Friday Quiz: Capacitors

Capacitors are fundamental electric-circuit components, but there's more to using them properly than you might think.

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Chip Incubator Debuts Startups

Semiconductor incubator Silicon Catalyst officially announced its first startups working on integrated power, low cost chip stacks and ID tags.

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Lead Acid Battery Balancer

Active balancing of series connected battery stacks exists for many common battery chemistries, but up until now not for lead acid.

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60V LED Driver with Internal 4A Switch for Automotive Lighting

LED lighting is an important feature in today's and future automobile designs. LED lighting is efficient, robust, attractive, and artistic.

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RCA Taiwan Workers' Victory: Too Little, Too Late

Taiwan workers win settlement against famously defunct U.S. company, RCA, for exposure to hazardous chemicals in 1970s.

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H-1B Visas Tougher To Come By In 2015

Demand for new H-1B visas far outpaces supply in the 2015 application cycle. Don't expect that to change in the near future.

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NXP CEO on China, Apple Pay, IoT & V2V

In unveiling its Q1 earnings, NXP CEO talks about the pending RF power business sales, its China strategy, a new mobile payment market that Apple Play in China may trigger, and its IoT strategy.

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Google Fi Bets On Cheap Wireless

Google's latest venture into wireless phone service will give the people what they want - cheap calls and Internet for a flat fee over Wi-Fi. Project Fi aims to intelligently connect users to the fastest wireless or cellular network as they move using existing technology for $20 a month.

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Maker system has OLED display and runs with Raspberry Pi

A small modular development system aimed at the maker community has built-in software compatibility with both Arduino and Raspberry Pi designs.

Called Modulo is a set of interchangeable processor-based modules for designing electronic systems with the need for breadboards, wires, and capacitors.

Each Modulo has its own microcontroller to handle its operation and communicate with the system controller.

The plan will be to offer a number of modules, and the developer which is looking for funding on Kickstarter, has identified its first modules – colour OLED display, push button illuminated knob and motor driver.

The system controller is an Arduino compatible microcontroller (ATmega32u4) on a Modulo. When used with a Mac, Windows, or Linux computer you can control all of your Modulos using python over USB.

You can also use the Arduino app to reprogram the controller, creating standalone projects.

The controller also has 6 I/O ports that can be used as digital inputs, digital outputs, analog inputs, or PWM outputs. Each port has its own power and ground pins to help keep wiring tidy, and circuitry on the controller protects it from damage if you wire something up wrong.

Modulo can be controlled with Python running on a Raspberry Pi or any other computer, reprogrammed with Arduino, or connected to the Internet with Spark.

Communication between devices is via a standard I2C interface and the controller board has a USB port.

Four modules can be connected to a base board, and theses can be daisy chained for larger projects.

 

 

 

Richard Wilson

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Rethinking Energy Performance

Technology is developing faster than ever, and with demands pulling at operators from all directions, it's vital that networks are streamlined and efficient.

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Exploding Lithium-Ion Batteries: A Real-Time Analysis

Researchers from University College London , ESRF The European Synchrotron, Imperial College London and the UK's National Physical Laboratory, have shown, using 3D imaging techniques, for the first time what happens when lithium-ion batteries overheat and explode.

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MediaTek Pins 2nd Half Hopes on Octacore

MediaTek, the world's third-largest chip designer, expects new octacore products coming out in the second half of this year to help lift sales out of the doldrums.

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Samsung Handily Reclaims Smartphone Crown From Apple

Shipments of Samsung's smartphones roared back to life during the first quarter, putting the company ahead of Apple. However, profits remain elusive for the world's largest maker of phones.

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WiGig, Innovation and the Analog IP Challenge

WiGig improves WiFi (802.11) wireless protocol, but the path to glory is fraught with design challenges.

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How Royal Caribbean Keeps Customers Connected

Royal Caribbean Cruises is meeting modern customer expectations with wireless connectivity at sea.

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Managing the Team: Hygiene First, Motivation Next

Keeping the team motivated and enthusiastic about an entrepreneurial company could be the difference between success and failure. It is also an aspect of the job for a founding CEO that can be puzzling.

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Raspberry Pi runs Windows virtual apps and remote desktops

For the first time since the launch of Raspberry Pi in 2012, designers can have access to a Windows application or desktop remotely by using its RDP client that runs on Raspberry Pi’s native Linux OS.

US-based firm Parallels is offering client software that allows users to access their Windows applications and desktops remotely from the super low cost Raspberry Pi device.

The company will demonstrate at the Microsoft Ignite conference in Chicago 0n May 4-8 its 2X Remote Application Server (RAS) working with Raspberry Pi.

This potentially allows the Raspberry Pi ito be used as an operational workstation.

Parallels 2X marketing director Giorgio Bonuccelli writes:

“With more than five million units shipped since its 2012 launch, Raspberry Pi is the new kid on the IT block, but the use of this small and revolutionary device has been limited to Linux and web applications so far. Parallels 2X RAS offers the unique opportunity to deliver corporate Windows applications and remote desktops on this low-cost, credit-card-sized computer.”

Features of Parallels 2X RAS include:

• Auto-configured features like printing redirection are standard.
• Server load balancing distributes workload to servers based on available resources, improving performance and reliability.
• Windows client management allows IT administrators to take control of Windows devices, set passwords, and shadow PCs to provide remote assistance.
• Reporting allows an administrator to generate reports that monitor RDP and server activity, such as license usage, server activity, and more.
• Gateway load balancing guarantees constant access to virtual resources by distributing connections between two or more gateways.

The RAS already supports  Chromebook notebook computers, Windows PCs, Mac computers, Linux workstations, Android and iOS devices, the Windows Phone, HTML5 browsers.

Visit the company website to download a free trial.

 

Richard Wilson

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Living Computers Ultimate Goal

Georgia Tech has created arrays of sensor pixels for hybrid semiconductor/living cell sensor/actuators, paving the way to living computers.

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NI sees sales growth despite weak dollar

NI has reported first quarter sales revenues of $289m, which is a 2% increase on this time last year.

However, weak US dollar exchange rates impacted reported dollar sales figures in Europe  which were down 4% in Q1.

NI expects to see improved US dollar revenue growth for the rest of 2015 due to the impact of the strengthening of the US dollar.

The test and design system firm saw stronger growth of 5% in East Asia and 6% in emerging markets.

According to Dr. James Truchard, NI president, CEO, underlying sales performance remains strong.

In constant currency terms, revenue was up in all regions, with the Americas up 4%, Europe up 10%, East Asia up 7% and the Emerging Markets up 19%.

“While we continue to adapt to the impact of the U.S. dollar on our results, I am optimistic about our long-term position in the industry and our ability to continue to gain market share,” said Truchard.

“I am confident we are building the new product pipeline, channel and operational excellence necessary to drive the long-term growth and profitability of the company. I am particularly excited about our early success in 5G wireless, where our innovative technology platform is enabling researchers to prototype algorithms for next-generation wireless networks.”

GAAP net income for Q1 was $15m and non-GAAP net income was $23m.

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) was $37m in the first quarter.

 

 

Richard Wilson

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Microsoft goes big on Arduino boards

Microsoft has strengthened its ties with the maker community.

The Arduino organisation has certified the Windows 10 operating system for running on its development platform.

There are also Windows Virtual Shields for Arduino technologies and a wireless access application called Windows Remote Arduino and both are released as open source libraries.

A Windows 10 based design described at the Build maker community conference in San Francisco this week was a security camera built by using Arduino to power the motors controls to tilt/turn the camera and using Universal Windows Platform (UWP) to create the UI, connect the camera to the cloud and to process the image for motion detection and for adding facial/voice recognition.

With Windows Remote Arduino developers can create a wireless interface to Windows 10 devices as if they were physically attached to an Arduino Shield. Arduino functions can be accessed directly from the Universal Windows Application.

The Arduino commands execute on a wirelessly connected Arduino device. This opens the potential to use Windows 10 device features such as Image processing, Speech recognition, Website parsing, Cameras and Advanced Audio pipelines.

The wireless protocol will allow the features of Windows smartphones such as GPS, Web connectivity/parsing, touch display, speech technologies to be incorporated into Arduino-based designs.

 

Richard Wilson

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ASE nets NT$0.58 per share for 1Q15

IC packaging and testing house Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASE) has reported net profits of NT$4.47 billion (US$146 million) for the first quarter of 2015, up 30% on year. Net EPS for the quarter came to NT$0.58.

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Foxconn reportedly gives up plan to form closer partnership with Sharp

With Sharp having recently accepted loans of JPY200 billion (US$1.68 billion) from cooperating banks and business-renewal organizations, Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry), has reportedly given up its plan to invest in Sharp, according to a Japanese-language Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun report.

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MediaTek profits hit 7-quarter low

Handset-IC design specialist MediaTek has reported net profits of NT$7.25 billion (US$236.7 million) for the first quarter of 2015, which hit the lowest quarterly level since the second quarter of 2013.

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Digitimes Research: Global tablet shipments to stay flat on quarter and reach 49.31 million units in 2Q15

Global tablet shipments are expected to stay flat from a quarter ago and reach 49.31 million units in the second quarter of 2015, but compared to the same quarter a year ago, the volume will drop close to 10%. Apple's iPad shipments are expected to decline to 9.8 million units, down 30% on year, according to Digitimes Research's latest report about global tablets.

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Unprecedented solar PV boom in the UK during 1Q15, says IHS

According to a new report from IHS, at least 110 photovoltaic (PV) projects with a combined capacity of 1.6GW were completed in the UK in the first quarter of 2015, prior to the end of the Renewable Obligations (RO) scheme for projects larger than 5MW. This latest PV push brings the total number of large solar farms to 311, with a combined capacity of 3.8GW, which is more than half (51%) of the UK's total installed PV capacity of 7.5GW.

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China makers aiming for 80% panel self-sufficiency

With new developments for expanding 8.5G facilities in China, local panel production is expected to help bring the self-sufficiency rate for panels in the nation to 80% over the next few years.

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HannStar 1Q15 revenues decrease

LCD panel HannStar Display has announced that its net sales in the first quarter of 2015 totaled NT$5.29 billion (US$173.13 million), down 16% on quarter. Gross profit was NT$822 million while operating income came in at NT$181 million and net income reached NT$705 million. EPS was NT$0.21.

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PV demand to stay at 51.4GW in 2015, says firm

Global PV market demand for 2015 will remain around 51.4GW as new capacity from multiple suppliers will be added, according to EnergyTrend.

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Samsung reports decreased profits for 1Q15

Samsung Electronics has reported net profits of KRW4.63 trillion (US$4.35 billion) for the first quarter of 2015, down 38.2% from the KRW7.49 trillion of a year earlier. Meanwhile, revenues for the first quarter reached KRW47.12 trillion, down 11% on quarter.

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Utility customer information systems and analytics spending expected to total nearly US$37 billion from 2014-2023, says firm

With a broad diversity of customer situations to account for, billing and customer care is often a complex issue for utilities. This, combined with a changing competitive landscape, increasing customer expectations, and a growing number of media for customer engagement, is expected to prompt many utilities to upgrade their customer information system (CIS) solutions in the coming decade. According to a recent report from Navigant Research, global spending on utility CISs and analytics is expected to total nearly US$37 billion from 2014-2023.

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LCD TV shipments decrease 24% on quarter in 1Q15, says WitsView

The global shipments of LCD TVs in the first quarter of 2015 totaled 51.4 million units, according to WitsView. This figure translates to a quarterly decline of 24%. In addition to the first quarter being an off-peak season, there were other forces causing the shipment decline. One factor was the lowering of spending power in Europe and emerging markets due to the depreciation of various currencies. The saturation of China's domestic market was also another important reason.

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Loss for ST.

STMicroelectronics had Q1 revenue of $1.7 billion down 6.6% on Q1 2014 for a loss of $22 million about the same as the $24 million loss of Q1 2014. Gross margin was 33.2%.

“Although revenues came in lower than the midpoint of our first quarter outlook, gross margin was well aligned with our guidance and, despite seasonal factors, ST generated positive free cash flow,” said ST CEO President and CEO Carlo Bozotti.

In the second quarter, the company forecasts that revenues will be up by about 3.5%.

“During the quarter, we saw ST products enabling more and more of the Internet of Things as well as some of the latest flagship mobile and wearable devices: our AMOLED drivers, touchscreen controllers, pressure sensors, 6-axis motion MEMS, high-performance microphones and STM32 microcontrollers ramped production or were designed-in with global brands in exciting, new devices,” said Bozotti.

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Ku-Band MMIC from Cree

Cree has launched a Ku-Band MMIC covering the 13.5 – 14.75GHz commercial satcom band. The new 30W GaN MMIC two-stage high power amplifier (HPA) will allow the satcom industry to achieve higher power, more efficient Ku-Band solutions than the TWT or GaAs solutions used today, the company claimed.

Available in a 25×9.6mm, 10-lead, metal/ceramic flanged package, the 50Ω Ku-Band MMIC HPA operates at 40V V_DD, and delivers satcom measured performance of 20dB linear gain at 42dBm average output power, while maintaining linearity under the -33dBc OQPSK signal, and with adjacent channel power at a drain efficiency of 20%.

The 30W GaN MMIC HPA also delivers higher breakdown voltage, power density, and thermal conductivity than comparable Si, GaAs, or GaN-on-Si transistors, in addition to wider bandwidth performance.

“It was specifically designed in response to customer requests for higher power and higher efficiency Ku-Band amplifier solutions,” says Cree’s Tom Dekker.

The chip will be stocked at Digi-Key and Mouser by mid-summer 2015.
-

david manners

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ATL HDI3000 Ultrasound Machine

Dave scores an old Philips/ATL HDI3000 Ultrasound machine. Will it boot?
User Manual
Service Manual

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China PV module makers seeking solar cells produced outside of China, Taiwan

China-based PV module makers, viewing that PV module demand in the US is rebounding and prices are relatively high, have been seeking supply sources of crystalline silicon solar cells in countries other than China and Taiwan, such as Malaysia and Vietnam, to circumvent US anti-dumping and anti-subsidization tariffs, according to industry sources.

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India market: Huawei aims to ship 2 million smartphones in 2015

Huawei aims to ramp up its smartphone shipments to India to two million units in 2015, according to Zhao Ming, president of Huawei's Honor Business Unit. Huawei held a 4% share of the smartphone market in India in the fourth quarter of 2014.

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LG announces 1Q15 financial performance

LG Electronics has announced first-quarter net profit of KRW38.4 billion (US$34.91 million) and operating profit of KRW305.2 billion. Consolidated revenues reached KRW13.99 trillion and were on par with the previous year as smartphone sales were offset by modest revenue declines in TVs.

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Realtek expects slight growth in 2Q15 sales

Networking IC design company Realtek Semiconductor expects to post slight sequential growth in second-quarter revenues.

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Digitimes Research: Japan online video market to grow significantly starting 2H15

Japan's online video market is expected to grow significantly starting the second half of 2015 when Netflix begins to offer its services, NTT DoCoMo launches its dTV Terminal program and the local top-five cable TV operators start offering free online video services, according to Digitimes Research.

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Tencent partners with Bank of Beijing, says report

China-based Tencent has signed contracts with Bank of Beijing for a strategic partnership. The bank will provide CNY10 billion (US$1.61 billion) to support Tencent's Internet+ project in Beijing, China, according to reports from China media.

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UMC expects flat performance in 2Q15

Foundry chipmaker United Microelectronics (UMC) expects its wafer shipments and ASPs to stay flat sequentially in the second quarter of 2015, while sales generated from 28nm process technology will continue to grow.

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Semiconductor market unlikely to pick up until 3Q15, says SPIL chairman

Bough Lin, chairman of Siliconware Precision Industries (SPIL), has predicted that the semiconductor market is unlikely to return to its seasonal growth pattern until the third quarter of 2015.

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Taiwan market: Taiwan Star Cellular aims at 500,000 4G users for end of 2015

Taiwan Star Cellular aims to increase the number of its 4G mobile communication subscribers from 200,000-250,000 currently to 500,000 at the end of 2015, according to company president Cliff Lai.

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Radiant reports financial performance for 1Q15

Radiant Optoelectronics Technology has reported revenues of NT$9.4 billion (US$308.26 million) for the first quarter of 2015.

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Holtek 2Q15 revenues to rise 10-15%

Microcontroller (MCU) supplier Holtek Semiconductor is expected to post 10-15% sequential growth in second-quarter revenues, buoyed by strong shipments for home appliances, medical products, lighting control and security products, according to market sources.

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Macronix losses improve in 1Q15

Macronix International, which specializes in the manufacture of NOR flash and mask ROM memory chips, saw its net losses reduce to NT$357 million (US$11.4 million) in the first quarter of 2015. Net EPS for first-quarter 2015 came to negative NT$0.10.

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UMC to Skip 20nm, Gun for 14nm FinFET

UMC, which has once again become the world's second-largest chip foundry, will skip the 20 nm technology node as it aims to have 14nm FinFET tapeouts available for customers by Q4 this year.

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EEVblog #739 – Ebay Hardware Tin Collection

Dave opens some of the 332 coffee tins full of hardware parts he scored at an ebay auction. What’s inside?
Forum HERE
World’s biggest component collection video HERE

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Intel Loses Mobile Vet in Reorg

In its latest reorg, Intel said goodbye to 33-year veteran Mooly Eden, who pioneered much of the company's move into low-power processors.

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Microsoft Demos HoloLens VR

Microsoft showcased updates to its HoloLens virtual reality platform running on Windows 10 in a Build event that was otherwise a deep dive for developers.

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High Costs Hint IoT SoC Design Shakeout?

Semico hopes to identify features and technologies that are "exclusive to IoT applications."

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Arris Sets Pace in Set Top Boxes

The demise of UK's indigenous electronics sector continues apace. Here's another sign of the downhill trend.

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Star Trek (The Original Series) New Episodes!

Do you miss the original Star Trek series? Would you like to see some more episodes? If so, this is your lucky day!

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Industry Doesn't Like Change

Change is inevitable in any industry, especially electronics. Leadership at the top can make companies successful, even amid constant change.

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EE Times Articles by Fred Molinari

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How the 3 Cs Drive IC Consumption

The communications, computers and consumer electronics sectors are set to be responsible for more than 70 percent of IC sales in every geographic region -- Americas, Europe, Japan, and Asia-Pacific -- in 2015, according to market research firm IC Insights.

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Another step on the long road to quantum computing

IBM has got error detection working on a segment of quantum computer.

The firm is working towards ‘surface code’ error correction for superconducting quantum computers, which need correction because entangled qubits (quantum bits) are prone to spontaneous errors. 

Surface code correction spreads quantum information across many qubits that only interact with immediate neighbours, suiting it to square arrays of qubits.

Qubits can exist in states including 1, 0 and superpositions of 1 and 0 (1 and 0 at the same time). In superposition, 1 and 0 have a phase relationship.

Possible errors include ‘bit-flip’: a qubit set to 1 spontaneously becoming 0 (or vice versa),  and ‘phase-flip’ where the relationship between 1 and 0 in superposition changes.

“Both types of errors must be detected in order for quantum error correction to function properly,” said IBM. “Others have addressed one error or the other, but not both at the same time.”

Direct measurement of a qubit destroys information, so the the lab has made part of a surface code with a square of qubits: two data qubits on opposing corners and two sensing ‘syndrome’ qubits opposing on the other corners.

“We employ ideas of entanglement and we can determine one of the characteristics of these data qubits through the measurement of one of these syndrome qubit, and get another aspect of the data qubits through the other syndrome qubit,” said IBM research manager Jerry Chow. “From that we can reconstruct what is the error [bit or phase-flip] that might have occurred to these data qubits.”

Scaled to a full surface code, this square would be part of a much larger lattice in which syndrome measurements would be made continually to determine what errors are occurring in the data qubits around them.

“We managed to show the ability to do a piece of the surface code,” said Chow.

How powerful will quantum computers be?

“If a quantum computer could be built with 50 qubits, there’s no combination of today’s TOP500 supercomputers that could successfully emulate it,” said IBM, although it might take two decades to build a useful quantum computer.

steve bush

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Ethernet Geared for Cars, Factories

A new class of Ethernet chips and software will emerge next year, opening the networking technology up to use in time-sensitive applications in cars, factory robots and more.

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Imagination lets MIPS take academic plunge

Imagination Technologies’ decision to reveal the inner-most secrets of the MIPS microprocessor architecture to academics could dramatically improve the teaching of electronics in universities.

The MIPS architecture started off as an academic exercise by John Hennessy at Stanford University, and is the subject of a standard educational book by Hennessy and David Patterson.

Imagination University programme manager Robert Owen told Electronics Weekly:

“My mission is to re-energise the use of MIPS in academia, which is a key stimulator of commercial use .

“Usually universities are provided with cores that have been obfuscated – they look like a black box. I have been talking to professors all over the world, and they want a core where they can get under the hood. THe students need to take the lid off, see how it works and modify it.”

So Imagination is making available the RTL of its microAptive core – as used by Microchip in PIC32MZ microcontrollers.

The core is not exactly the core used by Microchip, but neither is it dumbed-down – it has a memory management unit (MMU), cache controller and JTAG boundary scan, for example.

Called MIPSfpga, it consists of a set of microAptive options selected by Professor David Harris, co-author of the book ‘Digital Design and Computer Architecture’. Professor Sarah Harris, the other author, has developed the MIPSfpga teaching materials.

One of the drivers for option selection, like the inclusion of a cache controller, was to make this a Linux-capable MicroAptive core.

As its name suggests, it is designed to be run in an FPGA, and guides are available to use it on the Digilent Nexys4 (Xilinx Artix-7) and the Terasic DE2 (Altera Cyclone) platforms. Some additional blocks, and driver software, are under development to get Linux up and running on the FPGAs – expected within three months.

To use the core, universities will have to register with Imagination – Harvey Mudd College California, Imperial College London, University College London (UCL), and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, have already done so.

Lecturers will have to sign a licence. “It is a very simple licence in plain English,” said Owen.

Taking the wraps off architectural RTL is not without risk as all or part of it could end up illegally copied.

Imagination has thought long and hard about the implication, and thinks releasing the IP is worth it, said Owen, pointing out that the MIPS organisation is used to dealing with companies who use its instruction set without permission, and their customers. “I don’t think we are going to end up chasing lecturers if it gets put in silicon illegally,” he added.

 

Richard Wilson

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IBM Solves Quantum Computing

IBM's new prototype of its future quantum computer corrects errors that spoil calculations and is scalable to any size.

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Start-up's Co-Robots Handle Logistics

Seven month old startup Fetch Robotics is already releasing its first product for warehouse logistics -- a pair of co-robots that fetches online orders from warehouse shelves and sends them to automated machinery that seals the box and applies its label.

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WiFi Wave 2 Rises at Broadcom

To continue the drive toward next generation wireless with 802.11ac, Broadcom is sampling Wave 2 Wi-Fi chips for enterprise access points. The market is ripe for improved connection, analysts say, but competition is heating up.

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Cambridge runs coding summer school for girls

Dr Simone Teufel

Girls aged 16 to 19 years will have the opportunity to attend a summer school for computing coding in Cambridge.

Cambridge University Computer Laboratory and Cambridge Coding Academy are running their first coding summer school specifically for girls, which will run from the 10-14 August.

The aim will be to provide coding and thinking skills which are in growing demand across all industries.

Dr Simone Teufel, Reader at the Cambridge University Computer Laboratory writes:

“This is for you if you get joy from logical thinking and from building something yourself, even if you have never programmed before. I am absolutely certain that the summer school is going to be not only very valuable, but also really fun.”

With no prior coding experience required, students will complete a creative, practically-driven curriculum by building tangible products using industry-relevant technologies that are suited to their personal goals.

The students will tackle programming projects ranging from game creation to programming drone movement.

The summer school is being sponsored by Sophos, CSR, Microsoft and RealVNC, and will cost a subsidised price of just £99 for the week.

“It is designed to empower and establish new opportunities for young women to help shape the future and close the gender gap in the technology sector,” said Raoul-Gabriel Urma, CEO & Co-founder Cambridge Coding Academy.

Registration is open

 

Richard Wilson

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3D chip is “smallest” light sensor

TSL2584 block diagram

A tiny ambient light sensor from ams uses through-silicon via (TSV) packaging to achieve a footprint of just 1.145 x 1.66mm and a height of 0.32mm.

The TSV package does not need wire bonds and provides a direct connection from the device I/Os to a solder ball.

The TSL2584TSV’s incorporates  interference filters which are deposited directly onto the silicon. Filtering out un-wanted IR light enables the sensor to accurately measure the ambient light and to produce what the supplier calls “a near-photopic response”.

According to David Moon, senior marketing manager in the Advanced Optical Solutions division of ams: ” With a footprint of less than 2mm² and a height of only 0.32mm the TSL2584TSV marks a major milestone in the development of ALS solutions, opening up many new options for implementing display management in highly space-constrained designs.’

The TSL2584TSV is available for volume production and an evaluation kit is also available .

 

 

 

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Arrow to sell open-source ARM boards

HiKey board

Arrow Electronics is adding open-source hardware to its embedded design offerings and it has signed up to Linaro, the organisation which optimises open-source software for ARM processor-based designs.

Arrow will sell open-source ARM-based boards as part of the Linaro community known as “96Boards”.

The community includes both maker and embedded product manufacturers.

“96Boards is building a single software and hardware community across low-cost development boards based on ARM Cortex-A processors from multiple silicon vendors,” said Rob Booth, Linaro chief operating officer.

96Boards is an open specification to define a platform for 32-bit and 64-bit Cortex-A boards from the range of ARM SoC vendors.

It includes standardised expansion buses for peripheral I/O, display and cameras allow the hardware ecosystem to develop a range of compatible add-on products that will work on any 96Boards product over the lifetime of the platform.

An example is the HiKey board, which is based on the HiSilicon Kirin 6220 eight-core ARM Cortex-A53 64-bit SoC running at 1.2GHz and delivering over 10,000 Dhrystone VAX MIPS total performance. The SoC also delivers high performance 3D graphics support with its ARM Mali 450-MP4 GPU.

The board is the standard 96Boards credit-card form factor powered by an 8-18V DC 2A power supply.

“Ensuring reliable hardware production and distribution is key to developing this community,” said Booth.

Aiden Mitchell, vice president of semiconductor marketing for Arrow, said the move was part of a five year plan to expand its involvement in the open-source community.

“We look forward to working with the Linaro community to accelerate the pace of innovation for the ARM processor market,” said Mitchell.

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Distribution sales up, but dark clouds ahead

Adam Fletcher

Component sales in the UK  through distribution seem to be on the rise, but Europe slowdown still threatens .

According to latest data from the Electronic Components Supply Network (ECSN),  show that billings among its distributor members increased by 10% in March compared to the previous month and by 2% when compared to the same month 2014.

According to ECSN chairman Adam Fletcher, all the indications are that the improvement in sales will be reflected in the figures the association will soon release for the first quarter 2015.

“Early and as yet un-audited figures for Q1’15 indicate that Billings increased by 9% in Q1 when compared to the previous quarter, and by 1.4% when compared to Q1 2014,” said Fletcher. “These figures are towards the upper quartile of our members’ growth forecast for Q1’15 of (1%) to 2%,” said Fletcher.

ECSN’s forecast for Q2 ’15 is in the range 0% to 2% growth and the association expects improving single digit growth as the year progresses.

“ECSN members confirm 2015 is likely be a year of low consolidated growth, reflecting the economic environment in the UK/Ireland, in Europe and Globally,” said Fletcher

Overall bookings improved by 2% in March 2015 compared to the previous month but showed a (5%) decline over the same period 2014.

“The polynomial trend continues to indicate that the book-to-bill will remain positive into 2H ’15,” Fletcher said.

The encouraging sales result for March ’15 was reflected in the bookings (net sales entered) figures reported by ECSN members but not in the book-to-bill ratio, an important indicator of demand trends.

“A decline in March for the book–to-bill ratio is disappointing but it’s only just below parity,” Fletcher continued, “but it does suggest that the UK/Ireland electronic components markets are beginning to be impacted by the decline in economic growth across the EU.”

 

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Comment: Let’s continue and extend support for electronics

An open letter to the next prime minister from Peter Brooks, CEO of the Electronics Systems Community

Dear next PM

Electronic systems underpin virtually every aspect of the modern economy. The UK sector comprises over 45,000 businesses, employs over one million people and adds nearly £100bn to GDP.

The Electronic Systems Community (ESCO), formerly the UK Electronic Alliance, is a partnership between government and industry which has produced some notable successes, although there are still issues of some magnitude to address.

In January this year No.10 hosted a round-table, attended by leaders from the electronic systems sector and representatives from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) to kick-start ESCO’s Trailblazer Apprenticeship programme. Within two months a new degree apprenticeship standard had been designed, specified and approved.

We believe that it is vital for the good work on employer ownership of skills and employer control of skills funding to continue if we are to have a skills system fit for the 21st Century and one which will enable us to compete on an even footing with the rest of the world.

Internet of things
Another area in which the UK can shine is the internet of things. We are working hard to ensure that not only the software applications and communications aspects are recognised, but that the hardware – the devices themselves – are given their true significance. Thanks are due for the £40m announced in the budget to support this activity and create two demonstrator sites – a great start.

Europe
The UK makes a substantial contribution to the funds of the EU and in one specific case we are not maximising our return on that contribution. The government has done an excellent job of supporting early stage research, but for electronic systems we are significantly behind competitor nations such as France and Germany in taking advantage of later stage European funding that is designed to help companies turn research ideas into products that generate jobs and growth.

The Electronic Components and Systems for European Leadership (ECSEL) programme is a €5bn (£3.6bn)fund which has been established to develop the electronic systems industry in Europe. UK companies can apply for 50% of the funding required for a project, but can only unlock the ECSEL funding (25%) if 25% is available from the member state; in our case via Innovate UK (formerly the Technology Strategy Board).

Investing in ECSEL therefore brings more of the UK’s investment in Europe back to the UK, and helps further exploitation of the excellent earlier stage funding we do.

Industry 4.0
Another area where your government could unlock private industry funds to match a public contribution would be for the next manufacturing revolution, Industry 4.0.

We believe that by building a Living Laboratory – initially to demonstrate to end users and other stakeholders the opportunities that Industry 4.0 offers, but later to expand this into a development and interoperability test facility for UK automation equipment – manufacturers could ensure that the UK is at the forefront of the development of industrial automation.

This will enable manufacturing industries to increase competitiveness and flexibility, bringing high-quality manufacturing jobs back into the UK.
Energy efficiency

One more area we’d like to bring to your attention is energy efficiency. There are major opportunities for this industry if government would help by facilitating the market and removing commercial and regulatory barriers. For instance:

• domestic buildings which account for 25% of the UK’s carbon emissions
• commercial buildings where energy use costs make up 20% of the average UK business overheads
• factories and industrial uses, where just under 20% of the UK’s final energy is consumed.

Through cost-effective investment in energy efficiency, by 2020 the UK could be saving the equivalent of the output from 22 new power stations.
We urge you to continue with this government/industry partnership working under the new administration.

Peter Brooks,
CEO of the Electronic Systems Community

What is the ESCO?
The Electronic Systems Community of trade associations and representative bodies provides a forum for the electronic systems community to address issues and a two-way communication channel with government departments.

The ESCO executive committee includes Baroness Neville-Rolfe, Minister of State for Intellectual Property; Warren East, former ARM CEO and now CEO of Rolls Royce; and Sir Hossein Yassaie, CEO of Imagination Technologies.

See also:  Stem the tide of our worsening tech skills gap An open letter to the next Prime Minister fromWendy Devolder, CEO of Skills Matter

and

Don’t ignore manufacturing, it matters An open letter to the next Prime Minister from Adam Fletcher, chairman of the Electronic Components Supply Network (ECSN)

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Bluetooth SIG runs IoT training days

Training for developers interested in getting into the internet of things will be held in London on September 14 as part of a global training programme being run by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG).

The one-day session will cover Bluetooth Smart fundamentals, testing tools, best practices on adding connectivity to everyday objects, and training from Nordic Semiconductor and Frontline.

Attendees will also get to work with the SIG’s new software development toolkit – Bluetooth Developer Studio.

“Our goal from day one was to understand Bluetooth technology from a developer’s point of view, and then create tools and other resources to make it dead simple for any developer to implement it in their product or app,” said Steve Hegenderfer, director of developer programs at the Bluetooth SIG.

Sponsoring companies are Nordic Semiconductor, Frontline, CSR and Broadcom.

Training dates will take place May 20 in San Jose; May 27 in Seoul, South Korea; June 10 in Berlin, Germany; August 17 in Shanghai, China; September 14 in London, UK; and October 1 in Boston, MA.

Developers can register here

 

 

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The automotive automation opportunity

Advanced driver-assist systems (ADAS) will have a $102bn (£66bn) ‘opportunity’ by 2030, up from $2.4bn today, as carmakers add automation features, according to Lux Research.

Sensors will account for 23% of the opportunity, while the connectivity and apps segment takes a higher 28% share and software to co-ordinate sensor fusion and enable critical safety operations will claim 25%, the research firm states.

“ADAS technologies open the automotive market opportunity to new players from the software and hardware worlds, with each aiming to create as much value as possible by consolidating capabilities and offering platforms that enable ‘plug-and-play’ autonomy,” says Maryanna Saenko of Lux.

Cars with basic driver-assist features, like parking assistance, are a potential $29.6bn market by 2022, but enhanced features such as adaptive cruise control and lane merge offer a $73bn opportunity in 2030.

Partial autonomy features – like self-driving on the highway – will be slow to roll out over the next 10 years, before growing to a $22.7bn opportunity by 2030, the firm suggests. In the most likely case, fully autonomous cars will not hit the market before 2030, largely because of regulations and a current lack of prototypes.

Enhanced driver-assist features will add $527 to the price of new cars in 2020, and $481 per car in 2030. The bulk of the additional cost arises from software – $367 in 2020, and $220 per car in 2030 – while connectivity will account for $160 per car in 2020 and $261 in 2030.

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Gamania nets NT$2.05 per share for 1Q15

Online game developer and operator Gamania Digital Entertainment on April 28 released its financial report for the first quarter of 2015, recording consolidated revenues of NT$2.45 billion (US$78.3 million), net operating profit of NT$54.6 million, net profit of NT$323.3 million and net EPS of NT$2.05.

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Taiwan market: Xiaomi to launch Mi 4i in May

Xiaomi Technology plans to launch its new smartphone, the Xiaomi Mi 4i, in the Taiwan market on May 7, with its global vice president Hugo Barra presiding over the product event.

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Solartech Energy showcases 290W PV modules at SNEC PV Power Expo

Crystalline silicon solar cell maker Solartech Energy is exhibiting a PV module with power output of 290W at the SNEC PV Power Expo 2015 in Shanghai, China during April 28-30, according to the company

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Global LCD TV panel shipments grow 11% on year in March, says IHS

LCD TV panel shipments from global panel makers reached 23.9 million in March 2015, growing 20% on month and 11% on year, according to IHS.

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HTC to raise outsourcing in 2015, says CFO

HTC is likely to raise the ratio of smartphones outsourced to ODM partners in 2015, according to company president of global sales and CFO Chang Chia-lin.

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Touch embedded solutions expected to hold 15% penetration for China vendors in 2015

The top-10 major handset vendors in China are all expected to release smartphones with in-cell and on-cell touch technologies in 2015, with the technology reaching over a 15% penetration rate.

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Edison Opto nets NT$0.03 per share for 1Q15

LED packaging service provider Edison Opto on April 28 released its financial report for the first quarter of 2015, recording consolidated revenues of NT$961.8 million (US$30.7 million), gross margin of 14.24%, net operating profit of NT$8.8 million, net profit of NT$4.5 million and net EPS of NT$0.03.

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MediaTek MT6735 chip adopted by major China smartphone firms

MediaTek has announced that its MT6735 quad-core 4G 64-bit full-mode chip solution has been adopted by China-based ZTE, Lenovo and TCL for their upcoming smartphones.

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Taiwan market: TWM cooperates with Brightstar to collect 2nd-hand smartphones

Taiwan Mobile (TWM) on April 28 announced an exclusive cooperation agreement with Brightstar, a global distributor of mobile devices and a subsidiary of Japan-based SoftBank, to collect second-hand smartphones which Brightstar will re-sell around the world beginning May 1, 2015.

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FCCL maker Taiflex see decreased earnings for 1Q15

FCCL (flexible copper clad laminate) supplier Taiflex Scientific has reported net profits of NT$129 million (US$4.23 million) for the first quarter of 2015, down 31% sequentially and 26.3% on year.

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Synnex Technology to deal out 2014 dividend of NT$3.30

Taiwan-based IT product and consumer electronics channel distributor Synnex Technology International on April 28 decided to distribute a cash dividend per share of NT$3.30 (US$0.107) for 2014.

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Acer prefers profitability to PC shipment growth, says founder

Acer will focus on developing product lines that will benefit its business development and will give up the policy of ramping up shipments at the expense of profitability, according to company founder Stan Shih.

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High-end BLU products contributing more to Coretronic performance

Backlight unit (BLU) maker Coretronic has reported its first-quarter 2015 shipments of BLUs used in projectors declined 20% on quarter to 227,000 and that shipments are expected to bounce back to around 85,000-95,000 a month in the second quarter following increased demand for projectors.

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Little robots pull more than 100 times their weight

Mighty things come in small packages. The little robots in the video below can haul things that weigh over 100 times more than themselves.

The super-strong bots – built by mechanical engineers at Stanford University in California – will be presented next month at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Seattle, Washington.

The secret is in the adhesives on the robots’ feet. Their design is inspired by geckos, which have climbing skills that are legendary in the animal kingdom. The adhesives are covered in minute rubber spikes that grip firmly onto the wall as the robot climbs. When pressure is applied, the spikes bend, increasing their surface area and thus their stickiness. When the robot picks its foot back up, the spikes straighten out again and detach easily.

The bots also move in a style that is borrowed from biology. Like an inchworm, one pad scooches the robot forward while the other stays in place to support the heavy load. This helps the robot avoid falls from missing its step and park without using up precious power.

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All this adds up to robots with serious power. For example, one 9-gram bot can hoist more than a kilogram as it climbs. In this video it’s carrying StickyBot, the Stanford lab’s first ever robot gecko, built in 2006.

Another tiny climbing bot weighs just 20 milligrams but can carry 500 milligrams, a load about the size of a small paper clip. Engineer Elliot Hawkes built the bot under a microscope, using tweezers to put the parts together.

The most impressive feat of strength comes from a ground bot nicknamed μTug. Although it weighs just 12 grams, it can drag a weight that’s 2000 times heavier – “the same as you pulling around a blue whale”, explains David Christensen – who is in the same lab.

In future, the team thinks that machines like these could be useful for hauling heavy things in factories or on construction sites. They could also be useful in emergencies: for example, one might carry a rope ladder up to a person trapped on a high floor in a burning building.

But for tasks like these, the engineers may have to start attaching their adhesives to robots that are even larger – and thus more powerful. “If you leave yourself a little more room, you can do some pretty amazing things,” says Christensen.

Syndicated content: Aviva Rutkin, New Scientist

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Toshiba launches IoT and wearables design tools

Next week Toshiba will sample a hardware development kit (HDK) and a software development kit (SDK) that together form a development platform for the internet of things (IoT) and wearables market-focused TZ1000 ApP Lite series.

According to the company some reference boards and the development environment will be available free .

The TZ1000 series devices integrate a sensor, a processor, flash memory, and a Bluetooth LE controller in a single package. The series is designed to provide single-device solutions for measuring, processing, saving and communicating the data required for wearable and IoT devices.

The development environment includes a HDK embedded with the TZ1001MBG processor and a biometric sensor board that measures pulse waves and the heart’s electrical activities. The SDK includes driver software that controls each component incorporated in TZ1001MBG, middleware that measures activity and pulse waves, and application software that controls the overall system.

The platform is supported by recommended development tools, including Keil MDK-ARM and IAR Embedded Workbench for ARM.

The kits will allow users to evaluate and develop software in an environment closer to their final products and to optimise use of the application processor for specific applications. The development environment will contribute to reduced design man-hours and shorten time-to-market.

Toshiba aims to further strengthen the TZ1000 series line-up with the development of software algorithms to measure weak biological signals, like pulse waves and the heart’s electrical activities, as well as environmental data such as temperature and humidity.

See also: DevBoard Watch: Toshiba’s TZ1000 ApP Lite platform for IoT

 

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Corning reports strong profit for 1Q15

Corning has reported first-quarter 2015 net sales reached US$2.27 billion, down 1% on a year-over-year basis, while net income rose 35% to UST407 million.

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China market: China Telecom 1Q15 revenues, profit down

China Telecom on April 28 released its first-quarter 2015 financial report, with revenues of CNY81.453 (US$13.06 billion) decreasing 2.1% on year and net profit dropping 9% to CNY5.046 billion.

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Taiwan market: FET aims at 3 million 4G users by end of 2015

Taiwan-based Far EasTone Telecommunications (FET) saw the number of its 4G mobile communication subscribers increase from nearly one million at year-end 2014 to 1.5 million at the end of first-quarter 2015 and aims to increase the number further to three million by year-end 2015, according to the company.

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Digitimes Research: Networking chipset vendors to focus on ARM-based server processors

Networking chipset vendors including Broadcom, Cavium and Applied Micro Circuit (AMCC) have taken the initiative to replace PowerPC and MIPS architectures with ARM's for developments of server processor solutions for new networking communication equipment, including SDN (software-defined networking) and NFV (network functions virtualization) devices, according to Digitimes Research.

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TSMC Solar reaches 16.5% conversion rate for CIGS thin-film PV modules

TSMC Solar on April 28 announced that it has attained a record energy conversion rate of 16.5% for 1.09m2 CIGS (copper-indium-gallium-selenide) thin-film PV modules using existing manufacturing equipment and materials, breaking the preceding record of 15.7% hit in 2013, and the energy conversion rate has been confirmed by TUV SUD.

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Catcher Technology 1Q15 net operating profit hits record

Metal-alloy chassis maker Catcher Technology recorded net operating profit of NT$6.243 billion (US$199 million) for the first quarter of 2015, the highest quarterly level on record, according to the company at an April 28 investors conference.

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HTC looks to mild sales growth in 2Q15

HTC expects its sales to reach NT$46-51 billion (US$1.5-1.68 billion) in the second quarter of 2015 compared to NT$41.52 billion recorded in the previous quarter, the company said during an online investor conference held on April 28.

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AUO reports decline in 1Q15 performance

AU Optronics (AUO) has reported its first-quarter 2015 revenues dropped 9.6% on quarter to NT$95.3 billion (US$3.13 billion) while its operating margin reached NT$14.35 billion. The company's gross margin reached 15.1% and its EPS NT$0.54.

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Asustek, Acer beef up marketing of gaming notebooks

Asustek Computer and Acer have strengthened marketing of gaming notebooks through financially sponsoring Taiwan-based e-sports teams and international e-sports events.

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Global HDD demand to keep falling, says HGST executive

Global demand for hard disk drives (HDDs) of all sizes will continually decrease from 561 million units in 2014 to 550 million units in 2015 and further to 538 million units in 2016, according to Taiwan and Shanghai general manager Vincent Chen for HGST.

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Nanya nets NT$2.61 per share for 1Q15

DRAM chipmaker Nanya Technology has reported net profits of NT$6.29 billion (US$206 million), or NT$2.61 a share, for the first quarter of 2015. The profits were 26.6% lower than the prior quarter's levels.

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Digitimes Research: Taiwan IC design industry output value to rise 14.3% in 2Q15

The production value of Taiwan's IC design industry is forecast to rise 14.3% sequentially to NT$140.07 billion (US$4.58 billion) in the second quarter of 2015, buoyed mainly by a seasonal pick-up in shipments for smartphones, according to Digitimes Research.

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More wearable device vendors looking to in-house developed platforms for smartwatches

Wearable device vendors including Asustek Computer, Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics have been eagerly developing respective platforms in-house for their smartwatches and other devices, according to industry sources.

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AUO talks strategy as China makers expand facilities

In light of increasing production capacity from China-based makers, with recently announced plans by BOE to construct new 8.5G and 10.5G fabs, AU Optronics (AUO) will continue to focus on advancing technologies and increased applications to remain competitive, according to company president Paul Peng.

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Digitimes Research: China smartphone shipments decline 17.5% sequentially in 1Q15

Shipments of smartphones in China totaled 83.6 million units in the first quarter of 2015, decreasing 20 million units or 17.5% sequentially from the previous month, according to Digitimes Research.

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Topic Teardown: Connected Cars' Pros & Cons

We illustrate the benefits of connected cars. We analyze the driving force behind the connected car. We will scout security measures necessary inside cars in order to make connected cars less vulnerable to external malicious attacks.

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Is This the Most Disturbing Science Fiction Film Ever?

Have you seen the film 'Snowpiercer'? If so, do you think it counts as one of the most thought-provoking and/or disturbing science fiction films you've ever seen?

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The Problem with Big Data, Part 2

We need some mechanism to lower the temperature in political and social screaming matches, an also as a way to undermine echo chambers.

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Soft Starters Spare Wear & Tear on Motors, Help Control Peak Energy Usage

Soft starter technology has become a way to mitigate startup stressors by moderating a motor's voltage supply during the machine start-up phase, slowly ramping it up and effectively adjusting the machine's load behavior to protect mechanical components.

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Startup Cracks User-Centric Surround Sound

French startup 3D Sound Labs is now taking pre-orders for its Neoh headphones which it claims produce a truly immersive, 3D spatial sound.

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Earth Day Leaders: Top 9 Green OEM Brands

Take a look at this list of electronics OEMs that keep the spirit of Earth Day alive all year around.

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Cadence debug tool handles root-cause data

Cadence Design Systems has implemented root-cause analysis in its latest chip design debug tools.

It relies on deeper and more comprehensive data gathering and is claimed to identify problems faster than traditional transaction-level debug methods which requires more than one iteration to extract data points needed to identify the source of the bug

Called Indago, the debug tools handles the large amount of data generated by root-cause analysis with filters that remove unneeded data to go beyond the source for a single bug to resolve the cause of all related bugs.

The Indago debug platform has three related apps can be used with other verification tools to provide a single integrated and synchronized debug solution for testbench, verification IP (VIP), and hardware/software debug for system-on-chip (SoC) designs.

The three debug apps are: the basic debug analyser, embedded software debug engine and protocol debug analyser for protocols such as DDR4, AMBA AXI and ACE.

Andy Eliopoulos, vice president, R&D for verification at Cadence writes:

“Leading-edge verification projects create terabytes of data every day, making debug a big data problem for semiconductor and system companies, engineers can now have a collaborative environment across multiple verification engines that both reduces the time to solve the discovered bug and the root cause for other bugs that may be buried in the data.”

 

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HP Debuts New Campus Switch Modules, SDN App

HP products are among the many new technologies launching at this week's Interop. Others include EnGenius' WLAN management platform and Fiber Mountain's updated orchestration system.

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The Changing Face of Computer Storage

The newest storage innovations will change how things are done for the logistics chain, both upstream of the drive and array makers, and downstream in channels of distribution of their products.

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Multicore Basics for Single Core MCU Developers

A multicore reference with the latest in software and hardware tips that is easy to navigate, no matter what your interest area.

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Graphene helps study other 2D semiconductors

Molybdenum disulphide encapsulated between layers of insulating hexagonal boron nitride with graphene electrodes

Researchers have used graphene and 2D insulator boron nitride to make a clean environment in which to study other 2D semiconductors. Molybdenum disulphide has come out of the tests well.

At issue is the large surface area of 2D molecules which offeres huge possibilities for unwanted interaction.

In work at Columbia University in New York, two layers of boron nitride – an insulator, are used to keep the environment away from the material under test, while graphene provides electrical connections.

“These findings provide a demonstration of how to study all 2D materials. Our combination of BN and graphene electrodes is like a socket into which we can place many other materials and study them in an extremely clean environment to understand their true properties and potential,” said Columbia’s Professor James Hone.

MoS2 is a well-studied 2D semiconductor. Unlike graphene, it can form a transistor that can be switched fully ‘off’. However, tested on common insulating substrates such as SiO2, it shows varying mobility, well below its theoretical maximum.

Hone’s team built-up its heterostructure with MoS2 in the middle – from flakes of all three materials.

They found room-temperature mobility was improved by a factor of about two, approaching the intrinsic limit, according to Columbia, and at low temperature became faster by 5 to 50x depending on the number of atomic layers – all without the use of high vacuum.

“As a further sign of low disorder, these high-mobility samples also showed strong oscillations in resistance with magnetic field, which had not been previously seen in any 2D semiconductor,” said the university.

Analysis of low-temperature resistance and quantum oscillations indicates there remains contamination at the interfaces, indicating that further improvements are possible.

“This work motivates us to further improve our device assembly techniques, since we have not yet reached the intrinsic limit for this material,” said Hone.

Manchester University, where graphene was discovered, has been studying BN-graphene-BN sandwhiches since 2011.

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Alongside Columbia, collaborators came from: Harvard, Cornell, University of Minnesota, Yonsei University Korea, Danish Technical University, and the Japanese National Institute of Materials Science.

steve bush

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High-End PCB Design Made Affordable

Mentor's new PADS family targets independent engineers with lower cost and more powerful printed circuit board design capabilities.

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The Auctioning of Apollo

Occasionally, an item from the glory days of the Apollo moon-landing program turns up at auction.

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EEVblog #738 – Yamaha DME32 Digital Mixer Teardown

What’s inside a professional digital audio mixer?
Dave opens a Yamaha DME32 Digital Mixing Engine with multi-channel 24bit audio ADC and DAC and custom DSP processing.
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Datasheets:
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Ruggedized Tire Pressure Sensor Raises Bar

Heavy trucks, buses and construction vehicles can not have the luxury of automatic tire pressure monitoring with Freescale's new chip that it claims also issues warnings that can prevent blowouts.

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Semtech chip protects USB 3.0 connections

Semtech has a three-pin transient voltage suppression (TVS) array device designed for protecting high-speed differential pairs common in interfaces such as USB 3.0, MHL and HDMI 1.4.

The RClamp0552T is housed in a 1.0 x 0.6mm package with a nominal height of only 0.4mm.

Its three leads are spaced at a pitch of 0.34mm, and the flow-through design of the package simplifies PCB layout by allowing the traces to run straight through the device.

Specified transient protection for high speed data lines is rated to: IEC 61000-4-2 (ESD) ±17kV (air), ±17kV (contact).

There is a 5V working voltage protection and capacitance is specified at 0.21pF (typ.) and dynamic resistance of 0.90ohms (typ.)

 

 

Richard Wilson

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Raspberry Pi in camera action

If you want a camera to record runs or bike rides, maker/designer Connor Yamada has created a low cost biking-centric action camera using Raspberry Pi and open source software. 

“The design of the action camera had to be based on off-the-shelf components. If you have access to a 3D printer and soldering iron, you can build this project,” says Yamada.

The camera design is based on the lower power Raspberry Pi A+ board and camera module.

He added an Edimax WiFi USB adapter, a Bluetooth to Serial slave and 2Gbyte  Micro SD card for storage.

The camera was powered by a 2000mAh LiPo cell with charger.

Connor Yamada writes on his blog:

The largest obstacle was the USB WiFi adapter, which stuck out quite a bit more than everything else. I removed the USB jack with some side cutters and my iron and attached ribbon cable to the exposed data and power lines. I then removed the WiFi adapter from its plastic case and soldered the wires directly to its board.

Next, I hot glued the Bluetooth module to the top of the Pi and ran more ribbon cable to the headers underneath. I also attached the two pushbuttons with slightly longer pieces of cable.

 

Richard Wilson

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IoT networks LED lighting

What do LED lighting and internet of things (IoT) technologies have in common? Asks Alec Makdessian

LED lighting promises lower costs because it delivers a longer operational life and higher energy savings compared to alternative lighting options. When it is connected to the network, such as through a wireless or power-over-Ethernet (PoE) connection, users also gain unprecedented control, through automated and remote access, to dynamically adjust the brightness, on-off patterns, and/or colour of each IP-addressable lamp.

The internet of things (IoT) also promises lower costs by integrating sensors with devices so that network systems can automatically detect and shut down devices when they are not being used. Because devices are connected to the network, users with the right software and security access can remotely monitor and command them.

The lessons of history

Both LED lighting and IoT device technologies are in the early-adopter phase of their respective lifecycles. The technologies underlying them are relatively mature, but neither has yet experienced an explosion in demand with a must-purchase product. So how can these technologies reach the tipping point that leads to general adoption? The history of such transitions in other products can give some indication.

Desktop computing reached its tipping point after operating systems supported a graphical user interface and hid from the user much of the complexity of connecting computers and peripheral resources.

Digital video recorders led the transition away from video tape by moving the tiny control panel display on to the larger television display and connecting to the content of provider’s servers, allowing users to specify what they wanted to record by the name of the show rather than by date and time.

Smartphones and tablets reached their tipping point after multi-touch user interface displays simplified how users issued commands, which also made it easier to connect devices to other services.

In each case the new feature of the user interface made the device easier to use and easier to connect with other resources and services. This expanded the capability of the original device.

What about the future?
Is the ability to monitor and control lighting and IoT devices with your smartphone sufficient to push connected LEDs into general adoption? What would be the impact if we explicitly connect and integrate IoT devices with the locally networked LED lighting system? Connecting IoT devices to IP-addressable LED lighting can provide a novel way to deliver new capabilities to users.

Hearing loss is a relatively common physical condition, so connecting alarms, doorbells, baby monitors, smoke detectors, and door locks to the LED lighting network has real benefits. This enables the system to use colour changes and flashing lights to notify users when an alarm goes off, when something in the kitchen needs attention, when there is someone at the door, and even when and in which direction there is an emergency.

For people with reduced hearing who already use similar systems, the lighting system is special-purpose and hardwired. A networked LED lighting system can provide this capability and follow the user to whichever room they may be in at no additional cost other than acquiring the right software.

When all of the lamps in an LED lighting system are considered as a whole, even more impressive capabilities become possible. Imagine you are in a public building for the first time and an emergency such as a fire occurs that takes out the building’s power. How would you find the quickest and safest way out of the building? LED lighting systems connected via PoE can still operate in a power outage if the network has battery backup.

If environmental sensors were connected to the LED lighting system, lamps could be used in conjunction with one another, changing their colours and their on-off state to direct occupants to safe exits. If a path became unsafe, the lighting system could reroute occupants.

Until now, the most important driver for lighting has been to improve energy efficiency and reduce cost. Connecting IoT devices and sensors with a lighting system increases opportunities to provide new capabilities with a simple user interface. Because all LED lamps and IoT devices are individually IP-addressable, they can each give a personalised response.

Because many new capabilities arise from using existing devices in combination with each other, installing LED lighting and IoT devices can future-proof them, so that other new capabilities need only be software changes. It is likely that the transition to a general adoption of these two technologies is intimately intertwined.

Alec Makdessian is director of business management at Maxim Integrated

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Preaching the potential of PXI

Richard Wilson discovered why interest in PXI-based modular test systems is growing, during a visit to the National Electronics Week exhibition

PXI modular test system suppliers were attempting, and probably succeeding in, a takeover of the National Electronics Week exhibition in Birmingham last week.

The exhibition had an area dedicated to suppliers of PXI system hardware. PXI is also being used for development, with embedded design platforms such as CompactRio from National Instruments, but the demonstrations in Birmingham were all about using PXI as a programmable test platform.

The list of PXI suppliers was wide-ranging, including as it did, Amfax (NI systems specialist); ATE Solutions; Applicos; Goepel Electronic; Thurlby Thandar Instruments (TTI); Peak (PXI-based ATE firm); Pickering; Stantronic; Aspen Electronics and Jtag Technologies, as well as Keysight Technologies and, of course, National Instruments.

National Instruments’ UK marketing engineer Aaron Edgcumbe was encouraged by the positive response of engineers visiting the event. “The quality of the engineering enquiries has been very high,” Edgcumbe told Electronics Weekly.

For some engineers visiting the exhibition, the event represented an introduction to PXI and PXI Express‑based system hardware, making it “a way to learn about the capabilities of PXI for perhaps the first time”, said Edgcumbe.

Engineering interest was representative of the UK electronics market and included traditional industrial, defence and communications sectors. Modular test systems have advantages in fast-moving 5G mobile communications development, where data acquisition rates are near the limits and standards are yet to be finalised.

But PXI is also playing its part in testing devices for the internet of things, medical and renewable energy systems.

Howard Venning, managing director of Aspen Electronics, which sells PXI systems from Keysight Technologies and Tabor Electronics, said the company is an interesting new market for its test systems.

“There is big interest in making power measurements,” said Venning. “The traditional markets for our RF and microwave tester systems are defence and communications, of course, but we are also seeing growing interest in what I like to call niche products used for power measurement.”

According to Johannes van der Vegt, PXI sales engineer with Netherlands‑based measurement system supplier Applicos, the strongest applications for PXI-based systems are still in production test and system monitoring.

“We find that in the design departments engineers still prefer standalone test instruments – scopes and analysers – mainly because measurements can be made by simple button-pushes and not by programming software,” van der Vegt told Electronics Weekly.

PXI modular instruments are no longer only used in isolation. They can be part of a measurement set-up which incorporates different instrument formats such as LXI.

PXI systems are also used in tandem with USB connected devices, which can be standalone bench-top instruments.

USB
So, for example, Pickering Interfaces was demonstrating an eight-port USB hub at the PXI Show in Birmingham.

The 40-738 USB hub allows data to be streamed to and from the USB devices by the system controller.

The output ports can be connected or disconnected programmatically to simulate the mechanical connection of a USB device to the module. Additionally, each port has the ability to connect and disconnect the power and data paths separately, enabling the simulation of various connection faults.

Measurement step-up
Another test system re-seller, TTI, was demonstrating how a measurement step-up can use both PXI and LXI. The PXI modules were used for data acquisition and the switching between units carried out with the larger format LXI modules.

It used the CMX34 sub-system from VTI Instruments, which combines the high throughput of an 18-slot PXI Express mainframe for data intensive applications with a 16-slot LXI mainframe used for signal switching and I/O.

Also on the TTI stand was a portable PXI chassis from VTI Instruments, which incorporates a 14-inch touchscreen display and embedded computer with throughput rates of 1Gbyte/s.

The PMX04-DAQ is a preconfigured PMX04 four-slot PXI Hybrid mainframe packaged with EXLab data acquisition software and instrumentation options that include high-speed multi-channel digitisers and arbitrary waveform generators.

NI was demonstrating its PXI‑based multiple instrument concept, VirtualBench. It integrates a mixed‑signal oscilloscope, function generator, digital multimeter, programmable DC power supply and digital I/O. The user interface can be run on a PC or iPad.

Daughter boards
Applicos has an interesting spin on the design of PXI digitiser modules. It designs digitisers and generators as daughter boards which sit on a single slot PXI base module.

The base module provides PXI bus interfacing, power supplies, clock generation and calibration circuitry, and two daughter boards may be connected.
The daughter board interface is essentially PXI, with only “slight modifications”, said van der Vegt.

The PA72D16180A daughter board is a digitiser capable of capturing signals up to 180Msample/s with 16-bit resolution.

This latest version of the digitiser has a 1MΩ input impedance selection, which also allows for higher input range voltages, up to 30V peak-to-peak. Also the input bandwidth is increased up to 170MHz.

Other PXI daughter boards include 14- or 16-bit generators, digital I/O cards and analogue filtering cards.
To minimise cross-talk the boards have separate power supplies. Differential inputs and outputs are also used to reduce cross-talk between digitiser and signal generator.

PXI-based modular instruments are as popular as they have ever been. Take‑up is growing all the time and, according to market watcher Frost & Sullivan, by 2020 the market could be worth over $1.75bn to suppliers.

Last week’s event in Birmingham was evidence that the UK PXI test market is likely to contribute to this growth.

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Phasing out legacy networks may take five years, says Ovum.

LTE’s appeal and increased affordability means operators in developed markets have to refarm GSM or CDMA spectrum to accommodate this demand. The next step is to close down these legacy networks.

“The majority of operators are not in a position today to close their legacy networks, nor will they be in the next 1–2 years,” says Ovum’s Nicole McCormick. “rather, operators are deciding how to best manage a transition towards full network closure, given that M2M, voice, and roaming revenue cannibalisation remains a pertinent issue. We don’t expect networks to be retired en masse until closer to 2020.”

Aside from commercial factors that need to be considered, there are also cost factors that affect the timing of shutting down the network. These include the cost of migrating residual customers to LTE and the cost of maintaining an ageing legacy network.

“For operators in transition, there are key revenues – M2M, voice and roaming – that need to be considered in the trade-off when determining the optimal time to close the network,” adds McCormick.

“Ovum believes that in some markets 3G networks may see closure before 2G ones,” says McCormick, “2G is still an important source of revenue. LTE provides a better mobile broadband experience than 3G, and with VoLTE, LTE can handle the voice responsibilities of 3G. This points to the possibility that operators opt to close their 3G networks before they close 2G.”

A few operators in the US and Asia-Pacific have announced network closures, but these are the exceptions.

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Coretronic revenues down 18% in 1Q15

Backlight unit (BLU) maker Coretronic has reported its first-quarter 2015 revenues reached NT$15.08 billion (US$517.2 million), down 18% on quarter, with combined net profit of NT$162 million. EPS during the quarter amounted to NT$0.54.

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Inotera 1Q15 profits drop to 7-quarter low

DRAM chipmaker Inotera Memories has reported net profits of NT$7.27 billion (US$238 million) for the first quarter of 2015 - the lowest since the second quarter of 2013.

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SSD, eMMC controllers drive Silicon Motion sales growth in 1Q15

NAND flash device controller supplier Silicon Motion Technology has reported slight sequential growth in net sales for the first quarter of 2015, driven by rising sales of client SSD controllers and stable growth in sales of eMMC chips.

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Fire-damaged facilities to resume full operation in two weeks, says Unitech

A fire broke out at PCB maker Unitech Printed Circuit Board's plant in Tuchen, northern Taiwan, at around 10pm on April 27, damaging part of production facilities, according to the company.

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Sales of electric trucks and buses for commercial applications expected to total more than 805,000 from 2014-2023, says firm

Although medium and heavy duty vehicles represent a fraction of all vehicles on roadways today, they contribute significantly to road transportation sector fuel consumption and carbon emissions. However, electric drive vehicles – with improved fuel efficiency, technological advances, and an alternative to gasoline and diesel fuels – are beginning to make inroads in this segment as commercial and government fleet operators consider investing in greener vehicles. According to a recent report from Navigant Research, sales of electric trucks and buses are expected to total more than 805,000 from 2014-2023.

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Worldwide small- to medium-size TFT-LCD panel shipment volume to show steady growth through 2016, says MIC

Although the worldwide tablet market is expected to decline for the first time in 2015, strong growth momentum in the smartphone and automotive panel markets will maintain worldwide small- to medium-size TFT-LCD panel shipments. Panel shipment volume will reach 3.1 billion units in 2015 and 2016, inching up 0.1% and 0.3% respectively on year, according to MIC.

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Applied, Tokyo Electron terminate merger deal

Applied Materials and Tokyo Electron have agreed to terminate their merger plan, according to the companies. No termination fees will be payable by either party.

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Commentary: Nokia set to become a telecom equipment player

Nokia's recent moves, including its announcement to buy France-based Alcatel-Lucent for EUR15.6 billion (US$16.6 billion) and to review an option for a potential divestment for its 'Here' mapping service, clearly indicate that the Finland-based company is shifting away from the handset business.

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Applied-Tokyo Electron deal scuppered by US DoJ

The takeover of Tokyo Electron and Applied Materials has been called off following US DoJ objections on anti-trust grounds.

The merged company would have had 25% of the equipment market and 50% of the market for etching machines.

The two companies announced the deal 18 months ago.

“The companies’ decision to abandon this merger preserves competition for semiconductor manufacturing equipment,” said acting assistant attorney general Renata Hesse. “The semiconductor industry is critically important to the American economy, and the proposed remedy would not have replaced the competition eliminated by the merger, particularly with respect to the development of equipment for next-generation semiconductors.”

Both companies’ shares fell on the news.

The decision puts a question mark over the NXP-Freescale proposed merger.

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Taiwan market: Samsung unveils entry-level tablet Galaxy Tab A

Samsung Electronics has unveiled Galaxy Tab A, an entry-level tablet with an S Pen touch pen, for launch in the Taiwan market in early May.

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Solar firms cooperate to develop PERC mono-like cells

Some system, wafer and cell makers from the US, Taiwan and China have been working together to develop PERC (passivated emitter and rear cell) mono-like solar cells carrying significantly lower production cost than that for PERC monocrystalline solar cells, according to industry sources in Taiwan.

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