THE MAGAZINE FOR COMPUTER APPLICATIONS
Circuit Cellar Online offers articles illustrating creative solutions
and unique applications through complete projects, practical
tutorials, and useful design techniques.

WHAT'S YOUR ENGINEERING QUOTIENT?

Problem 1—In power wiring, what is the difference between the "grounded conductor" and the "grounding conductor"?

ANSWER

Problem 2—What is an eye diagram?

ANSWER

Problem 3—The Windows .WAV file format for audio is a special case of what more general file format?

ANSWER

Problem 4—What is a software API?

ANSWER

Problem 5—A circuit board, intended to plug into a backplane with only its short end exposed (see diagram) was found to have excessive radiated energy at harmonics of a clock frequency used on the board. It was found that the clock oscillator's output signal ran parallel to several other traces that drove status LEDs for a disance of several inches. Harmonics of the clock waveform were coupling to these LED traces, where they were carried to the front of the chassis and radiated. Name some techniques that could be used to mitigate this problem.

ANSWER

Problem 6—You need to put together a memory array of 1M words of 32 bits each. You have a choice of two different 4 Mb parts: 1M x 4 or 256K x 16. What are some of the issues that would cause you to choose one over the other?

ANSWER

Problem 7—What will be the output of the following C code fragment?

 
int x, y;
y = 5;
x = (y += 2, 21/y++);
printf ("%d,%d", x, y);

ANSWER

Problem 8—Design a +5V regulator based on an LM317 three-terminal regulator chip. The output voltage should vary less than 1% over temperature, and a trimpot should be included that provides a ±20% adjustment range. Use standard component values to come as close as possible to these specifications.

ANSWER

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