Here are my collection of trends and predictions for electronics industry for 2015:
The computer market, once the IC growth driver per se, apparently is approaching saturation status. Communications industry is still growing (6.8%.). Automotive V2X, LED lighting and smart domestic objects are set to drive semiconductor market growth through the year 2020, according to market analysis firm Gartner.
Car electronics will be hot in 2015. New cars will have more security features, smart infotainment and connectivity in them. It is an are where smart phone companies are pushing to. Automotive Industry Drives Chip Demand article says that until 2018, the IC demand from automotive customers is expected to exhibit the strongest average annual growth — 10.8% on average. This is significantly higher than the communications industry, at second place with 6.8%. Demand drivers include safety features that increasingly are becoming mandatory, such as backup cameras or eCall. But driver-assistance systems are also becoming ubiquitous. Future drivers will include connectivity, such as vehicle-to-vehicle communications, as well as sensors and controllers necessary for various degrees of autonomous driving.
Power electronics is a $90 billion-per-year market. The market for discrete power electronics is predicted to grow to $23 billion by 2024 from $13 billion today. Silicon rules power electronics industry, but new materials are pushing to headlines quickly. In the power electronics community, compound semiconductors such as gallium nitride (GaN) are drawing more attention as they try to displace silicon based power devices, which have been doing the heavy lifting for the past 30 years or so. While silicon-based devices are predicted to remain predominant with an 87% share of the market, it is expected that SiC- and GaN-based components to grow at annual rates of 30% and 32%, respectively. There’s no denying the cost advantages that silicon possesses.
Chip designs that enable everything from a 6 Gbit/s smartphone interface to the world’s smallest SRAM cell will be described at the International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in February 2015. Intel will describe a Xeon processor packing 5.56 billion transistors, and AMD will disclose an integrated processor sporting a new x86 core, according to a just-released preview of the event. The annual ISSCC covers the waterfront of chip designs that enable faster speeds, longer battery life, more performance, more memory, and interesting new capabilities. There will be many presentations on first designs made in 16 and 14 nm FinFET processes at IBM, Samsung, and TSMC.
There is push to go to even smaller processes, and it seems that next generation of lithography equipment are started to being used. Earlier expectation was for chipmakers to use traditional immersion lithography for production of 10 nm chip, but it seems that extreme ultraviolet (EUV) scanners that allows allow scaling to 10 nm or even smaller is being used. TSMC to Use EUV for 7nm, Says ASML. Intel and TSMC have been injecting money in ASML to push process technology.
2015 promises to see initial FPGA product releases and (no doubt) a deluge of marketing claims and counter-claims. One thing is certain: 2015 will not be boring. There will be FPGA products that use processes beyond 20nm, for example Altera and Xilinx have committed to use the TSMC 16nm FinFET technology. There is publicized (and rumored) race to get to production at 14nm has seen time frames for initial samples move into 2015. However, with both FPGA companies reporting gross margins of close to 70 percent, it would be possible for either company to take an initial hit on margin to gain key socket wins.
It seems that the hardware becomes hot again as Wearables make hardware the new software. Apple invest its time when it released the Apple Watch last quarter, going up against the likes of Google’s Android Wear and others in the burgeoning wearables area of design. Once Apple’s bitten into a market, it’s somewhat a given that there’s good growth ahead and that the market is, indeed, stable enough. As we turn to 2015 and beyond wearables becomes an explosive hardware design opportunity — one that is closely tied to both consumer and healthcare markets. It could pick up steam in the way software did during the smartphone app explosion.
There will be more start-up activity within hardware sector. For recent years, the software has been on the main focus on the start-ups, and the hardware sector activity has been lower. Hardware sector has seem some start-up activity with many easy to use open hardware platforms became available (make development of complex devices easier and reachable for smaller companies). The group financing (Kickstarter, Indiegogo, etc.) have made it possible to test of new hardware ideas are market-worthy and get finance to get them to production.
EEs embrace hackathons aand accelerators. Design 2.0 is bubbling up in the engineering community, injecting new energy into the profession. In many ways, it’s the new Moore’s Law. Easy to use open hardware development platforms have made it possible to design working hardware device prototypes within hackathons.
Silicon Startups Get Incubator article tells that there will be new IC start-up activity as semiconductor veterans announced plans for an incubator dedicated to helping chip startups design their first prototypes. Keysight, Synopsys, and TSMC have signed exclusive deals to provide tools and services to the incubator. Silicon Catalyst aims to select its first batch of about 10 chip startups before April.
MEMS mics are taking over. Almost every mobile device has ditched its old-fashioned electret microphone invented way back in 1962 at Bell Labs. Expect new piezoelectric MEMS microphones, which promise unheard of signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) of up to 80 dB (versus 65 dB in the best current capacitive microphones) in 2015. MEMS microphones are growing like gangbusters.Also engineers have found a whole bunch of applications that can use MEMS microphone as a substitute for more specialized sensors starting in 2015.
There will be advancements in eco-design. There will be activity within Europe’s Ecodesign directive. The EC’s Ecodesign Working Plan for 2015-2017 is currently in its final study stages – the plan is expected to be completed by January 2015. The chargers will be designed for lower zero load power consumption in 2015, as on February 2016, after the 5-watt chargers are no longer at no load connected consume more than 0.1 watts of power. Socket for power supplies values are defined in the new Energy Star standard VI.
LED light market growing in 2015. Strategies Unlimited estimates that in 2014 the LED lamps were sold $ 7 billion, or about 5.7 billion euros. In 2019 the LED lamps will already sold just over 12 billion euros. LED technology will replace other lighting technologies quickly. For those who do not go to the LED Strategies Unlimited permission difficult times – all other lamp technologies, the market will shrink 14 percent per year. The current lighting market growth is based on LED proliferation of all the different application areas.
IoT market is growing fast in 2015. Gartner is predicting a 30 percent compound annual growth rate for the IoT chip market for the period 2013 to 2020. The move to create billions of smart, autonomously communicating objects known as the Internet of Things (IoT) is driving the need for low-power sensors, processors and communications chips. Gartner expects chips for IoT market to grow 36% in 2015 (IoT IC marker value in 2014 was from $3.9 billion to $9 billion depending how you calculate it). The sales generated by the connectivity and sensor subsystems to enabled this IoT will amount $48.3 billion in 2014 and grow 19 percent in 2015 to $57.7 billion. IC Insights forecasts that web-connected things will account for 85 percent of 29.5 billion Internet connections worldwide by 2020.
With the increased use of IoT, the security is becoming more and more important to embedded systems and chip designers. Embedded systems face ongoing threats of penetration by persistent individuals and organizations armed with increasingly sophisticated tools. There is push for IC makers to add on-chip security features to serve as fundamental enablers for secure systems, but it is just one part of the IoT security puzzle. The trend toward enterprise-level security lifecycle management emerges as the most promising solution for hardened security in embedded systems underlying the explosive growth of interconnected applications. The trend continues in 2015 for inclusion of even more comprehensive hardware support for security: More and more MCUs and specialized processors now include on-chip hardware accelerators for crypto operations.
Electronics is getting smaller and smaller. Component manufacturers are continually developing new and smaller packages for components that are mere fractions of a millimeter and have board to component clearances of less than a mil. Components are placed extremely close together. No-lead solder is a relatively recent legislated fact of life that necessitated new solder, new fluxes, higher temperatures, and new solder processing equipment. Tin whisker problems also increased dramatically. You should Improve device reliability via PCB cleanliness, especially if you are designing something that should last more then few years.
Photonics will get to the circuit board levels. Progress in computer technology (and the continuation of Moore’s Law) is becoming increasingly dependent on faster data transfer between and within microchips. We keep hearing that copper has reached its speed limit, and that optics will replace copper for high-speed signals. Photonics now can run through cables, ICs, backplanes, and circuit boards. Silicon chips can now have some optical components in them using silicon photonics technologies. For more than 10 years, “silicon photonics” has attracted significant research efforts due to the potential benefits of optoelectronics integration. Using silicon as an optical medium and complementary metal-oxide semiconductor fabrication processing technology, silicon photonics allows tighter monolithic integration of many optical functions within a single device.
Enter electro-optical printed circuits, which combine copper and optical paths on the same board. Electro-optical PCBs use copper for distributing power and low-speed data, and optical paths for high-speed signals. Optical backplane connectors have been developed, as well as a technique to align the small waveguides to transceivers on the board. The next challenge is to develop waveguides on to boards where the tight bends don’t degrade performance to unacceptable levels.
3D printing will bring structural electronics. With 3D printing hot in the news, and conformable, flexible, or even printed electronics fitting any shape, it is only a matter of time before electronic circuits can be laid-out as part of the 3D-printing process, the electronic framework becoming an integral supporting part of any object’s mechanical structure. For example “structural batteries” have already been implemented in electric cars, in racing-car aerofoils, and in the Tesla pure electric car.
Superconductors are heating up again. Superconductivity will be talked again in 2015 as there were some advancements in the end of 2014. A group of international scientists working with the National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, Calif., have discovered lasers that can create conditions for superconductivity at temperatures as high at 140°F. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has discovered a law governing thin-film superconductors, eliminating much of the trial and error for companies that manufacture superconducting photodetector. With MIT’s new mathematical law, new superconducting chips can be designed with the correct parameters determined ahead of time.
Frost and Sullivan forecast that “PXI to disrupt automated test” between 2015 and 2018. They predict PXI to achieve $1.75B in annual sales by 2020, up from $563M in 2013. That’s an aggregate growth rate of over 17%. Not bad for an industry that has an overall secular growth rate of 3 percent.
1,206 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Look at Metal eFuses
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1328184&
TechInsights reverse engineers chips to understand how they are made and in some cases why certain structures are the way they are. This article examines two electrically blown fuse structures (eFuse) used in metal gate logic processes. This first eFuse structure that we look at is made by Intel and the second by TSMC.
We first observed the eFuses in Intel’s 32nm high-k metal gate (HKMG) fabbed Westmere/Clarkdale processor (circa 2009). At the time, Intel was using the eFuses as part of a one-time programmable read-only memory (OTP-ROM). We now appreciate that their use can include the holding program code, on-chip configuration data and cryptographic keys.
Prior to metal gates, electrically-blown on-chip fuses were typically made from the polysilicon gate layer. But with the advent of metal gate CMOS processes, polysilicon was no longer available as a fuse element. What to do?
But, we find the fusible links (or fuse) in the Westmere/Clarkdale processor to be implemented as metal 1 traces
Intel’s paper describes this void formation (fusing action) as being based on thermally assisted electromigration.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Safety in SoCs
http://www.techonline.com/electrical-engineers/education-training/tech-papers/4440806/Safety-in-SoCs
Today’s system-on-chip (SoC) designs are becoming more complex, increasing the pressure on verification and design teams to deliver fully functional designs. Recent studies have shown that over 50% of the development time on a complex IC is now being spent on verification, revealing the severity of the problem project teams are facing. As more SoC designs are used in electronic systems deployed in safety-critical applications, adhering to functional safety standards such as ISO 26262 has become an important consideration when defining the verification methodology.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Comparing clock buffer data sheet specs for additive jitter
http://www.edn.com/design/analog/4440760/Comparing-clock-buffer-data-sheet-specs-for-additive-jitter-?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20151112&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20151112&elq=6cf6ce40634048ffb0d9c98ef5a3ada5&elqCampaignId=25686&elqaid=29234&elqat=1&elqTrackId=f2bc478a54ff446f90b16c5fb5897c50
A fan-out buffer is used in timing applications that require multiple copies of a clock signal to be distributed. To choose the right fan-out buffer for your timing applications, it’s helpful to understand additive phase jitter specifications when comparing product data sheet specifications
Additive Phase Jitter Dependency on Input Slew Rate, Input Phase Noise and Input Frequency
A clock distribution IC does not independently generate a clock signal; as such, phase noise cannot be measured unless an input is applied. The term most commonly used to quantify the quality of a clock distribution IC is additive phase jitter, or additive phase noise over a specified band. Less common is a standard methodology to measure additive phase jitter.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Getting a handle on brushed DC motor current
http://www.edn.com/design/analog/4440813/Getting-a-handle-on-brushed-DC-motor-current?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20151112&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20151112&elq=6cf6ce40634048ffb0d9c98ef5a3ada5&elqCampaignId=25686&elqaid=29234&elqat=1&elqTrackId=7849f808212b40ffb7614e0222585bf6
Systems that have controlled parameters and closed-loop feedback mechanisms are generally more robust and less susceptible to failure. For example, vehicle engines regularly use temperature sensors and tachometers to ensure that the operating conditions stay within the designed scope. If temperature and engine speed weren’t controlled or even monitored, the design would need to be significantly more robust and costly to be able to withstand the worst-imaginable scenarios. Constraints allow designs to be more efficient.
With brushed DC motors, a prime example of a constraint that often is not capitalized is the maximum allowed current. In many systems today, maximum current is unbounded, limited only by the small DC resistance of the motor plus the RDS(on) of MOSFETs. Then fault-protection schemes are the only line of defense for preventing component damage. As a result, power-delivery stages are often overdesigned, temperatures can reach high levels, and predicting corner-case behavior can be challenging.
When motors are spinning, a back electromotive force (back EMF) develops on the winding. Directly proportional to the RPM, back EMF counteracts the externally applied voltage across the motor terminals. Steady-state current through a brushed DC motor equals the applied voltage minus the back EMF, divided by the resistance of the winding
When a motor is prevented from turning (stalls) while being electrically driven, there is no back EMF, and the current will reach the full applied voltage divided by the resistance. This happens if the load torque is greater than the motor’s stall torque, or if there’s simply a jam that stops movement.
The other situation that involves much higher current than normal operating levels is when a motor begins to spin up
Most sub-100-V motor systems control speed by pulse-width modulating (PWM) the MOSFETs, with a frequency between 0 to 100 kHz, and static power dissipation dominates power loss in the drive stage. I2R calculates the dissipated power for each resistive component in the current path.
Over time, the dissipated power generates heat. Since motor current exponentially increases this, optimized systems should limit current to what’s needed for adequately fast spin-up times and driving the maximum load torque.
Actively measuring and compensating motor current makes it easy to budget for the maximum power draw and heat buildup. This produces more predictable system behavior and the potential for big cost savings in a power design.
This year, Texas Instruments designed an innovative way to measure and regulate motor current without a sense resistor or reference voltage, and integrated it in silicon. The first product to use this advanced technology is the DRV8871, an 8-pin 3.6-A controller, and the current threshold is set by the value of a standard resistor.
Tomi Engdahl says:
TSMC Open to Selling Stake to Chinese Investors
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328232&
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the world’s largest foundry, said it is open to the possibility of selling a stake in itself to Chinese investors.
TSMC Chairman Morris Chang said he would consider the possibility “if the price is right and it is beneficial to shareholders”. He made the comment at TSMC’s annual sports day event on Nov. 7.
Chang’s comment comes as Chinese investors such as Tsinghua Unigroup show an increased interest in taking stakes in Taiwanese chipmakers. Tsinghua last month bought a 25 percent stake in Taiwan chip packager Powertech, and it also expressed an interest in buying shares in MediaTek, Taiwan’s largest chip designer.
China and Taiwan have been political rivals since 1949
China, which imports more than 90 percent of the semiconductors it uses to assemble mobile devices such as Apple’s iPhone, last year started offering incentives to boost the development of its still paltry domestic chip industry.
Taiwan, which makes about a fifth of the world’s semiconductors, restricts Chinese investments in its electronics businesses on concerns it will lose jobs and key technology. The Taiwan government doesn’t allow Chinese investors to buy controlling stakes in Taiwanese chipmakers and no Chinese investments are allowed in local chip design companies such as MediaTek.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Strong Dollar Drags on Chip Sales
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328236&
The strengthening of the U.S. dollar versus other major world currencies throughout 2015 is taking a toll on the semiconductor industry, among others, and is forecast to lead to contraction in worldwide chip sales for the year.
According to a new report by market research firm IC Insights Inc., the strengthening of the dollar versus the euro, yen, won and Taiwan dollar is expected to deflate the worldwide semiconductor sales growth rate by 3 percentage points in 2015, resulting in a sales decline of 1% compared with 2014.
It is also expected to deflate the 2015 sales growth rate of the top 20 semiconductor suppliers by 4 percentage points, according to a forthcoming release of IC Insights’ semiconductor industry forecast.
The strengthening of U.S. currency deflates foreign sales and market results, since all of the figures in the IC Insights report are presented in U.S. dollars.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Altera Readies FPGAs with In-Package Memory
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328233&
Programmable logic supplier Altera Corp. this week disclosed plans to build heterogeneous system-in-package (SiP) devices integrating stacked high-bandwidth memory and with its Stratix 10 FPGAs. The devices are expected to begin shipping in 2017.
According to Altera (San Jose, Calif.), the devices—dubbed Stratix 10 DRAM SiPs—will offer more than 10 times the bandwidth of today’s discrete DRAM solutions for applications such as high-performance computing (HPC), video analysis, data centers, wireline networking and military radar applications.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hardware Emulation: One Tool Fits All
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1328240&
This is the only verification tool that can be used successfully in virtually all segments of the semiconductor industry to achieve multiple verification objectives.
With a bit of slack around the actual beginning, this year celebrates the 30th anniversary of hardware emulation. Points of reference are the founding of Zycad (1981), IKOS Systems (1984), and Quickturn (1987) — three legendary firms that pioneered hardware-based verification solutions and became commercially successful enterprises.
Hardware emulation has become the centerpiece in the verification toolbox. In fact, it is offered by all three of today’s main EDA vendors: Cadence Design Systems, Mentor Graphics, and Synopsys.
It was not always so. For well over 20 years, emulation was considered an expensive aggravation to be avoided as a pestilence. All that has changed in the past 10 years, with two main reasons driving this dramatic transformation:
The overwhelming presence of embedded software in the majority of modern system-on-chip (SoC) designs.
Improved usability and expanded usage modes of the hardware emulators themselves.
In today’s semiconductor design community, no other verification engine offers the versatility of hardware emulation. Hardware description language (HDL) simulators and formal verification tools — as effective as they are when verifying hardware designs — run out of steam when the design-under-test (DUT) capacity reaches a few hundred million gates. Neither can handle embedded software. Electronic system level (ESL) simulators, successful for early software validation, do not have the accuracy required to verify hardware designs. FPGA prototypes, another popular verification solution for system validation and embedded software validation, have poor hardware design debugging capabilities.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Five Bad Marketing Habits to Stop in 2016
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1328225&
Do NOT keep positioning your company or product, as if it can do everything. It can’t, and you will lose the battle on Google and with your competition if you do this. Position for growth by differentiating and say NO to distractions that are not aligned to this position so you can focus and GROW in the areas where you are differentiated.
Do not invest in any new marketing activities until your website is fully functioning. It must be designed for mobile use and have a user-friendly content management system that makes uploading new content easy. Engineers like graphics and images, so use them.
Do not create any new content until you have a plan along the entire marketing and sales funnel that includes optimizing (for keywords your audience searches on), amplifying (for greater reach), and repurposing each piece (for full leverage of your investment).
Do not keep spinning your wheels on repetitive marketing tasks and missing valuable intelligence gathering that come with implementing marketing automation.
Do not invest in marketing without a clear picture of your expected ROI, timeframe, and process and tools to measure, tweak, and improve. As the saying goes, if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Small Footprint SMDs
http://www.eeweb.com/company-news/ixys/small-footprint-smds-for-improved-efficiency/
The D2-Pak (TO-263) and D2-Pak (TO-268) are packages that offered the smallest footprint surface mount package for 1.2 kV to 1.8 kV power semiconductors by IXYS. It offers higher ‘creepage’ spacing, which enables high voltage power semiconductors to be used in surface mount devices (SMD).
“The market demands smaller footprint solutions for 1.2 kV to 1.8 kV power semiconductors. The main reason for this is the higher power demands which are realized by higher voltages instead of higher current. By using a higher voltage the conduction losses in copper wires are less for power control circuits; therefore, thinner copper conductors or traces on PCB circuits can be used. These SMDs improve energy efficiency, reduce cost, reduce size and reduce weight when used in power electronics,” commented Mr. Jeroen van Zeeland, head of marketing at IXYS Germany.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wall plug-in supplies comply with Level VI
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4440786/Wall-plug-in-supplies-comply-with-Level-VI?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20151112&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20151112&elq=800f5e14c6c94569a99ed99dbf80d1a8&elqCampaignId=25702&elqaid=29251&elqat=1&elqTrackId=5accdd06d66c414c951627f487d75286
Furnished with either North American or European input blades, CUI’s SWI series of wall plug-in AC/DC power supplies meets the stringent average efficiency and no-load power requirements mandated by the U.S. Department of Energy set to go into effect on February 10, 2016. Level VI standards aim to significantly lower the amount of power consumed when the end product is not in use or is no longer connected to the system.
Each device meets the Level VI standard’s no-load power consumption requirement of <0.1 W. Overvoltage, overcurrent, and short-circuit protection are standard.
European Blade Wall Plug-In External Ac-Dc Power Supplies
http://www.cui.com/catalog/power/ac-dc-power-supplies/external/wall-plug-in/european-blade
Tomi Engdahl says:
EFFICIENCY STANDARDS
for external power supplies
http://www.cui.com/efficiencystandards
Tomi Engdahl says:
Designing a power supply in five simple steps: LTpowerCAD
http://www.edn.com/design/power-management/4440789/Designing-a-power-supply-in-five-simple-steps–LTpowerCAD?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20151112&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20151112&elq=800f5e14c6c94569a99ed99dbf80d1a8&elqCampaignId=25702&elqaid=29251&elqat=1&elqTrackId=e01f6ddb78c84a27880488a66e2faec7
System boards today have an increasing number of power rails and supplies. Since solution size, efficiency, thermal and transient performance are all critical for advanced power solutions, it is more efficient and cost effective to design customized onboard power solutions for a specific application, rather than use commercial power supply bricks. To system engineers, designing and optimizing switching mode power supplies is becoming a more common and necessary task. Unfortunately, this task is often time consuming and technically challenging.
To simplify the design task and improve design quality and productivity, the LTpowerCADTM program has been developed by power application experts at Linear Technology Corp. as a power supply design and optimization tool. This PC-based program is available for free download at http://www.linear.com/LTpowercad
Tomi Engdahl says:
True or false? Battery myths that need to die
http://www.cnet.com/how-to/true-or-false-battery-myths-that-need-to-die/
Battery technology may not have changed much in the last couple decades, but common knowledge is even worse.
Many people believe the limitations of nickel-based batteries that were prevalent in the early ’90s still apply to the more modern lithium ion and lithium polymer technologies we use today.
Myth: Leaving your devices plugged will “overcharge” them
False. This simply isn’t true — not anymore, at least. Most smartphone, laptop, accessory and AA or AAA chargers are smart enough to momentarily stop charging once the device is fully charged.
Myth: You should always let the battery drain completely
False. Today, most batteries never truly fully discharge.
Myth: Always fully charge a device before its first use
False. To be fair, it doesn’t hurt anything to fully charge a device’s battery before using it. It doesn’t hurt anything if you skip this step, either.
Myth: Store batteries in the refrigerator
False. Storing a battery in the refrigerator or freezer is not only bad, but can be dangerous. Extreme temperatures – hot or cold and especially for long periods of time – are not good for any type of battery.
To maximize shelf life, Energizer suggests storing “batteries at normal room temperatures (68 degrees F to 78 degrees F or 20 degrees C to 25 degrees C) with moderate humidity levels (35 to 65 percent RH).”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Measurement Computing Acquires Data Translation
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328241&
BOSTON—Measurement Computing and Data Translation announced today (Nov. 11) that the two longtime data-acquisition companies will merge. The merger continues a long history of consolidation in the data-acquisition business.
Based in Marlboro, Mass., Data Translation will operate as a subsidiary of Norton, Mass.-based Measurement Computing.
Although both DT and MCC manufacture PC plug-in and USB data-acquisition systems, the two generally serve different markets. Data Translation has always been revered for its high-performance data-acquisition products while Measurement Computing is known for its lower-cost products. In recent years, DT has moved more into USB and Ethernet-based systems with multichannel products. But, there is some overlap in product lines, particularly in the small USB data-acquisition module area. DT has long competed with National Instruments in the plug-in board and USB markets.
This acquisition is one of a long list of consolidations in the data-acquisition business, in the Boston area alone. For example, Analogic and Analog Devices were both in the plug-in board business. Analogic’s line was acquired by Measurement Computing prior to its acquisition by National Instruments. Capital Equipment Corp., which started as a maker of GPIB cards and then data-acquisition systems and ATE software, was also acquired by NI. Other Boston-area companies in the business have exited or been acquired. I’ll talk more about that in the comments.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Automotive Market Supports Ailing Semiconductor Industry
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328246&
In its upcoming IC Market Drivers Report, market research company IC Insights breaks down chip demand by market segments. According to the report, the automotive industry’s demand shows the strongest growth of all industry branches while traditional demand boosters like computer and consumer markets only show anaemic growth. With its disproportionally high growth, Asia / Pacific will surpass Europe as the largest automotive chip market.
During the timeframe from 2014 through 2019, chip demand from the automotive industry is growing at an average pace of 6.7% per year predicts IC Insights. Thus, semiconductor demand from carmakers across the world will be greater than two points more than the CAGR of the overall chip industry which is estimated to be about 4.3 %.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Write-Once Memory Speeds Up, Powers Down Reads
10X reduction in power from eNVM
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328234&
Embedded nonvolatile memory (eNVM) IP company Kilopass Technology Inc. (San Jose, Calif.) is using Y2K-era technology to target the low-power, data-heavy Internet of Things. Using 10-times less power than other eNVM memories, Kilopass’s Gusto eNVM line, showing at ARM TechCon (Santa Clara, Calif.) this week, uses one-time programmable nonvolatile memory to reduce read power.
One-time programmable (OTP) nonvolatile memory (NVM)–a type of NVM that has been around for years, holding data such as the security ID for TV set-top boxes and repair data for DRAM–can track historical data streams more cheaply, making them perfect for IoT sensors, infrastructure tracking, and wearables, according Kilopass. Kilopass has patented one-transistor (1T), 1.5T, 2T, 3T, and 3.5T antifuse nonvolatile bit-cells, also known as OTP, since 2001.
NVMs are now in many IoT devices, but Kilopass says it is cutting eNVM read power by 10-times and enabling consumer IoT device to keep a permanent, one-time programmable (OTP) memory of everything, from a baby’s first Ma-Ma to a life record as viewed by a Go-Pro.
“The new X2Bit bit-cell uses ohmic programming of its N-MOS transistors and controls the location of oxide breakdown in the region of the source and drain region rather than in the middle of the channel, enabling us to achieve our 10-times lower power goal,”
Kilopass says all other components are going down in energy except memory, underlining the importance of its ultra-low power eNVM
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ambiq Leaps to Front of Low-Power MCU Lineup
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328252&
With so much development for the Internet of Things (IoT) targeting battery-powered operation, it’s no wonder that microcontroller vendors have been engaging in a game of low-power leapfrog with one another, vying for the title of best in low-power performance. But with the announcement of verified EEMBC ULPBench benchmark results for Ambiq Micro’s Apollo MCU at ARM TechCon this week, that game may be all but won. The Cortex M4F-based Apollo MCU achieved twice the score of the prior title holder.
ULPBench is an industry-standard means of measuring MCU energy efficiency that mimics typical low-power system behavior. The benchmark works in conjunction with a standardized hardware device that monitors the MCU’s energy consumption.
Results posted on the EEMBC website show the prior leader in low power performance was the STMicroelectronics STM32L476RG MCU with a score of 187.7. Ambiq Micro held a public demonstration at ARM TechCon of its Apollo MCU achieving a whopping 377.5.
The secret behind Apollo’s performance is the unique subthreshold technology that Ambiq has developed. Rather than having the device’s logic transistors switching between saturation and off states, Ambiq’s transistors operate exclusively at voltages that remain below the switching threshold. As a result they use up to 10x less current than conventional transistors when changing logic states.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sound waves could power the future’s magnetic HDDs
Thin wires + voltage = storage? So say these boffins
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/13/sound_waves_could_power_hard_disk_drives_of_the_future/
Our need to store data is growing at an astonishing rate. An estimated 2.7 zettabytes (2.721) of data are currently held worldwide, equivalent to several trillion bytes for every one of the seven billion people on Earth.
Accessing this data quickly and reliably is essential for us to do useful things with it – the problem is, all our current methods of doing so are far too slow.
Conventional hard-disk drives encode data magnetically on spinning discs
Much faster are solid-state storage devices, which have no mechanical parts and store data as tiny electrical charges. Most modern laptops, all modern smartphones and digital cameras, and many other devices use this technology – also known as flash memory.
However, while solid-state devices are much faster, they have a much shorter lifespan than hard disks before becoming unreliable, and are much more expensive. Despite their speed, they’re still far slower than the speed at which data travels between other components of a computer, and so still act as a brake on the system as a whole.
A solid-state drive that encodes data magnetically would be ideal. IBM is developing one variation, known as racetrack memory. This uses collections of tiny nanowires hundreds of times thinner than a human hair. Data is magnetically encoded as strings of ones and zeros along the nanowire, but although it can move data through it far faster than typical hard disks, a key challenge is to find ways to make the data “flow” through the nanowires in order to pass it across the sensors that read and write data to the wire.
This can be achieved by applying magnetic fields or electric currents, but this generates heat and reduces power efficiency, affecting battery life.
There are other ways of moving magnetic data, however. My group at the University of Sheffield, in conjunction with John Cunningham at the University of Leeds, have been using simulations, now published in Applied Physics Letters, to explore ways of making racetrack memory more efficient and stumbled upon a surprising solution using sound waves.
At the moment our simulations show data flowing at around 100mph (160kph). This sounds pretty fast, but we’d like it to be ten times faster.
Because nanowires are so small a single pair of waves could be applied to a very large number of wires, and therefore the data within them, at the same time. Potentially this makes it a very power efficient way of moving lots of data around quickly.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Quantum Dots Made From Fool’s Gold Boost Battery Performance
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/15/11/13/0347259/quantum-dots-made-from-fools-gold-boost-battery-performance?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot%2Fto+%28%28Title%29Slashdot+%28rdf%29%29
A lot of attempts have been made to use nanocrystals to improve battery performance, but the results have been disappointing.
Now, however, a team of engineers from Vanderbilt University report in an article published in the journal ACS Nano that they can overcome this problem by making the nanocrystals out of iron pyrite, commonly known as fool’s gold.
Ultrafine Iron Pyrite (FeS2) Nanocrystals Improve Sodium–Sulfur and Lithium–Sulfur Conversion Reactions for Efficient Batteries
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsnano.5b04700
Tomi Engdahl says:
Capacitor lug placements
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/living-analog/4440764/Capacitor-Lug-Placements-?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20151105&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20151105&elq=57cfa83056d547389a0000b5a15ab187&elqCampaignId=25579&elqaid=29104&elqat=1&elqTrackId=d86edef2ca6f4ea998893004d8e5007a
A quick note about positioning heavy duty lugs over aluminum electrolytic capacitors is to arrange those lugs as in the following sketch.
With the lug placements as shown, their little bits of inter-lug contact resistance become the “R”s of a cascade of lowpass filters.
This is a small benefit perhaps, but it’s costless and there’s no reason to squander it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Instrument amp boasts near-zero drift
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4440774/Instrument-amp-boasts-near-zero-drift?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20151111&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20151111&elq=600f583a5c39442e923dd4ee2b78e501&elqCampaignId=25662&elqaid=29205&elqat=1&elqTrackId=2b4ced9b86174c998158b7166c96353c
By using auto-zeroing techniques, the INA188 36-V instrumentation amplifier from Texas Instruments is able to achieve an input offset voltage of 55 µV (max) and input offset drift of 0.02 µV/°C (max). The amplifier’s high accuracy makes it well-suited for precise DC and low-frequency measurements in test and measurement applications, as well as in medical and process-control equipment.
The INA188 keeps input noise to just 0.25 µV pk-pk from 0.1 Hz to 10 Hz, with no 1/f corner frequency between broadband and near-DC.
INA188 (ACTIVE)
36V, Zero-Drift, Rail-to-Rail Out Instrumentation Amplifier
http://www.ti.com/product/ina188?DCMP=ina188&HQS=hpa-pa-opamp-ina188-vanity-pf-pressrelease-wwe
Tomi Engdahl says:
What does Moore’s Law mean for power system design?
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/power-forward/4440793/What-does-Moore-s-Law-mean-for-power-system-design-?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20151111&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20151111&elq=600f583a5c39442e923dd4ee2b78e501&elqCampaignId=25662&elqaid=29205&elqat=1&elqTrackId=3eb63c73b1684d2cbbde47c17fe93b66
In the year that marks the 50-year anniversary of Moore’s Law comes the eager announcement from IBM of its breakthrough 7 nm test chip, beating founding father Intel to the latest holy grail of ever increasing density at an atomic level.
Although the announcement represents an industry milestone in the quest for miniaturization, such advances in density and performance come at a cost. A particular challenge is the increasingly complex power requirements demanded by the lower core voltages, higher currents and tighter tolerances of such new chips. This is magnified at the board level, where it is forcing power system engineers to seek out novel solutions to a problem that’s not going to go away anytime soon
Massive increases in transistor count have now made it possible to implement multiple high-speed processors on a single die, each running at speeds of up to 3 GHz. Such advanced processors and logic devices may be exceptionally powerful, but they’re also very delicate with supply voltages being driven below 1 V. With today’s processors running at 100 W or more, this means currents are starting to exceed the 100 A mark at the point of load.
As well as dropping core voltages, and soaring current values, the reduced geometry has a considerable impact on voltage tolerances. For example, a deviation in voltage of just 2% could result in a processor shutting down. Consequently, maintaining ever tighter transient response specifications on the voltage rails supplying these atomic chips is becoming a big issue for engineers.
The pressure to deliver energy efficiency from these high-current, low-voltage systems means that the processors and support logic need to move into lower-power modes frequently, whilst being able to restore full capability extremely quickly without suffering from voltage deviations. Transient response coupled with accurate power delivery is therefore vital in such high reliability systems.
So IBM’s announcement of its 7nm test chip has shown that Moore’s Law is not done yet. The challenge now for power designers in meeting the complexities of greater functionality in a smaller space that these chips bring, is in coming up with novel ways to offset the requirements of their low core voltage, coupled with the high currents needed to drive them, and voltage tolerances that are tighter than ever before. As ever, the power industry will innovate…
Tomi Engdahl says:
Embedded systems face design, power, security challenges
http://www.edn.com/design/systems-design/4440758/Embedded-systems-face-design–power–and-security-challenges-?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20151109&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20151109&elq=8f262274cea14fcb905f80c54dd0c35b&elqCampaignId=25616&elqaid=29155&elqat=1&elqTrackId=47132a81d02343df8a88b87547789381
As the market for embedded systems grows dramatically, all eyes are turning to embedded systems designers who are tasked with combining microprocessors, connectivity, and operating systems that span a wide range of applications from the tiniest IoT device to those embedded in large networking systems.
According to IDC, the market for intelligent systems will grow from 1.4 billion units this year to more than 2.2 billion in 2019. While marketers and financiers may be salivating over the prospects for revenue, what does this really mean for the embedded system designer? From my armchair view, I could easily guess that these challenges likely center on the perennial challenges that electrical engineering designs face: size, cost, power, and time to market.
Design
The biggest design concerns Shore sees are “getting to grips with multicore platforms, implementing secure systems in IoT, resilient and reliable programming, and energy efficient development.” To be sure, these are topics that are regularly addressed in embedded trade journals and conferences. Considering the entire development cycle, Prestridge points to shortened time to market versus increased design functionality as a critical challenge.
Power
But what about energy efficiency? It’s not just engineers who are working on battery operated devices that are being tasked like never before to reduce power consumption and look for creative power sourcing options. Prestridge notes that over the last 10 years, the green engineering movement has caused all teams to be concerned about their products carbon footprint, regardless of whether they will be battery operated or plugged in to the wall.
One of the classic trade-offs is between power and performance. How is this being addressed in embedded design? Shore offers some tips:
• carefully architect software to take advantage of the facilities provided by the hardware
• ensure that you understand exactly what the hardware is doing at all times
• have a deep knowledge of power saving facilities provided by your platform
• design your software (from algorithms down to machine code) carefully and conscientiously
• design interrupt handlers carefully
Security
You cannot seem to have a conversation about the IoT these days without discussing security or the latest automobile hack. Shore notes that the challenges of security in the IoT need to be met not only in hardware and architecture, but also in software design. As time goes on, “security is only going to become more important for us,” adds Shore.
Looking Ahead
Shore offers some parting advice: “Modern embedded systems are now, in many cases, as complex as the desktop systems of 5 years ago. The embedded developer needs to understand and utilize design and coding techniques that were the exclusive province of the desktop community only a few years ago. There is only so far that the tools can take you in this and developers have a huge task to educate themselves about things like superscalar processors, out-of-order memory, caches, multicore platforms etc.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
GlobalFoundries Launches 14nm ASIC
Low power now top requirement for infrastructure, GF says
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328270&
GlobalFoundries announced a new ASIC, FX-14, based on technology acquired from IBM Microelectronics and the foundry’s new 14nm LPP process. FX-14 targets wired and wireless applications, as well as compute and storage applications with support for various ARM SoCs including 64-bit Cortex-A72 and Cortex-A53 processors.
Two large-scale trends among system OEMs are driving the need for ASICs, said the director of GF’s ASIC business development unit, Aashish Malhotra. “The pervasiveness of mobility is going to increase. The amount of bandwidth that you need to support will increase, which fundamentally puts pressure on infrastructure to morph.”
When compared to GF’s 28nm process, 14nm LPP offers a 65% to 70% improvement in performance
Improvements in power are partially due to embedded TCAMs (ternary content addressable memory), specialized high-speed memory, which have 80% less leakage and 60% better performance relative to a 32-bit IBM ASIC. FX-14 also has dense SRAM to encourage high performance on a small footprint. Die sizes for smaller ASIC implementations will be between 150mm2 and 200mm2.
“Applications are moving to 64 bit, and having access to right portfolio of cores is extremely important,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dialog-Atmel Deal Clears Regulatory Hurdles
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328271&
U.K.-based chip vendor Dialog Semiconductor plc announced its proposed $4.6 billion acquisition of Atmel Corp. has cleared regulatory review in the U.S. in Germany—even as an activist hedge fund opposed to the deal boosted its stake in Dialog in hopes of blocking the transaction.
Dialog (London) said it received notification that the U.S. Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission granted the deal an early termination of the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act. The firm said it was also notified by Germany’s Federal Cartel Office that the deal has been cleared to proceed.
Elliott released an open letter to Dialog shareholders on Nov. 9, stating its intentions to vote against the Atmel acquisition, which it called “the wrong deal at the wrong price.” Elliott said Dialog’s “desperation” to reduce its dependency on Apple Inc., which accounts for about 79% of Dialog’s sales, had “led the company to enter an auction process and over‐pay for a tier‐3 microcontroller company that has a huge employee base.” According to the letter, Atmel has about 5,100 employees, compared with 1,500 for Dialog.
Tomi Engdahl says:
10nm SRAM, 10-core SoC at ISSCC
Samsung shows advanced SRAM, DRAM, flash
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328272&
Samsung will give a first look at its 10nm process technology at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference here in February. ISSCC also will show significant advances in fingerprint recognition, vision processors and 3-D chip stacks as well as denser memories and a novel Mediatek mobile SoC packing ten cores in three clusters.
Samsung will deliver several papers including ones detailing advances in DRAM and flash memory chips. But it’s most significant paper will describe a 128Mbit embedded SRAM made in a 10nm FinFET technology.
“Compared to Samsung’s 14nm SRAM at 0.064μm2, the 10nm cell is a 0.63X shrink, certainly less than ideal,” said David Kanter a microprocessor analyst for The Linley Group and Real World Technologies.
“Compared to Intel’s 14nm SRAM cell at 0.049 μm2, Samsung’s cell is about a 0.82X shrink, a consequence of the fact that Samsung didn’t shrink their metal rules between 20nm and 14nm,” said Kanter. “I’d expect Intel’s 10nm SRAMs to be much smaller, but they aren’t sharing that information yet,” he added.
TSMC, one of Samsung’s closest rivals in chip making, announced its 10nm process announced earlier this year. The Taiwan foundry is said to be gearing up the process to make the SoC inside Apple’s next-generation iPhone
The world’s largest chip maker, Intel Corp., has delayed plans for making 10nm chips, citing the increasing costs and complexity given delays in next-generation lithography needed to draw the finest lines.
The Samsung SRAM is the only 10nm part described at ISSCC.
Tomi Engdahl says:
MEMS for Million-Dollar Horses
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328262&
Two years ago cows entered the Internet of Things (IoT) when Dairymaster’s MooMonitor began tracking the herds, monitoring each cow’s activity, letting them in and out of automatic doors and detecting when they are ovulating. Now in 2015 Horse Sense’s Pegasus is doing the same thing, and more, for horses.
Pegasus are MEMS-based devices attached on a horse’s tail that sense everything the cow’s collar (MooMonitor) does plus the horse’s temperature, which is especially important for high value horses. There are about 250 million cows worldwide, but only 59 million horses. However, the average worth of the equine population is much higher than the bovine population. Horses bred for racing can be worth millions of dollars.
The tough thing about keeping horses healthy is that their temperature needs to be measured multiple times per week, and the only reliable way to do it is with a rectal thermometer. You would think that they would get used to this, but they don’t.
With the Pegasus MEMS system, however, a temperature measurement is made every time the horse passes flatulence, which anybody who has been around horses knows is many times a day.
The official name of Horse Sense is Horse Sense Shoes LLC (a division of HSS Global Group Inc., Wayzata, Minn.) because their original idea was to put the sensor in the horses shoes, which turned out not to be the right place
Tomi Engdahl says:
1500-V MOSFETs enable safer power supplies
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4440810/1500-V-MOSFETs-enable-green-power-supplies?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20151116&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20151116&elq=5bc0338ac7b24cf4b470852f84ebaa84&elqCampaignId=25746&elqaid=29316&elqat=1&elqTrackId=bdfda5914c23426da0991d2334f11927
MDmesh K5 power MOSFETs from STMicroelectronics maximize the efficiency of power supplies, while enhancing robustness and safety margins. The latest additions to the series combine the benefits of super-junction technology with a drain-to-source breakdown voltage of 1500 V.
The 1500-V MOSFETs can be used in switch-mode power supplies in servers, where power supply robustness is a key factor in minimizing downtime, and in industrial applications, such as factory automation. For these applications, where power output ranges from 75 W to 230 W or above, super-junction MOSFETs are preferred due to their dynamic switching performance.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Huawei’s New Batteries Charge To 48% In Five Minutes
Huawei’s new quick-charging smartphone batteries could transform the way we use our devices.
http://www.fastcompany.com/3053599/fast-feed/huaweis-new-batteries-charge-to-48-in-five-minutes?partner=rss
Chinese smartphone maker Huawei has a powerful new weapon in its competition for the global Android market: phone batteries that can recharge in less time than it takes to power down a latte. The company just unveiled quick-charging batteries at a Japanese trade show that charge to 50% capacity within what Huawei calls “mere minutes.”
The new lithium-ion batteries, Huawei says, charge at about ten times the speed of a normal battery. This is how the science works, according to a Huawei press release:
Huawei’s press materials emphasize that phones can now charge in the time it takes to drink a coffee, and that the breakthrough can lead to a variety of new smartphone, electric vehicle, wearable device, and mobile power supply breakthroughs in coming years. The new batteries were developed by Huawei’s Watt Lab,
Huawei reveals the next generation of quick charging technology
http://www.huawei.com/en/news/2015/11/Huawei%20reveals%20the%20next%20generation%20of%20quick%20charging%20technology
The new batteries can be charged 10 times faster than current batteries, reaching approximately 50% capacity in mere minutes
[Nagoya, Japan, Nov.13, 2015] Watt Lab, which belongs to the Central Research Institute at Huawei Technology Corporation Limited, unveiled their new quick charging lithium-ion batteries at the 56th Battery Symposium in Japan. Using next generation technology, these new batteries have achieved a charging speed 10 times faster than that of normal batteries, reaching about 50% capacity in mere minutes.
Huawei presented videos of the two types of quick charging lithium-ion batteries: one battery with a 600 mAh capacity that can be charged to 68% capacity in two minutes; and another with a 3000 mAh capacity and an energy density above 620 Wh/L, which can be charged to 48% capacity in five minutes to allow ten hours of phone call on Huawei mobile phones. These quick charging batteries underwent many rounds of testing, and have been certified by Huawei’s terminal test department.
According to Huawei, the company bonded heteroatoms to the molecule of graphite in anode, which could be a catalyst for the capture and transmission of lithium through carbon bonds. Huawei stated that the heteroatoms increase the charging speed of batteries without decreasing energy density or battery life.
Tomi Engdahl says:
TSMC & ITRI Develop Particle-Monitoring System to Boost Yields
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328283&
Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (TSMC) have developed a new system to monitor particles in liquid solutions that can cause defects during the chip fabrication process.
The system, dubbed SuperSizer, measures particle sizes from 3nm to 1,000nm, expanding the range of current monitoring and inspection tools that have an upper limit of only 40nm. The system also measures the concentration of particles, helping reduce impurities and scratches on underlying layers and structures of a chip.
“In the last two or three years, due to the particle situation, TSMC had to shut down a whole production line for two or three days,” said Wei-En Fu, the principal researcher and head of ITRI’s Nano & Mechanical Measurement Laboratory, in an interview with EE Times. “As the technology node goes down to 10nm by next year or 2017, the killer particles will be less than 10nm. This tool is the only one that can measure such small particles in situ.”
“Most chipmakers want to monitor particle sizes below 30nm or 20nm,”
The cost of one SuperSizer unit is about $730,000 depending on the types of functions the machine has. For a system that monitors pure water only, the price is about $450,000, Fu said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
FPGA Interfaces Speeding Up
IBM/Xilinx collaborate, Red Hat wants standard
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1328278&
IBM and Xilinx have joined the race to bring FPGA accelerators to data centers. The problem they and their competitors have yet to solve is delivering an easy-to-use standard interface for them, according to a Red Hat executive.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Accurate, Fast Settling Analog Voltages from Digital PWM Signals
http://www.linear.com/solutions/5683?utm_source=DN538?utm_medium=customnl&utm_campaign=EEWeb
Pulse width modulation (PWM) is a common technique for generating analog voltages from a digital device such as a microcontroller or FPGA. Most microcontrollers have dedicated PWM generation peripherals built in, and it only takes a few lines of RTL code to generate a PWM signal from an FPGA. This is a simple, practical technique if the analog signal’s performance requirements are not too stringent, as only one output pin is required and the code overhead is very low when compared to a digitalto- analog converter (DAC) with an SPI or I2C interface.
digital output pin that is filtered to produce an analog voltage
You don’t have to dig very deep to uncover the myriad deficiencies of this scheme. A 12-bit analog signal should ideally have less than 1LSB of ripple, requiring a 1.2Hz lowpass filter in the case of a 5kHz PWM signal. The impedance of the voltage output is determined by the filter resistor, which can be quite large if the filter capacitor is to be kept to a reasonable size.
Improved PWM-to-Analog!
The LTC2644 and LTC2645 are dual and quad PWMto- voltage output DACs with internal 10ppm/°C reference that provide true 8-, 10- or 12-bit performance from digital PWM signals. The LTC2644 and LTC2645 overcome these problems by directly measuring the duty cycle of the incoming PWM signal and sending the appropriate 8-, 10- or 12-bit code to a precision DAC at each rising edge.
Conclusion
Don’t despair if you come face to face with the limitations of typical PWM to analog techniques. The LTC2645 makes it possible to produce accurate, fast-settling analog signals from pulse-width modulated digital outputs while maintaining low parts count and code simplicity.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Menta eFPGAs Win Over E.U.
European Defense Agency using Menta SoCs
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1328273&
Menta offers electronic design tools (EDA) tools that enable you to put an FPGA accelerator on any chip you want.
When I wrote about Flex Logix’s, ability to add the FPGA of your choice right onto your system-on-chip (SoC), I got a barrage of comments and a call from an executive at Menta SAS (Montpellier, France), both saying Menta had already been doing that for years.
Turns out, the two companies use different methods to reach similar conclusions, since Flex Logix wants to install the hardware FPGA onto your prefabbed SoC, whereas Menta is a software-only company that sells you the electronic design automation (EDA) tools plus the FPGA intellectual property (IP) to do the job yourself.
Menta provides the EDA software to design what it calls its eFPGA (embedded field programmable gate array), which can be used on the chip of your choice, mostly SoCs.
“Menta has the IP for both custom and pre-defined embedded FPGAs, which can be integrated in a wide range of SoCs,”
In particular, the European Defense Agency has just finished testing and has qualified Menta’s eFPGA IP for use in its EDA-SoC program, which combines resources from France, Italy, Germany and Norway. Embedded FPGAs in the European Defense Agency’s SoC’s will now make use of Menta’s toolkits. Besides the countries involved, 14 defense contractors will also be using Menta’s IP to manufacture and test SoC platforms with 32-bit reduced instruction set (RISC) processors, along with other specialized IP blocks from other providers. All of which can be transferred to traditional EDA tools using various different methods.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Top 5 Medical Device Dangers to Avoid in 2016
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1328267&
1. Improper Cleaning of Flexible Endoscopes Can Spread Superbug Infections
2. Alarm Problems Can Contribute to Deaths and Injuries
3. USB Port Glitches in Medical Devices
Many medical devices have USB ports. Plugging unauthorized devices into those ports can cause an array of problems, triggering, for instance, some physiologic monitors to reboot, according to the ECRI Institute report.
4. Intensive Care Ventilator Problems
5. Gamma Camera Defects
FDA has received multiple reports of mechanical failures linked to gamma cameras
Tomi Engdahl says:
Europe sold a record pace circuits
Distribution
European distributors of semiconductors components sold 1.86 billion euros in the third quarter. The amount is 17.9 per cent higher than a year earlier and close to this year’s second-quarter record figures.
DMASS: According to the Eastern European market for semiconductor sales grew in July-September, as many as 37.6 per cent to EUR 244 million. Great Britain, posted growth of 17.4 percent, Italy 16.8 percent, and the largest market area in Germany to 15.8 per cent.
Nordic semiconductors were sold for EUR 165 million in the third quarter.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3601:euroopan-myydaan-piireja-ennatysvauhdilla&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Completely free tool for ARM development
ARM-based processors there is a legion of different development tools. Some of them are free, but in general the design size is limited in some way. Swedish Atollicin new tool package, rather than completely free.
Atomillicin True Studio Lite is completely free to download, use and distribution. Use does not even require registration.
Still, the tool corresponds to commercial C / C ++ – programming tools, Atollic praises. According to the company True Studio Lite was developed for the ARM development world would get rid of fragmentation. The market has a lot of the same types of tools that offer basic editing, compiler and debugging, but most of the usability is poor, because the tools are not integrated in any package.
True Studio Lite is based on open Aclipse platform planted with commercial tools familiar wizard tools as well as extensive support for different manufacturers of ARM-controller circuits.
Atollicilla is also a commercial package, which it sold under the name True Studio Pro.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3602:taysin-ilmainen-tyokalu-arm-kehitykseen&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Aries Correct-A-Chip™ adaptor will take the new (or updated) IC and/or package and transform it to the existing PCB footprint design within a minimum amount of space, saving you the hassle of going through a time-consuming, expensive PCB Re-spin.
http://www.arieselec.com/products/overview-correct-a-chip-sockets-adapters.htm
Tomi Engdahl says:
ON Semiconductor Acquires Fairchild
http://hackaday.com/2015/11/19/on-semiconductor-acquires-fairchild/
In the continuing process of semiconductor companies buying each other up, ON Semiconductor has acquired Fairchild Semiconductor for $2.4 Billion.
ON Semi and Fairchild’s deal is only the latest in a long line of mergers and acquisitions. We’ve recently seen Dialog’s buyout of Atmel, Avago’s purchase of Broadcom, NXP and Freescale’s merger, and soon might see TI buy Maxim. We’re currently in the great time of acquisition, with nearly $100 Billion flowing from company to company in just a few months.
Companies have cash to spend and costs to cut. This latest deal is expected to save $150 Million in annual costs.
Fairchild has a long and storied history in the semiconductor industry, with the first integrated circuit produced in a Fairchild lab in Palo Alto.
Unfortunately, because ON Semi bought Fairchild and not the other way around, we’re stuck with what is probably the worst logo in the entire semiconductor industry: drop-shadowed balls are so mid-90s!
Tomi Engdahl says:
Review: Voltera V-One PCB Printer
http://hackaday.com/2015/11/20/review-voltera-v-one-pcb-printer/
Back in Feburary, I was one of the first people to throw some cash at the Voltera V-One circuit board printer on Kickstarter. With an anticipated delivery date of Q4 2015, I sat back and waited. This week, my V-One arrived!
Opening the Voltera V-One app, you’re greeted with the “Hello World” circuit. Voltera ships the components for this simple board with the printer. It’s a little blinky LED design, consisting of a 555 timer, some LEDs, resistors, and a 9 volt battery.
The printing process has a number of steps, which the software guides you through.
Once the axes are calibrated, you load the conductive ink in and calibrate again. This calibration ensures that enough ink is dispersed to make continuous lines, while not causing those lines to overlap. The conductive ink is the equivalent of copper traces on a normal PCB, so the goal here is to ensure good connections and prevent short circuits.
Next, the conductive ink is printed. This took about 7 minutes for the Hello World board.
With the conductive ink on the board, it was time to bake it. This requires flipping the board over, and letting the V-One heat it up to about 220 degrees Celsius. The baking took a total of about 30 minutes, with another 10 minutes to cool off. The final step is to scrub the board with an included burnishing pad to prepare the surface for soldering.
Now that the Hello World board is printed, it was time to dispense solder paste. This is an interesting feature, because it can be used to dispense paste on any PCB, not just those made on the V-One.
With the paste on, it’s time to break out the tweezers and place the components. Hitting the reflow button in the app automatically starts heating the bed according to the reflow profile.
This unit is the 6th one delivered, and even had a nice “Development Unit” sticker on the packaging. I was expecting to get something pretty alpha. Overall, I’m impressed by the quality.
One concern with any tool like this is the consumables. The ink has to be purchased from Voltera, and it’s not clear if you can manually refill the syringes. The amount of ink you get with the printer doesn’t look like much, but it’s hard to tell how much printing can be done before re-ordering. You’re also buying into the company, since you’ll need them to be around to provide consumables in the future.
While the V-One might look like the laser printer for PCBs, it’s not quite at that level of convenience. There are numerous steps requiring user interaction, and the total print time for a very simple board was about an hour.
http://voltera.io/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Eugene Kim / Business Insider:
Intel hires Dr. Murthy Renduchintala, former co-president of Qualcomm’s main chip unit, to head new group that includes many units including PC and mobile chips
Intel just hired a Qualcomm bigwig to help expand beyond the ailing PC market
http://uk.businessinsider.com/intel-hires-qualcomm-exec-venkata-renduchintala-2015-11?op=1?r=US&IR=T
Dr. Venkata “Murthy” Renduchintala, the former co-president of Qualcomm’s main chip unit, just left the company to join rival chipmaker Intel.
At Intel, Renduchintala will be the president of the Client and Internet of Things (IoT) Businesses and Systems Architecture Group, a newly created unit that combines a lot of units: Platform Engineering, Client Computing, IoT, Software and Services, and Design & Technology Solutions groups.
It’s worth noting the Client Computing Group, which includes both the PC and mobile chips, and is Intel’s largest revenue generator, is also looped under this group.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Silicon Carbide Breaks into the Mainstream
http://www.eeweb.com/blog/eeweb/silicon-carbide-breaks-into-the-mainstream
United Silicon Carbide Offers Key Power-saving Solutions for the Burgeoning Alternative Energy Industry
Interview with Chris Dries – CEO of United Silicon Carbide
The term “alternative energy” will soon become just “energy.” As with any technology sector, the advancements in the alternative energy arena—solar, wind, smartgrid—are making mass adoption more palpable. This is due, in part, to the tremendous strides made with silicon carbide (SiC), which has proven to help lower the cost of the technology while providing better quality and continuity of the power supply. At the helm of this power revolution is United Silicon Carbide, an SiC-based power supply company that is helping provide the higher-efficiency demands needed in emerging higher voltage markets. EEWeb spoke with Chris Dries, CEO of United Silicon Carbide, about the company’s industry-leading die size, the custom discrete business they are offering, and the ways in which the SiC market will grow to around $2-billion in the next ten years.
How do you see silicon carbide positioned in the power market?
Historically, the majority of the market for silicon carbide has been dominated by diodes in power factor correction. Over the last year, that momentum has shifted to include the design-in of silicon carbide transistors. It is becoming clear that the user community is rapidly adopting silicon carbide switch technology, and I think we will see a massive acceleration in the design-in activity of silicon carbide transistors.
In what ways does USCi separate itself from its competitors?
The fundamental thing is we based the technology of our business on the JFET, which allows USCi to leverage the cascode configuration. This gives USCi a huge differentiator in terms of die size. We just got back from the International Conference of Silicon Carbide and Related Materials in Sicily, and virtually all of the MOSFETs are sitting at a specific ON resistance in the 3- to 4-mohm centimeters-squared range.
Our technology, in contrast to devices running in the 3- to 4-mOhm centimeters-squared range, are 1.75-mOhm centimeters-squared—meaning our SiC cost is half that of a SiC MOSFET supplier.
Tomi Engdahl says:
EEs Report Highest Pay Increase Since 2008
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328315&
The median income of electrical and electronics engineers increased 3% in 2014, the largest increase since 2008, according to the IEEE-USA’s annual salary survey.
The total median pre-tax income of U.S.-based EEs increased to $133,000 last year, up from $129,000 in 2013, according to the responses of IEEE-USA members who responded to the survey that indicated they were employed full time in their primary area of technical expertise. Excluding overtime pay, profit sharing and other supplemental earnings, the group’s median pre-tax income was $130,000 in 2014, up from $124,700 in 2013.
EEs employed in the Western U.S. continued to report the highest median income in 2014, $144,000.
Survey respondents who indicated that they work in general management jobs reported a salary advantage of almost $35,000 compared to the median for all respondents. Technical managers and those employed in marketing and sales also reported higher income compared to the median of all respondents.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Rugged 16mm LED indicators feature customizable “Secret-Until-Lit” option
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/led-zone/4440849/Rugged-16mm-LED-indicators-feature-customizable–Secret-Until-Lit–option?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20151123&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20151123&elq=0cf3ab58ae6b4953a41d2dc7888f9f37&elqCampaignId=25869&elqaid=29467&elqat=1&elqTrackId=c892bf23569f477abf786453185b59f1
While APEM’s Q16 family of LED indicators are primarily intended for military and industrial applications, its new “Secret-Until-Lit” option makes a stunning visual statement wherever they’re deployed. In fact, I’m tempted to add a few of these to the dashboard of my trusty Honda Element.
The 16mm indicators feature a black polycarbonate insert that gives you the ability to hide a specific custom legend until the indicator illumination is turned “ON.” The polycarbonate insert is reverse-side silk screen printed, allowing for any custom symbol you require.
http://www.apem.com/Professional-grade-16-mm-diameter-panel-mount-LED-indicators-v9-d-812.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Offline converter stops vampire-power waste
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4440875/Offline-converter-stops-vampire-power-waste?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20151123&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20151123&elq=0cf3ab58ae6b4953a41d2dc7888f9f37&elqCampaignId=25869&elqaid=29467&elqat=1&elqTrackId=aad945a546344667be8350786224340e
STMicroelectronics’ VIPer0P offline high-voltage converter chip meets the IEA/IEC international specification for zero standby power. The power converter provides a smart and convenient way of managing the wake-up function in home appliances, white goods, lighting, and industrial equipment. Its smart-management capability allows the appliance to be woken from standby via a touch screen or remote control.
VIPer0P consumes less than 5 mW in idle mode (230-VAC supply), which is rounded to zero power in accordance with clause 4.5 of the IEC 62301 standard for household and office appliances. If a switch is used to control standby, idle power can be further reduced to 4 mW.
VIPer0P can be configured as a flyback, buck, or buck-boost switch-mode power supply. It integrates an 800-V avalanche-rugged power MOSFET with PWM current-mode control.
Prices for the VIPer0P housed in a surface-mount SO16N package start at $0.54 each in lots of 1000 units.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Silicon Labs Buys Zigbee Module Vendor Telegesis
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328332&
Silicon Laboratories Inc. said Monday (Nov. 23) it acquired privately-held Telegesis ltd., a U.K.-based supplier of wireless mesh networking modules, for roughly $20 million.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tsinghua, Infineon Kicking Renesas’ Tires
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328329&
Renesas Electronics, once Japan’s most troubled chip giant, has become an investment target attractive to a number of suitors outside Japan, including China’s Tsinghua Unigroup and Infineon Technologies in Germany.
Tsinghua’s ambitions in the memory chip business are well known. It is reportedly targeting an investment in Renesas as a vehicle for China to gain a foothold in the logic business — especially in the automotive and MCU segments.
Infineon is said to regard Renesas as an ideal fit, based on the Japanese chip vendor’s strength in infotainment, head unit and digital cockpit technologies and other areas of automotive electronics where Infineon lags. It’s also important that Renesas has a strong position both among Japanese and European automakers. Renesas, for instance, is the only Japanese chip vendor among Audi’s strategic R&D partners. Other members belong to the Audi’s group are STMicroelectronics and Infineon.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Printers Spit out Small PCBs
Nanomaterials meet plastics at event
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328319
Two companies showed 3D printers that can spit out small printed circuit boards and others including Qualcomm showed advances putting electronics on plastic substrates at the annual IDTechEx conference here.
“We see 3D printing contributing to the vision of a trillion-sensor world,” said James Stasiak, a distinguished technologist in printing technology at Hewlett Packard Inc.
A combination of traditional electronics with 3D printing of nanomaterials on new kinds of substrates will enable ten-cent transistors needed for the future Internet of Things, Stasiak said in a keynote. He pointed to the room-sized YieldJet inkjet printer from Kateeva Inc.
On the show floor Israeli startup Nano Dimension demoed its DragonFly 2020 3D Printer for the first time in the U.S. It can print a multilayer 20 x 20 cm circuit board that is up to 3mm high with 80 micron traces in 3-20 hours, depending on the number of layers. The company targets users who don’t want to wait weeks it typically takes to make a board and can tolerate the $50,000 cost of the printer.
Key to the 3D printer is a silver-conductive and an insulating ink Nano Dimension developed, printed through a 500-nozzle inkjet head from Minolta. Like many targeting this market, the company is working on a cheaper copper-conductive ink, but so far no one has solved the problem of keeping cooper from oxidizing in the print process
Nano Dimension got its start less than two years ago when its founders had an idea for adapting for printed-circuit boards a silver-conductive ink used for creating solar cells on a silicon wafer.
HP’s Stasiak said companies such as Nano Dimension ultimately should be able to print circuit boards that cost less and offer greater flexibility than traditional processes. One of the challenges using the ink jet method, however, is it is currently limited to applying femto-liter droplets that create relatively large traces, he said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
10 Early Stage Technology Innovations Point to Future
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328320&
The electronics industry is evolving quickly, with innovations in emerging technologies, including printed electronics, wearable technology, 3D printing, sensors, energy harvesting, electric vehicles and new advanced materials, appearing at an astonishing rate. Last week, at the IDTechEx Show! in Santa Clara, CA, ten such startup companies showcased their tech as part of IDTechEx Launchpad.
“The show will have over 200 exhibitors.” Raghu Das, chief executive officer of market research firm IDTechEx told EBN in an interview before the show. “However, there are many young companies who raise money on Kickstarter or come out of a university, and we wanted to be able to put them in front of the 3,000 or so people who will be at the show,” Das said. “They probably couldn’t do that on their own. So we decided to take the 10 most exciting embryonic technologies and let people see what they can do. All of them are bringing prototypes.”
At the showcase, which is sponsored by global semiconductor maker Qualcomm, ten early-stage companies will share prototypes and demonstrations of products. In addition, Qualcomm will announce and demonstrate its printed electronics-enabled golf performance sensor.
Some of the most exciting include new ways of thinking about electronic components. For example, some new technologies allow circuits to be printed or drawn using special ink, which allows for the creation of larger surface areas and more affordable price points. Others are stretchable or transparent.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Clever ICs Improve on Diode’s Simplicity
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1328321&
Simple is good, as diodes have proven many times, but an IC-based enhancement can sometimes produce far superior performance.
Engineers know that one basic guideline for a good design is to “keep it simple” – but do so only to the extent possible. That’s why the semiconductor diode is such as powerful component: it’s a two-terminal device which serves in countless roles from blocking reverse DC, to AC-line or signal rectification, to capturing and holding a peak value (with an associated capacitor). Diodes come in thousands of sizes and current/voltage ratings to meet these diverse needs.
Determining when and how to shift from a simple device to one which is less simple, at least at first glance, is part of the designer’s challenge and dilemma. While diodes are extremely useful, they have several imperfections including their reverse leakage current and well-defined temperature coefficient. One major problem is forward voltage drop, between 0.3 and 0.8 V depending on diode type.
Circuit designers have struggled with and adapted to the voltage-drop weakness, but IC vendors have devised ways around it.
A new product from Texas Instruments illustrates the problem in a niche of a mass-market application and outlines how a clever IC can be part of a solution. It is standard practice to protect automotive electronic subsystems – including ADAS (advanced driver assistance systems), powertrain, infotainment – against reverse voltages from load dumps and other events. The obvious way to do is to connect a Schottky diode (0.4 V drop) or PFET device in series with the supply rail depicted below.
However, the load current can easily reach 10 A or more in these subsystem for overall dissipation approaching 4 W
That’s where the TI LM74610-Q1 Smart Diode Controller can help. This two-terminal device (like a diode, it has an anode and cathode) with an integrated charge pump provides gate drive to an associated NFET device. During normal operation, the transistor is on and there is very low dissipation, along with zero quiescent current (as there is no path to ground). As a added adage, NFETs are preferred over PFETs because they have lower on resistance (RDS(ON) and lower cost.
The LM74610-Q1 tolerates reverse voltage up to 45 V maximum and is fast