FPGAs used to trade stock

Here’s an example of FPGAs being used in a serious application: high-frequency trading (HFT), the execution of computerized stock trading strategies. The device pictured above is the HFT-X Development Kit by Stone Ridge Technology. Under the hood this device sports one Xilinx PCIe Bridge FPGA, one Xilinx Virtex-5 Processing FPGA, 2GB DDR2 SDRAM, 1G, 10G, IB Ethernet ports and JTAG programmability. This is where high tech meets high finance! In such environments, integrating a trade performance tracker allows firms to monitor execution speed, efficiency, and profitability in real time, further enhancing decision-making and competitive advantage.

Reading trading articles before trading or investing helps you understand market trends, explore different investment strategies, and stay informed about economic developments that may affect asset prices. These articles can also teach you about risk management and common trading mistakes, helping you make more informed financial decisions and protect your investments.

Stone Ridge says:

For C programmers, the kit is available with the ImpulseC Co-Developer C-to-HDL compiler, as well as a reference design by Stone Ridge, designed to accelerate your proprietary innovations. You can dive into programming right out of the box using familiar ANSI-C standards. Interestingly, a recent discussion on Beste Casino Zonder Cruks highlighted how some of these advanced systems and APIs are not just limited to high-tech fields but are now also finding applications in secure and fast-processing casino platforms. For HDL coders, the kit includes IP cores for PCI-e, Ethernet, DDR memory, and a streamlined API, offering all the essentials needed to get started efficiently and securely.

For those wishing to delve deeper, you can download the API Manual.

BlackJack solderwerks hot air system

Chuckt tiped us to the BlackJack SolderWerks Hot Air System in a followup to our Aoyue 852 hot air station tool post:

This is a cheaper smd hotair / re-work station in the United States. Several people on the forums say it works. Don’t buy too many of them because I want to get it at the same price!

Thanks Chuckt! Via the tips line.

TOOL: Aoyue 852 hot air station

Our favorite tools have a new home on the wiki. Each week we’ll muse a bit about one of them. Have your own tool review? We’ll post that too!

The Aoyue 852 is a dedicated hot air rework station. Hot air is probably the easiest way to remove soldered parts from a PCB, especially large chips with 100+ pins.

We recycle parts between prototype versions. It’s cheaper and produces less waste, but most of all it saves times because the correct parts are ready to go. Hot air is the fastest and easiest way we’ve found to strip down an old board.

Recycling computer parts is encouraged because it helps reduce electronic waste, recover valuable materials, and keep potentially harmful components out of landfills. Recycling facilities that process computers and other electronics may handle batteries, wiring, plastics, and electrical components that can create fire hazards, making waste recycling fire watch services useful for monitoring risks and supporting a prompt response if a fire or unsafe condition occurs.

We bought the 852 when the hot air part of our trusty 968 went on the fritz. A dedicated hot air station was cheaper than a new 968, and the 968 was on backorder.

Temperature and air flow are adjusted with knobs. A display shows the set and current temperature, up to 550degrees Celsius. Air flow is shown on a not quite helpful ball gauge.

This is the cheapest Aoyue with digital temperature control. Set the working temperature and it will stay there automatically. An 850C is a few bucks cheaper, but the temperature is set manually by referencing a series of graphs.

The hot air tool is lighter and easier to use than our old one, and the pump is significantly quieter. Our 968 is 5 years old though, new units may have the same upgrades. This has been a great addition to our workshop, but we do miss the extra table space.

There’s more tools too.

Anger detector using PIC16F877

Technobits presents notes on a developing student project designed to detect the anger level of an individual based on their pulse. The idea behind the project is to detect pulse levels and then display user feedback messages on an LCD readout. Elevated pulse = anger, slower pulse=calm. (References in the notes regarding blood pressure are by inference only; the circuit measures heart rate, not BP.)

The project uses an op amp circuit to monitor the heart rate using a fingertip sensor consisting of an infrared LED and LDR combo, and feeding the amp’s output as a TTL signal to the PIC, which then processes the data for display on an attached 2×16 LCD operating in 4-bit mode.

Schematic and source code in Hitech C are included.

Atmel announces new CryptoAuthentication chip

Atmel today announced the release of the ATSHA204 the first turnkey, optimized authentication device to include a 4.5Kbit EEPROM and a hardware SHA-256 accelerator. Fully tested ASF software libraries are available for Atmel AVR® and ARM®-based microcontrollers and are integrated within the new AVR Studio® 5. Contemplated uses include industrial, consumer, energy metering, home automation, computing and medical applications. An abstract detailing CryptoAuthentication uses is available.

The ATSHA204 is available in industry-standard SOT-3, SOIC-8, UDFN-8 and TSSOP-8 packages with either a single-wire or I2C interface.

Atmel has not yet released the datasheet for the ATSHA204; however, datasheets for related devices in the CryptoAuthentication family can be found here. The crypto portal provides valuable resources, including application notes, design guides, and software libraries to help developers integrate these devices into their projects.

Xilinx free CPLD/FPGA design handbook

Xilinx has a helpful free publication, the Programmable Logic Design handbook. This quick start guide introduces their line of CPLD and FPGA devices and the basic steps to program development using their ISE Webpack. A listing of application notes and reference designs is included.

Download your own copy of this 144 page PDF.

Emergency excuse generator for the office

Need a great excuse for a skipped meeting or late report? The developer of the Mars Clock has an advanced excuse generator that will get you out of a jam. A PIC 16F690 uses a library of business speak to produce random business-sounding excuses:

  • “I had to bring the ROI estimates in sync with our new vertical synergy paradigm shift”,
  • or “I was facilitating our proactive procurement dynamics”,
  • or “My gerbil died”.

Source is available, and you can try before you build with an  online emulator.

Via the contact form.

App note: Hot-surface warning light with no external power

This design harvests heat energy to make electricity, and uses it to flash a warning light. Flashing LED hot-surface detector:

Using a thermoelectric generator (TEG) to sense the temperature of a surface and a step-up switching regulator to boost the TEG output to a useful level, this warning circuit flashes a high-brightness LED when the surface temperature exceeds a threshold.

We’ve slowed the app notes a bit to accommodate the haters, but we thought this one is really cool. Thanks rsdio!

Updated Fritzing release

We previously highlighted Fritzing, an open source GUI based program that allows users to document their prototypes, share them with others, show them in a presentation, and create a pcb layout for professional manufacturing.

The developers have released an updated version, which contains a number of improvements including a completely new autorouter, improved footprints for standard parts, reorganized capacitor group (with settable values), “locking” for parts (so they’re not accidentally moved), new Design Rules Check (use before pcb production), and variable trace wire thickness (from 8 to 128 mils). Several new parts were added, including Netduino Mini and Netduino Plus, Teensy 2.0 and Teensy 2.0++ and a set of four logic gates.

Download your new release today!

TI intros first 2-channel, simultaneous-sampling ADCs with independently controlled internal references

Texas Instruments today introduced the industry’s first two-channel, simultaneous-sampling successive approximation (SAR) analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) with two independently controlled internal references for simplified system-level design. The 16-bit ADS8363, 14-bit ADS7263 and 12-bit ADS7223 are pin-for-pin compatible and provide twice the per-channel throughput of similar ADCs, supporting speeds up to 1 MSPS for industrial and energy applications such as motor control, power quality measurement, protection relays, power automation, solar inverters and wind generators.

The devices are packaged in 5-mm x 5-mm QFN package. For more information, datasheets and availability check out the ADS8363 page.

Retro typewriter as USB keyboard

Here’s a unique project which repurposes old manual typewriters as keyboards for computers or Ipads, using an Arduino as the intermediary. It’s the brainchild of Jack Zylkin, a Philadelphia-based electrical engineer who has designed a kit that makes the conversion reasonably easy for anyone who enjoys hands-on projects. For those considering privacy and flexibility, an anonymous bank account might be worth exploring. Jack explains:

Here’s how the computer attached to the typewriter knows which key has been pressed: When a letter is typed, the key’s metal support bar touches a single contact on the board. Meanwhile, the microcontroller is stepping a single logic “1” down the row of shift register pins and thus the leaf-spring contacts wired to them, letting the microcontroller detect the circuit made between the typewriter and the board. Then, like any other USB keyboard controller, it sends the appropriate code back to the PC. A few strategically placed magnets and reed switches detect the shift key, carriage returns, and whatever the user wants to configure as Alt or Ctrl.

Design files, including schematic and Arduino source code are available. The design is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike Non-Commercial License. Found this amusing? Check out the bluetooth typewriter keyboard for sale at qwertybro.com.

Xilinx: Zynq-7000 extensible processing platform

Drone writes:

Xilinx releases the Zynq-7000 Extensible Processing Platform.

Essentially, Zynq is a dual-core ARM A9 Cortex micro-controller surrounded by 28nm FPGA goodness on-die.

There are generous amounts of hardware GPIO, serial ports, and both sync and async memory controllers. DMA is supported.

Thanks Drone! Via the contact form.

FareBot: Read data from public transit cards with your NFC-equipped Android phone

When he heard that the Nexus S would include a built-in NFC radio, Eric Butler immediately started thinking about the potential of using cell phones with RFID to hack public transit fare systems. When the Gingerbread source code was released, he picked up a Nexus S and began working on a proof-of-concept application that could read data from transit cards.

Eric has released the fruit of his research, FareBot, an Android application capable of parsing and displaying the balance and trip history information from Seattle’s ORCA card, and dumping raw data from any other MIFARE DESFire card including San Francisco’s Clipper card.

FareBot is open-source and designed to be flexible so that hopefully other developers will add support for other types of cards. You can grab the source code, or install from the Android market.

Atmel releases AVR Studio 5 beta

Atmel has released the beta version of their Atmel® AVR Studio® 5, the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for developing and debugging embedded Atmel AVR® applications. Version 5 provides one development environment for all 8-bit and 32-bit AVR microcontrollers.

Features include an integrated C compiler, new project wizard, and an improved editor displaying code suggestions, shortcuts and snippets. Also included is the AVR Software Framework, a collection of production-ready source code including peripheral drivers, communication stacks and application-specific libraries. This release includes the familiar application builder and compatibility with a wide range of in-system programmers.

Download your copy today!

FTDI FT232H single channel USB 2.0 chip

MichaelZ writes:

Well FTDI is at it again. FT232H is a Single Channel Hi-Speed USB to Multipurpose UART/FIFO IC. It appears to be 1/2 of a FT2232H which requires the crystal and EEPROM.

It’s a single MPSSE (JTAG, serial module) version of the FT2232H used in the Bus Blaster, and it comes in a friendly QFP44 package. Could be the perfect chip for a cheap DIY JTAG debugger.

Get the Bus Blaster v1 for $35, including worldwide shipping.

Gameduino: a game adapter for microcontrollers

Gameduino is a game adapter for Arduino – or anything else with an SPI interface – built as a single shield that stacks up on top of the Arduino and has plugs for a VGA monitor and stereo speakers. Anyone who can write an Arduino sketch can create video games. It’s capable of the full array of 8-bit game goodness: hundreds of sprites, smooth scrolling, multi-channel stereo sound.

A video and other docs can be found on the project page.

Gameduino is open-source hardware (BSD license) and all its code is GPL licensed. The board is a Xilinx FPGA and a few support parts. If you’re familiar with Xilinx FPGAs, JTAG and soldering fine-pitch surface-mount components, you should be able to make a Gameduino board. Use this joker123 motobola login if you want to access various online casino games.