Electronics trends for 2013

626 Comments

1. August 20, 2013 at 12:55 pm

   Tomi Engdahl says:

   Deriving design margins for successful timing closure
   http://www.edn.com/design/systems-design/4419642/Deriving-design-margins-for-successful-timing-closure

   With the fast developing technology, the complexity of design is increasing day by day. To meet lower technology challenges and to achieve good silicon yield, SOC design flows have been enhanced and have introduced more number of design implementations steps. With every implementation step which takes design towards realistic working silicon, SOC design timing performance degrades due to various factors which were not apparent at previous implementation step. Thus it is very important to have a right estimate of design frequency since first stage of design implementation. The important parameter which makes it possible are called Design Margins.

   Design margins
   Design Margins are the extra pessimism introduced in terms of design uncertainty which covers the expected timing hit of every stage in implementation cycle so as to achieve targeted frequencies well in time. It is very much required to have a right estimate of design margins.

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2. August 20, 2013 at 1:10 pm

   Tomi Engdahl says:

   Survey Says: Use of Open-Source Will Increase in 2013
   http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1365&doc_id=266590&cid=nl.dn14

   The open-source movement continues to gain traction in 2013 among core groups, according to a survey released by electronics distributor Newark element14. The results conclude that more professional engineers, hobbyists, and students will all use open-source software and hardware for one or more design projects this year.

   Of those surveyed, more than half (56 percent) of professional engineers will use BeagleBone and Arduino in 2013. For hobbyists, that number jumps to 82 percent, and for students, 85 percent. Additionally, more than half (52 percent) of professional engineers are more likely to use open-source software in 2013, as well as 81 percent of hobbyists and 77 percent of students, as compared to years past.

   What do these findings mean for the engineering and design communities? Perhaps most importantly, these numbers demonstrate how engineers’ opinions about open-source are changing. Traditionally, open-source designing in the commercial space were seen as a risk. With the sheer availability of open-source tools and resources in recent years, those fears are being mitigated by increased adoption.

   Relatedly, platforms like BeagleBone and Arduino were once predominately exclusive to hobbyists, but now professional engineers and even students are using them. The gap is closing across these groups, demonstrating how technology is expanding design platform choices.

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3. August 21, 2013 at 11:44 am

   Tomi Engdahl says:

   Japan’s unwanted IT workers dumped in ‘forcing-out rooms’
   Firms bore unwanted workers into bailing
   http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/21/boredom_rooms_japan_electronics_firms/

   Some of Japan’s biggest technology companies send certain employees to “boredom” or “forcing-out” rooms where they’re forced to undertake menial tasks designed to make them quit.

   A New York Times report detailed the experience of 51-year-old Sony employee Shusaku Tani who refused to take early retirement after his position at the Sony Sendai Technology Center was eliminated.

   With no job left for Tani and others like him at the firm, Sony decided to put them in an oidashibeya – which can be translated as “forcing-out room” or less accurately “boredom room”.

   Here he apparently browses the web and reads books all day before preparing a daily report on his activities and leaving for home.

   In other cases, skilled employees have apparently been forced to undertake data entry or repetitive assembly line work.

   It’s unclear how extensive this practice is in Japan although the NYT referred to local media reports claiming that Panasonic, NEC and Toshiba, among others, use the technique.

   Boring workers to career death may be a symptom of labour laws that make it difficult for corporates to lay off staff without good reason.

   “We consider that the biggest reason why the Japanese electronics industry is getting weak is the strict employment policy in Japan,” Gartner analyst Hiroyuki Shimizu told The Reg.

   “It is almost impossible for Japanese companies to flexibly restructure their human resources. It is also difficult to close factories in Japan, as a lot of people are laid off.”

   Over the past 20 years, company execs have therefore been focussed on technology areas where they have the most human resources and assets rather than where they can differentiate, he explained.

   Shimizu gave the example of the Sony Walkman, which the firm is still developing even though Apple has the dominant global market share in that area.

   “Sony keeps focusing on the development of sound quality, even though many users hate Sony’s music content management software ‘X-Application’,” he said.

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4. August 21, 2013 at 12:09 pm

   Tomi Engdahl says:

   Intel Talks about Multimode LTE Modems – XMM7160 and Beyond
   by Brian Klug on August 20, 2013 8:35 PM EST
   http://www.anandtech.com/show/7234/intel-talks-about-multimode-lte-modems-xmm7160-and-beyond

   Since acquiring Infineon’s wireless division and forming the Mobile Communications Group, Intel has been relatively quiet about its modem portfolio and roadmap. Pre-acquisition parts from Infineon have continued to see broad adoption in the 2G (Nokia Asha phones) and 3G market, like XMM6260 and XMM6360 which was in the international version of the Galaxy S 4. However, Intel has been relatively silent about its multimode LTE offering, XMM7160, since talking about it MWC.

   The timing of the event was interesting since the Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 will be the first tier–1 product to launch with Intel’s XMM7160 LTE modem inside, although Intel has been quick to point out that XMM7160 was used in a single mode LTE manner in another prior device.

   So first up is Intel’s XMM7160 multimode 2G (GSM/EDGE), 3G (HSPA+) and 4G (LTE) modem, which is shipping this August in the Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 and apparently a few other devices. I don’t expect this to show up in many phones, but obviously tablets and other devices built on Intel’s SoC platforms are obvious places. This is Intel’s first multimode LTE modem, and is a UE Category 3 part at launch (100 Mbps downstream) but will receive an upgrade to Category 4 (150 Mbps) via a firmware update in the December timeframe.

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5. August 25, 2013 at 5:52 pm

   Pia Gilton says:

   Always pleased to read amazing articles.. Spirit be present rearward on behalf of additional representing sure! Thank you for sharing

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6. August 26, 2013 at 1:24 pm

   Tomi Engdahl says:

   The biggest-little revolution: 10 single-board computers for under $100
   http://www.edn.com/design/diy/4419990/The-biggest-little-revolution–10-single-board-computers-for-under–100

   ince the coming of the Raspberry Pi Model B, single-board computers (SBCs) have become a prevalent force in the development world. These pocket-sized devices have taken the online maker community in particular by storm, providing PC functionality to a plethora of open-source projects in amazingly compact, cost-effective, and low-power platforms.

   It’s not an overstatement to say these tiny computers have engendered a technological revolution of their own by pushing the limits of technological creativity achievable in the palm of one’s hand. As an added benefit, SBCs have served as cheaply obtainable educational tools for teaching the ever-important concepts of computer science to the younger generation. Test engineers, those seeking to build one-off projects, and hobbyists have embraced, and appreciate, this mini computer platform. Similar to how the smartphone changed how we use phones, SBCs are poised to change how we approach embedded systems development.

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7. August 26, 2013 at 1:26 pm

   Tomi Engdahl says:

   Impact of electronics design methods in the automotive industry
   http://www.edn.com/design/automotive/4419941/Impact-of-electronics-design-methods-in-the-automotive-industry

   The increase in electronic modules adds a new complexity to the overall product design of a car, while at the same time, introduces many new factors that have to be considered to allow the industry to be viable and competitive in the long term. Factors such as reliability, modular design, and data management are a few examples. As we steer into an era of alternative fuel cars, we need to take into account that the inclusion of electronics in vehicles will only increase. So it is vital to understand how electronic design matures alongside the other disciplines in the overall product design cycle, and how it impacts the bottom line in vehicle production.

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8. August 29, 2013 at 10:01 am

   Tomi Engdahl says:

   Smartphones: shortages of components

   The huge growth in the smartphone appears as expected in shortage key components. Chinese industry sources, the shortage is already such a camera, touch screens, as well as a multichip memory modules.

   The problems began as early as the first half of the processors manufacturer Mediatek announced the delivery problems for their clients. After that Chinese manufacturers have been trying to build a bigger component stocks for the future. New smartphones, the demand is, however, exceeded even the expectations.

   As demand grows, components, prices will rise. For example, 4,5 -, and 5-inch touch panel manufacturers to raise prices for their own list.

   Memory module manufacturers were are able to meet only about 60-70 per cent of today’s orders.

   Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=17:alypuhelinten-komponenteista-pulaa&catid=13:news&Itemid=101

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9. August 29, 2013 at 10:02 am

   Tomi Engdahl says:

   Intel last week the appointment of a new Executive Director Brian Krzanich will take to reform the structure of the company at high speed.

   Krzanichin internal memo soon found their way to Reuters and other news agencies in the hands.

   Intel has created a whole new new devices (New Devices) division. It has been appointed to lead Mike Bell.

   The new structure should enable Intel’s long-term objective: access to a major processor and supplier of smart phones and tablets.

   Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=31:uusi-intel-pomo-pani-heti-tuulemaan&catid=13:news&Itemid=101

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10. August 29, 2013 at 1:29 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    MediaTek, MStar Merger Gets China’s OK
    http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1319333&

    A previously stalled $4 billion merger between consumer electronics IC companies MediaTek Inc. and MStar Semiconductor Inc., both based in Hsinchu, Taiwan, has received approval from China’s antitrust regulator but with conditions covering the sale of LCD TV chips.

    MediaTek and MStar are public companies that design and sell SoCs that go in smartphones and other consumer and multimedia electronics. MediaTek is particularly strong in chips for smartphones.

    MediaTek has still to submit a detailed plan to the Ministry of Communications on how it will effect the merger, and the closing date for the deal has now been postponed three months to Feb. 1, 2014.

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11. August 29, 2013 at 1:30 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Moore’s Law Dead by 2022, Expert Says
    http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1319330&

    Moore’s Law — the ability to pack twice as many transistors on the same sliver of silicon every two years — will come to an end as soon as 2020 at the 7nm node, said a keynoter at the Hot Chips conference here.

    While many have predicted the end of Moore’s Law, few have done it so passionately or convincingly. The predictions are increasing as lithography advances stall and process technology approaches atomic limits.

    “For planning horizons, I pick 2020 as the earliest date we could call it dead,” said Robert Colwell, who seeks follow-on technologies as director of the microsystems group at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. “You could talk me into 2022, but whether it will come at 7 or 5nm, it’s a big deal,” said the engineer who once managed a Pentium-class processor design at Intel.

    Moore’s Law was a rare exponential growth factor that over 30 years brought speed boosts from 1 MHz to 5 GHz, a 3,500-fold increase. By contrast, the best advances in clever architectures delivered about 50x increases over the same period, he said.

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12. August 29, 2013 at 1:32 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    CMOS Timing Startup Turns to Crystal
    http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1319334&

    EoSemi Ltd., a UK-based developer of CMOS replacements for crystal oscillators, has closed an equity funding round worth approximately $2.5 million and made management changes. As part of the changes the company is embracing crystal oscillator (XO) technology and plans to sell XO components into the mobile phone handset sector.

    The company, which first surfaced a couple of years ago (see CMOS timing startup raises $2.3 million), has now completed the acquisition of key intellectual property from Adaptalog Ltd., a UK-based crystal oscillator firm, and as part of that deal Hedley Rokos, Adaptalog’s founder, becomes chief technology officer of eoSemi.

    Prior to the acquisition of Adaptalog’s IP, eoSemi concentrated entirely on frequency-drift compensation circuits for silicon oscillators. These circuits are able to compensate for the effects of temperature, stress, strain, and aging on a silicon oscillator’s frequency and help maintain accuracy. The company believes that its existing technology combined with Adaptalog’s silicon characterization expertise could reduce the frequency drift of a CMOS oscillator to less than 50 parts per million. This level of accuracy will facilitate the removal of quartz crystals from many wireline connected electronic systems, the company asserts.

    However, eoSemi also intends to offer crystal oscillator products that address full power, standby, and sleep modes of operation in battery-powered applications. These crystal oscillators will be aimed at LTE smartphone handsets where they will allow a single crystal oscillator to be used with multiple diverse wireless sub-systems including GPS and WiFi without any significant reduction of battery life.

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13. August 29, 2013 at 1:35 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Got MIPI? If Not, Lattice Will Show You How
    http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1319340&

    It’s a funny old world sometimes. The MIPI (Mobile Industry Processor Interface) was formed by a consortium of companies in 2003. The goal of MIPI (mipi.org) is to define a suite of interfaces for use in mobile and consumer products, where these interfaces reduce cost, complexity, power consumption, and EMI while increasing bandwidth and performance. These are all great targets to be sure, which is why the use of MIPI interfaces is expanding way beyond the mobile space. These interfaces are currently appearing all over the place.

    Actually, this is probably a good time to take a step back and note that the term MIPI covers a lot of things — it’s like saying Ethernet without offering any further qualification.

    The two MIPI standards of interest to us here are the Camera Serial Interface (CSI) and the Display Serial Interface (DSI). The latest versions of these interfaces — CSI-2 and DSI — share a common PHY (physical interface) known as the D-PHY, which has been designed so as to offer high speed with low power consumption and low EMI.

    When you think about all of the products today that employ cameras and display screens, industrial control systems, vending machines, home appliances — the list goes on — it’s easy to see why having standard interfaces is so attractive to system designers. Fifteen years ago, the PC was the dominant architecture, so everyone was using PC-based components and subsystems to reduce costs and increase reliability. Today, smartphones and tablets represent the dominant architecture — an architecture that employs the CSI-2 and DSI interfaces — which explains why components and subsystems using these interfaces are finding their way into a vast array of application areas and products.

    The problem is that we are still in transition. Some components and subsystems support the CSI-2 and DSI interfaces, while others still use alternative standards.

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14. August 30, 2013 at 11:44 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    ARM Buys Sensinode for IoT Software
    http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1319318&itc=eetimes_node_199&cid=NL_EDN_DesignIdeas_20130829&elq=73ef57e77ffc46de8377cfc5199a92b5&elqCampaignId=953

    ARM has acquired Sensinode Oy, a 20-person company developing machine-to-machine software based on the 6LoWPAN, which ARM will add to the portfolio of products it licenses. The move is a sign of growing adoption in the emerging Internet of Things sector of the 6LoWPAN standard, roughly based on web standards such as Internet Protocol.

    ARM will make the Sensinode code available for evaluation through its so-called mbed project, which lets engineers try out products via an online connection, said John Cornish, general manager of ARM’s System Design Division in an interview.

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15. August 30, 2013 at 1:34 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Silicon daddy: Moore’s Law about to be repealed, but don’t blame physics
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/27/moores_law_will_be_repealed_due_to_economics_not_physics/

    Hot Chips Moore’s Law, which promises exponentially increasing transistor counts due to chip-manufacturing process shrinkage, is about to hit the wall. As Intel Fellow Mark Bohr once told The Reg, “We just plain ran out of atoms.”

    But there’s one industry veteran, however, who looks at the reason for the repeal of the semiconductor industry’s defining law from a different angle, after its nearly 50-year run.

    “When Moore’s Law ends, it will be economics that stops it, not physics,” declared Robert Colwell of DARPA’s Microsystems Technology Office, speaking on Monday at the Hot Chips conference at Stanford University.

    “Follow the money,” he advised.

    Colwell believes that 2020 will be the earliest date for the Law’s demise. “That’s only seven years away,” he reminded his audience. “I’m thinking seven nanometers. You could talk me into 2022 – you might even be able to talk me into five nanometers, I don’t know, but you’re not going to talk me into one nanometer, you’re not going to be able to talk me into femtometers or whatever.”

    As a chip architect at Intel, Colwell says that his job was to “stay out of the way” of Moore’s Law, seeing as how the vast amount of historical improvements in semiconductors have been attributable far more to scaling than to progress in microarchitectures.

    Harkening back to 1980 when he was at Bell Labs working on a 1MHz 32-bit processor, Colwell reckons that the improvements in semiconductor scaling since then have led to a 3500X improvement in chip performance. But what about design innovations such as pipelining, caches, superscalar architectures? Not so much, he says – a 50X improvement at best.

    If that designer’s chip could provide a 50 per cent improvement in performance or power consumption, Colwell says, it would likely find a market. “But how about 20 per cent? How about 10 per cent? How far down are you willing to go and still think that you’ve got something you can sell?”

    From his point of view, such small improvements wouldn’t justify the cost of creating a 10 per cent chip. Customers wouldn’t buy it, so chipmakers wouldn’t manufacture it.

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16. August 30, 2013 at 1:35 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    MCU popularity perceptions
    http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/systems-interface/4420230/MCU-popularity-perceptions

    Using this list, we asked readers which of these they felt were the most popular in a decidely non-scientific opinion poll – and one fraught with different interpretations. I view this as a simple snapshot of which families have managed to gain heightened visibility over the years

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17. August 30, 2013 at 2:33 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Gumstix’s Gepetto Online Service Simplifies Electronic Board Design
    http://www.deskeng.com/virtual_desktop/?p=6811

    In yet another example of gaming’s influence on professional development tools, Gumstix Inc., a maker of Linux computers-on-modules (COMs) for electronics manufacturers, has created an online platform that brings drag-and-drop simplicity to the design of custom embedded computers.

    Called Geppetto, the system is aimed at manufacturers who want an embedded device tailored to their specifications without the cost and lengthy development process associated with conventional electrical engineering, layout, and manufacturing, according to Gordon Kruberg, Gumstix CEO. Gumstix is pairing the Geppetto Web-based design tool with its own manufacturing capabilities, offering an out-of-box service that lets companies produce production-ready embedded systems in 20 days for a $1,999 manufacturing set-up fee, in addition to reasonable per-unit charges.

    Traditional methods of creating custom electronics devices can be highly technical and time consuming, Kruberg says.

    With Gumstix’s Geppetto, developing a custom device ready for manufacturing can take as little as 10 minutes, depending on the complexity of the design, Gumstix officials claim.

    “With Geppetto, an industrial designer can skip all the electrical engineering part, giving them a way to look at the finished board they are ultimately responsible for designing without involving a team of electrical engineers and logistics personnel,” Kruberg explains.

    Given that the traditional design chain leaves numerous opportunities for mistakes, Geppetto’s ability to simplify and automate the process offers a two-fold value proposition, he explains.

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18. September 1, 2013 at 9:05 am

    Tomi says:

    Big VC funding and new technology makes enterprise storage sexy. Really!
    http://pandodaily.com/2013/08/30/big-vc-funding-and-new-technology-makes-enterprise-storage-sexy-really/

    It’s shocking, I know, but the storage industry has more juice than Ryan Braun leaving a Biogenesis clinic.

    Approximately two years after Fusion-io’s IPO, yet another in a lengthening list of flash storage start-ups, Violin Memory, has also filed for an IPO. What on earth is going on?

    The underappreciated technology ecosystem behind flash storage, the memory technology capable of turning a smartphone into a bottomless media repository, or a USB thumb drive into your digital life-on-a-stick is hurtling its diminutive self toward a gargantuan market opportunity, fueled by a massive, continuous infusion of venture capital and sparked by innovation rooted in physics and chemistry, the literal kind.

    IDC predicts that we will be generating 40 zettabytes annually by 2020. (Trust me, that’s big. A single zettabyte is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes, or 1 billion terabytes.) Sensors, surveillance video, photos, medical devices, financial market data, social and location data, and other creators of structured and unstructured information are demanding more capacity and real-time performance, and they’re getting them.

    Flash storage is racing quickly to meet the inevitable need. Flash chips will get smaller, store more data more quickly and for less money, and just as the economics and physics hit a wall newer methods will be ready for commercialization. At least, that’s what’s happened throughout history.

    Today’s flash memory technology, known as NAND (stands for Negated AND or NOT AND, a boolean operator that provides the logic for storing data), will reach its evolutionary peak in the next few years, when flash chip lithographies get too small to be reliable. That inevitability has sparked schemes to extend the life of NAND, to evolve its architecture, and to replace it completely with other potentially more inventive storage schemes.

    Take Skyera, whose CEO and co-founder, Radoslav Danilla, started SandForce, a flash controller company, and before that he was a chip and graphic processor architect at NVIDIA. Skyera’s just-announced skyEagle is a small form-factor (1u) storage appliance that holds a whopping 500 TB flash, delivered at $1.99/GB, which falls closer to the $1.50/GB of traditional disk technology than the $15 – $20/GB of most enterprise-grade flash systems.

    Skyera accomplishes this by using consumer-grade flash, which has significantly less reliability (by a factor of 10) than most enterprise-grade flash, but makes up for it with a variety of inventive workarounds. One example: Skyera’s system uses voltage shaping to reduce the voltage applied to the chips, thereby reducing damage and extending the life, and thus reliability of the technology.

    Companies like Samsung, one of a small handful of NAND chip manufacturers, are already at work on 3D V-NAND technology, a scheme to stack more NAND cells vertically (the V in V-NAND) to increase capacity. Samsung’s chips also uses a different design to capture and store a charge, and promises better performance and a 40 percent power consumption improvement.

    Others are moving in different directions, like using phase change memory, which lowers and raises resistance through crystalization, and spin transfer torque techniques known as Magnetic RAM (MRAM) or resistive RAM (ReRAM). Some of those technologies are starting to see the light of day, says Howard Marks, founder and chief scientist at analyst firm DeepStorage. The first PCM and ReRAM chips are less dense than the current generation of flash, so they are going toward special purpose applications.

    On the PCIe side, Fusion-io has been one of the industry’s most visible companies. It went public in June 2011, landed customers like Apple, Facebook, Salesforce.com and HP, boasts Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak as its chief scientist, and made key acquisitions like NexGen Storage and IO Turbine. But Fusion-io has been in the news lately because the company’s revenue growth has stalled

    There’s also new promise beyond the traditional array and PCIe methods of flash deployment. SMART Storage Systems, in partnership with Diablo Technologies, announced that it would put flash on the memory bus, where applications could get the benefits of flash (non volatile, but still very fast and high capacity), but with the access latency of main memory DRAM.

    Applications like SAP’s HANA, which uses DRAM for its in-memory database architecture (providing near real-time access to complex data), could be a fit for flash on the memory bus, essentially ushering in more cost-effective implementations of HANA. Marks says that blade servers, where space is at a premium, would also be a logical target for this technology.

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19. September 2, 2013 at 12:59 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    STMicroelectronics has announced a new Bluetooth circuit which is able to transmit and receive data only milliamps current. ST is planning to chip, above all, the growing smart watch, smart glass and other site-held devices on the market.

    BlueNRG network processor supports Bluetooth 4.0, the low power consumption specifications. ST’s power consumption is the maximum of 8.2 milliamps. The reception desk is low: 7.3 milliamps. Both are the lowest in the company, according to market quotations.

    ABI Research predicts that this area of ​​the unit deliveries grows this year to about 220 million to nearly a billion unit in 2016.

    Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=299:bluetooth-yhteys-milliampeereilla&catid=13&Itemid=101

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20. September 3, 2013 at 6:36 pm

    Tomi says:

    At Current Rates, Tesla Could Soon Suck Up Worldwide Supply of Li-Ion Cells
    http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/13/09/03/1254229/at-current-rates-tesla-could-soon-suck-up-worldwide-supply-of-li-ion-cells

    “Lets just say Elon Musk may need to go battery shopping, like, big-time. Here’s some little-understood Tesla math that could turn the global market for cylindrical lithium-ion cells upside down by 2015. It turns out the massive Model S battery takes almost 2,000 times the number of cells a basic laptop does. Assume Tesla just doubles production from its current 21K cars/year to 40K cars/year. (Something it expects to do by 2015). At that point, Tesla would require the *entire* existing global capacity for 18650 commodity cells.”

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21. September 4, 2013 at 2:49 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Harvest Automation Brings Affordable Robotics to Big Ag
    http://singularityhub.com/2013/09/02/harvest-automation-brings-affordable-robotics-to-big-ag/

    If you were starting a robotics company, what would you build a robot to do?

    Harvest Automation has built a robot to do something that’s neither difficult nor sexy: move potted plants around in nurseries and greenhouses. It’s a task the Boston-based company decided to tackle with its first robot, dubbed Harvey, not because humans can’t do it, but because they don’t.

    “It’s often very difficult strenuous work, and increasingly it’s harder and harder to find people to do that work,” Harvest Automation CEO John Kawola told Singularity Hub.

    Potted plants don’t sound sexy and they’re not where pundits expected robots to move into agriculture, but worldwide they are a $50 billion industry.

    To make Harvey, or the HV-100, salable, Harvest Automation built the robot almost entirely from off-the-shelf parts. A single robot sells for $30,000, while an unskilled human laborer earns about $20,000 a year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

    It’s not glamorous, but Harvey can perform this task on gravel or other uneven terrain, and in rain (or sprinkler spray) or sun, light or dark.

    “The robots were designed to work outside in the tougher terrain conditions,” said Kawola.

    Unlike the enormous industrial robots of yesteryear, today’s robots are designed to be safe for use around humans. Harvey simply pauses if it detects a human in its path.

    With about 10 U.S. buyers of fleets of HV-100s, Harvest plans first to try to begin selling in Europe, where the potted plant market is twice as big as in the U.S., beginning in early 2014.

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22. September 5, 2013 at 11:09 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Tek steps into power market
    http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/probing-matters/4412605/Tek-steps-into-power-market

    Tektronix recently announced it is entering the power analyzer market with its PA4000 precision multi-phase power analyzer.

    Tek got a head start in this new market by implementing a technology transfer agreement with Voltech which included power analyzer intellectual property (IP), patents and product designs. The companies are working together now, and Voltech will exit the power analyzer market by the end of September 2013.

    Price explains that by entering this market, Tektronix is positioned to offer end-to-end power testing solutions. The company already offers Tektronix oscilloscopes and probes, and the new power analyzers, combined with Keithley parametric curve tracers and SourceMeter units, make perfect sense.

    Power analyzers are used to make high-accuracy measurements on a system/sub-system’s input and output. Example tests include: voltage and current input/output, line harmonics, flicker, Watts, VAR, power factor, conversion efficiency and power angle. Today’s designers also need to test power to regulatory standards, including efficiency (ENERGYSTAR), standby current (IEC62301) and harmonics (IEC61000). Tests for these three standards are built in to the new Tektronix PA4000 analyzer.

    “The need for power analysis is growing,” says Price. “Applications such as green-energy generation, energy savings and having inverters connected to the grid require stronger adherence to specifications.”

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23. September 5, 2013 at 12:05 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    American wireless chips Broadcom to buy top name Renesas Mobile’s European operations. Broadcom may trade in high-end talent, as well as in manufacturing LTE modem technology at low prices, as the price is only 124 million.

    After Midsummer, Renesas announced the close down of the entire mobile component company. The decision would have meant 566 developer termination of Oulu, Finland.

    Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=314:broadcom-sai-huippuosaamista-halvalla&catid=13&Itemid=101

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24. September 5, 2013 at 2:25 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    VCSEL ILLUMINATION: High-power VCSELs rule IR illumination
    http://www.laserfocusworld.com/articles/print/volume-49/issue-08/world-news/vcsel-illumination-high-power-vcsels-rule-ir-illumination.html

    Numerous imaging applications cannot rely on ambient light and require artificial illumination. In cases where the illumination system should not be distracting, the illumination source should emit infrared (IR) light beyond 815 nm, where eye sensitivity is extremely reduced. But because silicon-based sensors with a 900 nm upper detection limit are cheaper than other types of sensors, light emission at 850 nm is a good match to achieve low-distraction illumination and low-cost detection systems.

    Both IR lasers (VCSELs and edge-emitting lasers, or EELs) and LEDs in the nonvisible 830–860 nm range can be manufactured using gallium arsenide (GaAs) materials. But numerous illumination criteria including cost, manufacturability, ease of integration, reliability and efficiency, modulation speed, and spectral parameters need to be considered

    Like LEDs, VCSELs emit light perpendicular to the substrate material. However, VCSEL emission is coherent, more directional, and spectrally defined. For an individual 850 nm multimode VCSEL, 23 mW of continuous-wave (CW) power is achievable.

    The VCSEL emission spectrum is defined by the cavity mode rather than by the optical gain, as with LEDs. For example, the typical full-width-at-half-maximum (FWHM) emission-wavelength bandwidth of an LED is around 30 nm and around 2 nm for a multimode VCSEL. In practice, for applications such as time-of-flight imaging where ambient light needs to be filtered out, narrower-band filters can be used in combination with VCSELs to improve signal-to-noise ratio of the system through better rejection of parasitic light. In addition, spectral shift with temperature is also defined by the VCSEL’s change of cavity mode (0.06 nm/°C) rather than by the change of the optical gain peak with temperature (0.3 nm/°C) for LEDs and EELs, enabling uncooled VCSEL-array sources.

    Reply
25. September 5, 2013 at 2:26 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Flexible OLED market to rise 334% to nearly $100M in 2014
    http://www.laserfocusworld.com/articles/2013/08/flexible-oled-market-to-rise-334-to-nearly-100m-in-2014.html

    According to market research firm IHS (NYSE: IHS), following Samsung’s introduction of the first flexible organic light-emitting diode (OLED) products this year, demand for these elastic displays is expected to grow by more than a factor of four next year, with sales reaching nearly $100 million in 2014. Global market revenue for flexible OLEDs will rise to $94.8 million in 2014, up from $21.9 million in 2013, according to a new report entitled “In-depth analysis for Technical Trends of Flexible OLED” from IHS.

    The projected growth next year will equate to a 334% expansion from this year, paving the way for much larger sales in the future.

    The report says that OLEDs represent a major segment of the larger flexible display market, which in the coming years will also include liquid-crystal display (LCD) and electronic paper (e-paper) technology. “The buzz about flexible displays has been growing louder, ever since Samsung Display demonstrated its Youm line of bendable OLED products at the Consumer Electronics Show in January,” said Vinita Jakhanwal, director of mobile and emerging displays and technology at IHS. “Samsung is expected to begin shipping its first flexible OLED display–a 5-inch screen–in the second half of this year.”

    Reply
26. September 5, 2013 at 10:45 pm

    Tomi says:

    Hynix says fire did not cripple China chip-making plant
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/04/us-hynix-suspension-idUSBRE9830SP20130904

    SK Hynix Inc 000600.KS expects to resume production of memory chips at its Wuxi, China, plant shortly, the South Korean chipmaker said on Wednesday, adding that a fire at the facility caused one minor injury but did not cripple critical equipment.

    Hynix said the fire raged for more than an hour. After an initial assessment, the world’s No. 2 maker of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips said it found no “material” damage to fabrication gear in its clean room at the plant, which produces around 12 to 15 percent of global computer memory chips.

    With global supplies of DRAM chips already tight, shares in rivals Micron Technology Inc (MU.O) and SanDisk Corp (SNDK.O) rallied after early reports of the fire

    Hynix, which commanded 30 percent of the memory chip market in the second quarter, said the plant it has suspended produces around 40 percent to 50 percent of its total DRAM output.

    Any prolonged suspension could tighten the global supply of DRAM chips

    Reply
27. September 6, 2013 at 10:48 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Sales of computer chips to record levels

    The semiconductor industry has turned to a better growth path. Semiconductor Industry Association, semiconductors were sold in July, nearly 19.4 billion euros. The reading is the current year’s biggest.

    During the past year the semiconductor market has grown by 21.5 per cent in America.
    Growth in the Asian region was 7.2 per cent per year.
    In Europe the at growth was only 1.1 per cent.

    Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=323:sirujenmyynti-vuoden-ennatyslukemiin&catid=13&Itemid=101

    Reply
28. September 6, 2013 at 2:00 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Broadcom Buys Renesas’ LTE Assets – IP, SoC & Engineers
    http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1319399&

    Broadcom Corp. surprised many in the mobile industry Wednesday (Sept. 4) by announcing a definitive agreement to acquire LTE-related assets from Renesas Mobile.

    With the new acquisition deal, Broadcom, which has shipped no LTE products to date, will suddenly own a dual-core LTE SoC, developed by Renesas Mobile, ready for volume production and certified by leading global operators in North America, Japan, and Europe.

    Along with Renesas Mobile’s high-quality multimode, multiband, LTE-A/HSPA+/EDGE modem IP, the Irvine, Calif.-based company also inherits 1,200 employees — mostly engineers — from Renesas Mobile Europe and Renesas Mobile India.

    Reply
29. September 6, 2013 at 2:04 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Qualcomm Leads Smartphone Apps Processor Ranking – Again
    http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1319408&

    According to market research firm Strategy Analytics, Qualcomm was the top multicore smartphone application processor vendor in the first half of 2013, with 43 percent market share. This is the same market share percentage the company had in the smartphone application processor market for the whole of 2012, when it was also ranked top.

    In the ranking of multicore application processor vendors for smartphones in the first half of 2013, Qualcomm is followed by Apple, Samsung, MediaTek, and ST-Ericsson in order of reducing market share. The top five vendors of smartphone application processors in 2012 were Qualcomm, Apple, Samsung, MediaTek, and Broadcom.

    Multi-core chip penetration in smartphones increased to 66 percent in the first half of 2013, up from almost zero in 2010 and about 50 percent in 2012. The penetration of multicore processors in smartphones continues to rise, and by the end of 2013, is likely to be 75 percent, the firm said.

    Broadcom, Intel, Marvell, and Spreadtrum started shipping multicore application processors for smartphones in 2013′s first quarter, and Strategy Analytics expects to see them all ramp volumes. HiSilicon, Huawei’s in-house chip company, with its quad-core K3V2, will also be seeking design wins, the company said.

    Reply
30. September 7, 2013 at 2:22 pm

    Tomi says:

    Deeply Depleted of the DDC channel refers to a new kind of structure of the CMOS transistors. The transistor structure of the flapper to allow tensions to more stringent thresholds for the use of on and off switching.

    This is the first circuit, taking advantage of the American SuVoltan boiling the DDC transistor technology is seventh generation Milbeaut image processor from Fujitsu.

    According to Fujitsu 55 nanometer process produced a DDC transistor performance is approximately double compared to existing circuits, although the power consumption is about 30 percent lower. This is based on the use of voltage reduction, which is possible only in the structure of the DDC.

    In fact, MB86S22AA image processor is able to compress and uncompress H.264/AVC video full High Definition 30 frames per second rate.

    The processor core is an ARM Cortex-A5MP core.

    Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=325:uusi-ddc-transistori-ensimmaista-kertaa-sirulle&catid=13&Itemid=101

    Reply
31. September 8, 2013 at 12:43 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Bosch-Siemens bill of hundreds of millions of defective dishwashers

    Approximately five million washing machine has detected a component failure. Finland has become known three cases of fire, due to a faulty component.

    In millions, dishwashers, the component failure may cost Bosch-Siemens, up to 700 million euros, says the German Focus magazine. Boshc-Siemens has announced that around 5 million in 1999-2005, produced in the dishwasher is a component failure, which could result in a fire hazard.

    The problem of Bosch-Siemens dishwashers have overheated and even caught fire. In Germany alone, overheats has been reported in almost 70 In the past three years have been three cases of fire.

    In 2009, the United States revised 500 000 Bosch Siemens dishwasher in the same component problem.

    Source: http://yle.fi/uutiset/bosch-siemensille_satojen_miljoonien_lasku_viallisista_astianpesukoneista/6819664

    Reply
32. September 9, 2013 at 10:13 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    A fire at a factory in China could make all your gadgets more expensive this year
    http://qz.com/121893/a-fire-at-a-factory-in-china-could-make-all-your-gadgets-more-expensive-this-year/

    Everything from smartphones to laptops to tablets could get a little more costly due to a fire this week at a Korean firm’s factory in Wuxi, China, where a substantial portion of the world’s memory chips are made. The Sept. 4 inferno at SK Hynix’s fabrication facility sent the price of benchmark 2-gigabyte Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) up 19% to a three-year high.

    High demand from Chinese tablet and smartphone manufacturers has already caused a spike in DRAM prices this year, with prices nearly doubling from November to May. The cost of the industry standard 2-gigabit DRAM jumped 30 cents to $1.90 the day after the fire, and rose another $.10 to $2.00 on Friday.

    Market research firm TrendForce said it would take half a year for SK Hynix to rebuild, leading to higher prices throughout the fourth quarter. The firm’s customers include Apple, Lenovo, Dell and Sony

    Reply
33. September 9, 2013 at 10:15 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Hynix says fire did not cripple China chip-making plant
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/04/us-hynix-suspension-idUSBRE9830SP20130904

    the South Korean chipmaker said on Wednesday, adding that a fire at the facility caused one minor injury but did not cripple critical equipment.

    Hynix said the fire raged for more than an hour. After an initial assessment, the world’s No. 2 maker of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips said it found no “material” damage to fabrication gear in its clean room at the plant, which produces around 12 to 15 percent of global computer memory chips.

    With global supplies of DRAM chips already tight, shares in rivals Micron Technology Inc (MU.O) and SanDisk Corp (SNDK.O) rallied after early reports of the fire. But the rivals’ shares pared gains after Hynix’s update.

    Hynix, which commanded 30 percent of the memory chip market in the second quarter, said the plant it has suspended produces around 40 percent to 50 percent of its total DRAM output.

    Any prolonged suspension could tighten the global supply of DRAM chips, widely used in computers and mobile devices. DRAM chip prices nearly doubled in the first six months of this year due to tight supply.

    Hynix competes with bigger rival Samsung Electronics Co (005930.KS) and the third-ranked Micron.

    Reply
34. September 9, 2013 at 4:03 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Boosting Engineering Productivity with the Multiphysics Approach to Simulation
    http://www.designnews.com/document.asp?doc_id=267374&cid=nl.dn14

    For much of the history of engineering, the product development process has relied heavily on trial and error testing — where engineers would fabricate a design, build prototypes, test the prototypes, make improvements to the design, build more prototypes, and on and on until a product was finalized. But even though a design could go through dozens — or even hundreds — of time-consuming iterations, there was still no way to know for certain if the final product had truly been optimized to perform at its peak efficiency.

    Computer simulation revolutionized the design process by demonstrating how a device would function under a certain physical stress. This new analysis capability allowed engineers to make modifications to their designs right on the computer, reducing the number of steps between concept and completed product. However, a significant drawback still remained — the software used could only tackle one physics problem at a time.

    You could perform a heat transfer or an electromagnetic simulation separately, for example, but not do both analyses simultaneously. This meant that it was back to trial-and-error testing to determine how different physics problems would couple in the real world to affect the product.

    In order to achieve true virtual prototyping, engineers needed to be able to accurately predict the behavior of a design under realistic operating conditions, when several physics problems interact. In the last decade, as ever-faster computer hardware spurred software innovations, a new multidisciplinary approach emerged: multiphysics simulation. This approach replaced the artificial segregation of different physics with a single, unified simulation environment that replicates the real behavior of natural systems.

    Reply
35. September 9, 2013 at 4:06 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    New Servo Tech Makes For Quiet, Cleaner Factories
    http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1386&doc_id=267377&cid=nl.dn14

    In just a few short years, plants have changed completely. Factories are no longer loud, clanging, dirty, and inefficient. New technology has increased the plant’s intelligence, turning gears and cams into software, and greatly lowering energy use and maintenance costs. Computer virtualization now allows plant operators to design and validate plant operations before ordering the machines. A big part of the plant’s transformation comes down to controlling motion.

    Servo technology has created a significant opportunity for plants to simplify motion control while gaining increased flexibility and reduced energy and maintenance costs.

    “The general value proposition of servo technology is the flexibility, energy efficiency, and reduction in maintenance costs,”

    Servo technology lets the plant dispense with the heavy, inefficient machinery in favor of lightweight flexible machines. “A big part of the equation is to synchronize varied axis and control highly complex multi-axis machines,” said Cromheecke. “Before, this was coordinated through cams, gears, and linkages. We replace that with a servo drive.”

    As well as making machines more lightweight, servo technology also allows changes to be made through software rather than the cumbersome process of configuring hardware. “We’re shifting from mechanical to electronics. We’re replacing gears and cams for multiple motors,” Christian Fritz, senior product manager for robotics at National Instruments, told us. “The machines are getting more and more integrated. One of the trends is direct drive motors, which are replacing mechanical systems. Instead of gears, you bolt a motor directly on to the machine. We partnered with a servo motor company, and they’re driving direct line motors.”

    Running a single network
    In the past, plants were run on multiple networks loosely integrated. The need for increased efficiency has pushed plants into creating a single network. “The old network is being replaced by network-based servo motion control on industrial networks to reduce wiring,” said Cromheecke. “That allows the axis to grow without more wiring. It also allows a single programming interface to program multi-axis synchronized programs. You can quickly reconfigure a machine and changeover to reset the machine.”

    A single network makes it much easier to shift from one product configuration to another. “One of the other tremendous benefits of a single network is the increase in flexibility for quick changeovers,” said Cromheecke.

    Improvements in software and servo systems that run on a single network make it easier for machine builders to customize their products for the individual plant. “You can do motion control and machine control, into one control system. Machine builders are getting smarter about their systems,” said Fritz.

    Reply
36. September 10, 2013 at 10:37 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    IR’s IRS2538DS control IC: Magnetic replacement ballast solution
    http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/electronic-product-reviews/other/4420314/IR-s-IRS2538DS-control-IC–Magnetic-replacement-ballast-solution

    Traditional magnetic ballasts that we all know so well are slowly being phased out. The older magnetic designs are not so efficient and electronic versions increase reliability while lowering costs. Green operation in a semiconductor is preferred also nowadays vs. a magnetic construction.

    International Rectifier introduced a reliable, highly efficient and cost effective control IC for replacing magnetic ballasts used in fluorescent lamps.

    The IRS2538DS emulates the behavior of a magnetic ballast control system

    The new IC integrates a 600V half-bridge control circuit, bootstrap MOSFET and comprehensive set of protection features

    Reply
37. September 10, 2013 at 12:38 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    M2M Meets Web Applications Spawning the Internet of Things
    http://rtcmagazine.com/articles/view/103237

    The Internet of Things is growing rapidly. Managing the billions of devices is a challenge that must meet the expectations of users who have come to expect rich, graphical human interfaces via web browsers.

    With all the talk, and with all the very real activity around the Internet of Things, we hear of numbers like 50 billion devices connected to the Internet. The possible applications are equally vast, targeting such things as efficient building control, industrial controls, military devices, medical instruments, smart consumer applications, transportation, environmental monitoring and more. A large portion of these 50 billion will be small and dedicated to a limited number of functions individually. Collectively, however, they will span huge applications such as those mentioned and generate vast amounts of data that are coming to be known as “Big Data.” That Big Data eventually ends up on servers and server farms in the Cloud where it can be analyzed, combined and used for applications we may not have yet imagined.

    What we are really getting with the Internet of Things is the foundation of what is coming to be known as Intelligent Systems, where devices communicate with each other mostly autonomously and yet their functions serve human ends, so human operators and consumers must interact with these systems in some manner. Since that interaction takes place via the Internet, it is natural that they are accessed through browsers. And increasingly, Internet access for things and people takes place with tablets and smartphones with their touch screen browsers. So how does all this work with a universe of small M2M devices that also must offer human access?

    It should come as no surprise that humans require more resources to interact with devices and their applications than machines do when they simply communicate with one another. In other words, as Wilfred Nilsen, CEO of Real Time Logic, points out, to have meaningful interaction with an application, you need more than simple access to static pages, which is what you get with a simple web server. A simple web server, such as the well-known Apache, is really just an HTTP protocol stack that can access static, pre-defined web pages. But web servers like Apache can be enhanced with plug-ins and components to add functionality.

    Now of course most web sites provide more than just static pages, so there is some underlying application that dynamically creates pages in response to some user input. For embedded devices, that underlying application would mostly be some sort of control program that can execute input commands and return data about the status, etc. And of course, that added functionality requires resources in the form of processor power and memory.

    The options for developers, however, should not be a choice between a simple web interface on a resource-limited device or a rich interface on a larger, more powerful device. There are, after all, these millions of small devices that are collectively doing all this important stuff. We want rich interaction with them as well. For interaction with a microcontroller such as an Intel Atom or an ARM Cortex-A4, you certainly can’t embed an application server, but you can rely on a combination of M2M communication among small devices and a small, dedicated server with the resources to run the Barracuda Application Server.

    The classic M2M design uses standard SOAP/XML web services. But a SOAP stack with its XML parser is often too big for a microcontroller. Even the HTTP engine required by the web server may be too big for a microcontroller’s internal memory. A microcontroller can communicate with a specialized online web service by using secure communication managed with a TCP/IP stack and a secure socket layer (SSL) client stack

    With this approach, small microcontroller-based devices can communicate with each other by simply exchanging data once the connection is established. They can also communicate with the application server running on a small, low-cost but resource richer platform. On the one side they don’t even need to be on the Internet, but simply on a local Ethernet connected to a port on the server device.

    Reply
38. September 10, 2013 at 12:56 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Designing a Universal Carrier
    http://rtcmagazine.com/articles/view/103235

    At last. Through an unprecedented spirit of cooperation, the industry has come up with the Holy Grail for computer-on-module (COM) users. A true “universal” carrier board that allows system OEM customers to easily qualify multiple COM suppliers. It supports all of the various modules, processors and form factors that OEMs want. It uses all of the popular (though incompatible) connectors and pin assignment “types.”

    Okay, maybe including every module form factor is impractical. How about even just one? COM Express is popular for a wide range of processor performance within Intel’s and AMD’s mobile and ultra-mobile series roadmap. Perhaps a universal COM Express carrier is feasible.

    On a more serious note, COM Express carrier boards have indeed become much easier to design in the past few years, thanks to a rare free publication from PICMG called the Carrier Design Guide

    You might need to ask a board supplier for the Compact size (95 x 95 mm) mounting-hole positions relative to the carrier board connectors and board outline, since the document predates R2.0 and R2.1 of the module specification.

    As far as selecting a pin assignment type, resist the temptation to select based solely on I/O required by that application. For example, you may want to connect to Compact Flash, LVDS or SDVO for display, PCI for serial ports, etc. If you want to maximize the “life” of the carrier board before re-spinning it, such as for medical and mil/aero applications, consider type 6 modules instead of type 2, even if it means adding circuitry to the carrier board.

    For OEMs who are focused on the low-power SoCs (< 10 watts), some form factors like Qseven have supported ARM and x86 processors for years.

    Although a true universal carrier board remains impractical, a “close enough” carrier board is fairly straightforward for system OEMs and third parties to design.

    Reply
39. September 10, 2013 at 12:59 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    SMARC Specification Delivers Standardized Module Building Blocks for Ultra-Low-Power Mobile Connected Applications
    http://rtcmagazine.com/articles/view/103198

    A new COM-like modular specification offers a path to increasing designs of low-power and mobile systems primarily oriented around the ARM architecture.

    The ARM processor architecture fulfills these application demands with processors that are small in size and height, do not require a chipset, and offer long product life up to 15 years. In addition, ARM offers simplified passive cooling and thermal management to ensure higher system reliability that also provides an optimized platform for higher density systems. What has been needed is a strong ecosystem of ARM-based hardware and software suppliers that can streamline the development of ARM and SoC subsystems in low profile designs.

    Answering the call for more focused subsystem resources, a new vendor-independent standards organization has been formed. The goal of the new Standardization Group for Embedded Technologies (SGET) is to help speed development of standardized hardware and software solutions for embedded computing. The first SGET working group created under SGET has ratified a versatile, small and ultra-low-power Computer-on-Module standard that it has named SMARC for “Smart Mobility ARChitecture.” Kontron played a leading role in the development of the specification, which had the working title ULP-COM. The SMARC specification brings standardized ARM/SoC-based miniature format building blocks as a welcome solution to fill a very significant gap in the embedded market.

    The SMARC specification is characterized by its extremely flat form factor dimensions that are as low profile as 1.5 mm from the top of the carrier board to the bottom of the module. It features an optimized pin-out for SoC processors that uses a 314-pin connector with a height of just 4.3 millimeters (the MXM 3.0) that is pitched at a 0.5 mm right angle. This robust, vibration-resistant connection method was defined to specifically meet smaller mobile/portable system design needs for very low-profile, high-performance, rugged and cost-effective modules. Matching various space-constrained needs, SMARC defines two module sizes: 82 mm x 50 mm and 82 mm x 80 mm. And solving the portable systems power limitations, the SMARC module power envelope is typically under 6W during active operation to deliver fanless and passive cooling.

    To maintain low costs, low power and small physical size, the SMARC specification integrates the core CPU and support circuits, including DRAM, boot flash, power sequencing, CPU power supplies, Gigabit Ethernet and a single channel LVDS display transmitter together on the module. SMARC modules are designed to be used with application-specific carrier boards that implement other features such as audio CODECs, touch controllers and wireless devices.

    COM Express and SMARC modules do share some features in common including a limited number of PCIe, SATA and USB ports. However, how these features are combined is different due to the specialized features of interest that need to be utilized on a SMARC module.

    Reply
40. September 10, 2013 at 1:13 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Getting the Heat Out of Ever Smaller Systems
    http://rtcmagazine.com/articles/view/103197

    As systems shrink in size and gain in computing power, all the techniques in the book are needed to handle the heat. Interestingly, there are design techniques that can increase efficiency and reliability, while reducing system size and increasing performance.

    Demand for performance in computer systems continues to grow, and the embedded systems used in mobile or exposed applications are no exception. What is exceptional in these applications is the environment in which they operate. When temperatures are high, or weight and size are costly, cooling these computer systems becomes more difficult. In small form factor (SFF) designs, building systems that focus on external rather than internal standardization allows for more flexibility in achieving these thermal efficiencies

    Smaller, Faster . . . Hotter

    Onboard processors in transportation systems for control and public safety, and roadside installations of monitoring equipment as well as unmanned vehicles for commercial, industrial, and military applications, all have increasing demands for wide, high-speed data, more and higher resolution sensors and greater processing power. The ability of these platforms to provide the cooling necessary for reliable high-performance operation is critical. Unmanned military vehicles are a good example of the need to improve computer system efficiency. These vehicles can be much smaller, so the systems that comprise their capabilities need to be smaller, too.

    Systems need to provide connectivity as well as the wide, high-speed I/O required to support visible spectrum and infrared (IR) cameras, radar and other fast, high-definition sensors. At the heart of these systems is the processing power (CPUs, GPGPUs, FPGAs) required to process that data for object detection, classification and tracking. In applications like these, every bit of weight and volume that can be removed has the potential to improve the range, capabilities or cost of a deployed unit. To this end, engineers must consider the function of every cubic centimeter of space and each gram of weight.

    Smaller Size Demands More Efficiency

    The increasing pressure for lower COTS cost and the continuing desire to reduce size, weight, and power comes without a reduction in the importance of reliability or performance. Taken as a whole, the array of design criteria (SWaP2C2) can be reduced to just a few key elements, with all others being derived from them.

    Size reduction is the number one goal of SWaP. Happily, when you find a way to put the same functions in a smaller package, the weight, and to some degree the cost, will go down.

    Electrical efficiency is chiefly driven by the evolution of processors. Decreasing junction sizes and lowering operating voltages provide continuous improvement in power consumption for a given level of performance (Gigaflops per Joule).

    As for thermal efficiency, ΔT between the critical heat producing components and the system’s dissipation interface must be minimized. This can be done by using conduction materials with lower thermal conductivity, reducing or eliminating thermal junctions, and/or reducing the length of the conduction pathways. Improvements in thermal efficiency allow for the use of higher performance processors or improvements in reliability resulting from a reduction in component operating temperatures.

    As we have said, many standards work together to provide uniformity to the infrastructure of a system. The popular 3U VPX (VITA 46) systems are a good example. The suite of specifications defining VPX covers every detail. This includes internal connections, connector types, and the form factor and clearance of PC boards and thermal shunting. These relatively compact solutions are currently providing high-performance computing in mobile platforms. Systems built on the 3U VPX form factor have evolved to keep up with the latest bus speeds of modern CPUs while providing good SWaP performance.

    With removable and reconfigurable cards, VPX systems are ideal for in-lab system design and prototyping. This approach makes heavy use of internal thermal conduction. Boards use thermal shunts, which guide the cards into card cage slots, and provide a thermal pathway from the components on the board to the enclosure body (Figure 2). These shunts are made from aluminum or copper alloys with high thermal conductivity.

    This is not ideal, but rather the price for modularity.

    Contrary to the popular saying that newer processors demand better cooling, the latest processors actually reduce thermal requirements. This erroneous thinking comes from the fact that modern processors provide the ability to operate above thermal design power (TDP) when the thermal environment allows. Because of this, they are capable of much higher performance, which produces higher thermal loads. This “allows” for designs capable of dissipating more heat to take advantage of peak performance, but the thermal loads of processors should be comparable for a given level of performance.

    Reply
41. September 10, 2013 at 1:33 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Quantum MIIM Diodes Beat Silicon
    http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1319424&amp;

    Operating at terahertz frequencies much higher than silicon devices while consuming less power and producing less heat, metal-insulator-metal (MIM) diodes are one of those promising technologies always just out of reach.

    MIM diodes use quantum tunneling, which permits electrons to jump from one metal electrode to the other without interacting with the intervening insulator layer — hence the power and heat reductions. So far, their development has been slow going.

    Conley sees his MIIM devices are poised to improve all sorts of electronic devices in wide use today, from liquid crystal displays to cell phones and televisions, as well as new types of devices such as infrared solar cells that convert radiant heat into electricity.

    “The holy grails is an infrared antenna, which would harvest infrared energy in a special infrared solar cell,” said Conley.

    Reply
42. September 10, 2013 at 1:35 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Fab Fire Causes DRAM Price Surge
    http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1319418&amp;

    A fire at a wafer fab belonging to SK Hynix in Wuxi, China, is likely to push up the price of DRAMs used in personal computers and smartphones in the second half of 2013. After the reports of the fire emerged, the spot market for DRAMs showed jumps of up 20 percent, according to the DRAMexchange website, although this was partly born of uncertainty awaiting information on the extent of the damage.

    Reply
43. September 10, 2013 at 3:22 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    AMD’s beating HEART of Internet of Things: 64-bit ARMs head for gadgets
    New system-on-chips are not aimed at servers
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/09/10/amd_reveals_embedded_roadmap_for_2014/

    AMD has announced the roadmap for a chunk of its business that’s critical to its effort to “transform” the company from its dependence on PCs and x86 servers: the embedded market.

    Perhaps one indication of AMD’s aggressiveness can be deduced from the code names of its next four embedded parts – they’re all named after birds of prey: “Adelaar”, “Steppe Eagle”, “Bald Eagle”, and “Hierofalcon”.

    For Reg readers – IT types as you are – it’s perhaps that fourth ornithological exemplar that may be of most interest: it will be the embedded version of the 64-bit, ARM-based “Seattle” Operton server chip that was unveiled this June.

    Hierofalcon would come with four or eight ARM Cortex-A57 cores, would include 10-gigabit Ethernet and third-generation PCIe, would be baked in a 28-nanometre process, and would have a thermal design point (TDP) of 15 to 30 watts.

    Embedded parts have a number of differences from their non-embedded counterparts, not the least of which is how long they will be supported by their manufacturers. Longevity is a big deal to embedded-systems manufacturers, and AMD will commit to seven-year lifecycles for not only Hierofalcon, but also its three birdy brothers.

    Iyengar – and, for that matter, CEO Rory Read and the entire AMD braintrust – is putting a lot of stock in the company’s aggressive push into the embedded market. The company has publicly stated that just a few years from now, around 50 per cent of its revenue will be from markets other than PCs and traditional servers.

    And their embedded division headman appears confident that such a goal is realistic, considering the new and expanding markets from which those revenues will come.

    “The specific point that we’ve made in terms of 50 per cent of our revenues coming from non-PC type [processors],” Iyengar said, “is it does include things such as the dense server – that’s a new application, that’s part of the new 50 per cent. It includes embedded, and it also includes new form factors within the client space – that’s part of the new 50 per cent.”

    Looked at that way – and considering that “embedded” includes everything from industrial to military to medical to digital signage to slot machines to networking to communications to thin clients and more – AMD may again emerge as a potent competitor to Intel in the low-power marketplace.

    Reply
44. September 11, 2013 at 10:36 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Controlled-impedance flat cable stands up to water submersion, repetitive motion
    http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2013/09/cicoil-controlled-impedance.html?cmpid=$trackid

    Cicoil describes its new Controlled Impedance Cable as “a highly flexible cable with individually controlled impedance signals. This 30-AWG cable is offered with 1 to 8 individually shielded 100-ohm pairs, and can be used as a more-reliable and rugged alternative to standard twisted-pair and coaxial cables.” The company adds that the cable’s design can be used in applications requiring submersion in water, repetitive motion and exposure to harsh environments.

    Reply
45. September 11, 2013 at 10:48 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    CDNs aid EMC testing of USB 3.0, HDMI cables
    http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4420668/CDNs-aid-EMC-testing-of-USB-3-0–HDMI-cables

    Joining Teseq’s extensive line of over 60 CDNs (coupling/decoupling networks) for EMC RF conducted immunity testing are five new models that can be used to test USB 3.0 interfaces, HDMI cables, coaxial cables, and 8-line unshielded cables. The CDN USB 3.0, CDN HDMI, CDN S502, CDN S752, and CDN A801 comply with IEC/EN 61000-4-6 requirements and provide a reliable method for injecting RF energy into EUT (equipment under test).

    The CDN HDMI is used for screened multimedia cables and is fitted with an HDMI A-type connector on EUT and AE ports. All 19 pins are connected for compatibility with HDMI V1.4.

    Reply
46. September 11, 2013 at 10:50 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Time for a change: Quartz oscillators make way for MEMS
    http://www.edn.com/design/analog/4420753/Time-for-a-change–Quartz-oscillators-make-way-for-MEMS-

    The classic crystal oscillator, using a quartz resonator as its core element, has served the electronics industry well for almost 100 years. But this is a market ready for disruption, and quartz is facing challenges from an alternative approach based on MEMS (micro-electromechanical systems) resonator technology.

    Within the MEMS industry, there are two different technologies competing to displace quartz —one based upon electrostatic actuation, and the other based upon piezoelectric actuation. Understanding the pros and cons of each approach starts with acknowledging the technical challenge with displacing quartz.

    Reply
47. September 11, 2013 at 11:38 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Test & characterize RF filters in IC production: a new approach
    http://www.edn.com/design/test-and-measurement/4420665/Test—characterize-RF-Filters-in-IC-production–a-new-approach

    The developers of integrated circuits (ICs) are no more blessed with the ability to accurately predict the future than anyone else. So although, in theory, a new IC design submitted for production will be fully specified and its characterization well defined, in practice it is common for additional requirements or specifications to be added after the beginning of the production process.

    IC production teams will generally find ways to accommodate late requests from developers. But a particularly troublesome example is the common request to change the way RF filters are characterized by the production test unit. This entails extensive changes to the test software code.

    We developed a standard test routine that could be used both for characterisation and production at the same time. The routine also needed to be capable of simple modification to make it suitable for a wide range of ICs. Stored in a test code library, this new routine would facilitate the repeated re-use of a base set of test IP.

    How to build a chirp
    In a chirp, the instantaneous frequency of the signal linearly increases with no frequency jumps (see Figure 1). To implement a chirp in practice, the test engineer must allow for the limited memory size of an arbitrary waveform generator (AWG) – a discrete form of the chirp must be created. The formula for a linear chirp is defined by the equation f(t) = f0 + kt, where f0 is the starting frequency (at time t = 0), and k is the rate of frequency increase, or chirp rate.

    After performing a chirp sweep and capturing the results, the new method also requires a means to extract the key parameter of a filter that the IC’s designers want to characterize: magnitude response, that is, the 3dB point, 10dB point and the bandwidth of the filter. Other parameters that are sometimes also requested are phase response and group delay.

    With the syntax available in the latest tools for developing test code, it is quite straightforward to build a chirp waveform in DSP. Syntax usually provides an option to build a sinusoidal waveform using built-in-functions (BIF) based on number samples, sampling frequency, array size, phase delay and Sinx/x correction. By putting this code into a loop and linearly increasing the bin number, a set of waveforms will be generated with a linear increase in the Tone Frequency (Ft). As long as coherence is guaranteed by ensuring the sampling theorem is met, then these waveforms can be stitched together to make a discrete chirp signal.

    A study of the behavior of this signal in the frequency domain showed whether the frequency response fitted the expectation of a flat spectrum from 1kHz to 100kHz, since the magnitude of the signal remains unchanged during the sweep. Performing an FFT on the generated chirp signal shows the frequency response

    After performing an FFT on the captured array, the exact 3dB point of the filter can be calculated

    A comparison of the measurement result with the source waveform shows that the error is less than the resolution of the source waveform (resolution = 10kHz, error = 3kHz). This is due to the clip function being employed, which behaves in a similar fashion to an interpolation.

    By using a chirp signal with a good Fourier frequency resolution, a good correlation can be achieved for characterization purposes.

    Reply
48. September 11, 2013 at 11:40 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Embedded software critical for instrument design
    http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/test-voices/4420651/Embedded-software-critical-for-instrument-design

    David Wyban from Keithley Instruments explains how consumers’ demand for higher functionality makes
 embedded software necessary for next-generation test and measurement instrumentation.–JSL.

    The demand for higher functionality in practically every consumer electronic product ─ from smartphones to tablet computers─makes testing the components that go into these products more challenging with every passing year. Therefore, because the designs of these components are evolving faster than ever, they require new testing routines to characterize and/or confirm their performance.

    That often means that the test instruments used last year for characterizing the current-voltage (I‑V) characteristics of a device may lack the capabilities necessary for this year’s test challenges. One of the results of this constant change is the growing use of embedded microcontrollers/script processors and embedded software, which allow for local control of an instrument’s operation, rather than running a control program on an external PC and communicating commands to the instrument via GPIB, USB, LXI or other interface.

    Reply
49. September 11, 2013 at 11:43 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Analog Devices 5 Msps 18-Bit SAR ADC
    http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/electronic-product-reviews/other/4420758/Analog-Devices-5-Msps-18-Bit-SAR-ADC-

    SAR converters seem to be pushing the envelope due to digitally enhanced analog circuitry, higher number of transistors per chip and better matching capability on chip—these are some reasons why SAR converters are achieving higher dynamic ranges and speeds than ever before.

    Reply
50. September 11, 2013 at 11:46 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Intel CEO announces 14-nanometer processors, predicts sub-$100 tablets
    http://venturebeat.com/2013/09/10/intel-ceo-announces-14-nanometer-processors-predicts-sub-100-tablets/

    Intel chief executive Brian Krzanich showed off a laptop running on a 14-nanometer Intel system-on-a-chip processor today. During his keynote at the Intel Developer Forum, Krzanich also predicted that there will be tablets with Intel chips in them that will ell for less than $100 this holiday season.

    Krzanich and James are promoting Intel’s newest chips for mobile devices and addressing how Intel will break into the business in a bigger way as more of the market transitions from PCs to newer devices such as tablets and smartphones. One of the new chips is code-named Quark, Intel’s tiniest chip yet. Intel’s targeting the “Internet of things” and wearable computing with it.

    The transition to mobile remains Intel’s biggest challenge and its greatest opportunity, as competitors who use ARM-based technology dominate that space.

    The 14-nanometer chip is codenamed Broadwell and it will be launched for mobile devices and PCs in 2014. Intel will also offer a next-generation Atom chip, based on a code-named Airmont chip architecture, next year. That chip will be five times smaller than today’s Atom chips and have 10 times lower power.

    Reply