The Internet of Everything is coming. The Internet is expanding into enterprise assets and consumer items such as cars and televisions. Very many electronics devices needs to be designed for this in mind. The Internet of Things (IoT) will evolve into the Web of Things, increasing the coordination between things in the real world and their counterparts on the Web. Gartner suggests that the “the smart machine era will be the most disruptive in the history of IT.” Intelligent systems and assistive devices will advance smart healthcare.
Software-defined anything (SDx) is coming more into use. It means that many proprietary systems are being replaced with commonly available standard computer hardware and software running in them.
PC market: ABANDON HOPE all ye who enter here. Vendor consolidation ‘inevitable’. Even Intel had to finally admit this that the Wintel grip which has served it and Microsoft so well over the past decades is waning, with Android and iOS coming to the fore through smartphones and tabs. The market conversion to tablets means that consumers and businesses are sweating existing PC assets longer. Tablets to Make Up Half of 2014 PC Market.
The Rise, Fall, and Rise of Electronics Kits article mentions that many older engineers first became interested in electronics through hobbies in their youth—assembling kits, participating in amateur radio, or engaging in other experiments. The 1970s and 1980s were great times for electronics hobbyists. But whenever it seems that there’s nothing left for the hobbyist, a new motif arises. The Raspberry Pi has become a best seller, as has a similar experimental board, the Arduino microcontroller. A great number of sensors, actuators, cameras, and the like have quickly become available for both. Innovative applications abound in such domains as home automation and robotics. So it seems that now there is much greater capacity for creativity in hobby electronics then there ever was.
E-Waste: Lack of Info Plagues Efforts to Reduce E-Waste article tells that creation of trade codes is necessary to track used electronics products according to a recent study concerning the waste from growing quantities of used electronics devices—including TVs, mobile phones and computers. High levels of electronic waste are being sent to Africa and Asia under false pretenses.” StEP estimates worldwide e-waste to increase by 33 percent from 50 million tons in 2012 to 65 million tons by 2017. China and the U.S. lead the world as top producers of e-waste. America produces about 65 pounds of e-waste per person every year. There will be aims to reduce the waste, for example project like standardizing mobile phone chargers and laptop power supplies.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Molex Lite-Trap™ SMT Wire-to-Board Connectors
http://www.mouser.mx/new/molex/molex-lite-trap-connectors/?utm_source=supplyframeaudienceextension
Molex Lite-Trap connector system is similar to Molex’s Wire Trap connectors, and also to certain competitive “Poke-In” style versions. A stripped wire is inserted into the connector and pushes open a gate-style terminal that “traps” the wire. To unmate, a button-style lever on the housing top is pushed down to allow the wire to be disengaged. With a profile height of just 4.20mm, Molex’s Lite-Trap connectors offer the lowest profile available of similar wire-removable types.
Low profile (4.20mm): Meets needs of thin LED modules and other compact applications
User-friendly push-button latch: Ensures easy wire extraction
Compact industry-standard PCB pattern layout: Saves space and is drop-in compatible with certain competitive products
Tomi Engdahl says:
Research refutes a common misconception battery charging – life grow up to ten years
A new study may change the way in which the lithium-ion batteries are being charged in the future. Better charging mobile devices and techniques such as electric cars are important battery life could be increased in California, the research team says.
Nature Materials study published to challenge the general view that the slow download to the lithium-ion battery life with the best technology. Slow charging is entrusted to keep the battery temperature is lower, this would prolong their life.
According to researchers, the misconception comes from the fact that the batteries have only been examined at the macro level as a single element, even when they grow up, for example, smart phone battery is composed of countless small particles.
The researchers found that in reality, the electric current is not distributed inside the battery during charging evenly, but it is absorbed by the first individual particles or particle groups, which are charged particles completed before the next load.
The particles at the level of the battery is charging, therefore, in any case, get charger with small high-speed pulses.
Results of this research will be developed technology that batteries could be loaded evenly and keep the temperature lower.
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/kaikki_uutiset/tutkimus+kumoaa+yleisen+harhaluulon+akkujen+lataamisesta++kayttoika+kasvaa+jopa+kymmeneen+vuoteen/a1011453
Tomi Engdahl says:
Expert: The charger can keep blithely plugged in all the time
The charger can safely choose to keep constantly in the electrical outlet, even when it does not charge anything.Tukes security expert says that there is no risk, and charger power consumption is in sleep mode is very low.
- A little bit of electricity it goes, but it is not a security risk. Branded Chargers are of high quality and can be continuously plugged in, unless the manufacturer is not specifically forbidden, says the safety engineer
- In normal operation, especially in the older chargers heat up when they were charging. Quiescent current in modern chargers is instead provided so small that if they are not in themselves should warm up.
Safety Engineer Niemi says that only if the charger heats up considerably when it does not load, may suspect something bad.
The same instructions apply to the socket, for example, small kitchen appliances. Normally, the coffee maker cord can be continuously plugged in, unless there are no device documentation prohibited.
- First, you should read the manual. If the manufacturer is instructed to take the lead out, it should be followed.
Source: http://yle.fi/uutiset/asiantuntija_laturia_voi_pitaa_surutta_pistorasiassa_koko_ajan/7468007
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tiny Graphene Drum for Future Quantum Computer and Sensor Technologies
http://video.techbriefs.com/video/Tiny-Graphene-Drum-for-Future-Q;Photonics
Scientists from Netherlands’ Delft University of Technology have demonstrated that they can detect extremely small changes in position and forces on very small drums of graphene.
Graphene drums have great potential to be used as sensors in devices such as mobile phones.
Using their unique mechanical properties, these drums could also act as memory chips in a quantum computer.
Tomi Engdahl says:
New IGBT with Reverse Blocking Capability
http://www.eeweb.com/company-blog/ixys/new-igbt-with-reverse-blocking-capability/
This application note presents the new IGBT that has been developed for reverse blocking capabilities. The application note introduces the applications of the new IGBT and its electrical characteristics.
A new IGBT has been developed, providing reverse blocking capability. This feature is needed in various applications, such as in current source inverters, resonant circuits, bidirectional switches or matrix converters. This paper presents technology of the monolithic chip and its operational behavior, measured with first samples in typical circuits.
Tomi Engdahl says:
New “Reflowable” Alternative to Traditional Thermal Protection
http://www.eeweb.com/company-blog/te_circuit_protection/new-reflowable-alternative-to-traditional-thermal-protection/
This white paper discusses the features of a thermal protection device. Thermal events in components can endanger the component and the user. Which is why, a thermal protection device is designed to minimize or eliminate the dangers of thermal events.
Most industrial and consumer equipment now incorporates thermal protection devices to improve reliability and safety and to prevent damage resulting from overheating. The heat generated by resistive and inductive loads, power capacitors, and current drivers to MOSFETs, switches and relays presents significant challenges to engineers charged with designing in reliable, safe thermal management.
Traditional thermal protection devices are available in a variety of shapes, sizes and technologies to help protect equipment from damage caused by thermal events. Two notable devices are the thermal fuse/thermal cutoff (TCO) and the thermal switch. Both provide wide-ranging and specific temperature activation characteristics in both AC and DC applications and can be specified as bolt-in, clip-on, pig-tail or lead-type configurations. However, these devices can complicate design-in and manufacturing processes.
TE Circuit Protection has developed a surface mount thermal protection device that is pick/place compatible and can be designed in and reflowed on a PCB, utilizing standard surface mount lead (Pb)-free reflow manufacturing processes over a broad range of device activation temperatures.
Once the reflow process is complete an arming procedure is all that is required in order for the device to be ready to activate at its pre-determined trip temperature.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Get More from Standard Logic – Go Beyond the Quick Fix
http://www.eeweb.com/company-blog/nxp/get-more-from-standard-logic-go-beyond-the-quick-fix/
Standard logic is the go-to resource for making minor modifications and last-minute changes, but that’s not all it can do for a system. Today’s standard logic devices provide essential functions that optimize performance in today’s small, power-efficient embedded systems.
Standard logic is a great way to make small changes at any point in the design cycle. Maybe it’s adding one more AND gate outside an ASIC, or making a better connection between the CPU and its memory. Or, maybe the board works fine, but adding one tiny level shifter, or a buffer for a signal at the far end, would really make it great.
It makes perfect sense to use standard logic in these situations – it’s easy to use, doesn’t cost a lot, and comes in a wide variety of sizes and formats.
But the capabilities of standard logic go well beyond minor modifications and last-minute changes. Standard logic may have been around since the days when engineers still used slide rules, but it’s still an essential part of embedded design, even before there’s a need for last-minute modifications.
Here are just a few of the ways that standard logic works in today’s embedded systems:
Enables quick reconfiguration, by adding gates outside the core logic or MCU, for selection of debugging and functional modes
Translates levels and buffers signals along the interfaces between the MCU and memory
Enhances signal quality by adding ESD protection and signal buffering
Provides the interface between peripherals, by performing level translation, reset control, power sequencing, signal switching, signal isolation, and so on
Uses low-power functions to add new features without overtaxing the battery
Enables the integration of touchscreens and touchpads with multiplexers, shifters, and latches
Implements video switching between different displays and video formats by doing format conversion, adapting interfaces to controllers, and multiplexing/demultiplexing the connectors
Extends GPIO and can drive LEDs
Supports automotive applications by implementing simple motor control, smart key detection, security alarms, speed alerts, and more
Tomi Engdahl says:
Boffins say they’ve got Lithium batteries the wrong way around
Surprises at the nano-scale mean our ideas about how they charge could be all wrong
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/15/fast_charge_might_not_be_death_to_lithium_batteries_say_boffins/
US boffins are overturning the understanding of how Li-ion batteries charge, by watching the behaviour of individual molecules as they absorb charges.
As the SLAC explains , charge and discharge behaviours are vastly different at the nano-scale.
When charging, regardless of the charging rate, only a small percentage of the nanoparticles in the batteries tested actually absorbed ions. Those ions would then pass their charge onto others, and absorb new ions.
Under discharge, how the particles behave depends on whether the battery is being discharged fast or slow. The researchers find that when a battery is being discharged quickly, the process is relatively uniform, but under a slow discharge, only a few nanoparticles are discharging at any given time
In particular, if electrodes can be designed so that charge is always evenly distributed, it might be possible to create batteries that can always be fast-charged without exhibiting the heat-stress damage that’s such a problem in the world of Li-ion batteries.
Tomi Engdahl says:
As bankruptcy looms for RadioShack, we ask its chief financial officer… oh. He’s quit
Troubled retailer may not last ‘beyond the very near term’
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/15/radioshack_cfo_resigns/
The chief financial officer of struggling US electronics retailer RadioShack has resigned – as the company faces a fiscal crisis from which it has warned it may not be able to recover.
“We have experienced losses for the past two years that continued to accelerate into the second quarter of fiscal 2015, primarily attributed to a prolonged downturn in our business,” the report bluntly stated.
The company began life of as a retailer of “ham” radio equipment, electronics supplies, amplifiers, speakers, and the like, then branched out into personal computers in the 1970s with its fondly remembered TRS-80.
As the market for its earlier product lines softened, however, more recently it has concentrated on selling mobile phones. But aggressive price competition and marketing by the wireless carriers has left RadioShack struggling to stay afloat, and it has warned that it risks becoming insolvent.
Tomi Engdahl says:
FT801 Embedded Video Engine
http://www.eeweb.com/company-news/mouser/ft801-embedded-video-engine/
Mouser Electronics, Inc. announced the availability of the FTDI FT801 Graphic, Touch and Audio Controller in a 3-in-1 graphics controller chip. It features a full functionality without requiring a frame buffer RAM and supports both manual and projected capacitive touch display controller.
The FT801Q-R (Mouser Part Number: 895-FT801Q-R) is an Embedded Video Engine (EVE) featuring a high quality graphics chip with 3-in1 functionality for a graphical user interface (GUI) development. The FT801 combines display, audio and touch operations into a single chip,
The FT801 supports capacitive touch screens with up to five touches with gesture detection. Up to 255 touch tags are detected in hardware.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Moore’s Law Has No End in Sight
GaAs is VLSI’s inevitable successor to silicon
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1323892&
Gallium arsenide (GaAs) will soon outpace silicon (Si) as a higher-performance choice for implementing integrated circuits, according to POET Technologies Inc. of Storrs-Mansfield, Conn. The handwriting has been on the wall since the 1980s, according to former Bell Labs scientist, now co-founder and chief scientist at POET, Geoff Taylor.
According to Taylor, GaAs, as opposed to silicon, will boost electrical transistor performance while integrating optical circuitry capabilities. These qualities enable both higher performance and novel IC architectures, thereby extending Moore’s Law indefinitely.
“Silicon digital logic hits the wall at 4 GHz, but we can produce small gallium arsenide [GaAs] analog circuits switching at 100 GHz today and 400 GHz in the not too distant future,” he tells EE Times. “Plus POET fabricates optical emitters and detectors for on-chip optical interconnects.”
Other advantages of III-V over silicon is its lower operating voltage — as low as 0.3 volts with electron mobilities as high as 12,000 cm2/ (V·s) achieved by strained quantum wells — lowering the power required to operate III-V chips by 10 times or more, according to POET.
Of course, GaAs wafers are more expensive than Si, but the next generation of Si is already using silicon-on-insulator with fully depleted (SOI-FD) transistors, a technology that costs almost as much as GaAs, according to Taylor.
POET has a deal with a third-party foundry to demonstrate a 100 nanometer process later this year and a 40 nanometer process by 2015. Those figures sound like they are behind silicon, which is already down to 20 nanometers and, at Intel, down to 14 nanometers. But POET argues that the comparison is not fair. Instead its 40 nanometer process should be compared to 14 and 10 nanometer in silicon.
“Our 40 nanometer GaAs compares to silicon 3 nodes ahead in speed and 4 nodes in power, with comparable integration density,” DeSimone tells EE Times. “Thus 40 nanometer GaAs compares to 14 nanometer in speed and 10 nanometer in power.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple, Samsung in 20nm Race
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1323929&
Samsung was expected to be the first supplier to ship a 20nm smartphone SoC with its Exynos 5430, but Apple’s just-announced iPhone 6 and 6 Plus run on their own 20nm A8 processor and will be available for sale Sept. 19. The Exynos 5430 will first appear in the Samsung Alpha smartphone that is also expected to ship in September. Which phone ships first is superfluous, but what is most interesting is that these companies used the new process node in different ways.
Samsung is using the 20nm shrink to reduce power and extend battery life, in part to compensate for the additional power required to support the LTE-Advanced modem in the Alpha handset. In Intel’s “tick-tock” parlance, the 5430 would be a tick — a die shrink with no major architecture changes.
The 5430 design doesn’t stray very far from previous 28nm parts such as the Exynos 5420 and 5422.
The Apple A8 appears to be the more ambitious chip. Though we haven’t seen a chip teardown yet
Apple says the chip contains 2 billion transistors — double the number in the A7 chip.
The shrink from 28nm to 20nm obviously reduces the transistor size, but with double the transistor count, the A8 could have come closer to the same size as the A7.
Apple devoted those extra billion transistors to improving CPU performance
Apple claims the battery life of the iPhone 6 is equal to or better than the A7-based iPhone 5S
Tomi Engdahl says:
EUV Needs a Plan B
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1323902&
Before it fully embraces the bogeyman of molecular electronics, the electronics industry needs to squeeze the last juice out of silicon. But it may be depending too heavily on one risky technology.
The workhorse of lithography is the excimer laser, which has enabled the industry for a long time. With immersion litho, it continues to do so. Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) may yet be the next big thing, but its adolescence has not been easy, and its future is not guaranteed. EUV and laser-produced plasma (EUV-LPP) is much more complex than excimer lasers. The physics behind it is way more tricky. Billions of dollars have been pumped into it, though this horse has no track record, and the odds, though changing, remain long.
All EUV-LPP systems need to optimize a number of parameters, striking a balance among target number density, light in, conversion efficiency, target repetition frequency, chamber pumping, and thermal load management. All are important.
If the current favorites in the race to the EUV finish line cannot increase the reliable output power, they may need to consider reconfiguring the source to a multiple laser module with a higher repetition rate.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Micron Releases 16nm-Process SSDs With Dynamic Flash Programming
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/14/09/16/2030233/micron-releases-16nm-process-ssds-with-dynamic-flash-programming
Micron’s newest client flash drive line, the M600, uses its first 16nm process technology and dynamic write acceleration firmware that allows the flash to be programmed as SLC or MLC instead of using overprovisioning or reserving a permanent pool of flash cache to accelerate writes.
Tomi Engdahl says:
7nm EUV Could Ease 10nm Squeeze
ASML updates litho roadmap
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1323937&
Stepper-maker ASML now concedes what most of its customers have been quietly saying for a while: Companies will make 10 nm chips mainly using traditional immersion lithography, not its long-delayed extreme ultraviolet (EUV) systems.
However, that will make the 10 nm node an unpopular one that is pressed to deliver lower costs per transistor. Most critical layers will require three or even four exposures, said ASML president and chief technology officer Martin Van den Brink in a 90-minute interview here.
“10 nm will be a squeezed node that no one will like, due to insufficient cost reduction, but there will be enough cost reduction to let it go forward,” Van den Brink said.
For the follow-on 7 nm generation, chipmakers will need to use EUV to make chips cost effectively, he insisted. Without it some layers would require as many as 13 passes through an immersion stepper, he told us.
Intel’s 7 nm node is really what the rest of the industry considers a 10 nm node, Van den Brink countered. Intel has jumped a node ahead of the rest of the industry in how it names its processes, but the underlying resolutions used by Intel and its rivals are essentially the same at any given point in time because they are using the same litho machines, he argued.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Micron SSD Allows MLC to Mimic SLC
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1323942&
Micron is looking to reduce power and improve performance with a new client SSD that leverages its new 128nm process technology and with a feature that enables multi-level cell (MLC) NAND cells to act like single-level cell (SLC). The new M600 SATA SSD is aimed at the mobile computing segment, including Ultrabook platforms and tablets, says Steve Janzen, marketing communications manager at Micron, as well as high-performance PCs and video capture systems. He says the company sees the Ultrabook market — tablets built like PCs — as a growing segment for client SSDs. The M600 is available in 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB mSATA and M.2 module configurations.
Jon Tanguy, senior technical marketing engineer at Micron, says the new 16nm lithography enables better write performance through a new feature called dynamic write acceleration, essentially allowing the M600 to switch programming modes so MLC NAND cells behave like technology switches, and NAND cells behave like higher-grade SLC Flash.
The dynamic write acceleration also improves endurance, he says. At 1TB capacity, the M600 can reach up to 400 TB total bytes written, which is five times more than typical client drives and enough endurance to write 220 GB daily for five years — higher than the average client SSD workload.
While some vendors such as SanDisk and HGST have particularly focused on the enterprise SSD market, and many are offering enterprise SSDs for different workloads, the client SSD market is drastically bigger than the enterprise datacenter space, according to Joseph Unsworth, VP for NAND Flash and SSDs at Gartner. The mainstream PC SSD market will be will be more than 69 million units this year, while the enterprise SSD segment will be exceed nine million units. Ultimately, the PC SSD market has a much greater impact on Micron in terms of NAND consumption.
Tomi Engdahl says:
7 Most Audacious Medtech Predictions
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1323938&
1. People living until 150
2. The Google executive who thinks immortality Is possible
3. Replacing physicians with computer programs
4. Allowing the blind to see
5. Healthy people will want to have artificial hearts implanted
Tomi Engdahl says:
In most fluorescent tube lies in the risk of fire, of which many have not been at all aware of.
Traditional fluorescent bulbs, igniters should be replaced with electronic safety igniter.
Safety and Chemicals Agency Tukes statistics show that the lamp is the second most common cause of electrical fires in Finland. In contrast to the tip of the seats to keep the electric stove, lighting fires, outbreaks are almost always self-lamp, it does not use the error. In other words, the lighting of a defect as a result they are burned.
One of the most common fire alarms causing a fluorescent lamp types.
Fluorescent lamp with a magnetic ballast, forms a serious risk in case of failure. When the pipe is leaking gas, a traditional lighter trying to light a pipe to no avail. The luminaire components can then become very quickly over a 200-degree turn on, for example, and the surrounding structures on fire.
The market is also equipped with an electronic ballast for fluorescent lamps with the same kind of danger does not exist, but just magnetic fluorescent lamps are much more common in electronic Finland. Electronic Safety lighter also identify other defects lamp, which if implemented may cause a fire.
- It is really shocking that the ordinary fire hazard lighters are ever be sold. I think one big step in the buildings’ fire safety improvement would be to ban the sale of traditional lighters altogether. Fault mode, the fluorescent lamp can not always detect visually if it does not flash or distortion.
- This is the whole problem can be solved easily and fairly cheaply. When replacing the traditional lighters electronic safety lighters which, they do not try to light tube tube and thus heat lamp electrical parts (ballast, tube and lighter)
Safety lighter is just five euros more expensive than the usual lighter.
- It really is a small amount when it comes to fire safety. Also, the electricity bill is reduced and the lamp replacement interval is prolonged, if the lights work as it should.
Source: http://www.iltalehti.fi/asuminen/2014091718669901_an.shtml
Tomi Engdahl says:
Use of Forced Labor “Systemic” In Malaysian IT Manufacturing
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/14/09/17/1911251/use-of-forced-labor-systemic-in-malaysian-it-manufacturing
“The use of forced labor is so prevalent in the Malaysian electronics manufacturing industry that there is hardly a major brand name that isn’t touched by the illegal practice, according to a report funded by the U.S. Department of Labor”
Use of forced labor ‘systemic’ in Malaysian IT manufacturing
Almost every brand-name company sourcing from the country is impacted by the practice, said a new report
http://www.itworld.com/it-management/436552/use-forced-labor-systemic-malaysian-it-manufacturing
It surveyed more than 500 migrant workers at around 200 companies in Malaysia’s IT manufacturing sector and found one in three were working under conditions of forced labor.
Problems usually begin when they fall for a deceptive job advertisement at home, said Dan Viederman, CEO of Verité.
The job looks good enough that they pay a broker to apply, often borrowing money from friends and family to do so. Upon arrival, their passport is taken by their employer and they’re threatened with deportation if they don’t work overtime. Indebted at home, without access to their passport and with little knowledge of the legal process, they accept the increased workload.
“It’s a form of exploitation that should long ago have been confined to the past,”
“Any and all companies sourcing from Malaysia should audit their supply chain,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Asia-Pacific IC Usage Domination Growing
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1323959&
Asia-Pacific is the dominant market for ICs for most products categories. The exceptions being Europe, leading in the automotive sector, and the Americas region, leading in government and military, according to IC Insights.
Asia-Pacific is forecast to account for nearly 59% of the $285.9 billion IC market in 2014, followed by the Americas region, Europe, and Japan. Asia-Pacific is particularly dominant in the computer and communications categories and to a lesser extent in consumer and industrial.
The Asia-Pacific region is forecast to gain IC marketshare over the next four years and reach 60.9% in 2017. In contrast, Europe and Japan are expected to continue to decline in share, with the Japan region holding only 7.7% of the total $330.2 billion IC market in 2017.
Europe is forecast to account for the largest share of the automotive IC market in 2014, but with Asia-Pacific increasingly becoming the focus of new car sales
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sensor Hubs Aided by IEEE-2700-2014 Datasheets
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1323945&
he first IEEE microelectromechanical system (MEMS) standard — recently approved by the IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) — should be a welcome sight to sensor and system designers swimming in a sea of sensors. IEEE 2700-2014 standardizes the specifications of MEMS and other sensors so designers will no longer have to compare apples to oranges on datasheets.
The standard should also make it easier for sensor hub makers to achieve interoperability among different brands of the same sensor.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Foxconn Struggles to Meet New iPhone Demand
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/09/17/foxconn-struggles-to-meet-new-iphone-demand/
Apple AAPL +0.71% fans may have to wait for weeks to get the new iPhones as Apple’s major assembler Foxconn appears to be struggling to boost its production to meet strong demand.
Foxconn has continued to hire more workers to assemble the two new iPhone models at its largest production site in Zhengzhou, north central China, according to people familiar with the matter. The company has more than 200,000 workers in the Zhengzhou site, dedicated to just making new iPhones and key components such as metal casings.
The Taiwan-based manufacturer, which has more than one million workers in China, is operating about 100 production lines around the clock in Zhengzhou.
“We have been churning out 140,000 iPhone 6 Plus and 400,000 iPhone 6 every day, the highest daily output ever, but the volume is still not enough to meet the preorders,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Skintight Technology from MC10 Collects Vitals
http://www.eeweb.com/blog/eeweb/skintight-technology
Electronics are becoming increasingly omnipresent in our everyday lives. Industry trends of reduced device sizes, seamless integration in our environments, and wireless connectivity are changing the way consumers interact with technology. One of the upsides of ubiquitous technology is the collection of data that was previously inaccessible. An example of this is wearable health monitors—bracelets and bands that collect vital health statistics to inform users of trends in their everyday activity, which could ultimately lead to healthier lifestyle and activity choices. However, one of the biggest burdens of these health monitors is their form factor—rigid electronics are not the most natural option for wearing during physical activities.
As a result, MC10, a flexible device developer based in Cambridge, Massachusettes, is developing a new kind of wearable device with UCB, a patient-centric biopharmaceutical leader, that will redefine “form” in “form factor.” The Biostamp™, a prototype from MC10, is a flexible sensor that effortlessly adheres to the body and is able to bend, stretch, and flex along with the user. The device is as unobtrusive as a Band-Aid and can link to any Bluetooth-enabled mobile device to deliver real-time data on the body’s vital statistics—everything from hydration levels and heart rate, to UV exposure and body temperature. The Biostamp will enable users to receive real-time data about their health.
Tomi Engdahl says:
High Fidelity Video with a Wideband MUX/DEMUX
http://www.eeweb.com/company-blog/nxp/high-fidelity-video-with-a-wideband-muxdemux/
This document is a leaflet of NXP’s NX5DV330 demo board that demonstrates high fidelity video with a wideband multiplexer/demultiplexer. This compact demo board is used to evaluate the NX5DV330 device, a quad 1-of-2 high-speed TTL-compatible video multiplexer/demultiplexer, featuring low on resistance.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Three out of the four ICs goes computers or networks
hile the PC market in recent years has clearly lost its most vehement rate of growth, the semiconductor market in terms PC in various forms is still the main driver. Computers and network devices will go again this year by as much as 73.7 percent of all micro-circuits.
IC Insights Research Institute has updated its forecast for the semiconductor market trends. These figures clearly reveal the PC and the importance of communication. Another important factor is the transfer of production increasingly to Asia.
IC Insights estimates that the semiconductors sold this year, 285.9 billion dollars. This amount, $ 104 billion will be computer components and 107 billion telecommunications equipment sold in the circuits.
Consumer electronics integrated circuits are sold 33.9 billion dollars. Europe, a strong automotive industry buys components of 21.4 billion dollars, and industrial electronics chips are going to 17.2 billion dollars.
Most of the electronics utilizing manufacturing has moved to Asia.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1784:kolme-piiria-neljasta-menee-tietokoneisiin-tai-verkkoihin&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple’s new iPhone has drawn attention to a larger screen and a new effective A8 application processor, but also to a modem is worthy of your attention. As the research highlights Forward Concepts, the new iPhone further highlights the Qualcomm’s mobile phones lead the radio circles.
All the different market areas, the new iPhone works LTE specifications of 16 different FDD band. The Chinese market, the exported equipment also includes four frequency channel TDD-connections, as well as China’s own 3G or TD-SCDMA’s regions.
New iPhone sales volumes are wild, so the semiconductor to the house of your circuit to obtain the bowels of Apple’s smart phone can prove to be a real stroke of luck. Dialog Semiconductor is a good example of this. Dialog DA6401 received-power management circle Specifically designed last year announced the iPhone 5 model.
Apple is notoriously not want to advertise what components it chooses its devices. The PMIC dialogue circuit, however, is found in many tear-down analysis, so there is no doubt.
Sources:
http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1788:uusi-iphone-alleviivaa-qualcommin-etumatkaa&catid=13&Itemid=101
http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1791:iphone-voi-olla-puolijohdetalolle-kultakaivos&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
FPGA next year to 14 nanometers
Altera introduced yesterday a new PLD-circuit family, which will be launched officially until the end of September. At the same time, however, the company reported that Intel’s 14 nanometer Tri-Gate ‘process produced FPGA will go on sale next year.
Altera FPGA has used to date Taiwanese TSMC’s production lines and processes (as it’s worst-rival). Now for the new flagship model of the Stratix 10 it has turned to Intel expertise: Intel’s lines will be ready for 14-nm Stratix 10 districts middle of next year (customers get the first 14-nm FPGA-circle hands late next year). According to Altera’s Stratix 10 is the market’s largest integrated FPGA chip, which is a maximum of more than four million logic elements.
Tri-Gate is Intel’s own version of the 3D transistor structure, which semiconductors are rapidly shifting to.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1793:fpga-ensi-vuonna-14-nanometriin&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ericsson’s decision to end cell phone modem development
Ericsson announced yesterday the close down of cell phone modem product development. All in all, the decision will lead the company in 1700 the employee’s dismissal. Some of the kicks is also directed to Finland, where Ericsson has been strong in product development.
Ericsson’s decision is a shock, of course, the company’s employees, but no big surprise it is not. Ericsson got the modem business last year from ST-Ericsson joint venture with STMicroelectronics. At that time the target was third place LTE modem chips on the market.
This is now proven to be un-realistic market, which is held a sovereign by Qualcomm. The only company capable of competing with it is Mediatek. Even Intel has great difficulty in obtaining design wins as a modem.
Ericsson’s GSM modem business eventually went the way of Nokia, although at a slower pace. In time, both companies are leaning cellphones strong for your circuit design. Ericsson’s radio modems were generally technically the best.
Nokia’s modem unit myths out of the end of this year. The unit was sold to Renesas for the first and last year Broacomille.
The problem ended up being the same as the Ericsson: expensive R & D does not lead to a major design wins result of people reporting or customer contracts.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1801:ericssonin-modeemipaatos-iskee-suomeenkin&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Moore’s Law death does not touch most designers
Rowe believes that the new IoT time to change the design of the rules. Sure, the transistor amount of slowdown in the growth of interest to Intel types of businesses, but almost all the other terms of the SoC circuits is that millions of small design of which requires just the right amount of performance.
Power consumption has always been an important parameter in the design, but the Internet of Things becomes an even more important factor. Another factor affecting power consumption is the cloud, Rowe says.
Moving, say, 64-bit NAND circuit inside does not take much electricity. – The same amount of data, removal or applying for a cloud server means that the operation is 1 W of power.
- In order bits must be moved as little as possible, keep as much of the calculation to be local. IoT world have to be smart, Rowen requires.
Rowen and Cadence’s vision, this intelligence will, of course, tailor-made, efficient, and very low power consuming processors.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1797:suurinta-osaa-mooren-lain-kuolema-ei-kosketa&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT change the business models
Today, when you listen to the electronics business presentations, everyone has at least a few slides on the Internet of Things. Cell phone circuits the dominant British ARM’s founder and CTO Mike Muller says that the IoT in the most important thing is not the technical development. – Interestingly IoT in is the fact that it changes the fundamental way business models.
In this sense, the IoT will do the same as the internet once. The Internet started in business solutions.
- But these were limited networks, which are discussed with each other. Only when the internet became open, the birthplace of the possibility of a new kind of business.
The Internet of Things requires a good, open architecture.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1799:iot-muuttaa-bisnesmallit&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bill passed by U.S. House of Representatives identifies optics and photonics as key focus area
http://www.vision-systems.com/articles/2014/09/bill-passed-by-u-s-house-of-representatives-identifies-optics-and-photonics-as-key-focus-area.html?cmpid=EnlVSDSeptember222014
The Revitalize American Manufacturing and Innovation (RAMI) Act, which was passed on September 15, seeks to establish several Centers for Manufacturing Innovation, uniting public and private partners with the goal of fostering manufacturing innovation in the U.S. and speeding up product commercialization. Within the bill, optics and photonics were specifically named as technology focus areas to consider for manufacturing centers.
In addition, a Center for Manufacturing Innovation “has a predominated focus on a manufacturing process, novel material, enabling technology, supply chain integration methodology, or another relevant aspect of advanced manufacturing, such as nanotechnology applications, advanced ceramics, photonics and optics, composites, bio-based and advanced materials, flexible hybrid technologies, and tool development for microelectronics.”
“The RAMI Act is a win for the optics and photonics industry,” said OSA CEO Elizabeth Rogan in a press release. “Countries like Germany and Japan have had success with similar initiatives. The United States must demonstrate its commitment to innovation and growth by providing the needed resources to advance high-tech business in this country.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Will the robotics market quadruple by 2025?
http://www.vision-systems.com/articles/2014/09/will-the-robotics-market-quadruple-by-2025.html?cmpid=EnlVSDSeptember222014
Global spending on robotics is expected to more than quadruple from just over $15 billion in 2010 to approximately $67 billion by 2015 at a 10.4% compound annual growth rate (CAGR), according to a report released by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
The report cites a number of reasons for this significant growth, beginning with advancing technologies. Today’s robots are becomingly increasingly more responsive and flexible, while prices are coming down, leading to robots penetrating new markets. These include, but are not limited to, commercial applications and the personal service realm, according to BCG. The use of robots such as these, along those already sold in industrial and military uses, will begin to proliferate.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Startup’s Piezoelectric MEMS Mics May Take Over
Vesper claims top spot with 70dB signal-to-noise ratio.
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1324014&
The high-performance microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) microphone market is about to be one upped by a startup — Vesper Technologies Inc. (Boston) — using piezoelectric materials to achieve a 70dB signal-to-noise (SNR) — a 5dB advantage over competitors. And that’s just the first generation device, with 80dB in its sights for the future.
“Our piezoelectric material is just beginning to realize its full potential, whereas our competitors using capacitive sensors are approaching the end of the road in optimization,”
According to IHS, MEMS microphones with better than 64dB SNR will grow at a compound annual rate of 40 percent until 2017. In addition, up to 12 MEMS microphones are being used in modern automobiles, six in modern smartphones as well as smaller numbers in cameras, camcorders, hearing aids, Bluetooth headsets, wearables and all types of IoT portending a two billion unit market by 2017.
According to Crowley, Vesper’s high-definition (HD) mics will enable applications that were previously impossible for traditional MEMS mics whose signal-to-noise ratio is limited by the need for a perforated backplate behind the diaphragm. Piezoelectric transducers, on the other hand, have an inherent and enduring advantage over traditional capacitive diaphragms, since piezoelectric tranducers do not require a perforated backplate, which introduces 8db of noise, according to Vesper.
“Today we have the worldwide exclusive rights to piezoelectric microphones and we plan to continue filing patents to cover other aspects that are unique to the functioning of piezoelectric MEMS microphones,” said Vesper.
Vesper’s business model is fashioned after Infineon, which only makes wafers (albeit Vesper’s wafers will be made in a MEMS foundry.) However, one of Vesper’s investors is the company that will dice its wafers and package them into a standard 3.35 x 2.5 x 1 millimeter housings alongside an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) that amplifies the sound signal and processes it for analog output (plug compatible with Knowles). Vesper’s first model will use a bottom port, but top-port designs are in the making.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Removing the Gap Between ECAD and MCAD Design
http://techonline.com/electrical-engineers/education-training/tech-papers/4430326/Removing-the-Gap-Between-ECAD-and-MCAD-Design?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20140922&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20140922&elq=fc8d5da3725e47c296e65f69e346008f&elqCampaignId=19259
PADS EDMD collaboration brings the desktop PCB design industry a real-time integrated ECAD-MCAD collaboration environment that enables Electrical and Mechanical design teams to work together throughout the entire design process.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Low-cost dev kit accelerates USB 3.0 designs
http://edn.com/design/design-tools/development-kits/4434764/Low-cost-dev-kit-accelerates-USB-3-0-designs?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20140922&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20140922&elq=b3b57690308d434eb0f2fd6d1e28d2ca&elqCampaignId=19249
Cypress Semiconductor has a $49 “SuperSpeed Explorer Kit” to accelerate USB 3.0 designs; the kit makes use of Cypress’ Programmable EZ-USB FX3 offering
The development platform enables designers to add high-performance USB 3.0 throughput to virtually any system. Cypress says. It is based on Cypress’s programmable EZ-USB FX3 USB 3.0 peripheral controller.
EZ-USB FX3 is positioned as the industry’s only programmable USB 3.0 peripheral controller. It is equipped with a configurable General Programmable Interface (GPIF II), which can be programmed in 8-, 16-, and 32-bit configurations. GPIF II allows FX3 to communicate directly with application processors, FPGAs, storage media, and image sensors and provides a data transfer rate of up to 400 Megabytes per second, while using lower power than alternative solutions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ARM-based SiP targets for portable medical devices
http://edn.com/electronics-products/other/4434769/ARM-based-SiP-targets-for-portable-medical-devices
A semi-customizable, power efficient system-in-package (SiP) solution enables miniature sensing systems for mHealth applications including glucose monitors heart rate monitors, and electrocardiogram analyzers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Freescale and Texas Instruments Goodies and World Maker Faire
http://hackaday.com/2014/09/22/freescale-and-texas-instruments-goodies-and-world-maker-faire/
The Hummingboard from SolidRun comes in an oddly familiar form factor to anyone who has ever handled a Raspberry Pi. It also has an interesting feature: the CPU is on a small module, allowing anyone to upgrade the chipset to something significantly more powerful
Also in the Freescale booth was the pcDuino, a dual core ARM Cortex A7 with Ethernet, WiFi, and a SATA, with Arduino form factor pinouts.
[Trey German] from Texas Instruments showed off some very cool stuff, including a quadcopter board for a Launchpad microcontroller.
Also from TI was their CC3200 dev board. This is a single chip with an ARM Cortex M4 and a WiFi radio that we’ve seen before. The CC3200 runs TI’s Wiring/Arduino inspired development environment Energia, and at about $30 for the CC3200 Launchpad board, it’s an easy and cheap way to build an Internet of Things thing.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Home> Community > Blogs > The Workbench
Be ready for changes in engineering
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/the-workbench/4434828/Be-ready-for-changes-in-engineering
The events represent an exciting time of transformation for engineering that we at EDN used our last print issue’s cover story in June 2013 to bring to our community’s attention. We called the change “the democratization of engineering” and said: “There’s a growing design trend, some even say there’s a revolution brewing, that’s beginning to have an impact on the world of design and how engineers go about innovating.”
It’s really about the independence of engineering. 3D printing is allowing prototypes and production in the blink of an eye; wearables offer tremendous opportunity for tech expansion in nearly all vertical markets; and IoT is ushering in sensor- and embedded-heavy intelligence to every aspect of life.
With all three areas being promoted by strong community knowledge sharing, feedback, and often open source, the walls are coming down. Engineers will soon find themselves able to quickly, cheaply, and accurately design and build what they’d like, even if what they’d like to build is their own company. And you’ll find the design and business knowledge to do so at Maker Faire and DoT.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Don’t damage thin devices when testing
http://edn.com/design/test-and-measurement/4434565/Don-t-damage-thin-devices-when-testing
Everyone wants thin, light mobile devices. That’s why the newly released iPhone 6 is thinner than its predecessors. Thinner devices are driving the development of advanced packaging technologies. Unfortunately, traditional epoxy plastic packages are inadequate for building these extremely thin devices because their package footprint area is up to 6 times bigger than the chips they house.
The solution to this problem is CSPs (Chip Scale Packages), which are the same size as the chips themselves. CSPs attach directly to circuit boards using solder balls. Unfortunately, the small size of CSPs make them fragile and susceptible to damage during handling. As a result, the semiconductor manufacturing industry needs new methods to qualify devices so that engineers understand failures and failed devices can be screened.
According to Brandon Prior of the research firm Prismark, the iPhone 5S was the first mobile device to use 50 µm line/space (L/S) and CSPs on an 0.4 mm pitch. Prismark forecasts that more than 28% of CSPs and WLCSPs (wafer-level CSPs) will be at 0.4 mm or less by 2018.
Qualcomm’s senior director of package engineering, Steve Bezuk, discussed packaging challenges at the IMAP Device Packaging Conference 2014, saying that while very few packages during the late 2000s were WLP, this category now accounts for nearly half of IC packages.
CSP substrates keep getting thinner. The SEMI global industry association says that today’s leading-edge CSP substrates have 15 micron (µm) lines and spaces, and are moving toward even finer lines and spaces so they can handle fine bump pitch of ≤110 µm.
In general, any CSP reliability qualification process must address four key issues:
Handling
Incoming and outgoing quality control (IQC/OQC)
Socketing
Unbiased stress testing
A CSP’s exposed silicon material is raw and very brittle. Thus, it can suffer from stress cracking during handling.
The process of locating cracks during incoming and outgoing quality control is difficult and costly to automate. Therefore, it must be performed through visual inspection by technicians with proper training.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Assembling a Micro-scale Biochemistry Lab Like Snapping LEGOs Together
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/09/22/2250232/assembling-a-micro-scale-biochemistry-lab-like-snapping-legos-together
Microfluidic systems promise to bring the same level of precision and control seen in the electronics industry to chemistry and the life sciences. Typically, devices are fabricated at substantial cost and using borrowed techniques from the semiconductor industry.
It was inspired by the ease with which LEGO bricks are assembled into a larger structure, and finally allows for the rapid prototyping of “Lab-on-Chip” devices.
Lego-like modular components make building 3-D ‘labs-on-a-chip’ a snap
http://phys.org/news/2014-09-lego-like-modular-components-d-labs-on-a-chip.html
Thanks to new LEGO-like components developed by researchers at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, it is now possible to build a 3-D microfluidic system quickly and cheaply by simply snapping together small modules by hand.
Microfluidic systems are used in many fields including engineering, chemistry and biotechnology to precisely manipulate small volumes of fluids for use in applications such as enzymatic or DNA analysis, pathogen detection, clinical diagnostic testing, and synthetic chemistry. Traditionally, microfluidic devices are built in a cleanroom on a two-dimensional surface using the same technology developed to produce integrated circuits for the electronics industry.
Though tiny, designing, assembling and testing a new microfluidics system can take a lot of time and money. Building a single device can often require multiple iterations, each of which can take up to two weeks and several thousand dollars to manufacture. And the more complex the system, the higher the number of iterations needed.
“You test your device and it never works the first time,”
“The founders of the microfluidics field took the same approach as the semiconductor industry: to try to pack in as much integrated structure as possible into a single chip,”
Borrowing an approach from the electronics industry, which uses prototype boards to build circuits, Bhargava conceived of three-dimensional modular components that encapsulated the common elements of microfluidic systems, as well as a connector that could join the separate components together. Inspired by recent advancements in micron-scale 3D-printing
Tomi Engdahl says:
Engineering majors: You’re hired!
http://edn.com/electronics-blogs/now-hear-this/4430197/Engineering-majors–You-re-hired-
Students graduating this year with an engineering degree are finding the job market surprisingly robust.
“The demand for our EE and ME students this year continues to be strong,
Engineering majors historically tend to have less trouble finding jobs in their chosen field than their counterparts with liberal arts degrees, but during the recent recession, engineering schools saw larger numbers of students choosing to wait it out and go to grad school.
That trend is changing. At the University of Massachusetts, 10% of students with EE degrees went on to pursue advanced degrees in 2013, down from a high of 22% during the sluggish job market between 2009 and 2012.
“In the past few years we have noticed a higher concentration of employers looking to hire for engineering positions, particularly in software engineering and computer science,”
While job opportunities are growing for engineering students, Brooks says employers are also getting more discerning in their decisions on whom to hire. “They are looking not just for technical skills but strong interdisciplinary teamwork skills, writing and presentation skills, initiative, and leadership ability.”
In addition, 1.3 million scientists and engineers will be needed to replace workers exiting the field. Further, an increasing number of jobs in occupations outside of engineering are requiring an increasing level of technical knowledge.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Designing at Very High Voltages: Everything Changes, Especially Your Way of Thinking
http://ph.mouser.com/applications/high-voltage-designing-for-very-high-voltages/
For engineers who spend their design time in the single-digit, low-voltage world, the phrase “high voltage” may conjure up voltages in the double digits, perhaps as high as 24V or 48V DC, or even the triple-digit domain of line voltages of 120/240 VAC. Yet there’s a huge and essential world of engineering design that must be done at 1000V, 1500V, and higher voltages.
Designing products for this region calls for very different thinking, component selection, and interconnection, often in areas designers of low-voltage products do not have to even consider. These concerns apply to passive components, connectors, wiring interconnects, MOSFETs/IGBTs, layout, and of course, safety and regulatory issues. It’s a difficult, unforgiving world when your voltage potentials are that high. Trivial oversights can suddenly become major equipment- and life-threatening events. Remember: Rule number 1 is to stop and think before you do anything; rule number 2 is invoke rule number 1 again, perhaps several times.
some serious research is needed to determine the required minimum creepage and clearance values, or engineers may need to call an experienced consultant, especially if the end product will need formal regulatory approval for manufacturing and sale.
Designers who work at lower voltages rarely need to look at the voltage ratings of their basic passive components; those almost countless resistors, capacitors, and inductors that support ICs and discrete devices. Yet each of these does have a maximum working voltage rating specification. Above this voltage, the component may not work to specification, may “gracefully” degrade, fail prematurely, or suffer catastrophic failure.
What about connectors and cables? Although they are often not considered along with “passive” components like resistors, capacitors, and inductors, they are also a critical link in the high-voltage chain and have many of the same parameters as basic passive components. As with layout and wiring, creepage and clearance are primary factors when choosing high voltage interconnects.
High-voltage designs require more than just routing current at high potential. The design also involves controlling and switching current at high voltages. IGBTs and MOSFETs are the most common devices used here, although vacuum electron devices (VEDs) – often referred to as vacuum tubes – still play a surprisingly large role in this area, as they can handle and dissipate large amounts of power, especially in the RF spectrum.
Whether to use a MOSFET or an IGBT is often a difficult decision at first review. In general, IGBTs are better for combinations of higher voltage, higher current, and lower switching frequencies. MOSFETs are better for combinations of lower voltage and lower current, but at higher switching frequencies.
The choice of high-voltage IGBT versus MOSFET for applications where they are both viable candidates now has an added dimension: the commercial availability of MOSFETs based on silicon carbide (SiC) rather than traditional silicon alone.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Arm has introduced the latest M-Series processor throne, which bears the name of the Cortex M7. M7 is designed for robots and intelligent appliances in mind. M7 processor clock speed is 400 MHz, (the forerunner to it M4 was 168 MHz).
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/kaikki_uutiset/armn+uusi+suoritin+tekee+roboteista+ketterampia/a1013977
Tomi Engdahl says:
System Bits: Sept. 23
http://semiengineering.com/system-bits-sept-23/
Harvard researchers propose correlated oxide as a promising semiconductor for future 3D ICs; researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have created a way to create a highly sensitive chemical sensor based on the crystalline flaws in graphene sheets.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Santa Fe (MAXREFDES5#): 16-Bit High Accuracy Multi-Input Isolated Analog Front End (AFE)
http://www.maximintegrated.com/en/app-notes/index.mvp/id/5561
his document explains how the Santa Fe (MAXREFDES5#) subsystem reference design meets the higher resolution, higher voltage, and isolation needs of industrial control and industrial automation applications. Hardware and firmware design files as well as FFTs and histograms from lab measurements are provided.
Today’s field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and microcontrollers with internal analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) are capable of low-resolution and low-voltage analog inputs. However, they fall short on being able to meet the needs of industrial control and industrial automation applications, where isolation, higher resolutions, and higher voltage system solutions are often needed. The Santa Fe (MAXREFDES5#) subsystem reference design is a 16-bit high-accuracy industrial analog front end (AFE) that accepts -10V to +10V, 0 to 10V, and 4–20mA current loop signals with isolated power and data integrated into a small form factor.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Margining and Calibration for Fun and Profit
http://www.maximintegrated.com/en/app-notes/index.mvp/id/5067?utm_source=EEWeb&utm_medium=TechCommunity&utm_term=2014&utm_content=Content&utm_campaign=Maxim
This application note presents an overview of electronic margining and its value in detecting potential system failures before a product ships from the factory. It is a calibration method that effectively predicts and allows adjustments to improve product quality. Margining also can be used to sort products into performance levels, allowing premium products to be sold at premium prices. We discuss the downside of sorting and suggest alternative ways to segregate products.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ultra-Broadband Capacitor
http://www.eeweb.com/company-news/mouser/ultra-broadband-capacitor
The GX0S Series are ultra-broadband capacitors featuring an ultra-low insertion loss and excellent return loss. It is developed to address 16 kHz to 40 GHz DC blocking issues specifically for mounting strip lines. This capacitor is typically used in semiconductor data communications as well as test equipment manufacturers.
AVX GX0S Series Ultra Broadband Capacitor was developed to address DC Blocking issues from ~16KHz (-3dB roll-off) to 40 GHz and was designed specifically for mounting on strip lines with widths less than 20 mils. In most applications, insertion loss will typically fall in the range of 0.4 dB.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Optimizing Instrumentation Signal Chains for Cost, Performance
http://ph.mouser.com/applications/article-signal-chain-performance/
ADCs typically provide a standard I²C- or SPI-compatible serial interface for connecting the output of the analog signal chain to an MCU. As data points stream into the MCU, designers can sharpen the signal-to-noise ratio using conventional filtering algorithms running in software or on digital-signal-processing hardware for more performance-intensive applications.
The ability to create very sharp cutoff and notch filters digitally also provides a significant opportunity to relax requirements in the analog signal chain. For example, designers can elect to shift filter complexity to the digital domain rather than increase the design’s footprint with more complex analog filtering components that might be required in a particular application. Of course, increased software complexity carries burdens of its own in terms of memory requirements and MCU performance capabilities.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Non-Isolated DC-DC Step-Down Converters with Integrated Inductors for Space-Constrained Applications
http://ph.mouser.com/applications/low-power-dc-converter/?utm_source=eeweb&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=eeweb_2013?utm_source=EEWeb&utm_medium=TechCommunity&utm_term=2014&utm_content=Content&utm_campaign=Mouser
Grossing nearly $7 billion in analog revenue in 2012, with an estimated 25% attributable to the Power Management Segment, Texas Instruments is definitely one of the key companies to look at when researching power solutions.
The TPS82K MicroSiP™ Modules (pictured) are truly stunning given the amount of integration that leads to no additional component requirements (Figure 1), including a total solution size of <7 mm2.
The SIMPLE SWITCHER® Nano Modules (pictured) provide a 1 amp solution that requires only an input capacitor, an output capacitor, a VCON capacitor, and feedback resistors, and it fits in <35 mm2.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Philips to Split Into Two Companies as Part of Overhaul
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/09/23/philips-to-split-into-two-companies-in-a-continuing-revamp/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
LONDON — Philips, the Dutch electronics giant, said on Tuesday that it planned to split itself into two companies: one focused on health care and technology, and the other on lighting.
The announcement is the latest step by Philips in an effort to reshape itself. Philips announced plans in June to spin off part of its lighting business — its LED components and automotive lighting divisions — into its own company.
On Tuesday, Philips said that it would combine its health care and consumer lifestyle businesses to form one company, which it has labeled HealthTech.
Philips said it would begin the process of turning the lighting business into a separate company.
The announcement came as Philips was hosting an investor day in London on Tuesday.
The HealthTech business is expected to capitalize on the growing convergence between the health care and consumer sectors, namely consumers using technology to proactively monitor and manage their health.
The health care business has been focused around four areas: imaging systems, patient care information systems, home health care and health care transformation services, a new division started last year to help improve the operational and financial performance of hospitals and health systems.