e009064.pdf

GENERAL INTEREST

COP8 Design Competition

Prize line-up

By Guy Raedersdorf

Processing, evaluating and marking the 25 COP8 Design Competition

entries received from all four corners of Europe took the Jury members

longer than expected. In line with the Competition rules, National Semi-

conductor put one of their design engineers, Mr. Siegfried Rueth, to our

disposal to assist in judging the technical level of the entries.

After a first pre-evaluation round, the Jury

allowed 15 or so COP8-based project propos-

als to pass to the second round for even

closer scrutiny. After long hours of marking

the projects, debate and further thought the

Jury members ﬁnally agreed on the laureates.

The winner of the First Prize , 1,000 US$ in

cash offered by National Semiconductor, is

Mario Nicou from the UK, for his project

Dynamic PSU Load Tester . As indicated by

the project name, Mario set out to design an

instrument for testing the dynamic (active

load) performance of all kinds of power sup-

plies. The Jury was particularly impressed

with the quality of Mario’s project, the way it

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9/2000

Results

GENERAL INTEREST

was presented, and the technical

approach to it. The 3,000 lines of

COP8 code Mario wrote for the pro-

ject were recognized as ‘exemplary’

by NS specialists. The illustrations

show a few impressions of Mario’s

workshop.

Admittedly the Jury was enticed a

bit by the simplicity of the project

and the efficient way in which a

COP8 is employed in a classic appli-

cation. In this project, the COP8 con-

trols an LCD module with 32 lines of

122 pixels, with each pixel being

individually addressable (whether

active or not active).

7. Paul Gélineau (France) for his ‘LCD VU

Meter’.

Prize: CA61 (Celeron/Pentium FPGA)

motherboard from DFI

8. Michel Vacher (France) for his ‘Ni/Mh

Battery Charger’

Prize: 4 CD-ROMs of his choice

9. Claude Pinedre for his ‘NAVTEX

Receiver’

Prize: 3 CD-ROMs if his choice

10. Michael Gaus (Germany) for his ‘Mes-

sage Display’.

Prize: 2 CD-ROMs of his choice

The Second Prize , 500 US$, was

awarded to Robert Lacoste from

France for his futuristic SCAN3D pro-

ject. It is probably best described as

an electronic surveying system

employing ultrasonic sound signals to

measure the distance to an object, or

calculate surface areas. SCAN3D is

capable of working in stand-alone

mode as well as connected up to a PC.

This particular project stood out

because of its beautifully designed

PCB and PC/user interface.

It did not take the Jury long to

decide to award lesser prizes to ‘run-

ners-up’ in the Contest, as follows:

4. Rob Reilink (Netherlands) for his

‘Universal Control Unit’.

Prize: a BE-6-II (Pentium III)

motherboard from Abit

5. Arnoud Varoquaux (France) for

his ‘Laboratory Power Supply’.

Prize; a PW65 (Pentium III) moth-

erboard from DFI

6. Olivier Bureaud (France) for his

‘Housekeeper Control’.

Prize: WB6 (Pentium III) mother-

board from Abit

The results of this COP8 Design Competition,

realized with hardware and ﬁnancial support

from National Semiconductor Germany, are

such that it may be repeated in some form or

another in the future. The Jury was surprised

to note, on the one hand, the large number of

participants from France, and on the other,

unexpected low participation levels from Ger-

many, a country reputed for being the Euro-

pean ‘citadel’ for microcontroller-based elec-

tronic projects.

The winner of the Third Prize , 250

US$, is Vladimir Mitrovic from Croa-

tia for his Competition entry called

Controller for Graphic LCD Module.

(000073-1)

9/2000

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