LAS VEGAS — Freescale Semiconductor introduced a family of three-axis accelerometers here that could see action in a wide variety of consumer products ranging from video games to laptop PCs to sporting equipment. The accelerometers are already serving in a game called GuitarHero 2, as well as in a snowboarding game that enables users to stand on a real snow board and simultaneously ski down a virtual hill on screen. The company is also working with a university-based effort that is deploying the three-axis sensors in basketballs.
Known as MMA73X0L Low-G Acceleration Sensors, the family is designed to detect motion in three axes at accelerations ranging from 1.5 g to 16 g. The 1.5 g sensors provide freefall detection and tilt compensation, while the 16 g sensors are employed in sports monitoring and robotics. The devices are also expected to see action in such products as camcorders, pedometers, personal navigation systems, black box event recorders, anti-theft devices, and seismic activity monitors, among other applications.
Freescale engineers here at CES demonstrated the use of the sensors in GuitarHero and in a snowboarding game designed for PlayStation and Xbox, and allowed us try the games with less impressive results.
Experts say that the intelligent highway will save more lives than seat belts, airbags, and electronic stability control. For sheer lifesaving capacity, nothing in the history of the auto industry will come close to it.
In a bid to help automakers cut the fuel consumption and emissions of next generation engines, Freescale Semiconductor is rolling out a three-core microcontroller said to boost computing performance without drawing more power.
Bionic limbs, innovative infusion systems, and transcranial doppler brain scanners are just some of the innovations engineers are bringing to the exploding medical design arena.
Against a backdrop of mounting product complexity and a need to keep a lid on development costs, companies are recognizing a need to make simulation a more integral part of the design process. In response, vendors in the CAD world are building out CAE functionality as part of their CAD suites while simulation vendors are building tighter integrations to leading CAD tools. Keith Meintjes, Ph.D., Practice Manager, Simulation and Analysis at CIMdata, Inc., joins Design News CAD Editor Beth Stackpole in this radio program to explore the new face of integrated CAD and CAE, how companies are benefitting from this tighter partnership between platforms, and how integrating CAE earlier in the development cycle pays off in optimized product designs.
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