Microchip Technology Names dsPIC Digital Signal Controller Design Contest Winners; Awards $30,000 USD in Prizes.CHANDLER, Ariz. -- Microchip Technology Inc. (NASDAQ NASDAQ in full National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations U.S. market for over-the-counter securities. Established in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), NASDAQ is an automated quotation system that reports on : MCHP MCHP Maryland Children's Health Program MCHP Microchip Technologies (stock symbol) MCHP Micro-sized Combined Heat and Power (American Honda Motor Co. & Climate Energy, LLC) MCHP Maine Community Heritage Project ), a leading provider of microcontroller and analog semiconductors, today named Dave Wetzel of Roanoke, Va., the top prize winner of its dsPIC(R) Digital Signal Controller See DSC. Design Contest. Thousands of engineers worldwide purchased Microchip's power-packed dsPIC30F Design Contest Kit, which many of them used to submit entries showing off their design skills with the dsPIC digital signal controller and its high-performance development tools. Contestants created a product design, related block and flow diagrams, a schematic of the circuitry and project source code, all based on a dsPIC30F digital signal controller. Judging focused on innovation and the best use of onboard dsPIC30F features to determine the 20 contest winners. The second-place prize of $7,500 USD USD In currencies, this is the abbreviation for the U.S. Dollar. Notes: The currency market, also known as the Foreign Exchange market, is the largest financial market in the world, with a daily average volume of over US $1 trillion. was awarded to Alister Watt of Sunbury, Middlesex, United Kingdom, for his "Musical Instrument" design. Josef Stastny of Velke Mezirici, Czech Republic, earned the $3,000 USD third prize for his "Aircraft VOR VOR Vestibulo-ocular reflex, see there Recorder" design. The $15,000 USD first-place prize went to Wetzel's "Stereo Audio System" entry. This top design is for an audio processing system, which takes advantage of the dsPIC30F's buffered on-chip peripherals to minimize interrupt service time and maximize overall performance. As a result, Wetzel was able to include a dual 12-band graphic equalizer using independent IIR IIR - Infinite Impulse Response filters with performance left over for dual audio-amplitude compressors that are used to control dynamic volume range. His design also includes a real-time VU meter display using some of the dsPIC30F's unique instructions to facilitate the fast calculation of decibels on the LCD display. These features are particularly useful for environments where the range of audio volume should not vary to levels that are too quiet or too loud, such as an elevator. "We were pleased to see so many high-quality entries and to receive so much positive feedback from contestants, who were impressed with the dsPIC digital signal controller's capabilities, ease of programming, small learning curve and excellent tools. These features enabled entrants to create major designs within a few months," said Sumit Mitra, vice president of Microchip's Digital Signal Controller Division. "Microchip offers a unique digital signal controller that seamlessly integrates the control attributes of a 16-bit microcontroller with the computation and throughput capabilities of a digital signal processor A digital signal processor (DSP) is a specialized microprocessor designed specifically for digital signal processing, generally in real-time computing. Characteristics of typical Digital Signal Processors
Below is a complete list of winning entries, which came from the Americas, Europe and Asia. The remaining prizes consisted of Microchip support hardware and software, including: MPLAB(R) ICE 4000 In-Circuit Emulators, MPLAB C30 C Compilers, MPLAB ICD ICD International Classification of Diseases (of the World Health Organization); intrauterine contraceptive device. ICD abbr. 2 In-Circuit Debuggers and Digital Filter Design Software. --Paco Tortosa, Spain: Easy Robot (GUI (Graphical User Interface) A graphics-based user interface that incorporates movable windows, icons and a mouse. The ability to resize application windows and change style and size of fonts are the significant advantages of a GUI vs. a character-based interface. ) --Scott Bishop, Virginia: Auto Transmission Controller --Dennis Newell, California: Sleep Monitor --Dale Shpak, Canada: Audio Lighting --Moe Wheatley, Entry 1, Georgia: Cuckoo Clock --Gerard Samblancat, France: MP3 Player --Tim Bagwell, California: Communication Analyzer "Eye" --Mikulas Kiss, Slovakia: GSM Recorder --Jason Clemons, Minnesota: Martial Arts Trainer --Moe Wheatley, Entry 2, Georgia: dsPIC Digital Signal Controller Performance Evaluation --David L. Roberson, Virginia: SSB SSB Statistisk Sentralbyrå (Statistics Norway) SSB Super Smash Bros (video game) SSB Space Studies Board SSB Single Side Band SSB Single Stranded DNA-Binding Protein SSB Salomon Smith Barney Generator --Jason Young, Ohio: General-Purpose Communications Board --Arpana B. Jinaga, India: Communications Jammer --Ing. Raffaele Colella, Italy: I&Q Path Analyzer --Xavier Montagne, France: RTOS (1) (RealTime Operating System) An operating system designed for use in a real time computer system. See real time system, embedded system, process control and OS-9. for dsPIC Digital Signal Controller --Henry Pfister, Florida: Acoustic "Eye" --Contest Director's Award - Robert Lacoste, France: Digital Radio --Honorable Mention - Paul Bjork, Minnesota: Four Motor Controller The dsPIC30F Design Contest Kit provided contestants with a full-featured tool suite (including the board and software). This kit enabled participants to add powerful, new features to their designs, reduce component count and lower system cost on their high-performance designs. The dsPIC30F Design Contest Kit contained a dsPICDEM(TM) 1.1 General Purpose Development Board (DM300014) and all of the tools necessary to test drive the new dsPIC(R) 16-bit digital signal controllers. This general-purpose board is currently available for $299 USD. The dsPICDEM 1.1 General Purpose Development Board provides designers with a low-cost development tool that demonstrates the dsPIC30F 16-bit architecture, including its high-performance peripherals and powerful instruction set. About dsPIC Digital Signal Controllers The dsPIC digital signal controller (DSC (1) (Digital Signal Controller) A microcontroller and DSP combined on the same chip. It adds the interrupt-driven capabilities normally associated with a microcontroller to a DSP, which typically functions as a continuous process. See microcontroller and DSP. ) is a 16-bit (data) modified Harvard RISC RISC in full Reduced Instruction Set Computing Computer architecture that uses a limited number of instructions. RISC became popular in microprocessors in the 1980s. machine that combines the control advantages of a high-performance 16-bit microcontroller with the high computation speed of a fully implemented digital signal processor (DSP (1) (Digital Signal Processor) A special-purpose CPU used for digital signal processing applications (see definition #2 below). It provides ultra-fast instruction sequences, such as shift and add, and multiply and add, which are commonly used in math-intensive ) to produce a tightly coupled single-chip single-instruction stream solution for embedded systems design. All dsPIC DSCs integrate Flash program memory and most have EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable ROM) A rewritable memory chip that holds its content without power. Although EEPROMs spawned flash memory, EEPROMs are byte addressable at the write level, whereas flash chips must erase a block of bytes before rewriting. data storage. For more information on the dsPIC DSC family, please visit: www.microchip.com/dspic. About Microchip Technology Microchip Technology Inc. is a leading provider of microcontroller and analog semiconductors, providing low-risk product development, lower total system cost and faster time to market for thousands of diverse customer applications worldwide. Headquartered in Chandler, Ariz., Microchip offers outstanding technical support along with dependable delivery and quality. For more information, visit the Microchip Web site at www.microchip.com. Note: The Microchip name and logo, dsPIC and MPLAB are registered trademarks of Microchip Technology Inc. in the United States and other countries. dsPICDEM is a trademark of Microchip Technology Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks mentioned herein are property of their respective companies. |
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