http://www.hitechno.info/2007/06/problems-of-rfid-tags.html

http://www.hitechno.info/2007/06/new-trends-in-rfid.html

Operation of RFID tag - an example

Suppose a man with implanted RFID tag in his body, approaches to a door with a security lock based on RFID. Then following events will occur, between the lock and the tag.

  1. An RFID reader emits radio waves, which power the implanted tag. The reader sends an encryption password.
  2. The tag, which consists of a microchip and an antenna, checks the password. If it recognizes the password, the tag’s memory unlocks.
  3. The tag transmits a code stored in its memory back to the reader.
  4. The reader compares the tag’s code to a key code stored in the reader. If they match, the lock opens.
  5. The reader generates a new key and stores it, then sends the new key to the tag.
  6. The tag writes the new key into its memory.

Related Posts

http://www.hitechno.info/2007/06/operation-of-rfid-tag-example.html

http://www.hitechno.info/2007/06/applications-of-rfid-tags.html

http://www.hitechno.info/2007/06/problems-of-rfid-tags.html

http://www.hitechno.info/2007/06/new-trends-in-rfid.html

RFID - Radio frequency Identification

As the name implies, Radio frequency Identification (RFID) means the process that identifying objects by means of radio waves. A special device is used to identify the object uniquely, and is called as RFID tag or Radio tag. More precisely this is the process of relying on storing and remotely retrieving data using RFID tags. Nowadays this tag become very small and can be implanted to a product, an animal or even to a person for the purpose of identification by means of radio waves.

Commonly available RFID tag has two major parts. One is an integrated circuit for storing and processing information, modulating and demodulating a radio frequency (RF) signal and perhaps other specialized functions. The second is an antenna for receiving and transmitting the signal. RFID increases the speed and accuracy with which inventory can be tracked and managed thereby saving money for the business.


RFID tags come in three general varieties named as passive, semi-passive (also known as battery-assisted), or active.

Passive RFID tags

These types of RFID tags have no internal power supply to energize its internal circuitry. In the instance that a RFID reader emits its radio waves, the induced electrical current in the antenna of the tag produces the required power for the CMOS IC in the tag. From this, the tag transmits its response to reader. This means that the antenna has to be designed to both collect powers from the incoming signal and also to transmit the outbound backscatter signal. The response of a passive RFID tag is not necessarily just an ID number or a code similar to bar code; the tag chip can contain non-volatile EEPROM for storing data.

The practical read distance of a passive tag has the range of 10 cm to few meters, and it depends on the operating radio frequency, the type of antenna, the size of it and the design of RFID. The lack of an onboard power supply means that the device can be quite small: commercially available products exist that can be embedded in a sticker, or under the skin in the case of low frequency RFID tags.

In February 2007 Hitachi Cooperation announced a RFID device measuring 0.05×0.05 mm, and thins enough to be embedded in a sheet of paper. This is named as µ-Chip. Silicon on insulator (SOI) was used to achieve this integration level of the chip. The new chips can store as much data as the older tags, and the data contained on them can be extracted from as far away as a few hundred meters. This chips can wirelessly transmit a 128 bit unique ID and data (encrypted or not), which is embedded to it in manufacturing process.

Active RFID tags

Active type RFID tags have their own internal power source to energize their integrated circuit module and transmit the signals to the tag reader. Active tags have the ability to conduct a session with the reader by using a handshaking technique. Also these types of tags have the ability of transmitting higher signal power levels to the reader because of its onboard power supply. This feature leads to more effective operation rather than passive tags in environments like water, metal (shipping containers, vehicles), or at longer distances. Many active tags have practical ranges of hundreds of meters, and a battery life of 5 to 10 years. Active tags typically have much longer range (approximately 100 m/300 feet) and larger memories than passive tags, as well as the ability to store additional information sent by the transceiver.

Semi Passive RFID tags

Semi-passive tags are similar to active tags as they have their own power source, but the battery is used just to power the microchip and not broadcast a signal. The RF energy is reflected back to the reader like a passive tag.


Related Posts

http://www.hitechno.info/2007/06/operation-of-rfid-tag-example.html

http://www.hitechno.info/2007/06/applications-of-rfid-tags.html

http://www.hitechno.info/2007/06/problems-of-rfid-tags.html

http://www.hitechno.info/2007/06/new-trends-in-rfid.html

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

HITECHNO.INFO

I Received a domain name, www.hitechno.info. I hope to start a tech forum from this domain. I will Inform you the contents and the policies about this. If you are willing to know more information and hope to became an administrator of a forum section, please let me know.

Friday, June 22, 2007

Free SMS, to Any Mobile In The World

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* Free SMS every day;
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* Your own number as sender;
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* SMS anonymously;
* And many more!

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Thursday, June 21, 2007

PSCAD, Power System Computer Aided Design

The analyzing of a real world power system may be a very complex task for an engineer or for the person who moderate the power system, especially in the case of unexpected faulty conditions that may occur by various means including unpredictable natural disasters. This analyzing process should do by the equivalent mathematical models of the equipments that were connected to power system. It is a great ease, if the engineer can model the system with the aid of a software platform to analyze and simulate the behavior of power system at various scenarios and even when building new one or integrate new one to the existing power system.

PSCAD® is a general-purpose time domain simulation tool for studying transient behavior of electrical networks. First developed in 1976, the EMTDC simulation program has been constantly evolving in its scope and capabilities. Users can now harness the power of EMTDC through the user-friendly PSCAD interface on personal computers. This seamlessly integrated visual environment supports all aspects of conducting a simulation including circuit assembly, run-time control, analysis, and reporting. Simply put, PSCAD is the professional's tool for electromagnetic transient simulation.

MATLAB™, framework also contain a library to simulate power systems, but it cannot model, all the scenarios that can happen to the power system, specially the fault conditions. Therefore PSCAD™ evolved as the only professional tool to simulate and design the power systems, nowadays. This Platform has very efficient simulate engine, with a core written by FORTRAN language. EMTDC can simulate not only complex electric networks but also has the capability of modeling complex power electronics, controls and the non-linear network. When run under the PSCAD graphical user interface, the PSCAD/EMTDC combination becomes a powerful means of visualizing the enormous complexity of portions of the electric power system.

Applications of PSCAD

· Distributed generation studies

· Control system design & optimization.

· Protection system validation

· Lightning and impulse studies

· Power transmission design and testing

· Industrial plant planning

· Power electronic circuits design analyzing and simulation

· Analyzing Asymmetrical faults of Large power systems

· Protection relay coordination

· Arc furnace flicker

· Rotating machines

· Transmission system design & performance

· Power quality studies

· Power electronic design

· Electric machine performance

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Piyumal Gunawardana , Current Situation

You may remember the email you received regarding the cancer affected engineering undergraduate student Piyumal Gunawardana of University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. This email is to inform his current situation to you.

Piyumal underwent his surgery at the Gleneagles hospital, Singapore. It was done by a group of doctors lead by Dr. Andrew H. Sea. This surgery took nearly 14 hours to complete. Major intention of this surgery was to remove the cancer tumor from Piyumal. As a result of the surgery his tongue, voice box, jaws(lower pair) and other areas of his mouth which were affected by the cancer were removed. Then muscles were taken from his chest and right thigh, and were planted to compensate the removed areas in his face. Feeding tube was attached for feeding purposes and another tube for breathing (this was attached to his throat). Piyumal was in the intensive care unit for 3 days and then transferred to a normal ward. After about three weeks he was discharged and was taken back to Sri Lanka.

This surgery cost us about 6 million LKR and earlier we had to spend another 3 million on his chemos which were given prior to the surgery. We also had to spend another 1.8 million LKR at an emergency situation where the doctors had to do a sudden surgery on Piyumal. We received a great support from people in Sri Lanka and abroad. Lot of people had responded our email and they contributed in various ways to help Piyumal and his family. We would like to mention all of those who helped us when we needed a lot of support with our heartiest gratitude.

After spending two weeks at Sri Lanka, he was consulted by a doctor and he recommended to give some more chemos (set of injections) to avoid any spreading of the cancer (if it exist any more). He has now given two cycles of chemos at the Oasis hospital, Colombo. Then a CT scan will be done and Piyumal will have to go back to Singapore for consulting the doctor. We have been able to find the money which was needed up to now with your greatest help. After six months Piyumal will undergo another surgery to make up his face to a normal position (That has not been done in the surgery). At the moment he is fed by the tube. He cannot speak because his tongue and the voice box are removed. Doctors will try to fix them at a later time. At the moment our major intention is to save him from the cancer completely.

We would like to thank all of you who helped us in all possible ways. You showed great human qualities by helping us when we were helpless. We owe all of you. We pray the Load Buddha, Jesus, Allah and all the gods to protect you from any trouble.

Please forward this to all whom you think you should.

Contact details of Piyumal’s family

Telephone : +94412228595
+94602405265

Email : piyumal123@yahoo. com

Thanking you,

Piyumal's family.




This message has been sent to me, by Amila Mahaarachchi

Monday, June 18, 2007

Dr. Amith Munindradasa -- An Article about Him

I have an article about Late Dr. Amith munindradasa, including his works, his vision and mission. It was published as .pdf, in sinhala language. Those who are willing to receive this article, please send me your e mails, to samitharansara@gmail.com or post your e mail address as a comment to this post. I'll send you the article, as soon as possible.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Thyristor, Construction and Operation

The Thyristor is a solid state electronic device which had four doped semiconductor layers. The layers were arranged in alternate manner to form a stack shaped structure. Three terminals were taken out from the thyristor, and named as Anode, Cathode and Gate.

Fig 1: Layered Structure of Thyristor and equivalent transistor model

The operation of a thyristor can be described easily, by using the two transistor model, if a current pulse applied to the gate terminal, it triggers the bottom transistor, and because of that, the top one automatically starts to conduct. This caused to keep the gate current until the supply stops or reversed (Anode cathode current). Operation of the thyristor is same as this. It won’t conduct till the gate received a current pulse, after that it will conduct till the removal or reversal of the external source.

Thyristor have three states:

1. Reverse blocking mode - Voltage is applied in the direction that would be blocked by a diode

2. Forward blocking mode - Voltage is applied in the direction that would cause a diode to conduct, but the thyristor has not yet been triggered into conduction

3. Forward conducting mode - The thyristor has been triggered into conduction and will remain conducting until the forward current drops below a threshold value known as the "holding current"

Fig 2: VI Characteristics of the thyristor

In a conventional thyristor, once it has been switched on by the gate terminal, the device remains latched in the on-state (i.e. do not need a continuous supply of gate current to conduct), providing the anode current has exceeded the latching current (IL). As long as the anode remains positively biased, it cannot be switched off until the anode current falls below the holding current (IH). The thyristor can be switched off if the external circuit causes the anode to become negatively biased. In some applications this is done by switching a second thyristor to discharge a capacitor into the cathode of the first thyristor. This method is called forced commutation.

Friday, June 15, 2007

The Smallest Linux Embedded Board Computer

The picotux 100 is the world's smallest Linux computer, only slightly larger (35mm×19mm×19mm) than an RJ45 connector. Inside, there is an ARM7 CPU at 55 MHz running uClinux kernel 2.4.27 and Busybox 1.0. Two communication interfaces are provided, 10/100 Mbit half/full duplex Ethernet and a serial port with up to 230.400 baud. Five additional lines can be used for either general input/output or serial handshaking.

Technical Data picotux 100 module

Processor:

32-bit ARM 7 Netsilicon NS7520

Processor Clock:

55 MHz

Flash Memory:

2 MB

RAM:

8 MB SDRAM

Ethernet:

10/100 Mbit, HD and FD, auto sensing

Serial (TTL):

Up to 230.400 bps

General Input/Output Pins(TTL)

5, can be used as Handshake

LED for Ethernet

2; green (programmable) and yellow (Carrier)

Supply Voltage:

3,3 Volt +- 5%

Supply Current:

250 mA

Operating System:

uClinux 2.4.27 Big Endian (native)

Shell:

Busybox 1.0 and others

File Systems:

CRAMFS, JFFS2, NFS

Applications:

Webserver, Telnet

Size of the Linux Systems in Flash:

720 KB and more

Protected Bootloader for Update over Network:

64 KB Code

Development System:

GNU Tool chain

Compiler

GCC 3.4.4 for C/C++ and Fortran

Binutils

2.15

Library:

uClibc 0.9.26

Dimensions:

Height:

19 mm

Width:

19 mm

Deep:

36 mm

Package:

Shielded by metal

Weight:

ca.18 g

Ambient Temperature:

-40°C to 85°C

Dr. Amith Munidradasa..... (Directions to his home)

This is the path that you should follow if you wish to participate to Dr. Amith Munindradasa's Funeral.

In Galle road,When you pass Pinwatta Cemetery (Panadura) on sea side, there is a large billboard by Blue Waters Hotel on land side. Passing that, after about 4 by-roads there is left turn (land side) to Pinwatta Pirivena Rd.(some flags are at the road top) Go along that about 1km and you will find a y-junction. Take the right side way and go about 500m further. You will not miss his house, as there is a banner and white flags.

Dr.D.Amith Munindradasa passed away

Dr. D Amith Munindradasa, had passed away suddenly in Israel on 12th of June. He was an expert in Power Electronics, Nano Technology, Mechatronics, Quantum Mechanics and also in non technical things such as photography and wildlife.

He was born in Walana, Panadura, Sri lanka in 1966. He has expertise talents in machine mechanics, from his early childhood.

He graduated from University of Moratuwa in 1993 as an Electronic and Telecommunication Engineer, and got his PhD from Liverpool university, in Semiconductor Electronics.

He developed Multi Phase Axial Flux Permanent Magnetic Motor and validate it conceptually via a mathematical model.

As the author of this post, I myself feel very sad, about this coincidence. He was my Electronic Lecturer in University.

May He Attain Nibbana !!


Obituary of Dr. Amith Munindradasa (WUS) (EESoc)

Dear friends,

Dr. Amith Munindradasa has passed away on 11th June 2007 when he was in Israel representing Sri Lanka for a conference. It is reported that he died of pneumonia but it is yet to be confirmed. He was senior lecturer at University of Moratuwa and the former Head of the Department of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering.

He was graduated in 1993 from University of Moratuwa and was awarded the Doctorate from University of Liverpool. He had an in depth knowledge and taught analogue electronics, quantum electronics, mechatronics and photography for undergraduates and provided proper guidance for students to groom.

Dr. Amith Munindradasa was the president of World University Service (WUS) of University of Moratuwa which provided many services to students at the university. He was a great wildlife admirer and enthusiastic photographer. His knowledge was not limited to academic but widely spread through religious, astrology, astronomy, optics and thermodynamics. His ability to give knowledge to others (teach) was no second to any other; it was clear, precise and more practical. He was a leading researcher in the field of solid state electronics and has contributed an invaluable service for the field of Wildlife in Sri Lanka.

More than he was a great person to get to know who had a true spirit of friendship. He was helpful in every possible way and did his work according to the rule and in a fair manner.

He was considered a great teacher among student and great colleague among staff members and a brilliant advisor among WUS members and a great friend among his nature loving friends and most of all a great contributor for the whole nation of Sri Lanka.

It is our deepest condolences to announce his sudden death; otherwise he could have immensely contributed to the nation in the years to come.

May Dr. Amith Munindradasa attend nibbana!

WUS Committee members

MSI AGAIN !!!!! MSI P35 Platinum

Features

  • Support for LGA775 Intel Core 2 Quad and Core 2 Duo, including 1333/1066/800FSB and 45nm processors;
  • Intel P35 Northbridge;
  • Intel ICH9R Southbridge;
  • Supports up to 8GB of dual channel DDR2 800MHz FSB, using four 240-pin, 1.8V DDR2 DIMMs;
  • Two PCI Express x16 slots (White = x16, Yellow = x4);
  • Two PCI Express x1 slots;
  • Two 32-bit v2.3 Master PCI bus slots (support 3.3v/5v PCI bus interface);
  • One IDE port;
  • Five SATA 3Gbps ports supporting RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5 or JBOD;
  • Realtek ALC888 High-Definition audio codec supporting 7.1 channel surround sound up to 32-bit/192KHz;
  • One Gigabit Ethernet, one PCI-Express provided by the Realtek RTL8111B controller;
  • VIA VT6308P IEEE1394a Firewire controller providing two ports, one of the rear I/O and one via pin-out;
  • Marvell 88SE6111-NAA1 controller providing one PATA port and one 3Gbps SATA port



Saturday, June 9, 2007

The Size Of Our World





OpenOffice worm hits Mac, Linux and Windows

According to the Symantec Security Response Web site, the worm is capable of infecting multiple operating system platforms and is spreading.

The advisory said: "A new worm is being distributed within malicious OpenOffice documents. The worm can infect Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X systems. Be cautious when handling OpenOffice files from unknown sources".

In an interview with ZDNet Australia on Thursday, Dr Jan Hruska, who co-founded rival antivirus firm Sophos and was one of the first ever PC antivirus experts, said that Apple Mac's are not a virus-free platform.

"Viruses on the Mac are here and now. They are available and they are moving around -- it is not as though the Mac is in some miraculous way a virus free environment.

"In terms of numbers, the number of viruses coming out for non-Mac platforms is higher. It gives a false impression that somehow Apple Macs are all virus free," said Hruska.

The worm was first spotted late last month but at the time, it was not thought to be "in the wild".

Once opened the OpenOffice file (badbunny.odg) launches a macro that behaves in several different ways depending on the user’s operating system.

On Windows systems, it drops a file called drop.bad which is moved to the system.ini in the user’s mIRC folder, while executing the Javascript virus badbunny.js that replicates to other files in the folder.

On Apple Mac systems, the worm drops one of two Ruby script viruses in files called badbunny.rb and badbunnya.rb.

On Linux systems, the worm drops both badbunny.py as an XChat script and badbunny.pl as a Perl virus.

Symantec rates the worm "Medium Risk".

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

MathWorks Plugs into Microchip MPLAB IDE

Microchip Technology Inc., a leading provider of microcontroller and analog semiconductors, announced that, through its close collaboration with The MathWorks, Inc., a leading developer of technical computing and Model-Based Design software, Microchip's popular MPLAB(R) Integrated Development Environment (IDE) now features a free plug-in for The MathWorks MATLAB(R), Simulink(R) and Real-Time Workshop(R) Embedded Coder modeling and code-generation programs.

MATLAB is a high-level technical computing language and interactive environment for algorithm development, data visualization, data analysis, and numeric computation. Simulink is a platform for multi-domain simulation and Model-Based Design of dynamic systems. With Simulink, designers can quickly create, model and maintain a detailed block diagram of the system, using a comprehensive set of predefined blocks. MATLAB and Simulink are used by engineers and scientists in industry, government and education.

The MPLAB IDE is a free, feature-rich, integrated toolset for the development of embedded applications employing Microchip's PIC(R) microcontrollers and dsPIC(R) digital signal controllers. The MPLAB IDE runs as a 32-bit application on the Microsoft Windows(R) operation system, is easy to use, and includes a host of free software components for fast application development and super-charged debugging. The MPLAB IDE also serves as a single, unified graphical user interface for additional Microchip and third party software and hardware development tools. MATLAB and Simulink plug-ins debut in the current version of the MPLAB IDE, version 7.51, and enable designers to select Simulink software models, automatically generate source code, and include the files in MPLAB IDE projects for compilation and build, all within the familiar, easy-to-use MPLAB IDE graphical user interface.

"The integration between MATLAB, Simulink and the MPLAB IDE will dramatically increase the productivity of production organizations using Model-Based Design with Microchip's hardware," said Tom Erkkinen, Embedded Applications manager of The MathWorks, Inc. "With push-button automation, engineers can now generate code from their executable specification models, compile it, and download the code to their embedded processor for on-target rapid prototyping or production deployment."

"Wielding the power of MATLAB and Simulink from the MPLAB IDE desktop further empowers the designer of embedded designs using Microchip devices." said Derek Carlson, vice president of Microchip Development Tools. "This collaboration is a significant addition to our tool suite for Microchip's 16-bit microcontrollers, and sets the stage for future cooperative efforts."

Monday, June 4, 2007

Gigabyte - enters to the game !!!!!

Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 Overview:

  • Support for all Intel LGA775 processors including Pentium 4, Pentium D, Pentium Extreme Edition, Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme;
  • Intel P965 chipset and ICH8R southbridge with RAID 0, 1, 0+1 and 5 support;
  • Support for up to 8GB of DDR2-533, DDR2-667 or DDR2-800MHz memory;
  • One PCI-Express x16 slot and one PCI-Express x4 slot (x16 physical interconnect) with ATI Crossfire support using Catalyst 6.9 (or newer) drivers;
  • Three PCI-Express x1 slots (either use the three x1 slots, or use the PCI-Express x4 slot with no PCI-Express x1 slots) and two PCI slots;
  • Realtek ALC888D High Definition audio codec with 8 channel sound support, Dolby Digital and S/PDIF;
  • Marvell 8053 PCI-Express Gigabit Ethernet;
  • Six native SATA 3Gbps ports;
  • Two Gigabyte SATA 3Gbps ports and a single IDE channel;
  • Firewire T.I. TSB43AB23 with three ports;
  • Ten USB 2.0 ports, six internal and four on the rear I/O.

Box Contents:

  • User Manual, CD and RAID/eSATA floppy disks;
  • One blue IDE cable;
  • One blue floppy cable;
  • Four orange serial ATA cables;
  • Two serial SATA molex power adapter;
  • Two eSATA cables;
  • Two PCI brackets providing support for four eSATA devises;
  • A metal I/O shield.

Wow...Gigabyte has come so far, but left out a few essentials from the bundle. The provision of eSATA is just unheard of elsewhere, and is definitely a good thing for external storage. Having said that, though, if you don't have a case to put your hard disks in, you leave them prone to static attack or being dropped in daily life. This is a pretty big worry.



The board's layout is good, and the varying colours highlight all the necessary items distinctly without looking like it belongs in a primary school classroom. Gigabyte has used 100% solid state capacitors on the DQ6 model, which is similar to the Abit AW9D-MAX. These cost more, but performance and overclocking capabilities are improved slightly. Whilst this cost is passed onto the consumer, paying that bit more will also mean that the board lasts longer and will probably be a more consistent overclocker than anything the competition can offer.

Gigabyte has various boards that use the P965 chipset - the DQ6 version highlights the use of quad everything: support for Intel's Core 2 Quad processors when released, "Quad cooling" from the four heatsinks and heatpipe arrangement, "Quad BIOS" in the form of a dual-dual BIOS for the ultimate in screw-up proof BIOS updating support, Quad eSATA2 (in the form of four lots of two) and Quad triple-phase power regulation. That's a loose "Quad" ethos by any stretch of the "multiples of four" imagination, but don't think that we're complaining here.

The board does support CrossFire, although you are restricted to using one full speed PCI-Express x16 slot and the other at x4 speed...and that's only if you aren't using any PCI-Express x1 slots. Yes, if you plug something into any of the PCI-Express x1 slots, the orange x16 slot is reduced to a lowly x1 bandwidth - which seriously cripples any extra performance a second graphics card will give you.


The SATA ports are the clip-lock type to prevent you from accidentally pulling out the plug or bending and breaking it. Quite a few people will attest to breaking SATA plugs by simply applying a little lateral pressure. The front I/O pin header is colour-coded for ease of use, and the internal pin outs for six USB 2.0 (in orange) and two Firewire (in grey) are neatly placed and easy to get to. The power plugs are also easy to use, positioned nicely near the top edges of the board.











Extracted from Bit-tech.net

Saturday, June 2, 2007

MSI P6N SLI Platinum

The Platinum range is feature filled, but MSI's most high-end product. Today, we have the P6N SLI Platinum, which is based on Nvidia's nForce 650i SLI chipset. Though the P6N SLI Platinum isn't the top dog in the line-up, it's far from being a no-frills SLI motherboard - MSI has opted to kit this out with a large complement of goodies.

The nForce 650i Ultra boards were expected in February and are still due soon, but considering the low price of the nForce 650i SLI and the recent release of the nForce 680i LT SLI, there’s a question of how little these will cost. This still means the nForce 650i SLI is the bottom end SLI chipset you can buy, but does this mean it skimps on performance as well?

MSI P6N SLI Platinum Overview

  • Supports LGA775 Intel Core 2 Quad, Core 2 Duo, Pentium 4, Pentium 4 D, and Pentium XE, including 1333/1066/800/533MHz FSB processors;
  • Nvidia nForce 650i SLI SPP (C55) northbridge;
  • Nvidia nForce 430i (MCP51) southbridge;
  • Supports up to 8GB of dual channel DDR2 533/667/800, using four 240-pin/1.8V DDR2 DIMMs;
  • Two PCI Express x16 slots (in an x16 and x1 or x8 and x8 configuration);
  • One PCI Express x1 slot;
  • Three 32-bit v2.3 Master PCI bus slots (support 3.3v/5v PCI bus interface)
  • Two IDE ports;
  • Four SATA 3Gbps ports supporting RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5 or JBOD;
  • One eSATA port by Sil3531;
  • Realtek ALC888 High-Definition audio codec supporting 7.1 channel surround sound;
  • One Gigabit Ethernet port by Realtek RTL8211BL;
  • VIA VT 6308P IEEE1394a Firewire chipset;


Box Contents
  • Three red SATA ports;
  • Two molex to SATA adapters;
  • One Red rounded IDE cable;
  • One Red rounded floppy cable;
  • One SLI bridge and retention bracket;
  • Additional fan for northbridge;
  • Single 6-pin Firewire port PCI bracket;
  • Two USB 2.0 ports and MSI D-LED PCI bracket;
  • Metal rear I/O shield;
  • Manual, Quick Guide and Driver CD.



The motherboard features very typical MSI Platinum styling with a black PCB, lime green and orange DIMM sockets, copper heatsinks and white PCI slots. Why change a formula that works?

There isn’t a particular theme for the board, but everything is coloured in a way that isn’t at all garish and still lets you know that every port and plug is different. The IDE ports are yellow, the SATA is purple, the Firewire pin-out is green and as I just mentioned, the memory slots are orange and lime green.

The whole board is decked out in solid aluminium capacitors apart from those that surround the sound codec, but that isn’t particularly important to the overall performance. Solid aluminium capacitors feature an “organic semi-conductive electrolyte” that increases the life and power delivery of board in general since the capacitors are often the first things to die.

The memory slots are coloured according to channel rather than according to where you should put the memory. This is a traditional MSI trait, that is different to virtually every other board on the market. Instead of putting the two sticks of memory in the same coloured slots like you would elsewhere, you now put one stick in green and one in orange, keeping the alternation.



A copper heatpipe travels from southbridge to northbridge then another joins it on its journey to the power regulation components. They are angled out of the way of the PCI/PCI-Express cards, but the 8-pin 12V power connector is placed right in the corner of the 90-degree turn making it really quite awkward to get the plug in and out. In addition, the placement means that the cable has to be contorted to a route across the motherboard, between the CPU heatsink and heatpipe array.

Included is a 40mm fan for the northbridge for additional cooling. It comes with a couple of tiny thumbscrews and sits neatly over the top of the heatsink, out of the way. The downside is that this little monster runs at an incredible 8500RPM, so if you absolutely have to use it then at least attach it to a fan controller and tone down its speed and noise. Thankfully, you don't need it providing your case has some airflow, or your CPU cooler forces some air over it.

Other ports and sockets around the board are very well placed, however. The ATX power socket, both IDE ports, all four SATA ports and the pin-outs for USB and Firewire are all placed around the edges of motherboard for easy access.

There are only four SATA ports from the southbridge since this is the older nForce 430i MCP and MSI hasn’t included an extra controller for additional internal ports. There are however, two IDE sockets to provide legacy support for those who still use IDE hard drives or need to use a ton of optical drives. Both sets of IDE and SATA ports are covered by Nvidia’s MediaShield technology.

MSI does include a single eSATA port on the back of the rear I/O powered by a Silicon Image Sil3531 chipset for extra connectivity, which is a nice touch for this price range. Despite that fact this board can be had for a bit under £100, it still has plenty of different connectivity options.

Only one Gigabit Ethernet is provided by Realtek's RTLB211BL. This is a physical layer (PHY) attachment to the southbridge. It supports FirstPacket technology, but there is no Teaming support since there isn’t a complementary port.


Sound comes via Realtek’s ALC888 codec, which offers ten DACs for 8-channel 192KHz/24bit High-Definition audio and two separate stereo channels for the front panel outputs. The two stereo inputs feature acoustic echo cancellation, beam forming and noise suppression technologies. It’s capable of up to 97dB playback and 90dB recording SNR and has an onboard front panel and S/PDIF pin-out is provided, as well as rear I/O connectors.

Three PCI slots are included, of which two are still usable when SLI is enabled with dual-slot graphics cards. A single PCI-Express x1 port has also been placed above the upper most PCI-Express x16 slot so that it's always usable. The PCI-Express x16 slots have a big enough gap between them to allow for enough airflow, without having the bottom slot so close to the base of your case that your graphics card acts as a vacuum cleaner.

MSI still uses a classic mini-PCB flip method to select between SLI and non-SLI modes. This is certainly the cheaper option, but it requires you remove one or both of your graphics cards and have some nails in order to get the mini-PCB in and out.

The four USB ports pin-outs are colour coded so you know what pin plugs in where, which undoubtedly is extremely useful. However, MSI also gave the front panel pin out a very similar colour scheme and, to confuse matters further, has placed them all in the same area of the PCB. The VIA VT6308P IEEE1394a Firewire pin-out is different in that has a keyed green plastic shroud. This means you can don't need the pins colour labelled as you can only plug the supplied PCI bracket in one way.

Seagate's Barracuda ES hard drive

SCSI HAS LONG RULED the enterprise world, but Serial ATA is slowly creeping into corporate server rooms. Serial ATA simply can't be beaten when it comes to storage density, and when you're paying for not only the drives, but also the rack they sit in, density can be an even more important metric than performance.

Today, the highest capacity SCSI drives top out at 300GB—just 60% of the capacity of today's enterprise-class Serial ATA drives, which are available up to 500GB. Seagate has just raised the bar even higher, introducing a new Barracuda ES hard drive with a whopping 750GB of storage. To put that into perspective, consider the storage capacity of a four-drive 1U rack server running RAID 5. With 300GB SCSI drives, you won't even break one terabyte. 500GB Serial ATA drives could give you 1.5TB of redundant capacity, while an array of 750GB Barracuda ES drives would offer a cool 2.25TB, all in the same physical space.

The Barracuda ES owes its freakish capacity to the perpendicular recording technology it shares with Seagate's desktop-oriented Barracuda 7200.10. Physically, the drives are nearly identical. However, the Barracuda ES packs firmware optimizations that promise better performance under more demanding loads, an attribute whose appeal extends beyond the enterprise world and into the enthusiast's realm.

How does the Barracuda ES compare with other enterprise-class Serial ATA hard drives? Is it really any faster than the Barracuda 7200.10? Read on to find out.


What makes an ES?
The Barracuda ES is based on the same drive platters and mechanics as the 7200.10, but it's built to withstand cramped rackmount enclosures where drives can be packed tighter than steerage class on a budget airline. All hard drives vibrate during normal spinning and seek operations, and those vibrations can disrupt the operation of a drive in close proximity by shaking the drive head off its intended path. The disrupted drive must then wait for its head to move back into position before resuming normal operation, resulting in a performance penalty.

To combat vibration-induced performance degradation, the Barracuda ES is outfitted with sensors that detect rotational vibration and adjust the drive head accordingly. These sensors allow the ES to tolerate a rotational vibration of 12.5 rad/second2 with a rotational profile of 20-800Hz. The Barracuda 7200.10, on the other hand, can only tolerate 5.5 rad/second2 between 10 and 300Hz.Apart from the ES's rotational vibration sensors, the drive is physically identical to the Barracuda 7200.10. It uses the same 188GB platters with perpendicular recording and is available with up to 16MB of cache. That cache is programmed a little differently on the ES, of course, but it's the same chip.

In addition to different cache segmentation, the ES's firmware offers a handful of RAID-specific features that you won't find in the Barracuda 7200.10. Among them is Error Recovery Control, which limits the drive's error recovery time to 12 seconds. This prevents prolonged error recovery attempts from causing drives to be prematurely dropped from RAID arrays. Similar functionality is available on Western Digital's enterprise-class Serial ATA drives, although WD recommends disabling the feature for single-drive operation. Error Recovery Control apparently doesn't hinder the Barracuda ES in single-drive systems.

Error recovery is nice, but avoiding errors is even better. To help reduce the number of errors the ES encounters in thermally challenging enterprise environments, the Barracuda ES monitors temperatures and shuffles I/O requests in a manner that allows the drive to cool if it gets too hot. The ES also includes features to simplify multi-drive firmware updates and speed RAID initialization.


Although both the Barracuda ES and 7200.10 are available with a 300MB/s Serial ATA interface, the ES also comes in fibre channel flavors. Those flavors are limited to 400 and 500GB capacities with only 8MB of cache, though.

Hard drive manufacturers seem loath to publish performance specifications for their desktop hard drives, so it's hard to compare the ES's seek times and sustained transfer rate specs to those of the 7200.10. We'll see how real world seek times and transfer rates shake out when we move to our performance benchmarks.


Enterprise-class Serial ATA drives typically offer longer warranties than their desktop counterparts—often five years for enterprise models versus just three years for desktop. Seagate's a little different, though. It offers a five-year warranty for all its internal hard drive products, including desktop and enterprise drives, so the ES doesn't have an advantage over the 7200.10 in this category. Five-year hard drive warranties are pretty standard in the enterprise world, so Seagate certainly isn't skimping. The company's enthusiasm for longer desktop drive warranties has just blunted what could have been another selling point for the ES.

Google moves further into Microsoft's territory with offline software

Google fired another warning shot across the bows of Microsoft yesterday with the launch of software that allows people to use its services even when they are not connected to the internet.

Google Gears will help people to take information from web-based programs and use it offline, enabling them to use services that usually requires a web connection on a computer's hard disk instead.

The system is also being opened up to allow independent developers to create their own products based on the concept.


The announcement will be watched closely by Microsoft, which recently launched its own system, Silverlight, for bridging the gap between the online and offline worlds. The arrival of Gears could be particularly threatening because it is likely to help Google Docs, the company's suite of office software, make a concerted challenge to Microsoft's core office software business.

Docs — which incorporates word processing, spreadsheet and presentation programs — only works with an active internet connection. Allowing it to operate on a computer's hard drive would bring it into competition with the dominant Microsoft Office brand and mark the latest step in Google's slow but inexorable invasion of the Seattle-based software company's territory.

Eric Schmidt, Google's chief executive, said that giving external programmers the ability to develop the system would strengthen its position.

"With Google Gears, we're tackling a key limitation of the browser in order to make it a stronger platform for deploying all types of applications," he said. "We believe strongly in the power of the community to stretch this new technology to the limits of what's possible and ultimately emerge with an open standard that benefits everyone."

The announcement came as Google launched its first international Developer Day, an open house event being held in 10 locations worldwide with more than 5,000 attendees. The concept behind it is to talk to third parties who build software and services based on Google's business, and explain some of the inner workings of its products to them.

By opening up the often-secretive world of Google and encouraging more corporate partners, it believes it can increase its penetration of the web even further. With many web start-ups created on the back of so-called "mash-ups" — hybrids that mix different online services together to create a new concept — larger technology organisations have found that third parties are even more reliant on them.

"This is a complete shift from the portal strategy of the 1990s," said Jeff Huber, Google's vice president of engineering. "Back then everyone was in it for themselves, there was no integrating with rivals and you were only working for yourself. Now we are thinking about our products as building blocks. It's a virtuous cycle."

Google is just one of a number of companies investing heavily in these concepts, with rivals such as Yahoo!, Microsoft and Amazon also following suit. Many are particularly keen to contribute to the open-source community, which develops software and tools that can be used freely by anybody at no cost. Alexandra Palace in London will play host to a "Hackday" event this month being held jointly by Yahoo! and the BBC intended to foster relations with the technical community.

"I think that all these events are part of a conversation that has to happen between companies like the BBC and everyone else," said Matthew Cashmore, development producer at the BBC. He stressed that it was important for many people to be able to talk to each other face to face and get a feeling for the internet industry outside of Silicon Valley. "It has to be very social; you can't exist solely on the web, you have to be out there rubbing shoulders with each other. It's important in this industry that it's not all just about west coast America."