3D Reconfigurable Chips for Europe

european www.electronics-eetimes.com September 2014 business press

FlexTiles: 3D reconfigurable chips for Europe

Executive interview: Tronics’ CEO Pascal Langlois FREE SHIPPING Design Focus: Programmable Logic ON ORDERS OVER €65! DIGIKEY.COM/ EUROPE

020212_FRSH_EET_EU_Snipe.indd 1 2/2/12 12:37 PM 140820_WLSG_EET_EU.indd 1 8/18/14 11:09 AM September 2014

opinion 20 Tattoo biobatteries produce power from sweat 4 Uncommon Market: Cutting down on personal data leaks 22 Control from the light perspective

50 Last Word: IoT: sensor fusion or confusion? 25 An inflexion point for energy harvesting and IoT is nigh news & TECHNOLOGY - PROGRAMMABLE LOGIC 6 “Desktop PCB factory” churns out working circuit in 30 minutes 28 Implementing FPGA design with the OpenCL standard 8 MEMS leaders under pressure, The initial era of programmable says Yole technologies contained two different extremes of programmability. 10 Iconic Insights: in conversation with Hanns Windele 30 Beating the mobile barcode block With more than 45 years of experience in The problem that barcode electronics, computers and communica- readers have with screens tions, Sir Peter Bonfield discusses the on most mobile devices can role Europe can play on the world semi- be overcome using a simple conductor stage. FPGA-based reference design.

12 What’s that smell? An app for that 34 FlexTiles European project hints soon, says Sensirion at reconfigurable 3D chips With the licensing of cloud soft- Launched in 2011 by a consor- ware developed by neighboring tium of industries, universities company Koubachi AG, Zurich- and research and technology based company Sensirion is organizations, and co-funded by gearing up for cloud-based sensor data management the European Union, the three-year FlexTiles project is and services. coming to fruition this year.

13 mCube forms indoor navigation subsidiary 36 Pixel local storage on ARM Mali GPUs

14 Infineon closes technology gap through - OPTOELECTRONICS International Rectifier takeover Infineon has announced to swallow International 38 A roadmap for cool and lossless lasers, with Bismuth Rectifier for the amount of $3 billion. From the 21st to the 23rd of July took place the 5th international workshop on Bismuth-containing 14 BMW invoke fast battery chargers to semiconductors, unveiling promising III-V material spark EV sales combinations for the design of very efficient lasers and record-breaking multi-junction solar cells. 16 Tronics’ Langlois makes moves in MEMS Pascal Langlois has been CEO at 39 Startup raises funds for organic semiconductors Tronics for nine months. He discusses plans for the company and directions 40 VTT depth cameras interpret shoppers’ behaviour for the complex and diverse MEMS technology sector. 42 Copenhagen starts large-scale smart LED lighting experiment 18 Google Glass’ killer app: surveillance The Danish capital is planning to roll out a large-scale pilot project featuring smart LED lights, aimed DESIGN & PRODUCTS to save money, cut carbon emissions and alert police about suspicious activities. SPECIAL FOCUSES: - ENERGY HARVESTING Reader offer 46 This month, Trinamic Motion 20 Spray-on solar cells reduce solar power costs Control is giving away four TMCM- Scientists at the University of 1043 development kits for its Sheffield fabricate perovskite NEMA 17-compatible TMCM-1043 solar cells using a spray-painting stepDancer stepper motor module. process which could help cut the cost of solar electricity. 49 distribution corner

3 Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 www.electronics-eetimes.com Cutting down on personal data leaks

By Julien Happich

Now may be the right time to cut down on smartphone data leaks and reclaim a little bit of privacy, according to Yves- Alexandre de Montjoye, a PhD candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Laboratory.

In today’s climate of suspicion around big data, height- ened by Snowden’s revelations about the NSA’s massive data collection capabilities, smartphone users and consumers in general have become more aware about the privacy issues at stake. With web giants such as Google, Amazon, Facebook all competing to gather and crunch as much user personal data as possible to monetize it, the use of a smartphone today is synonymous with loss of privacy. Often, the legal catch is that in order to benefit from an application or a web page, the user has to broadly accept the terms of service in one click that puts aside pages after pages of vaguely informative rules of engagement. Of course, some multiplicity of queries, the MIT Media lab is on the case. services will require geolocation, others will require a form of But today, what type of business would want to drive such customer profiling, and big data is today’s buzz word for all an initiative? We asked de Montjoye. sorts of businesses. By enabling the game of big data while at the same time So, is privacy a lost cause that must be sacrificed to data preserving personal data, this approach offers a safety net to mining and big business? Not so, answers de Montjoye who companies willing to operate according to restrictive European has been working on the development of MIT’s Open Personal data protection regulations, he says. Data Store concept (OpenPDS). In previous research using In fact one example of personal data collection going wrong simple telecom operator’s mobility databases, de Montjoye is the recent class action lawsuit initiated last June by Austrian has shown how easy it was to identify individuals based on privacy activist Maximilian Schrems against facebook, on behalf their daily behaviour alone, proving that even coarse datasets of European facebook users. With the www.europe-v-facebook. provided little anonymity. org website, Schrems is directly pitching EU data protection laws against tech giants and their abusive data collection With OpenPDS, the PhD candidate turns big data on its habits, the case has been brought to the Court of Justice of the head, and devised an application that stores European Union. the data generated by your digital devices “Companies can offer their services at in a single private location (that could be an lower data management expenses while encrypted server in the cloud, or a per- taking less risks regarding data theft. This sonal computer). Through a sophisticated approach is also more transparent to the SafeAnswers framework, smartphone ap- users as they always stay in control of their plications are required to specify what infor- personal data” de Montjoye added. mation they need and how it will be used. “This approach also has benefits from a Then OpenPDS works out “yes” or “no” developer’s perspective”, de Montjoye told summarized answers to the application que- us. ries, based on metadata rather than sharing Collecting every possible data means raw user data. Generic computations on writing more complex applications. That is user data are performed in the safe environ- more data to send and to manage, which is ment of the PDS, here the user does not expensive in term of bandwidth and gener- have to hand data over to receive a service. ally slows down the application for data it Hence, rather than having an application may not even be using. telling you it will access your GPS location Often developers take as much data as or your SD card, without knowing exactly possible, just in case it could be useful later what the implications are (last year it was re- as the application evolves, to future-proof vealed that a seemingly innocuous Android the application. But here, rewriting the ap- flashlight app had been collecting much plication queries is just as efficient to return more data than it actually needed, only to new responses from the personal data share it with advertisers), here the permis- store, the researcher explained. sions don’t give away data but analyse The MIT Media Lab is currently testing the queries to give a meaningful answer. the system with several telecommunica- Mechanisms have to be put in place to tions companies in Italy and Denmark, it prevent application developers from break- is making the openPDS application free to ing the SafeAnswers framework through a download for research purposes.

4 Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 www.electronics-eetimes.com

Easy. Powerful. The ¸RTE: “Desktop PCB factory” turns a design into Simply more scope. a working circuit in 30 minutes Quickly master everyday T&M challenges. More confidence in your measurements, more tools and fast By Lee Goldberg results, more fun to use – that’s the ¸RTE oscilloscope from Rohde & Schwarz. From embedded design development to power What would you do if you could turn the schematic you dard soldermask file, typically generated by your CAD tool, to electronics analysis to general debugging, the ¸RTE offers sketched on the back of a napkin during your lunch break into a place dots of conductive adhesive at every place where a part quick solutions for everyday T&M tasks. fully-assembled circuit before your afternoon coffee break? will need to be connected. The third head is a vacuum pick-up What would you do if you could print a circuit which moni- assembly which can be used to select a component from a See for yourself: www.scope-of-the-art.com/ad/rte tored your vital signs onto a flexible circuit board which could holding tray and place it on the proper set of adhesive-primed be easily sewn into your workout clothes? These, and many contacts. If desired, the adhesive can be quickly set with an other “what-if?” scenarios may be answered by Squink, a optional 15-minute heat-curing cycle. $3000 “screen-to-machine” desktop electronics factory, after it completes its recently-launched crowd- Next; capabilities and costs... funding campaign on Kickstarter. The machine being offered on Kickstarter BotFactory, the team which created can fabricate printed circuits up to 25x25cm. Squink, is based in Brooklyn, New York, the It’s estimated that it will take Squink about fashionably grungy appendix of Manhat- 30 minutes to print a 10 x 10-cm PCB and tan which birthed avant-tech startups like place 15 components on it. At present Adafruit Labs and MakerBot. The prototype Squink’s conductive ink allows it to print cir- they’ve built has already demonstrated cuits on Photopaper or coated transparency how many of the same technologies com- film. BotFactory estimates that the combined monly used in 3D printers can be adapted cost of ink and circuit material for a 10 x to print a circuit on a variety of materials, 10-cm board will be about $5. They also say populate it with ICs and other components, that advanced inks are in development which and “solder” them in place with conductive From back-of-napkin sketch to will allow circuits to be laid down on some adhesives. types of paper, as well as glass, plastic, FR4, operational PCB in an afternoon! Next; 3D printing shows the way... and other non-porous materials. As exciting as it is, Squink is not perfect. BotFactory admits BotFactory’s Squink - a desktop PCB factory that its first-generation machine doesn’t do everything that One glance at Squink is all it takes to see how much of its in- commercial equipment can, including the fact that automatic nards have been cleverly adapted from the 3D printer world. placing of through-hole components is not presently supported. This is a good thing since it means that From what I observed, it also can’t support most of the design can take advantage of multi-layer PCB designs, and I don’t think its the low-cost, high-quality standard com- 10mil (0.25mm) line width and pitch are fine ponents and vast amounts of open-source enough to produce the tiny traces needed IP which resulted from nearly a decade’s to connect some popular high-density IC worth of 3D printer development. In addition packages. I also suspect that it might be dif- to increasing the design’s reliability and ficult to produce circuits capable of handling manufacturability, I’m sure that using proven the signals of high-frequency applications. Maker technologies played a big role in al- Then again, the printer’s ability to lay down a lowing BotFactory to offer Squink units for Look Ma, no solder! Squink attaches circuit on ceramics or other low-capacitance $3500-$3999 during its Kickstarter drive. components to the PCB using substrates may allow it to support applica- Both of Squink’s X-Y stages use a ball tions operating at 1 GHz or higher. conductive adhesive. screw drive system favoured by many 3D But regardless of its limitations, the printers, with the element which would boards it can produce should be perfectly normally hold the print head moving along fine for many consumer and commercial one axis, and the platform which holds the applications and eliminate the cost of short circuit board along the other. The tool head production runs at contract assembly houses also moves in the Z direction. Instead of a or the purchase of $25k-$100k worth of SMT 3D printer’s print head, Squink has a tool assembly equipment. holder which can accept three interchange- Squink’s extensive use of proven hard- able heads. ware and existing standards can really As shown in the video above, the first deliver on most of its promises, its arrival has head deposits the conductive ink on the the potential to change the way Makers and circuit board material, guides by either GER- Squink can print and populate circuit corporate engineers alike build their pro- BER RS-274X files or uploaded PNG, JPG boards using a variety of flexible and totypes and low-volume/custom products. or BMP files. Once the conductors are laid, I suspect that anyone who’s had to pay fabri- inflexible materials. the conductive ink cartridge is swapped cators a fortune for the privilege of getting a out for a conductive glue dispenser. Squink can use a stan- one-off circuit board built up in “only a week” would agree.

6 Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 www.electronics-eetimes.com

4431.254_RTE_EETE-Sept14_210x297_e.indd 1 18.08.14 15:18 Easy. Powerful. The ¸RTE: Simply more scope.

Quickly master everyday T&M challenges. More confidence in your measurements, more tools and fast results, more fun to use – that’s the ¸RTE oscilloscope from Rohde & Schwarz. From embedded design development to power electronics analysis to general debugging, the ¸RTE offers quick solutions for everyday T&M tasks. See for yourself: www.scope-of-the-art.com/ad/rte

4431.254_RTE_EETE-Sept14_210x297_e.indd 1 18.08.14 15:18 MEMS leaders under pressure, says Yole a real BroaDsiDe!

By Peter Clarke

The MEMS industry is changing as established leaders with manufacturing and an emphasis on delivering components are put under pressure by fabless MEMS vendors as customers become more interested in functionality – a mix of hardware and of software – than components. That is the opinion of analysts at Yole Developpement, which has just prepared a status report on the MEMS industry. In 2013 the MEMS market was worth $12 billion and grew by about 10 percent but this hide the fact that unit shipments are growing at a much faster rate but accompanied by a 7 percent decrease in the average selling price (ASP). This results from the “success” of MEMS penetration into consumer electronics and mobile phones and tablet computers in particular – where competition is becoming brutal. Examples of TSVs used in MEMS. Source: Yole. Also, Hewlett-Packard, the major inkjet heads player, has seen sales decline, as have most other inkjet heads companies. Newcomers are adopting a fabless model as exemplified by such companies as InvenSense and mCube. It is notable that novel manufacturing techniques are starting to have an impact on the MEMS market with mCube succeed- ing to remove the need for bond wires through the use of TSVs.

However, despite the warning signs for the established players Bosch has used manufacturing and diversification to rise to the top of the industry. Bosch’s MEMS automotive business has paid for the building of a major dedicated MEMS wafer fab MEMS market forecast ($ billions) by application. Source: Yole and it is now compensating for its low margins in its consumer activity. One could argue, along similar lines to those which run Developpement. in digital ICs, that staying in the consumer market has become Although the 10.4 percent annual growth looks good estab- bad business. lished players are struggling to continue that growth. “If we look Certainly the gains and volumes achieved in consumer at the top MEMS players, we see that STMicroelectronics, while deployments of MEMS are now starting to drive sectors with still producing at high volume, is struggling to stop the decrease better margins such as medical, automotive, industrial and low ohmic precision anD power resisTors of the price of its own products – even though it’s shown im- defense. pressive growth over the last several years, and reached US$1B However, it is also the case that sensor fusion and software sales in 2012 – the first MEMS company to do so,” said Eric to create complete remote functionalities are also becoming Mounier, senior analyst at Yole, in a statement. customer requirements and this has driven a spate of recent Meanwhile, Texas Instruments’ DLP sales are flat, since pico acquisitions. Top performance on small surface areas wiTh low-ohmic precision resisTors projection applications are long to take off, at least for consumer applications, and the professional/commercial projection market is growing at slow speed. By reversal of the length to width ratio, our Vlx series resistors have larger soldering and contact pads, giving them:

_ better heat dissipation, rthi < 20 K/w _ higher power rating: 2 w for size 1020, 1 w for size 0612 _ significant increase in mechanical stability

Innovation by Tradition Top 30 MEMS players in 2013 with sales marked for mobile MEMS sales of major companies 2009 to 2013. Source: Yole. applications. Source: Yole. isabellenhütte heusler Gmbh & co. KG eibacher weg 3 – 5 · 35683 Dillenburg · phone +49 (0) 2771 934-0 · fax +49 (0) 2771 23030 [email protected] · www.isabellenhuette.de 8 Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 www.electronics-eetimes.com

Isa-AnzeigeVLx_Elektronik_210mm x 297mm_ENG.indd 1 11.07.2012 13:47:34 a real BroaDsiDe!

low ohmic precision anD power resisTors

Top performance on small surface areas wiTh low-ohmic precision resisTors

By reversal of the length to width ratio, our Vlx series resistors have larger soldering and contact pads, giving them:

_ better heat dissipation, rthi < 20 K/w _ higher power rating: 2 w for size 1020, 1 w for size 0612 _ significant increase in mechanical stability

Innovation by Tradition

isabellenhütte heusler Gmbh & co. KG eibacher weg 3 – 5 · 35683 Dillenburg · phone +49 (0) 2771 934-0 · fax +49 (0) 2771 23030 [email protected] · www.isabellenhuette.de

Isa-AnzeigeVLx_Elektronik_210mm x 297mm_ENG.indd 1 11.07.2012 13:47:34 ICONIC INSIGHTS: In conversation with Hanns Windele A question of Europe

Sir Peter Bonfield sits on the board and has advisory roles in many international companies and universities. With more than 45 years of experience in electronics, computers and communications, here he discusses the role Europe can play on the world semiconductor stage.

Hanns Windele: European Commissioner for Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes wants Europe to produce 20% of the world’s semiconductor devices, while Chancellor Angela Merkel wants to make a million electric cars by 2020. Is this only political wishful thinking?

Peter Bonfield: I believe that to have a big vision is useful. For Kroes and Merkel to be ambitious is generally the right thing to do, except they focus too much on manufacturing. To focus on market share in the manufacture of chips is too restrictive. We need to ask where is the big push to make sure that Europe stays competitive in the whole eco-system of technology. This should include education, R&D, patents: all of these. Europe is more competitive than they think, but needs to do more.

HW: What do you think should be the mechanism for promoting “We need to ask where is the big push to make sure these visions? that Europe stays competitive in the whole eco-system PB: I’m not sure that governments need to be involved in the of technology” details; they should focus big on eco systems. The European car industry is currently very vibrant in electronics, not just in control lutely. But in the longer term they need to make sure that there is systems, but in communications too. Manufacturers such as outstanding education focused on engineering, science and tech- BMW, Mercedes, Audi and Jaguar are leading the world in terms nology in Europe, to build a long term competitive advantage. of electronics in cars. This is an area where we can be extremely proud and keep pushing. In terms of electric cars, per se, if you HW: Where are the European companies when it comes to have an overall approach, that will start to become a focus in itself. smartphones today? Have they all disappeared? If you look at the congestion charge in London it is cheaper for PB: Maybe in terms of the handsets themselves. But when it hybrid vehicles to come into the city. So electric car use goes up. comes to what goes into the handsets, Europe is still pretty good Can governments make tax allowances to kick-start this? Abso- at that. ARM is in 98% of all handsets. Yes, maybe we’ve missed out on the actual hardware of the final unit, but we should not underestimate the value of the European contribution to what goes QUICKFIRE QUESTIONS with Peter Bonfield inside the product.

What’s your idea of the perfect holiday? HW: Do you think that ARM could replace Intel at some point in Skiing and sailing. But I also relax by reading and listening to time? music PB: I would think that they are going to give Intel a pretty good focus, because they have been particularly successful in anything Who would you most like to sail around the world with? to do with low power. I think that as the market moves into Cloud If you’re going to do that you need to go with the best, so I and the Internet of Things, the importance of low power will in- choose Sir Robin Knox-Johnston crease. ARM has a significant advantage architecturally. Do I think they’ll exploit that? Yes. Do I think they’ll be successful? Yes, I do. What are you reading at the moment? How successful, I don’t know. But they have some smart people The Drugs Don’t Work, by Professor Dame Sally Davies, the and the market place is going in their direction, rather than the Chief Medical Officer for England, a scary examination about previous Intel domination direction. the rise of resistance to antibiotics HW: Would you agree that being smart about power is more If you had to spend time in prison, who would be your ideal difficult than being smart about other things? cellmate? PB: Absolutely, because you have to look at the whole sys- Houdini. I would definitely try to escape! tem. As we get more into Cloud computing where everything is networked together, the size of data centres is going to be massive As an experienced traveller, is there anywhere in the world and the biggest issue will be power. If you can reduce the power left for you to visit? I would really like to visit the ruins of the ancient city of HANNS WINDELE is Vice President, Europe and India at Machu Picchu, or to take a trip up the Amazon River. Mentor Graphics. www.mentor.com

10 Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 www.electronics-eetimes.com mouser.com

ICONIC INSIGHTS: In conversation with Hanns Windele The Newest Products for Your Newest Designs®

consumption by, say, 20% then you’ll save yourself a bundle of money. Do I think that’s going to be a trend going forward? Absolutely. It’s the same thing in wearables. It’s all about low power.

HW: The next wave of systems will come in the form of wearable electronics such as Google Glasses. I don’t see any European companies in the lead here either… PB: I think you’re right. But in terms of some of the “To ignore China as a wraparound stuff we shouldn’t competitor would clearly be too pessimistic. ARM and be mad” Imagination still have a lot to do. In terms of the security aspects: making sure that these devices aren’t hacked into is all going to be part of the development of the Internet of Things. And we can play a big part in that, too. Security is an area where Europe has a long history in technology with companies like NXP and yet we are only in the foothills of some pretty big mountains at the moment. It’s going to be a very big issue.

HW: China has announced it will invest billions per annum in technology. What effect will this have on European markets? PB: To ignore China as a competitor would clearly be mad. They are going to be a big competitor, as were Japan and Korea. Competition is what drives industry and so we should welcome them putting more money into it. But it is not a foregone conclusion that just because they are putting big money into it that they More new products will be successful. It’s going to be a question of where the money goes and how successful they are in getting sufficient engineers new technologies involved, their links with universities and patent protection. What More this says to Europe is that we’ve got to keep the top end of innovation up there and will have to be into smart differentiation and not More added every day just focused on manufacturing.

HW: As a board member of TSMC located in the Far East would it make sense for you to team up with a European initiative and set up a fab over here? PB: TSMC works on the assumption that it can have efficient manufacturing by starting up gigafabs. The thesis is that the capital expenditure is large while the cost in direct labour is small. TSMC believes that by having engineers in close proximity, they can move from fab to fab. A big hub in Taiwan is extremely important to achieve what they are doing. They’ve started another fab 90 minutes from Taipei, which allows thousands of engineers to be involved in starting up a new fab, and they can travel by train. You can’t do that in Europe.

HW: Is success dependent on developing technology clusters? PB: The point is that clusters work. It’s a bit like Silicon Val- ley: you get more innovation and spin-off from a concentration of engineers working in the same area, because if one company goes down the talent can move somewhere else. If you’re the only person in town, it’s going to be much harder to attract engineers Authorised distributor of semiconductors because if anything happens, they’re out of work... and electronic components for design engineers.

Read the full interview on electronics/eetimes.com

www.electronics-eetimes.com Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 11 Newestproducts_93x277.indd 1 27/08/14 16:54 What’s that smell? An app for that soon, says Sensirion

By Julien Happich

With the licensing of cloud software developed by neigh- “We want to establish ourselves as the leading environment bouring company Koubachi AG, Zurich-based company sensing company for the mobile industry” explained Orzati, Sensirion is gearing up to meet the increasing demand for providing the sensors but also the software stacks both for cloud-based sensor data management and services. This OEMs who are buying the sensors and for 3rd party application license agreement strengthens its position in the Internet of developers who will require the data. With this licensing deal, Things sector. Initially a sensor company developing tiny Sensirion strengthens its software activity and hopes to provide humidity, temperature and multi-gas added-value to the hardware it sells, sensors, Sensirion has been increas- although the strategy for data mon- ingly developing as a software pro- etization is not yet clear cut. vider to help OEMs with the integra- “For every particular market we tion of its sensors in smartphones. approach, the cloud can be used to “This is a strategic move, we want generate a particular value in differ- to have an IoT infrastructure that al- ent ways” said Orzati. One possibility lows us to store our sensor data and could be to aggregate the sensor process it through algorithms on the data in one central hub and deliver cloud”, told us Andrea Orzati, Vice different accesses and services, as it President Mobile & Consumer Busi- is the case for a number of other IoT ness at Sensirion. data management businesses. Although in 2010 Koubachi AG To ease the integration of its sen- had designed a Wi-Fi Plant Sen- sor technology, Sensirion has worked sor measuring soil moisture, tem- with Google to enhance the Android perature, and light intensity (akin to API with an interface for temperature Parrot’s Flower Power solution) and and humidity measurement. reporting the data to end-users via “Some years ago, when the An- a smartphone application, Sensi- droid OS was starting to go main- rion’s sensors were not involved in “For every particular market we approach, stream, we wanted to make it easy the Koubachi design. But the way for OEMs to use our sensors’ data they collected and analysed the data the cloud can be used to generate a in Android. We actively approached meant they understood very well particular value in different ways” Google and sat down with them to what Sensirion’s cloud requirements specify an API (application program- would be. Hence Sensirion sought to establish close ties with ming interface) specific to humidity and temperature, building a the start-up from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in clear interface for everyone to use” recalls Orzati. Zurich (ETH). “We implemented it and they liked it, it was then released in “The Koubachi Smart Object Server technology enables data Android, as open source.” from hundreds of thousands of sensors to be classified and, Several smartphones are expected to ship next year with most importantly, analyzed at the same time. We are proud that built-in temperature/humidity and multi-gas sensors. The Swiss we can support Sensirion, one of the leading providers of sen- company envisages various ambient monitoring scenarios, in- sor technologies, with our expertise,” said Dr Philipp Bolliger, cluding applications where consumers could share temperature, CEO of Koubachi AG in a joint statement. humidity and chemicals detection data for real-time air quality information. The amount of data generated could be very useful for meteorological research too. As the company develops multi-gas sensors, it could be able to analyse more and more complex signals. It may even be possible to create libraries of recognisable environment patterns for air quality, or known scents to search and match. Going beyond breath analysis for alcohol testing or bad-breath detection, who knows if in the future a smartphone app could help you identify a perfume, the same way you could use Shazam or SoundHound to recognize music playing around you? “In principle, if you can close the loop and match complex signals to libraries of patterns, the opportunities for new applications are endless” admitted Orzati.

12 Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 www.electronics-eetimes.com mouser.com

The Newest Products for Your Newest Designs® mCube forms indoor navigation subsidiary The widest By Peter Clarke selection of the Fabless chip company mCube Inc. (San Jose, Calif.) has formed Ten Degrees Inc. as a wholly-owned subsidiary to focus newest products. on business related to indoor navigation. mCube recently launched a 9-degrees-of-freedom inertial Over 4 Million products from sensor for use within Android mobile devices that includes a over 500 manufacturers. virtual gyroscope function that it claims has space, power consumption advantages over rivals’ inertial sensors. However, Ten Degrees added value would appear to be based on synthesizing information from multiple sources to come up with an accurate indication of position. Although indoor- navigation based on dead-reckoning has been offered for some time it has been criticized for being insufficiently accurate to provide a reliable business platform. Ten Degrees was formed in April 2014 as the first step to the creation of an independent entity focused on making business around indoor navigation. Ten Degrees has developed a software navigation engine that takes advantage of positioning information derived from the inertial-sensors available in virtually all current smartphones, and combines Wi-Fi and Bluetooth signals with indoor map information to determine indoor location. Ramesh Raman has been appointed CEO of Ten Degrees. Previously he was with Amyris, a company in the renewable fuels and chemicals sector where he was senior vice president of global manufacturing and supply chain. Prior to that Raman worked at consulting firm McKinsey & Company in the semiconductor, consumer goods and retail industries. Jobe Price, former vice president of software at mCube, has moved to take the role of chief technology officer at Ten Degrees. “With this strategic move, Ten Degrees and mCube can focus on their unique market segments, while also benefitting from each company’s technology development and expertise,” said Raman, in a statement. “We look forward to delivering a solution that can easily and accurately guide users indoors, whether to an individual cubicle in an office building, to a specific item in a retail store, or to a room in a hospital, bringing users literally within arm’s reach of their desired indoor location.” “Ten Degrees will be able to build an entire business around its navigation software engine, while allowing mCube to continue expanding its core business around the world’s smallest MEMS motion sensors,” said Ben Lee, CEO of mCube, in the same statement. “Ten Degrees comes out of the gate with an early competitive advantage by having access to mCube’s years of proven software expertise in algorithms for sensors in Authorised distributor of semiconductors and electronic components for design engineers. smart devices, enabling the company to quickly deliver indoor navigation solutions to customers and partners.” Ten Degrees has offices in San Jose, California and Cedar Rapids, Iowa. www.electronics-eetimes.com Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 13 Go Widest_EU_93x277.indd 1 25/08/14 13:36 Rohde & Schwarz: German engineered Infineon closes technology gap through International Rectifier takeover By Christoph Hammerschmidt quality at an Infineon has announced to swallow International Recti- in the distribution channels, IR has strongholds in distribution, fier for the amount of $3 billion. With the move, the Munich- addressing lots of small and medium-scale companies as based chipmaker intends to close its technology gap in the customers. And there is a third aspect where both companies unexpected price. promising GaN segment. In addition, Infineon hopes to better complement each other: Infineon’s focus in terms of products utilize its 300mm wafer fab in Dresden to capacity. is on high-voltage, high-power devices while IR has a broad Established more than 80 years ago, Rohde & Schwarz is a leading According to an Infineon press release, IR already agreed to spectrum of power semiconductors that address the medium global supplier in the fields of test and measurement, broadcasting, the takeover - after all, Infineon’s bid amounted to a sum almost and low voltage / power range. “This holds true for IGBTs as secure communications, and radiomonitoring and radiolocation. 50% higher than IR’s average combined share price over the well as for MOSFETs”, Asam said. As a result of the acquisition, We help you develop the technologies of the future. Here are our past three months. The IR Board of Directors as well as Infine- the company will be able to broaden its product spectrum and latest innovations in the field of oscilloscopes and power supplies. on’s Supervisory Board already approved the transaction. address additional market segments. In a press conference, Infineon board member Dominik Asam In addition, the move is expected to generate economies of said the technology roadmaps of both companies are comple- scale on the manufacturing side. Infineon announced to com- Want to know more? mentary - while Infineon has developed a strong position in bine the existing manufacturing capabilities. In practice, this Visit: www.rohde-schwarz.com/value the future-prone Silicon Carbide (SiC) technology, International will lead to better utilisation of Infineon’s 300mm wafer fab in Rectifier is among the world’s leading companies with regards Dresden, which is notoriously working below capacity. While the to Gallium Nitride (GaN) technology. Both material combina- transition will take some time, “the (production) migration will go tions are expected to enable the design of highly efficient power rather from IR’s fabs to ours”, Asam said. He added that also semiconductors, which in turn will play a major role in energy- for power semiconductors, the future would be in 300mm wafer saving strategies across all industries. size, one of Infineon’s undisputed strengths in comparison to Also in terms of customer structure and product spectrums, other power semiconductor manufacturers. the IR takeover closes gaps in Infineon’s lineup. While Infineon The transaction will be paid in cash. Infineon said the compa- NEW NEW in the first place directly serves very large customers (carmak- ny is capable to fund the takeover with just cash-on-hand and ers and automotive suppliers) and is not overly well represented fully underwritten credit facilities.

BMW invoke fast battery chargers to spark EV sales By Paul Buckley

BMW has launched the company’s i DC With more than five years of real world Fast Chargers, which claim to be capable experience, we understand that a robust of charging the BMW i3 all-electric vehicle’s network of publicly available DC Combo battery up to 80 percent in 30 minutes, to help Fast Chargers is a key part of the mobility of spark growth in the company’s electric vehicle tomorrow, said Robert Healey, EV Infrastruc- sales drive. ture Manager, at BMW of North America. The charger, which is the result of a joint BMW is offering the BMW i D for BMW i3 development between BMW and Bosch Auto- owners. motive Service Solutions, is aiming to change The 24 kW DC Fast Charger feeds the face of public charging as the first com- the current directly to the vehicles bat- pact and affordable DC Combo fast charger. tery, resulting in a more efficient and faster ¸HMO1002 Signal Oscilloscope ¸HMC8041/2/3 Power Supply BMW has also announced the company’s new charge. BMW i DC Fast Chargers use the ChargeNow DC Fast program in cooperation SAE Combo 1 connector, the North Ameri- with NRG eVgo, in which BMW i3 drivers in can automotive industry standard for fast California can enjoy no cost unlimited 30 min- charging; feature a rugged aluminium IP54 ute DC fast charging, at NRG eVgo Freedom enclosure; meet NEMA 3 requirements; and Station sites equipped with DC Combo Fast are designed to perform in extreme weather Charging, through 2015. conditions. Additionally, the BMW i DC Fast Conventional DC fast chargers are about Charger is ChargePoint network-enabled, the size of a standard refrigerator, cost tens allowing electric vehicle drivers with the SAE of thousands of dollars and require a signifi- Combo 1 inlet to access the BMW i DC Fast cant amount of electricity. Half the size of a Charger using a ChargePoint or ChargeNow traditional electric vehicle DC charger measur- card. Major automakers including BMW, GM, ing 79cm by 48cm wide by 30cm deep and Ford, Chrysler, Daimler, Volkswagen, Audi weighing approximately 100 pounds the BMW and Porsche have committed to adopting i DC Fast Chargers can be mounted on a wall, the SAE Combo 1 inlet for DC charging. which claims to be a first for electric vehicle DC fast chargers. To make DC fast charging more accessible and, in turn, in- The BMW i DC Fast Chargers will be priced less than other DC creasing the adoption of electric vehicles, BMW, in cooperation Combo chargers in the market at $6,548 for authorized BMW with NRG eVgo, will offer no cost charging to BMW i3 drivers partners. This is a milestone in the development of the DC fast at participating eVgo Freedom Station sites equipped with DC charging infrastructure. Combo Fast Charging in California through 2015.

14 Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 www.electronics-eetimes.com

10641.039_Value_HMO_HMC_EETimesEurope-Sept14_210x297_e.indd 1 20.08.14 13:17 Rohde & Schwarz: German engineered quality at an unexpected price.

Established more than 80 years ago, Rohde & Schwarz is a leading global supplier in the fields of test and measurement, broadcasting, secure communications, and radiomonitoring and radiolocation. We help you develop the technologies of the future. Here are our latest innovations in the field of oscilloscopes and power supplies.

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10641.039_Value_HMO_HMC_EETimesEurope-Sept14_210x297_e.indd 1 20.08.14 13:17 executive interview

Tronics’ Langlois makes moves in MEMS

By Peter Clarke

Pascal Langlois has been CEO at Tronics for nine months. The company manufactures using a breadth of conventional He discusses plans for the company and directions for the com- MEMS technologies as well as developing new ones. “We are plex and diverse MEMS technology sector. characterized by a great number and type of projects,” said Tronics Microsystems SA (Grenoble, France) was formed in Langlois. “We make inertial accelerometers, gyroscopes, also 1997 as a spin out from the French government owned CEA- RF-MEMS switches, MEMS for blood diagnostics, for medical Leti research laboratories to commercialize customer-specific DNA, micro-mirror and optical MEMS technologies. We are a MEMS manufacturing technology. broadline foundry,” he said. In September 2013, the company ap- As well as offering diverse manufactur- pointed semiconductor veteran Pascal ing processes, Tronics strives to maintain a Langlois as CEO and there are signs that diverse client base. “Some are fabless – we Langlois now plans to move things along; are supporting DelfMEMS in RF-MEMS introducing new technologies, pushing into for example; we have a number of fabless new application sectors and taking the customers in consumer and things like dis- company to an initial public offering (IPO) of posable medical. But we also have OEMs shares. that want to add miniaturization to their Langlois had previously been chief sales products and we have high volume semi- and marketing at ST-Ericsson, the ill-fated conductor IDMs that want to outsource mobile processor joint venture. Before that production,” said Langlois. Langlois had served NXP Semiconductors Is there a trend towards fabless custom- as sales and marketing senior vice president. ers as MEMS moves towards a fabless/ Before that he had come to Philips Semi- foundry business model? It’s not as simple conductors along with its acquisition of VLSI as that Langlois said. “There are many new Technology Inc. in 1999. Pascal Langlois, Tronics’ CEO “We have customers getting interested in MEMS in all But with a history in traditional CMOS plans to move to 8-inch wafers when categories; fabless, OEMs, IDMs. Many are integrated circuits Langlois has had to coming to us for our micromachining tool- necessary, within 2 or 3 years”. adapt. A MEMS foundry is not the same as set to do things beyond classical MEMS; a conventional CMOS logic foundry. It is much smaller in terms micropackaging, integration of optics and electronics, metal of wafer throughput – because MEMS elements themselves are deposition and so forth.” so small – and much more diverse. Each product can require a unique twist on a more generic MEMS manufacturing process Piezoresistive M&NEMS and the work Tronics does often extends into custom packag- Tronics has 6-inch wafer fabs in Grenoble and Dallas. The first ing and IP creation alongside its customers, which are more is capable of 10k wafers per year and the second 50k wafers like partners. It even sees Tronics making some products under per year. And for some consumer MEMS production Tronics its own name, something that is frowned upon in the CMOS outsources production to a 200mm wafer fab in Asia. domain because of issues of competing with customers. Could that partner be Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Globalfoundries or United Microelectronics Corp. all of “We are doing a few things under our own name. High per- which have initiatives to get into MEMS production? formance inertial accelerometers and gyroscopes are some of Langlois declined to say who the manufacturing partner is, or them. There are special reasons behind for that,” said Langlois. to share information about Tronics’ own manufacturing capacity This is mainly where Tronics is manufacturing for military cus- utilization. For now the manufacturing resources are enough he tomers who wish the MEMS to be manufactured in continental said. “We have plans to move to 8-inch wafers when necessary, Europe for strategic supply-chain reasons. “But foundry is the within 2 or 3 years. Much of the equipment is already 200mm main part of our business with operations in Grenoble and capable.” How soon that upgrade takes place may depend on Dallas with 70 and 20 people at those locations, respectively. whether a particular technology being introduced by Tronics About 70 percent of our revenue is foundry and the rest in other finds favor in the industry. business,” Langlois told EE Times Europe. In 2013 Tronics announced that had taken a license to industrialize CEA-Leti’s Micro and Nano Electromechanical Sys- To date Tronics has not generally tried to compete in the tems technology (M&NEMS), which is based on piezoresistive lower accuracy, fast moving consumer business. It prefers to nanowires, rather than capacitive detection of moving mass. build engineering relationships with customers and create high The promise was that the technology would allow inertial MEMS value add MEMS sensors. This is reflected in the breakdown of for accelerometers, gyroscopes, magnetometer and pressure sales which is about 70 percent in industrial sector, 15 percent sensors to be built on one manufacturing platform with a much in aerospace, military and security and about 10 percent in smaller die area than conventional methods. The high-levels life-sciences by way of so-called bioMEMS. “We have small of integration and commonality should also simplify the con- percentage in the consumer sector,” said Langlois. trol and readout circuitry resulting in smaller, lower cost, lower But Langlois’ background is in mobile and consumer elec- power consumption inertial MEMS sensors. tronics. Could that small percentage in consumer be about to In February 2014 Tronics announced it had developed change? 6-degrees-of-freedom (6DOF) MEMS chips based on the

16 Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 www.electronics-eetimes.com piezoresistive nanowire technology and had an as yet unnamed So how does Langlois see the MEMS industry developing? lead customer. “We are making good progress. This is mainly an Will it evolve into a fabless/foundry model following the blue- inertial product for consumer applications. We are also working print established by CMOS logic? on a 9-DOF MEMS component in design phase,” said Langlois. Langlois does not see things so simply. “Disruptive technolo- But clearly the consumer market for inertial measurement gies can come into a market from time to time – like M&NEMS units in smartphones and tablets is so large that if M&NEMS – and that could enable new foundries and a new generation technology can demonstrate a clear advantage it could make a of fabless startups. But that development could be specific dramatic difference to Tronics’ production requirements or put to certain markets. The inertial MEMS sensor market is quite pressure on it to share the technology with other manufacturers. mature and perhaps that creates an opportunity to differentiate Langlois indicates that will be a nice problem to have, if and in design. In other markets technologies may be less mature, when it arises, but for now Tronics has its license from CEA-Leti have lower economies of scale and the idea of deep partnership as well as patents of its own that it has filed and manufacturing may remain.” know-how that is difficult to replicate quickly. “We also have “The good news is there is a lot of growth for sensors. I am TSV [through silicon via] technology which we are using with not sure whether it is a trillion but the megatrend is there. It is RF-MEMS and which could be applied to piezo nanowire,” said not just for the internet of things (IoT) but also for things like me- Langlois. chanical miniaturization, for things like more sensors in avionics, The company is still privately held even though it has been in life-sciences, more connected sensors and wireless.” in existence for nearly 20 years. But in the last few years – as Langlois added that Tronics is already involved in work on MEMS have taken off in consumer but with increased adop- sensor fusion where it has cooperated with Movea SA, another tion in other sectors as well – the market has started to move CEA-Leti spin-off that is being acquired by InvenSense Inc. (San towards Tronics. The company is backed by a team of venture Jose, Calif.). capitalists including CEA Investissement, which specializes in “Sensor fusion is a discussion in itself but there is also the nurturing CEA-Leti spin offs, but apparently is now profitable electronic treatment of the signal. There is the combination of and doesn’t need to raise more venture capital. But it probably the quality of the sensor and the mathematical capabilities. We does need to pay back the patient money that has supported have to enrich our capabilities in these fields,” he said. “But the company. “We are preparing for an IPO within about six MEMS is a hot area right now. There is a proliferation of people months,” said Langlois. He added that the company would coming with new ideas. It’s a very exciting area to be working launch in Paris on the Euronext market. in,” Langlois concluded.

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Google Glass’ killer app: surveillance Redefining RF and By Julien Happich

About a month ago, Google was announcing its first Glass events, giving access to first-person video footage of celebrity Microwave Instrumentation at Work certified partners. One of them, CrowdOptic promises basketball players, or enabling fans to exchange their viewpoint to give super vision powers to the Glass wearer. The company of a game as if they were swapping seats, the consumer market with open software and modular hardware has come up with a real-time video sorting and streaming is probably a drop in the bucket. platform capable of gathering multiple Glass video streams from The surveillance and law enforcement markets could be different locations and organize them so as to broadcast them much larger, admits Fisher who is in talks with a number of to other wearers wanting a different video perspective of the public safety agencies. “I can ‘inherit’ the view of a low-orbiting same event they are watching. satellite or a drone or any device,” Fisher said during the inter- The main task of the cloud-based CrowdOptic platform is view, “You can beam into something 10,000 meters away that to organize the video streams into clusters of video footage you can’t see with the naked eye.” with intersecting sightlines (i.e when different wearers look at Fisher discarded any consumer privacy issues, arguing that the same thing but from different locations), so as to make the the super human powers that this technology provides are quite

video footage searchable by geolocation and field of view. an offset to any privacy issues, i.e, trade-off your privacy for To do so, the CrowdOptic platform relies on the sensor data super powers. provided by Glass (or any other sensor-laden video camera or Google Glass units ship pre‐loaded with the CrowdOptic smartphone) such as GPS position, compass orientation, and Broadcast app, to support both the Broadcast‐in and Broad- accelerometer tilt to calculate the line of sight and the sightline cast‐out scenario including for Android and iOS smartphones. distance for each user. This so-called focal data is associated Now, for the better good, will the application ask you if accept Achieve speed, accuracy and flexibility in your RF and microwave test applications WIRELESS TECHNOLOGIES with each media file and verified for legitimacy and accuracy. to share your video footage with law enforcement agencies or by combining National Instruments open software and modular hardware. Unlike National Instruments supports a broad Every second, a Cluster Detection Server calculates the will it just be part of an explicit trade-off: no data shared – no rigid traditional instruments that quickly become obsolete by advancing technology, range of wireless standards, including: intersection points created by the different video streams, run- service? LTE GSM/EDGE ning cluster detection routines to group the intersection points, Video streaming across users isn’t new. Until last April, Cali- the system design software of NI LabVIEW, coupled with NI PXI hardware, puts 802.11a/b/g/n/ac CDMA2000/EV-DO explains the company in its technical brochure. fornian company Looxcie, Inc. was in the consumer business, the latest advances in PC buses, processors and FPGAs at your fingertips. Using proprietary algorithms, the company can then search offering wearable cameras and a streaming video service for the WCDMA/HSPA/HSPA+ Bluetooth through and filter content from any given cluster to find the recorded media. most relevant, crowd-sourced content. With the crowd-sourced But the company recently closed its consumer line of cam- video streams, the Broadcast‐in option allows a user to inherit eras, services and support to focus on the enterprise business >> Learn more at ni.com/redefine the video feed from another wearer, while the Broadcast-out under the Vidcie brand. Following a recent partnership with Ge- option allows a wearer to broadcast a live video. netec, a provider of unified IP security solutions, the company Follow us on Search National Instruments or LabVIEW “Ultimately, this could lead to real time searches of the real now concentrates on mobile live video streaming services for world” said CrowdOptic’s CEO Jon Fisher in an interview with law enforcement officers and security personnel using hands- Austria 43 662 457990 0 n Belgium 32 (0) 2 757 0020 n Czech Republic, Slovakia 420 224 235 774 n Denmark 45 45 76 26 00 CBN. free on-body cameras. At least in this use-case, the company Finland 358 (0) 9 725 72511 n France 33 (0) 8 20 20 0414 n Germany 49 89 7413130 n Hungary 36 23 448 900 n Ireland 353 (0) 1867 4374 Although these video streaming and broadcasting services seems to be evading the privacy issues. Israel 972 3 6393737 n Italy 39 02 41309277 Netherlands 31 (0) 348 433 466 n Norway 47 (0) 66 90 76 60 n Poland 48 22 328 90 10 where initially demonstrated and promoted through sports Portugal 351 210 311 210 n Russia 7 495 783 6851 n Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia 386 3 425 42 00 Spain 34 (91) 640 0085 n Sweden 46 (0) 8 587 895 00 n Switzerland 41 56 2005151 n UK 44 (0) 1635 517300

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Redefining RF EET E 210x297 Euro.indd 1 22/08/2014 14:39 LabVIEW 2014 NOW AVAILABLE!NEW

Redefining RF and Microwave Instrumentation with open software and modular hardware

Achieve speed, accuracy and flexibility in your RF and microwave test applications WIRELESS TECHNOLOGIES by combining National Instruments open software and modular hardware. Unlike National Instruments supports a broad rigid traditional instruments that quickly become obsolete by advancing technology, range of wireless standards, including: the system design software of NI LabVIEW, coupled with NI PXI hardware, puts LTE GSM/EDGE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac CDMA2000/EV-DO the latest advances in PC buses, processors and FPGAs at your fingertips. WCDMA/HSPA/HSPA+ Bluetooth

>> Learn more at ni.com/redefine

Austria 43 662 457990 0 n Belgium 32 (0) 2 757 0020 n Czech Republic, Slovakia 420 224 235 774 n Denmark 45 45 76 26 00 Finland 358 (0) 9 725 72511 n France 33 (0) 8 20 20 0414 n Germany 49 89 7413130 n Hungary 36 23 448 900 n Ireland 353 (0) 1867 4374 Israel 972 3 6393737 n Italy 39 02 41309277 Netherlands 31 (0) 348 433 466 n Norway 47 (0) 66 90 76 60 n Poland 48 22 328 90 10 Portugal 351 210 311 210 n Russia 7 495 783 6851 n Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia 386 3 425 42 00 Spain 34 (91) 640 0085 n Sweden 46 (0) 8 587 895 00 n Switzerland 41 56 2005151 n UK 44 (0) 1635 517300

©2014 National Instruments. All rights reserved. LabVIEW, National Instruments, NI and ni.com are trademarks of National Instruments. Other product and company names listed are trademarks or trade names of their respective companies. 04749

Redefining RF EET E 210x297 Euro.indd 1 22/08/2014 14:39 ENERGY HARVESTING

Spray-on solar cells reduce solar power costs

By Paul Buckley

A team of scientists at the University of Sheffield are sive materials like silicon, perovskites, by comparison, requires claiming to be the first to fabricate perovskite solar cells using much less energy to make. By spray-painting the perovskite a spray-painting process which could help cut the cost of solar layer in air the team hope the overall energy used to make a electricity. solar cell can be reduced further. Experts from Sheffield Universitys Department of Physics Professor Lidzey said: The best certified efficiencies from- or and Astronomy and De- ganic solar cells are around partment of Chemical and 10 per cent. Perovskite cells Biological Engineering have now have efficiencies of up previously used the spray- to 19 per cent. This is not painting method to produce so far behind that of silicon solar cells using organic at 25 per cent - the material semiconductors - but using that dominates the world- perovskite is a major step wide solar market. forward. The perovskite devices Efficient organometal we have created still use halide perovskite based similar structures to organic photovoltaics were first cells. What we have done demonstrated in 2012. is replace the key light ab- They are now a promis- sorbing layer - the organic ing new material for solar layer - with a spray-painted cells as they combine high perovskite.” efficiency with low materials Using a perovskite ab- costs. The spray-painting sorber instead of an organic process wastes little of the absorber gives a significant perovskite material and can be scaled to high volume manufac- boost in terms of efficiency. The Sheffield team found that by turing similar to applying paint to cars and graphic printing. spray-painting the perovskite they could make prototype solar Lead researcher Professor David Lidzey said: There is a lot cells with efficiency of up to 11 per cent. of excitement around perovskite based photovoltaics. Remark- Professor Lidzey said: This study advances existing work ably, this class of material offers the potential to combine the where the perovskite layer has been deposited from solution high performance of mature solar cell technologies with the low using laboratory scale techniques. Its a significant step towards embedded energy costs of production of organic photovoltaics. efficient, low-cost solar cell devices made using high volume While most solar cells are manufactured using energy inten- roll-to-roll processing methods. Tattoo biobatteries produce power from sweat By Paul Buckley

Researchers University of California San Diego have designed a sensor in the form of a temporary tattoo that can both monitor a person’s progress during exercise and the tattoo biobatteries can also produce power from the perspiration. The research team described their work at the 248th National Meet- ing & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

The device works by detecting and responding to lactate, which is naturally present in sweat. Lactate is a very important indicator of how you are doing during exercise, explained Wen- zhao Jia, Ph.D. In general, the more intense the exercise, the more lactate the body produces. During strenuous physical activity, the body needs to generate more energy, so it activates a process called glycolysis. Glycolysis produces energy and lactate, the latter of which scientists can detect in the blood.

20 Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 www.electronics-eetimes.com Professional athletes monitor their lactate levels during per- in size and generate about 4 microWatts - a bit small to gener- formance testing as a way to evaluate their fitness and training ate enough power to run a watch, for example, which requires program. In addition, doctors measure lactate during exercise at least 10 microWatts. So besides working to get higher power, testing of patients for conditions marked by abnormally high we also need to leverage electronics to store the generated cur- lactate levels, such as heart or lung disease. Currently, lactate rent and make it sufficient for these requirements. testing is inconvenient and intrusive because blood samples Biobatteries offer certain advantages over conventional must be collected from the person at different times during the batteries: they recharge more quickly, use renewable energy exercise regime and then analyzed. sources (in this case, sweat), and are safer because they do not explode or leak toxic chemicals. These represent the first Jia, a postdoctoral student in the lab of Joseph Wang, D.Sc., examples of epidermal electrochemical biosensing and biofuel at the University of California San Diego, and her colleagues de- cells that could potentially be used for a wide range of future veloped a faster, easier and more comfortable way to measure applications, said Wang. lactate during exercise. They imprinted a flexible lactate sensor onto temporary tattoo paper. The sensor contained an enzyme that strips electrons from lactate, generating a weak electrical current. The researchers applied the tattoo to the upper arms of 10 healthy volunteers. Then the team measured the electrical current produced as the volunteers exercised at increasing resistance levels on a stationary bicycle for 30 minutes. In this way, they could continuously monitor sweat lactate levels over time and with changes in exercise intensity. The team then went a step further, building on these findings to make a sweat-powered biobattery. Batteries produce energy by passing current, in the form of electrons, from an anode to a cathode. In this case, the anode contained the enzyme that removes electrons from lactate, and the cathode No Boundaries contained a molecule that accepts the electrons. Our mission-critical resistors are truly out of

When 15 volunteers wore the tat- this world. In fact, soon they will be out of our too biobatteries while exercising on a solar system, helping NASA’s Voyager spacecraft stationary bike, they produced different amounts of power. Interestingly, people travel where no Earth craft has gone before. who were less fit (exercising fewer than once a week) produced more power Thirty-ﬁ ve years and 11 billion miles... than those who were moderately fit (exercising one to three times per week). Now that’s reliability. Enthusiasts who worked out more than three times per week produced the least amount of power. The researchers say that this is probably because the less-fit State of the Art, Inc. people became fatigued sooner, caus- ing glycolysis to kick in earlier, forming RESISTIVE PRODUCTS more lactate. The maximum amount of energy produced by a person in the low-fitness group was 70 microWatts per cm2 of skin.

“The current produced is not that high, but we are working on enhanc- ing it so that eventually we could power some small electronic devices”, explained Jia. “Right now, we can get Made in the USA. a maximum of 70 microWatts per cm2, but our electrodes are only 2 by 3 mm www.electronics-eetimes.com Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 21 ENERGY HARVESTING

Control from the light perspective

By Matthias Kassner

Few applications have been transformed as radically in re- dimmers which work by modifying the power supply to the cent years as lighting. Well-established products such as incan- lamp, has been the standard control method since the invention descent or fluorescent lamps are increasingly being replaced by of electric lighting. This approach enables direct control of lights LED-based solutions, which consume significantly less power but requires adequate cabling and equipment for dealing with and offer the option of tuning their lighting colour. mains voltage levels.

This shift in fundamental light source technology requires Low-cost wired control more advanced driver circuitry, which in turn results in an The more recent approach in wired control systems is to sepa- increased amount of electronics being integrated into lamps rate the power delivery from the control signals, allowing lower and luminaires. It is only natural to extend the basic electronic cost electronic control solutions dealing only with low voltages. functionality required for driving the lamp with additional com- Such solutions should enable simple, low-cost wiring and con- munication technology to enable remote lighting control. trol of individual lights or group of lights. In addition, they should LED lighting control can implement three fundamental func- offer feedback channel from the light to the controller and sup- tions, which are switching the light on and off, modifying the port additional device types, such as sensors, in the network. light intensity and changing the colour of the light. The first two functions are long established with basic switches and more A variety of different standards has emerged for wired light- advanced phase control dimmers having been available for ing control that meets some or all of these criteria. Two repre- many decades. Recent trends focus on automating dimming sentative examples are and switching based on external factors such as ambient light- 0–10V/1–10V Dimming & Control and DALI (Digital Address- ing or the presence of persons. able Lighting Interface). 0–10V/1–10V Dimming & Control is probably the simplest Focus on the user’s needs form of lighting control. Energy-efficient buildings today need to dynamically adjust their It is based on an analogue control signal ranging from 0V lighting based on actual needs, meaning that lights have to be indicating 0 percent brightness (equivalent to OFF state) to 10V, switched off automatically if no person is present. According which indicates 100 percent brightness (equivalent to ON state) to the Lighting Industry Association, the combination of pres- with linear scaling in between. ence detection and daylight-linked dimming can save up to 75 percent on fluorescent lighting. In doing so, however, they need to avoid situations where only a limited area in a bigger area is illuminated (so-called “island lighting”) as this might create a perception of insecurity or poor concentration.

The second function – modifying the colour of an individual light – is a more recent addition, which has already seen significant growth, driven primarily by multi-colour LED lamps. Such lamps can output a variable colour light which either spans the traditional white range somewhere Fig. 1: Different Bus Topologies for 0–10V Control from 2.700K (warm white) to 6.500K (cold white) or even output coloured light. Several light sources (especially dimmable fluorescent lamps) are limited in the dimming range and do not allow smooth Key factor lighting control dimming all the way to 0 percent. For these devices, a slightly Lighting control is a key factor in many applications. Modern modified scheme called 1–10V is used. lighting control must not only enable interaction between lights, This provides control voltages between 1V (equivalent to switches and sensors but it must also provide communication minimum dimming level) and 10V (maximum dimming level) sim- between the individual lights themselves to synchronise their ilar to 0–10V. In addition, the 0V output state is used to trigger status. the shut-off of the light source, for instance via a relay. 0–10V Wired control, in the form of switches and, more recently, control is still commonly used due to its simplicity, which allows easy integration into simple user interfaces such as dimming Matthias Kassner is Product Marketing Director at EnOcean – sliders. www.enocean.com – He can be reached at [email protected]

22 Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 www.electronics-eetimes.com Fig. 2: Principle of Manchester Encoding based on a two-wire bus using the following parameters: The limits of wiring * Asynchronous – there is no dedicated clock line (wire) Wiring effort for more complex use cases as well as limited flex- * Half-duplex – at any time, you can either send data or ibility to adapt to changing requirements limits the use of simple receive data, but not both 0–10V control. To illustrate the point, consider a simple scenario * Data rate of 1200 Bit per second based on Manchester of four lights being controlled via 0–10V. Encoding – see figure 2 – the clock is encoded as part of the There are two options for doing so – see figure 1. data stream. * You can connect all of them to the same bus and accept Note the encoding of the Bits as rising and falling edges of that all will have the same light intensity. This will result in sim- the data line. Only the data signal is actually transmitted, the plified wiring and requires only a simple controller. clock signal is shown here for reference only. * You can connect each of them individually to a multi-chan- In a DALI system, one control device can communicate with nel 0–10V controller in order to set individual light levels. This up to 64 control gears. These 64 control gears can either be ad- will require more complex wiring and a more powerful controller. dressed individually, as part of a group (up to 16 groups can be From this, it becomes clear that wiring complexity grows defined) or altogether via a broadcast. significantly once the system is required to control a set of lights This group and broadcast mechanisms address one key together. Furthermore, an upgrade from a simple scenario (on limitation of the low Bit rate, which reduces the available system the left) to an advanced control (on the right) cannot be realised bandwidth and potentially increases latency in situation where without costly changes of the existing wiring and the controller. many command exchanges need to take place (for example, to In addition, there is no provision for a feedback channel and it is switch on a large number of lights simultaneously). almost impossible to include sensors, for example, for occu- In addition, up to 16 light scenes can be defined for tailored pancy detection, to achieve optimal energy saving rates. lighting. These characteristics make DALI well suited for wired These disadvantages combined lead to 0–10V control being lighting control where advanced control is required. used predominantly in simpler installations where advanced features are not required. Wired versus wireless Several standards exist for wired communication between light Smart wired lighting control sensors and controlling devices such as switches. They enable In contrast to 0–10V/1–10V, DALI lighting control based on a advanced control scenarios while providing reliable commu- digital protocol can address complex scenarios. The basic idea nication at the same time. However, in retrofit projects, the is to connect a number of devices onto a bidirectional data installation of wired control can be complex, costly and time- bus and identify individual devices by means of unique device consuming. Modernising an existing building with wired control addresses. These devices can then individually receive control systems requires the addition of dedicated control cabling to commands and even respond with a status update. each individual lamp. Each element, such as switches, sensors, From a technology perspective, DALI is a serial protocol lights, in these systems requires dedicated cabling.

ISO9001:2008

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The wireless option Wireless control has increased in popularity in the last decade due to advances in radio technology and the emergence of standards such as ZigBee or EnOcean protocol, which standardise communication between different devices. The key advantage of wireless control is the ease of upgrading existing buildings. No new control wiring is required for existing lights; rather they only have to be upgraded with wireless control units. Wireless control systems can potentially also provide greater installation Fig. 3: Components of Energy Harvesting Wireless Control flexibility if units within the system do not require dedicated cabling for power supply. Standardised communication There are three different types of wireless control: The amount of energy harvested from these two environmental 1. Wireless devices requiring an external power supply sources is lower than battery power. Therefore, the wireless Such devices can increase system performance by enabling communication and the protocol in use respectively need to advanced control schemes but rely on an existing cabling infra- be optimised for ultra-low power operation. The international structure. The flexibility of such solutions is therefore limited and standard ISO/IEC 14543-3-10 is a protocol which is particularly the cabling cost remains a factor. A suitable application would suited for energy harvesting applications, using only 7 bytes of be a line-powered light control system such as light ballast or protocol overhead for the transmission of 1 byte of sensor data relay. - see figure 4.

2. Wireless devices requiring a battery RF reliability is assured because wireless signals are less Wireless controls with batteries combine the advantages of than one millisecond in duration and are transmitted multiple system performance and flexibility. They require no dedicated times for redundancy. The range of the protocol is approxi- cabling meaning that switches and sensors can be freely placed mately 300 metres in an open field and up to 30 metres inside during initial installation and subsequent reconfigurations. buildings. These characteristics make the ISO/IEC standard well The key challenge with battery-powered devices is the suited for wireless lighting control in larger buildings with a few aspect of maintenance, specifically the need for battery replace- hundred wireless sensor nodes up to several thousand. ment. Acceptance for non-working light switches tends to be There are also sub protocols from other existing wireless low so battery maintenance must be carefully planned and sys- standards that offer ultra-low power radio to be operated by tematically executed. The associated cost needs to be carefully energy harvesting. The sub protocols of the worldwide opened considered. 2.4 GHz ISM band are a good example. The range is only one third compared to the ISO/IEC standard but it is ideally suited 3. Self-powered wireless devices for consumer LED lighting control. Advances in electronics and dedicated research have made self-powered wireless sensors and switches feasible for over Here, 2.4 GHz protocols are of common use and, therefore, a decade. They offer the advantages of wireless devices while enable the user to integrate self-powered wireless control in his at the same time eliminating the issue of maintenance – see intelligent lighting scenery environment. The batteryless switch figure 3. in 2.4 GHz is the ideal fit for domestic LED lighting systems. It is the missing link between the LED bulb and the user, anytime the For lighting control purposes, the two main energy sources use of a smartphone app is not possible or is inconvenient. for battery-less wireless devices are motion and light. Self- powered switches use kinetic energy to generate a Today, lighting control is much more than just switching lights wireless signal for controlling and dimming. The press of the on and off. It is an integrated system which supports the users’ switch activates an electro-mechanical energy harvester, which comfort, influences their perception of goods and is a signifi- converts the motion into electricity to power a wireless module. cant energy saving factor in buildings. There are several ways of One press is sufficient to send three telegrams. realising lighting control to match individual needs. LED lighting, The second energy source is opened up by miniaturised in particular, offers a wealth of new possibilities. solar cells, which harvest ambient light already from 200 Lux Choosing wired or wireless control is not a question of faith. and convert it to electrical energy. This approach is particularly Local conditions, time and installation effort as well as initial suitable for light intensity or occupancy sensors. investment and operational costs all have to be taken into Fig. 4: Protocol Structure of ISO/IEC 14543-3-10 consideration to reach an optimal solution. In most cases, a combination of both will be the perfect fit.

24 Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 www.electronics-eetimes.com An inflexion point for energy harvesting and IoT is nigh

By Tony Armstrong The portable power application space is both broad and diverse. Products range from wireless sensor nodes (WSNs) that consume average power measured in microwatts to cart- based medical or data acquisition systems with multi-hundred Watt-hour battery packs.

However, despite this variety, a few trends have emerged; namely, designers continue to demand more power in their products to support increased functionality and they want to charge the battery from any available power source. The first trend would imply increasing battery capacities. Unfortunately, users are often impatient and these increased capacities must be charged in a reasonable amount of time, which leads to increased charge currents. The second trend requires tremen- dous flexibility from the battery charging solution since they need to handle a broad range of input sources and power. Furthermore, the proliferation of wireless sensors supporting the “Internet of Things” (IoT) has increased the demand for small, Tony Armstrong is Director of Product Marketing at Linear compact and efficient power converters tailored to untethered Technology Corporation – www.linear.com lower power devices.

www.electronics-eetimes.com Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 25 ENERGY HARVESTING

One of the more recent emerging market segments covered under the IoT which is particularly interesting from an energy harvesting perspective is the wearable electronics category. Although still in its infancy, this segment includes such products as Samsung Galaxy Gear and Google Glass. Nevertheless, one specific form factor that has garnered high expectations is that of the wrist watch. I am not talking about the Dick Tracy 1940s 2-way wrist radio in a wrist watch form factor from the classic American comic; I am referring to today’s versions which have voice and data communication, internet browsing and streaming video capabilities afforded via a Smart phone. There are many examples on the market already, a quick search on Amazon will show over a half-a-dozen such offerings, a prominent example being Qualcomm’s Toq. Nevertheless, it, and many others, look as if they are being overshadowed by the much anticipated and much rumored iWatch from Apple. Fig. 1. LTC3331 energy harvester & battery life extender. Of course, wearable technology is not just for humans, there the energy harvesting source depends on how long the source are many applications for animals too. Recent examples include is in operation. Therefore, the primary metric for comparison ultrasound-delivering treatment patches and electronic saddle of scavenged sources is power density, not energy density. EH optimization for horses to collars on other animals that variously is generally subject to low, variable and unpredictable levels track, identify, diagnose and so on. Regardless of the applica- of available power so a hybrid structure that interfaces to the tion, most of these devices require a battery as the main power harvester and a secondary power source is often used. The source. secondary source could be a re-chargeable battery or a storage However, for human-based applications, it looks like there capacitor (maybe even supercapacitors). will soon be wearable fabrics that can generate electricity from The harvester, because of its unlimited energy supply and the sun. You can think of them as “Power” suits! One company deficiency in power, is the energy source of the system. The at the forefront of such research is the European Union funded secondary power reservoir, either a battery or a capacitor, yields project Dephotex, which has developed methods to make pho- higher output power but stores less energy, supplying power tovoltaic material light and flexible enough to be worn. Naturally, when required but otherwise regularly receiving charge from the the material will convert photons into electrical energy, which harvester. Thus, in situations when there is no ambient energy can then be used to power various electronic devices worn by from which to harvest power, the secondary power reservoir the user, or to charge their primary batteries, or even a combi- must be used to power the down-stream electronic systems nation of both of these. or WSN. Of course, from a system designer’s perspective, this adds a further degree of complexity since they must now take Power conversion challenges into consideration how much energy must be stored in the At the low end of the power spectrum are the nanopower secondary reservoir to compensate for the lack of an ambient conversion requirements of energy harvesting systems such energy source. as those commonly found in WSNs that necessitate the use of power conversion ICs, which deal in very low levels of power Energy harvesting solutions and current. These can be 10s of microwatts and nanoamps of Fortunately for the designer of such systems, there exist a num- current, respectively. ber of power conversion ICs which have the necessary features State-of-the-art and off-the-shelf Energy Harvesting (EH) and performance characteristics to enable such low levels of technologies, for example in vibration energy harvesting and in- harvested power to be used in wearable technology applica- door or wearable photovoltaic cells, yield power levels in the or- tions. Linear Technology recently introduced its LTC3331 to der of milliwatts under typical operating conditions. While such specifically address this requirement, as illustrated in figure 1. power levels may appear restrictive, the operation of harvesting The LTC3331 is a complete regulating EH solution that deliv- elements over a number of years can ers up to 50mA of continuous output mean that the technologies are broadly current to extend battery life when comparable to long-life primary batter- harvestable energy is available. It re- ies, both in terms of energy provision quires no supply current from the bat- and the cost per energy unit provided. tery when providing regulated power Moreover, systems incorporating EH to the load from harvested energy and will typically be capable of recharg- only 950nA operating when pow- ing after depletion, something that ered from the battery under no-load systems powered by primary batteries conditions. The device integrates a cannot do. Nevertheless, most imple- high voltage EH power supply, plus a mentations will use an ambient energy synchronous buck-boost DC/DC con- source as the primary power source, verter powered from a rechargeable but will supplement it with a primary primary cell battery to create a single battery that can be switched in if the non-interruptible output for energy ambient energy source goes away or harvesting applications such as those is disrupted. Fig. 2. LTC3129 15V/200mA buck-boost converter. in WSNs. Of course, the energy provided by

26 Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 www.electronics-eetimes.com

The LTC3331’s EH power supply, consisting of a full-wave PicoScope bridge rectifier accommodating AC or DC inputs and a high efficiency synchronous buck converter, harvests energy from piezoelectric (AC), solar (DC) or magnetic (AC) sources. A 10mA PC- OSCILLOSCOPES shunt allows simple charging of the battery with harvested energy while a low battery disconnect function protects the For every application there’s a PicoScope battery from deep discharge. The rechargeable battery powers a synchronous buck-boost converter that operates from 1.8V to • Bandwidth from 5 MHz to 1 GHz 5.5V at its input and is used when harvested energy is not avail- • Sampling from 10 MS/s to 5 GS/s able to regulate the output whether the input is above, below or equal to the output. • Memory from 8 ks to 2 GS

The battery charger IC has a very important power manage- PICOSCOPE ment feature that cannot be overlooked when dealing with micro-power sources. The LTC3331 incorporates logical control of 6000 SERIES the battery charger such that it will only charge the battery when Ultimate performance, the energy harvested supply has excess energy. Without this now USB 3.0 logical function the energy harvested source would get stuck at startup at some non-optimal operating point and not be able to PICOSCOPE power the intended application through its startup. The chip automatically transitions to the battery when the harvesting source 5000 SERIES is no longer available. This has the added benefit of allowing the Flexible resolution battery operated WSN to extend its operating life from 10 years oscilloscopes to over 20 years if a suitable EH power source is available at least half of the time, and even longer if the EH source is more prevalent. A supercapacitor balancer is also integrated allowing PICOSCOPE for increased output storage. 4824 The LTC3129 is a synchronous buck-boost converter that 8 Channels, delivers up to 200mA of continuous output current from a wide high resolution variety inputs sources. These include single or multiple cell batteries as well as solar panel and supercapacitor inputs. Its 2.42V to 15V input range and 1.4V to 15.75V output range pro- PICOSCOPE vides a regulated output with inputs above, below or equal to the output. The low noise buck-boost topology incorporated in 3400 SERIES the LTC3129 provides a continuous transition through all of the High-performance operating modes, making it ideal for EH applications that must oscilloscopes maintain a constant output voltage even as the input source voltage declines below the output – see figure 2. The chip includes programmable maximum power point control (MPPC) capability which ensures maximum power extraction from non-ideal power sources such as photovoltaic cells. Quiescent current of only 1.3µA makes it ideal for always- on and energy harvesting applications in which extended battery run-time is of primary importance. Its constant 1.2MHz switching frequency ensures low noise and high efficiency while minimizing the size of the external components.

Conclusion Even though wearable applications with energy harvesting systems will have a broad range of power levels for their correct ALL MODELS INCLUDE FULL SOFTWARE AND 5 YEAR WARRANTY. operation, from microwatts to great than 1W, there are many SOFTWARE INCLUDES MEASUREMENTS, SPECTRUM ANALYZER, SDK, power conversion ICs available for selection by the system de- ADVANCED TRIGGERS, COLOR PERSISTENCE, SERIAL DECODING signer. However, it is at the lower end of the power range, where (CAN, LIN, RS232, I²C, I²S, FLEXRAY, SPI), MASKS, MATH CHANNELS, nanoamps of currents need to be converted. That’s where the ALL AS STANDARD, WITH FREE UPDATES. choice becomes limited. Fortunately, the LTC3331 energy harvester and battery life extender, along with the LTC3129 low power synchronous PicoScope software is now buck-boost converter provide extremely low quiescent currents, making them ideal for a broad range of low power applications. available for Linux in full release, Quiescent currents of less than 1.3µA prolong battery life for and for MAC in beta keep-alive circuits in portable and wearable electronics, while allowing a new generation of EH applications. This is good news indeed since we are moving toward the inflexion point for www.picotech.com/PS340 energy harvesting and the internet of things. www.electronics-eetimes.com Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 27 PROGRAMMABLE LOGIC

Implementing FPGA design with the OpenCL standard

By Deshanand Singh

The initial era of programmable technologies contained two different extremes of programmability. One extreme was represented by single core CPU and DSP units. These devices were programmable using software consisting of a list of instructions to be executed. Instructions were created in a manner that was conceptually sequential to the programmer, although an advanced Fig. 1: Recent trend of programmable and parallel technologies. processor could reorder instructions to extract instruction-level parallelism from these sequential programs have 2, 4, or 8 cores, to GPUs consisting of hundreds of simple at run time. In contrast, the other extreme of programmable cores optimized for data-parallel computation. To achieve high technology was represented by the FPGA. These devices are performance on these multicore devices, the programmer must programmed by creating configurable hardware circuits, which explicitly code their applications in a parallel fashion. Each core execute completely in parallel. A designer using an FPGA is must be assigned work in such a way that all cores can cooper- essentially creating a massively fine-grained parallel application. ate to execute a particular computation. This is also exactly For many years, these extremes coexisted with each type of what FPGA designers do to create their high-level system programmability being applied to different application domains. architectures. However, recent trends in technology scaling have favored technologies that are both programmable and parallel. Considering the need for creating parallel programs for The second trend that the software programmable devices the emerging multicore era, the OpenCL (Open Computing relied on was the emergence of complex hardware that would Language) was created in an effort to create a cross-platform extract instruction-level parallelism from sequential programs. parallel programming standard. The OpenCL standard inher- A single-core architecture would input a stream of instructions ently offers the ability to describe parallel algorithms to be and execute them on a device that might have many parallel implemented on FPGAs, at a much higher level of abstraction functional units. A significant fraction of the processor hardware than hardware description languages (HDLs) such as VHDL or must be dedicated to extracting parallelism dynamically from Verilog. Although many high-level synthesis tools exist for gain- the sequential code. Additionally, hardware attempted to coming this higher level of abstraction, they have all suffered from pensate for memory latencies. Generally, programmers create the same fundamental problem. These tools would attempt programs without consideration of the processor’s underlying to take in a sequential C program and produce a parallel HDL memory hierarchy, as if there were only a large, flat, uniformly implementation. The difficulty was not so much in the creation fast memory. In contrast, the processor must deal with the of a HDL implementation, but rather in the extraction of thread- physical realities of high-latency and limited bandwidth connec- level parallelism that would allow the FPGA implementation to tions to external memory. In order to keep functional units fed achieve high performance. With FPGAs being on the furthest with data, the processor must also speculatively pre-fetch data from external memory into on-chip caches so that the data is much closer to where the computation is being performed. After many decades of performance improvements using these techniques, there have been greatly diminishing returns from these types of architectures. Given the diminishing benefits of these two trends on conventional processor architectures, we are beginning to see that the spectrum of software-programmable devices is now evolving significantly, as shown in figure 1. The emphasis is shifting from automatically extracting instruction-level parallelism at run time to explicitly identifying thread-level parallelism at coding time. Highly parallel multicore devices are beginning to emerge with a general trend of containing multiple simpler processors where more of the transistors are dedicated to computation rather than caching and extraction of parallelism. These devices range from multicore CPUs, which commonly

Deshanand Singh is Supervising Principal Engineer for Software Fig. 2: Example of OpenCL implementation on an FPGA. and IP Engineering at Altera Corporation – www.altera.com

28 Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 www.electronics-eetimes.com Harwin Gecko EETImes Europe third page Sept 14.qx

extreme of the parallel spectrum, any failure to extract maximum parallelism is more crippling than on other devices. The OpenCL standard solves many of these problems by allowing the programmer to explicitly specify and control parallelism. The OpenCL standard more naturally matches the highly-parallel nature of FPGAs than do sequential programs described in pure C. OpenCL applications consist of two parts. The OpenCL host program is a pure software routine written in standard C/C++ that runs on any sort of microprocessor. That processor may be, for example, an embedded soft processor in an FPGA, a hard ARM processor, or an external x86 processor. At a certain point during the execution of this host software routine, there is likely to be a function that is computationally expensive and can benefit from the highly parallel acceleration on a more parallel device: a CPU, GPU, FPGA, etc. This function to be accelerated is referred to as an OpenCL kernel. These kernels are written in standard C; however, they are annotated with constructs to specify parallelism and memory hierarchy. The example shown in figure 2 performs the vector addition of two arrays, a and b, while writing the results back to an output array answer. Parallel threads operate on the each element of the vector, allowing the result to be computed much more quickly when it is accelerated by a device that offers massive amounts of fine-grained parallelism such as an FPGA. The host program has access to standard OpenCL APIs that allow data to be transferred to the FPGA, invoking the kernel on the FPGA and returning the resulting data. In FPGAs, kernel functions can be transformed into dedicated and deeply pipelined hardware circuits that are inherently multithreaded using the concept of pipeline parallelism. Each of these pipelines can be replicated many times to provide even more parallelism than is possible with a single pipeline. High Reliability in a Implementing the Open CL Standard on an FPGA compact package The creation of designs for FPGAs using an OpenCL description offers several advantages in comparison to traditional methodologies based on HDL design. Development for software programmable devices typically follows the flow of conceiving an idea, Harwin’s Gecko connectors coding the algorithm in a high-level language such as C, and then using an automatic provide high reliability under compiler to create the instruction stream. The Altera SDK for OpenCL provides a design environment to easily implement OpenCL applications on FPGAs – see figure 3. extreme conditions. This approach - Pin spacing 1.25mm can be contrasted with traditional - 2A per contact and FPGA-based design up to 1000 operations methodologies - Four-finger BeCu contact which requires the designer to cre- system (Patent Published) ate cycle-by-cycle - Pick and Place to descriptions of optimise production hardware that are used to implement - Comprehensive selection their algorithm. of cabling options available The traditional flow involves the creation - Locking latch with board of datapaths, state retention features machines to control Fig. 3: Altera SDK for OpenCL overview. those datapaths, connecting to low-level IP cores using system level tools, and handling the timing closure problems since external interfaces impose fixed constraints that must be met. The Altera SDK for OpenCL performs all of these steps automatically for the designers, allowing them to focus on defining their algorithm rather than focusing on the tedious details of hardware design. Designing in this way allows the designer to easily migrate to new FPGAs that offer better performance and higher capacities because For evaluation samples, the OpenCL compiler will transform the same high-level description into pipelines that take advantage of the new FPGAs. CAD models and technical Utilizing the OpenCL standard on an FPGA may offer significantly higher perfor- specifications go to: mance and at much lower power than is available today from hardware architectures (CPU, GPUs, etc). In addition, an FPGA-based heterogeneous system (CPU + FPGA) www.harwin-gecko.com using the OpenCL standard has a significant time-to-market advantage compared to traditional FPGA development using lower level hardware description languages (HDLs) such as Verilog or VHDL. www.electronics-eetimes.com Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 29 PROGRAMMABLE LOGIC CriticalCritical RecordingRecording in AnyAny ArenaArena Beating the mobile barcode block WhenWhen YouYou Can’tCan’t AffordAfford to Miss aa Beat!Beat!

By Ted Marena

The problem that barcode readers have with screens on most mobile devices can be overcome using a simple FPGA-based reference design Imagine being able to buy a gift card and text it to a friend. The card would contain a barcode that could be read from the mobile phone screen in the shop to redeem the gift. There is a snag though – traditional laser-based barcode readers cannot read a Fig. 1: The barcode emulator sits between the application processor and the LED. barcode displayed on an LCD, such as found on smartphones and other mobile devices. This is because the accommodated by changing the data acquisition depth of the laser bounces off the screen rather than reading the information. FIFO, creating an IO bridge between the LED and the processor or creating additional custom logic. However, it is possible to make an LED emulate the barcode When this FPGA is used in this application, it has a core reflection and actively transmit the information to generic bar- voltage of 1.2V and is available in a small 25-pin WLSCP code scanners. Basically, it creates a fake reflection that fools package with a 0.35mm ball pitch and a footprint of 1.71 by the scanner into thinking it is seeing a barcode. The scanner 1.71mm, which means it will fit into most smartphones. If space reads the data coming from the LED rather than reading the is not as critical, the device is also available in packages with a barcode and thinks it is seeing a barcode. 0.4mm ball pitch with either 36 balls measuring 2.5 by 2.5mm Though designed for mobile devices, this reference design or with 49 balls measuring 3 by 3mm. It will operate from -40 to can be used with any product that has an LED by transferring +100˚C. barcode data from the application processor to the LED; the design acts as the data control and buffer between the two and Functional operation is based on the iCE40LM ultra-low-power FPGA and sensor Figure 2 shows a block diagram of the functional operation of manager from Lattice Semiconductor - see figure 1. the design. Data are received from the processor, formatted and stored in a data buffer. The LED used could When the control com- be the back light for the mands are received and mobile phone’s screen, but processed, the barcode more commonly it would logic reads the buffer be one of the small LEDs content and converts the such as the flash LED, data into serial signals signal indicator LED or that drive the LED. It will selfie LED. This could be a continue to do this until it monochrome or white LED. receives a stop signal. ® As it is just creating a fake Introducing Pentek’s expanded line of Talon COTS, Pentek’s rugged turn-key recorders are built and reflection, the colour does The top level of the bar- rugged, portable and lab-based recorders.® Built to tested for fast, reliable and secure operation in your Introducing Pentek’s expanded line of Talon COTS, Pentek’s rugged turn-key recorders are built and not matter. code emulation is found in capture wideband SIGINT, radar and communication environment. tested for fast, reliable and secure operation in your The emulator con- a module that contains the rugged,signals portable right out-of-the-box: and lab-based recorders. Built to capture wideband SIGINT, radar and communication environment. nects to the application Fig. 2: Functional block diagram. SPI slave-to-application Call 201-818-5900 or go to processor via the SPI processor, control regis- signals• Analog right out-of-the-box: RF/IF, 10 GbE, LVDS, sFPDP solutions www.pentek.com/go/eettalon (serial peripheral interface) bus using a clock frequency set to ters, data buffer, barcode logic and power-on-reset module. The Call 201-818-5900 or go to • Real-time sustained recording to 4 GB/sec for your FREE High-Speed 10.8MHz to enable fast communications to and from the pro- firmware register and a counter are used to create the different • Analog• Recording RF/IF, and 10 GbE,playback LVDS, operation sFPDP solutions www.pentek.com/go/eettalonRecording Systems Handbook cessor. The iCE40LM prepares the data and sends them to the clock frequencies. • Real-time sustained recording to 4 GB/sec forand your Talon FREE Recording High-Speed Systems LED with the frequency, duration and interval required by Code The SPI interface-to-application processor is in the SPI slave • Analog signal bandwidths to 1.6 GHz • Recording and playback operation Recording Systems Handbook 39 barcode encoding. The correct frequency is achieved by module that waits until an interrupt is received from the proces- • Shock and vibration resistant Solid State Drives Catalog. and Talon Recording Systems using a dynamic clock generator that sweeps the frequencies at sor. When a read command is received, it sends commands • Analog• GPS time signal and bandwidths position stamping to 1.6 GHz ® which the LED emits the signal so it can be used by just about to the read registers. The module then receives the read data • Shock• Hot-swappable and vibration storage resistant to Windows Solid State NTFS Drives RAIDs Catalog. any barcode reader. The system operates at 27MHz and the SPI and sends them to the application processor. When a write • GPS• Remote time andoperation position & multi-system stamping synchronization ® ® bus should have a voltage of 1.8V and the LED a 3.3V input and command is received, it decodes the command and sends the • Hot-swappable• SystemFlow APIstorage & GUI to with Windows Signal NTFSAnalyzer RAIDs output. The reference design consumes just 356 LUTs (look-up appropriate data to the registers. • Remote• Complete operation documentation & multi-system & lifetime synchronization support ® tables), so it can fit into a device as small as an iCE40LM1K. • SystemFlow API & GUI with Signal Analyzer Because the design is based on an FPGA, it is fully custom- The module that contains the control registers and data buf- • Complete documentation & lifetime support isable. This means other barcode emulation standards can be fer stores the data for the LED in a buffer and decodes the control signals from the processor to initiate or stop data transmis- Ted Marena is Director of Product Marketing at Lattice sion to the LED. The control signals processed are code delay Semiconductor – www.latticesemi.com rate, code bit rate, number of cycles, start and stop. Additional

Pentek, Inc., One Park Way, Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458 • Phone: 201.818.5900 • Fax: 201.818.5904 • e-mail:[email protected] • www.pentek.com 30 Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 www.electronics-eetimes.com Worldwide Distribution & Support, Copyright © 2013 Pentek, Inc. Pentek, Talon and SystemFlow are trademarks of Pentek, Inc. Other trademarks are properties of their respective owners.

Pentek, Inc., One Park Way, Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458 • Phone: 201.818.5900 • Fax: 201.818.5904 • e-mail:[email protected] • www.pentek.com Worldwide Distribution & Support, Copyright © 2013 Pentek, Inc. Pentek, Talon and SystemFlow are trademarks of Pentek, Inc. Other trademarks are properties of their respective owners. CriticalCritical RecordingRecording in AnyAny ArenaArena WhenWhen YouYou Can’tCan’t AffordAfford to Miss aa Beat!Beat!

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Pentek, Inc., One Park Way, Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458 • Phone: 201.818.5900 • Fax: 201.818.5904 • e-mail:[email protected] • www.pentek.com Worldwide Distribution & Support, Copyright © 2013 Pentek, Inc. Pentek, Talon and SystemFlow are trademarks of Pentek, Inc. Other trademarks are properties of their respective owners. SCEU14_Ad_EETimes_210_297_pc_QKUGf_print.pdf 1 19.08.2014 15:00:14

PROGRAMMABLE LOGIC

control logic is used for writing and reading to the data buffer. include integrated SPI and I2C blocks to interface with virtually A barcode logic module contains the state machine to trans- all mobile sensors and application processors. Detailed descrip- mit data to the LED. Upon receiving the control signals, it reads tions of each block are available so users can customise the October 7–9 • Alpexpo • Grenoble , France the data buffer starting from address 0 and sends the read data design for use with alternative sensors. www.semiconeuropa.org serially to the LED. It also controls the duration of the serial data The design can generate different frequencies to match and uses the clock from the dynamic clock generator to sweep different barcode scanners on the market and is available as the frequencies of the LED signalling emitting rates. a full package including the barcode interface, Android driver, This design overcomes the problems of barcode scanners’ in- library and API support and, because of the FPGA base, can be ability to read barcodes on an LCD by using an LED to transmit quickly customised to user requirements. The result is the ability the information, effectively emulating the barcode reflection. At to implement paperless barcodes for digital coupons, gift cards, the heart of the design is the iCE40LM family of FPGAs, which loyalty programmes and so on.

Partitioning tool eases multi-FPGA-based prototyping

is Cadence’s second-generation FPGA prototyping platform for software development, it supports up to 100 million gates. EXHIBITION AREAS Featuring Palladium flow compatibility is another key advantage of the tool, since according the company, 95% of emula- • Semiconductor Manufacturing tion users are also using FPGA-based prototyping. Equipment for Front-End and Back-End, Cadence Design Systems has added the Protium rapid pro- Materials and Services totyping platform to its System Development Suite, claiming The Protium platform enables software development and PROGRAM TOPICS a 4X increase in capacity versus the previous generation but throughput regressions supported by a fully automatic flow • Electronic Components and Design (new) • Semiconductor Technology including more importantly, reducing prototype bring-up time by up to and the capability to execute user-driven performance opti- IC, ASIC, MEMS, Sensors, Design, Foundries, 70 percent versus competitive solutions. mizations. It also provides automated memory compilation, Fab Management, Automation, 450mm, Flexible Electronics external bulk memory support, and RTL name preservation Lithography, Metrology, New Materials “Typically with competing solutions, designers use the imple- throughout the flow, which minimizes the tedious and error- • Electronic Applications (new) mentation tools that are offered by the FPGA vendors, but prone manual FPGA bring-up steps. • MEMS these tools are only good for designs that fit into one FPGA. Using the same bring-up flow for Palladium emulation and Imaging, Energy Efficiency, Healthcare, So designers have to rewrite their RTL to map it across mul- Protium rapid prototyping, designers can switch seamlessly Security • Advanced Packaging and Test tiple FPGAs, they must also remodel their memory, and it can between the two execution engines, for example to benefit • Imaging Conference (new) take them up to three months to bring up the FPGA prototype” from the deeper debug features of the emulation platform. • Allée des Clusters (new) • Low Power Conference (new) told us Frank Schirrmeister, Group Director at Cadence Design Low-power analysis and verification is a key part of system • Innovation Village (new) Systems and responsible for product management of the and system-on-chip (SoC) signoff criteria. Addressing this, • Power Electronics Conference (new) Cadence System Development Suite. Cadence has expanded the Dynamic Power Analysis in the • Science Park Palladium XP II platform beyond Common Power Format • Plastic Electronics “By adding a software platform that takes care of this auto- (CPF) support, adding verification and debug support for the matically, we bring down the set up time to a few weeks”, he IEEE 1801 standard. • Executive and Market Summit added. The Cadence System Development Suite now offers an Register now online: • Innovation Village (new) Built using Xilinx Virtex-7 2000T FPGAs, the Protium platform integrated and consistent low-power flow for engineers using either of the power stan- QKUGf • Industrial Sites visits (new) dards across the Incisive Use promotion code and save 25 Euro! formal and simulation and Palladium platforms, with Free access to SEMICON Europa 2014. common power plan and www.semiconeuropa.org metrics, and integrated debug analysis. Supported by: Cadence www.cadence.com

32 Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 www.electronics-eetimes.com SCEU14_Ad_EETimes_210_297_pc_QKUGf_print.pdf 1 19.08.2014 15:00:14

October 7–9 • Alpexpo • Grenoble , France www.semiconeuropa.org

CM MY EXHIBITION AREAS CY • Semiconductor Manufacturing CMY Equipment for Front-End and Back-End, K Materials and Services PROGRAM TOPICS • Electronic Components and Design (new) • Semiconductor Technology including IC, ASIC, MEMS, Sensors, Design, Foundries, Fab Management, Automation, 450mm, Flexible Electronics Lithography, Metrology, New Materials • Electronic Applications (new) • MEMS Imaging, Energy Efficiency, Healthcare, Security • Advanced Packaging and Test • Allée des Clusters (new) • Imaging Conference (new) • Low Power Conference (new) • Innovation Village (new) • Power Electronics Conference (new) • Science Park • Plastic Electronics • Executive and Market Summit Register now online: • Innovation Village (new) QKUGf • Industrial Sites visits (new) Use promotion code and save 25 Euro! Free access to SEMICON Europa 2014. www.semiconeuropa.org Supported by: PROGRAMMABLE LOGIC

FlexTiles European project hints at reconfigurable 3D chips

By Julien Happich

Launched in 2011 by a consortium of industries, universities and research and technology organizations, and co-funded by the European Union under the Sev- enth Framework Programme, the three-year FlexTiles project is coming to fruition this year. Deliverables to be presented at a workshop during the 24th International Conference on Field Program- mable Logic in Munich next September include an OVP-based (Open Virtual Platform) simulator and FPGA demonstrators for the heterogeneous many-core architecture that was developed by the nine project mem- bers across five countries. The consortium also came up with a complete tool- chain for the use of the so-called FlexTiles architecture, which although proven as a concept and through hardware emulation, has yet to be integrated as a SoC. Coordinated by aerospace and defence French giant Thalès, the project’s main goal was to develop a programmable heterogeneous many-core platform which can be reconfigured on the fly to meet advanced processing needs such as surveillance drones or driverless cars. The efficient programming of multi-core architec- Fig. 1: The FlexTiles concept: a dual layer 3D chip with many cores on one tures is critical for embedded systems on a tight power layer interconnected through a reconfigurable embedded FPGA layer. budget or simply to build energy-efficient supercomput- ers, but the challenge remained an unresolved issue despite the A virtualization layer on top of a kernel hides the heteroge- growing number of cores being used in embedded systems. neity and the complexity of the many-core platform from its By 2020, many-core solutions are expected to boast in ex- programmer and fine-tunes the mapping of an application at cess of a thousand processor cores, calling for truly self-adap- runtime. The virtualization layer provides self-adaptation capa- tive programmability, a more efficient way to explore embed- bilities by dynamic relocation of application tasks to software on ded system optimisation on-the-fly than what manually coded the many-core layer or to hardware on the reconfigurable layer. reconfiguration scenarios could offer. This self-adaptation is used to optimize load balancing, power consumption, hot spots and resilience to faulty modules. The FlexTiles concept consists of a 3D stack of 2 dies form- “The self-adaptive capabilities of the programmable hetero- ing a chiplet – see figure 1 – including on one layer a number of geneous many-core platform defined in the FlexTiles project are 2D interconnected general purpose processors (GPPs) and ac- key to optimise priorities at runtime”, explained Dr Philippe Mil- celerators such as DSPs and embedded FPGAs (the many-core let, senior research engineer & project manager at Thalès, and layer), and on a second layer, a reconfigurable embedded FPGA coordinator of the FP7 FlexTiles project. managed by a dedicated controller. “With our programming methodology, application designers can decide what parameters can be used to map their application to the many cores, setting task priorities while managing power consumption, memory avail- ability, or response latencies.” Millet added. “At run time, the reconfiguration controller and the application always know the status of the chip, what re- Fig. 2: The FlexTiles programming tool-flow makes it transparent for application developers to use sources are available” added Marc Morgan from the Centre the many-core heterogeneous architecture. Suisse d’Electronique et de

34 Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 www.electronics-eetimes.com forward by companies such as Intel with its hybrid Xeon-FPGA package announced last June (most probably involving Altera), or that put forward by IBM tying up Xilinx FPGAs with its CAPI (Coherence Attach Processor Interface) protocol. We have yet to see if FPGA vendors would want to be involved in such chiplets, of if it would make sense at all for them to cannibalize their own high-end FPGA markets with such a versatile many-core solution. For the time being an FPGA-based FlexTiles development platform is commercially available from project partner Sun- dance Multiprocessor Technology Ltd. The hardware emulator relies on two Virtex 6 Xilinx FPGAs. Fig. 3: The future: implementing the FlexTiles as low-cost high-volume chiplets to be flexibly assembled into larger systems using interposers. Microtechnique S.A.(CSEM), involved in the project to provide his expertise on ultra low-power processors and DSP accelerators. “Each application can ask for specific resources, these requirements will change across time, but the flexibility and priorities are set for each application”, Morgan continued. “For example, you could have a ✓ video surveillance camera with low resource requirements in video analytics, until a trigger event calls for more processing power to follow a specific car or to track an object. The new programming methodology makes it transparent for application developers ✓ to interface with the resource manager and the virtualization manager”, Morgan concluded. The dedicated tool-flow developed during the three years of the project’s duration is said to improve programming efficiency while reducing the impact on time to market, it is expected With you from start to finish. to reduce the development cost of many-core solutions by 20 to 50%. We understand that electronic product design is a journey with In principle, the basic FlexTiles 3D many challenges. As a leading manufacturer of power supplies, SoCs assembled using TSVs (through we are with you from start to finish, collaborating to ensure that silicon vias) could be further assembled your next project is a success. Let us be your power expert. into larger systems packages using interposers – see figure 3. Hence the FlexTiles SoCs could be designed as high-volume and low-cost, generic chiplets adaptable in numbers to serve a broad range of signal and image processing applications. This will be the topic of the follow up project, FlexTiles-II for which Novum® Ac-Dc Dc-Dc Millet is seeking another set of part- Advanced Power Power Supplies Converters ners, which could well include some established FPGA vendors. Although this is looking far ahead, such generic purpose chiplets could well justify a spin-off company, one that could offer www.cui.com/PowerExpert a European alternative to the US-based heterogeneous many-core solutions put www.electronics-eetimes.com Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 35 PROGRAMMABLE LOGIC

Pixel local storage on ARM Mali GPUs

By Jan-Harald Fridreksen

For many computer graphics algorithms operations on a a given pixel location. This is a powerful principle that enables pixel can be performed independently of similar operations on algorithms such as deferred shading to be implemented without other pixels. This is one reason why computer graphics algo- incurring a large bandwidth cost. rithms are often “embarrassingly parallel”. Blending is a basic A typical implementation of deferred shading using this example of this where for each pixel the previous color of the extension would split the rendering into three phases. The first pixel is combined with an incoming color. But there are also phase would write properties such as the diffuse color and nor- more complex examples, such as deferred shading. Such algo- mal for of each pixel are written to the pixel local storage. rithms need to store multiple values per pixel location, which are The second phase would calculate the lighting for each pixel finally combined in an application-specific way to produce the based on the stored properties, and accumulate these back to final pixel value. the pixel local storage for each light source.

On today’s graphics APIs, these algorithms are typically imple- Finally, in a third phase the values in pixel local storage would mented by a multi-pass approach. Pixel values are first written be used to calculate the final value of the pixel. to a set of off-screen render targets and, in a second pass, At this point, the pixel local storage is no longer needed and these render targets are read as textures and used to compute is discarded. The key point here is that the pixel local storage the final pixel value that is written to the framebuffer. Coupled data is never written to memory. It is kept on-chip throughout with the importance of optimizing use of power by mobile and incurs no bandwidth cost. This is a significant improvement GPUs, such an approach is far from ideal. over existing solutions that would require this data to be stored off-chip between the phases. In demo applications we observe ARM Mali GPUs are based on a tile-based architecture. framebuffer related bandwidth reduced from 40MB to 8MB per In short, we split the framebuffer into small regions, called frame. tiles. During geometry processing, all triangles are assigned And it’s not just about efficiency. These extensions allow to the tiles that they cover. Subsequently, per-pixel process- applications to express algorithms more directly compared to ing in performed on one tile at the time. Per-pixel values are alternative approaches. It achieves this by making it clear when stored on-chip until the fragment shading for all pixels in the framebuffer values are kept on-chip and when they are written tile is complete. Only at that point is the final pixel value written back to memory, as well as providing flexible access to this on- back to the framebuffer. ARM has recently published a set of chip memory. OpenGL® ES extensions that give applications access to this ARM is very excited about the possibilities opened up by on-chip storage. We will explain what these are and how they these extensions as they pave the way for more complex algo- enable more bandwidth-efficient processing. rithms to be implemented efficiently on mobile GPUs. ARM sup- ARM_shader_framebuffer_fetch is the first of these exten- ports all these extensions on Mali-T6xx and Mali-T7xx series. sions. It enables applications to read the current framebuffer color from the fragment shader. An obvious use-case for this is programmable blending. Similarly, ARM_shader_framebuf- fer_fetch_depth_stencil enables applications to read the current depth and stencil values from the framebuffer. This enables use-cases such as programmable depth and stencil testing, modulat- ing shadows, soft particles, and creating variance shadow maps in a single render pass. The above extensions enable applications to read what is in the framebuffer, but they are limited to storing one value per pixel and the format of the stored values must match the format of the framebuffer. The EXT_shader_pixel_local_storage extension lifts these restrictions by enabling applications to store and retrieve arbitrary values at

Jan-Harald Fridreksen is Principal Software Final result Engineer at ARM Norway – www.ARM.com

36 Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 www.electronics-eetimes.com FPGAs meet NSA guidelines In recent announcements, Microsemi has been building on the secure-operation aspects of two of its programmable- device families; now it adds further weight to that effort with an announcement based on National Security Administration (NSA) guidelines for specific operations. Microsemi says this announcement further validates the company’s FPGA security capabilities and sim- plifies information assurance system design. The company’s SmartFusion2 SoC FPGA and IGLOO2 FPGA product families are the first FPGAs to successfully complete the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) Information Assurance Directorate (IAD) Secure Implementa- tion Guidelines (SIG) document. The NSA IAD set out this process to provide an overview of design and data security features that are most relevant to a set of information assurance (IA) systems use models, and includes guidelines for security policies based on appropriate user scenarios. With clear implementation guidelines for using SmartFusion2 and IGLOO2 FPGA devices, defence system designers are better able to address and mitigate security threats in secure communications and cyber security applications. The Department of Defence (DoD) has positioned SIGs as a key element in the Trusted Systems and Networks (TSN) strategy. Microsemi www.microsemi.com

AMC-format card hosts Xilinx Virtex-7 FPGA for wireless front-ends CommAgility’s AMC-V7 is a high performance FPGA-based interface and processing card in the compact Advanced Mezzanine Card (AMC) form factor. Based around a high- density Xilinx Virtex-7 FPGA, Follow-us on the new module is aimed at LTE wireless front-end systems requiring multiple 10G CPRI links at up to rate option 8, as well as a range of other high- performance FPGA applications. A selection of fast, flexible I/O is included, configured for wireless applications. An IDT CPS-1848 Serial RapidIO (SRIO) Gen 2 switch supports SRIO V2.1 at up to 20 Gbps per port. The board also includes three front panel SFP+ optical interfaces that provide flexible high-speed links, and are configurable as CPRI, OBSAI, GigE, SRIO or other standards. An optional SRIO mini-SAS connector provides high-speed cabled connectivity. Timing and synchronisation is achieved via the front panel or backplane clock I/O, or optionally via GPS. No additional timing equipment is required, which reduces system complexity. The Virtex-7 FPGA is provided as a VX415T-2 device as the standard build, with options up to the VX690T-2 available for the highest performance applications. It is provided with two banks of DDR3 SDRAM, and a bank of flash memory for storing FPGA configurations and additional software. CommAgility www.commagility.com @EETimesEurope

www.electronics-eetimes.com Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 37 optoelectronics

A roadmap for cool and lossless lasers, with Bismuth

By Julien Happich

From the 21st to the 23rd of July took place the 5th combination but these device fabrication results are promising. international workshop on Bismuth-containing semiconductors, Growing these highly mismatched semiconductor alloys unveiling promising III-V material combinations for the design defect-free is difficult, yet careful studies using Metal Organic of very efficient lasers and record-breaking multi-junction solar Vapor Phase Epitaxy (MOVP) or Molecular beam Epitaxy have cells. yielded III-V materials with up to 10% and 20% of Bismuth In an interview with EETimes Europe, Chief Scientist of the respectively. Because the laser devices operate on very thin Tyndall National Institute Professor Eoin O’Reilly who chaired layers, the active layers are grown with thicknesses of a few this workshop told us what could be the implications of these nanometers only, and the stress induced by the lattice mis- new materials for the semiconductor industry. match further improves the laser efficiency. III-V semiconductor materials such as GaAs or GaN have a Another area of interest for Bismide semiconductors is the wide range of applications in LEDs and lasers, including thin design of multi-junction solar cells to maximize their efficiency film InGaAsP/InP lasers. But currently, most photonic compo- through appropriate stacking and band gap selection. Stephen nents for telecommunications applications have major intrinsic Sweeney at University of Surrey has a patent on the use of such losses, with around 80% of the electrical power used by a laser materials in solar cells and O’Reilly is confident that they’ll find chip being emitted as waste heat. their way into efficiency record-breaking devices. The losses heat up the devices whose efficiency is very Last year, Sweeney’s team from the University of Surrey temperature sensitive, and in many applications, the waste published a paper on the modelling of the quaternary alloy heat must be dissipated using thermo-electric coolers in an GaAsBiN, exhibiting the potential to cover a wide range of band air-conditioned environment. gaps below 1.42 eV, while grown completely lattice matched “The research on Bismuth-containing semiconductors onto GaAs or Ge with controllable band offsets. stemmed from theoretical The paper concludes that findings, demonstrating alloy band gaps from 0.3 to 1.4 that devices built with GaAs eV can be achieved with Bi and alloys containing minute N concentrations ranging from amounts of Bismuth, would 0%-10% and 0%-5%, respec- drastically reduce the tively with very low or zero intrinsic losses mostly due strain. to Auger recombinations”, The workshop was spon- explained O’Reilly. sored by the EU FP7 project, Electric Automation “Theoretical findings BIANCHO (Bismide and Nitride Systems and Components show us that in a GaBiAs Components for High Tem- alloy containing from 12 perature Operation), a four-year, International Exhibition and Conference to 15% of Bismuth, we €2.19m European research proj- Nuremberg, Germany, 25 – 27 November 2014 eliminate Auger recombina- ect working to tackle the energy tion completely. This would challenges presented by the improve laser efficiency exponential growth in internet by 50% while drastically traffic. reducing device tempera- The BIANCHO project included five leading European ture sensitivity”, continues Prof. Eoin O’Reilly, Chief Scientist of the Tyndall National Institute. O’Reilly. partners with complementary “With their improved efficiency and no cooling required, expertise in epitaxy, structural characterization of materials, Answers for automation GaBiAs telecom lasers would draw an order of magnitude less device physics, band structure modelling, advanced device Europe's leading exhibition for power than traditional cooled solutions” the researcher esti- fabrication, packaging and commercialisation. electric automation offers you: mates. Coordinated by the Tyndall National Institute (Ireland), ma- • the comprehensive market overview This would translate into huge power savings for data cen- terials’ development was led by Philipps Universitaet Marburg tres, 100G long distance communications, in silicon photonics, (Germany) and by the Semiconductor Physics Institute (SPI) of • 1,600 exhibitors including all key players or for future 5G networking infrastructures. the Center for Physical Sciences and Technology (Lithuania). • products and solutions That’s for the theory, but growing such materials is easier Marburg led MOVPE growth and SPI led MBE growth of • innovations and trends said than done and this has been the focus of all the previous bismuth-containing epitaxial layers and their characterization workshops on Bismuth-containing semiconductors. by optical, electrical, and ultrafast techniques. The University 18 months ago, researchers demonstrated a laser incorpo- of Surrey (UK) provided unique characterisation facilities and rating 2% of Bismuth, and at this year’s workshop, the same modelling expertise, with industry input from Huawei through Your free entry ticket team was able to include 6% of Bismuth. Another paper dis- CIP Technologies (UK), an organisation with a long history of www.mesago.com/sps/tickets cussed a LED containing between 9 and 10% of Bismuth. applied photonics innovation, particularly in the telecommunica- At these concentrations, there was no reduction of Auger re- tions sector. More information at +49 711 61946-828 or [email protected] 38 Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 www.electronics-eetimes.com

SPS_ANZ_2014_E_210x148_END.indd 1 30.06.14 11:48 Startup raises funds for organic semiconductors Paul Buckley

Welsh startup SmartKem has com- foldable mobile devices such as smartphones pleted its series A funding round with invest- and tablets as well as wearable display based ment from a syndicate comprising BASF applications. Steve Kelly, CEO at SmartKem, Venture Capital, Octopus Investments and said: The market now recognises that Smart- Entrepreneurs Fund, plus further investment Kems tru-FLEX provides manufacturers with from Finance Wales, the company’s principal truly flexible TFTs with high physical and electri- shareholder. cal stability coupled with best-in-class charge The investment will build on the 3m of investment from Fi- carrier mobility. Our low temperature semiconductor process nance Wales to date and will be used to further develop the sci- allows unrivalled design freedom in choice of barrier layers and entific foundation of the SmartKem tru-FLEX organic semicon- substrates for highly flexible transistor backplane manufacture. ductor material range, and to accelerate the technology towards This key ability to process at low temperature offers manufac- full commercialisation. The company has developed scientific turers a cost-down proposition whilst opening the door to the expertise to deliver high performance molecules and formulated use of printing processes such as ink-jet or roll-to-roll technol- inks into market-driven applications such as the e-paper, OLED ogy. This has the potential to disrupt production costs for OEMs and HD LCD display industry. whilst simplifying the whole manufacturing process. The investment will provide SmartKem with the ability to fur- With the current traction in the markets for new form fac- ther develop the company’s tru-FLEX semiconductor technol- tor mobile displays and wearable technology, the timing of the ogy to the point of market-readiness. The funding will also con- latest round of investment is ideal. We have a number of high tribute to the scale-up and support of current and future partner value joint development agreements (JDAs) that require support programmes which are key to the technologys commercialisa- to ensure the commercialisation of our revolutionary semicon- tion. SmartKems tru-FLEX flexible semiconductor technology ductors. With the market for printed, flexible and organic elec- has been developed to allow display and electronics manufac- tronics set to grow to around $77 billion by 2023, we are now turers to obtain industry grade thin-film-transistor (TFT) perfor- well positioned to fully commercialise tru-FLEX and to satisfy mance with leading physical flexibility, enabling bendable and the growing market demand.

Electric Automation Systems and Components International Exhibition and Conference Nuremberg, Germany, 25 – 27 November 2014

Answers for automation Europe's leading exhibition for electric automation offers you: • the comprehensive market overview • 1,600 exhibitors including all key players • products and solutions • innovations and trends

Your free entry ticket www.mesago.com/sps/tickets

More information at +49 711 61946-828 or [email protected]

SPS_ANZ_2014_E_210x148_END.indd 1 30.06.14 11:48 optoelectronics

VTT depth cameras interpret shoppers’ behaviour

By Julien Happich

In paper titled “Shopper Behaviour Analysis Based on 3D Situation Awareness Information” presented during the 22nd International Conference on Pattern Recognition, researchers from the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland detail an advanced tracking system based on depth cameras. The research focuses mainly on behaviour pattern analysis based on data fusion across a network of low-cost ceiling-mounted depth cameras (measuring the distance to a variety of surfaces with the help of a laser dot pattern operating in the IR range). With appropriate refresh rates and data fusion performed across a single coordinate system for unified tracking spanning the physical space covered by the cameras, the video analytics algorithms are able to track moving customers in a wide range of lighting conditions (including complete darkness), and can handle view occlusions that are typically difficult to interpret using 2D cameras. In a histogram fashion, traffic heat maps can be superimposed over the shop’s floor to analyse exploratory customers also qualified as “slow shoppers”. From how the products layout impacts the consumers’ whereabouts a retailer’s perspective, identifying these classes of motion is and dwelling time. an enabler, since different classes of advertisements (concise In the paper which will be part of a workshop on “Video or more detailed) will be served to different types of custom- Analytics for Audience Measurement in Retail and Digital ers. Sound and lighting effects distributed throughout the shop Signage”, the researchers explain that depth sensors are less could even come into play for the most elaborate scenarios. In privacy-threatening than 2D or 3D stereo cameras, as they do fact, retail shops of the future may well have to display warning not provide actual photographic information. signs that by entering their premises, you agree to be subcon- Though that may still be combined with other aspects of au- sciously manipulated to the maximum extent permitted by law. dience measurement as they are considered in this workshop, such as gender recognition, age group estimation, ethnicity Depth versus 2D cameras recognition, emotion analysis, or free eye gaze estimation (think “On the sensing side, with off-the-shelf depth sensors, the about adaptive displays that trigger their advertising message detection range is about 8 meters with a accuracy of 1 to 10cm when you gaze in their direction). depending on the distance from the sensor. With upcoming ste- Anyhow, as a way to keep up with online competition, the retail and advertisement industries are seeking more data out of their customers’ in-shop behaviour to measure their engagement with products, booths, or newly launched campaigns. And store performance optimization, as the paper describes it, comes in the shape of always-on analytics. Exact real-time information on customer behaviour goes beyond today’s point-of-sale data analysis and opens up new adaptive advertising scenarios to funnel more customers towards the cashier. Doing so, the researchers identified three classes of motion patterns to be acted upon: passers-by in passage areas, decisive customers also dubbed In a histogram fashion, traffic heat maps can be superimposed over the shop’s floor to “quick shoppers” as these know analyse how the products layout impacts the consumers’ whereabouts and dwelling time. precisely what they are looking for, and

40 Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 www.electronics-eetimes.com reo camera version we can extend the range up to 20 meter, but Conference on Next Generation Mobile Apps, Services and this version is not yet in the piloting phase”, told us Johannes Technologies. Peltola, Team Leader for Smart Service Interfaces at VTT. With this knowhow, the Finnish research center is investigat- But why not use regular video analytics to determine peo- ing the possibility to spin-off a company that would commer- ple’s positions on video streams from installed CCTVs instead cialize low-cost WiFi-enabled depth-sensing nodes. of relying on a dedicated network of depth sensing nodes? “In current pilots we are already using ARM Cortex A9 based Peltola acknowledges that competing solutions include small/cheap computers, so it is just housing the sensor to the cameras or thermal sensors. He pointed out that while the same package”, added Peltola. range and accuracy of thermal imagers is about the same as Pilots of the tracking system will run this summer and depth sensing cameras, their price is higher. Cameras allow a autumn at Shalkwijk Shopping Centre in Haarlem in the Nether- longer range but they are less accurate in people detection and lands, and with Procter & Gamble in Brussels, and in the city of tracking. Rovaniemi in Finland. “We could and we have developed such camera analytics tools. The camera is performing well, if it is positioned directly upwards from the monitored area. This will limit the range and it is often unpractical due to normal ceiling height. Calculating the people flow Connecting Global Competence from typical CCTV stream is possible, but in crowded situations it generates much more errors compared with the Welcome to Planet e. use of depth information. Better visual algorithms require a lot more CPU/GPU The entire embedded universe at a single location! power, so low cost processing is difficult to achieve” says Peltola. Tickets & Registration www.electronica.de/en/tickets But what more information does depth sensing provide you? We asked. “Compared to a camera image, depth allows better object segmen- tation (segment based on distance rather than texture that may be similar between two objects or different inside a same object). It improves calibra- tion since sensor position and physical object properties can be calculated directly from sensor data. Depth information also helps managing occlusion, when one person is temporarily block- ing the view of another. The distance information tells you directly which object is behind which object and based on distance it can be tracked again when it becomes visible”, clarified Peltola.

WiFi-enabled depth sensors To add more data to the system, could you conceive depth sensing from a product’s perspective? For example, a product shelf or a booth could detect people getting close, reaching for a product? “It’s bit early to define the exact functionalities for a commercial product, but we are investigating how to detect groups, group behaviour, front of the booth behaviour (e.g. reaching the shelf), predicting next point of interests, etc.” told us Peltola. In fact VTT has another paper in 26th International Trade Fair for Electronic Components, Systems and Applications years 2014 the making, “Predicting Consumers’ Messe München, November 11–14, 2014 Locations in Dynamic Environments via www.electronica.de 3D Sensor-Based Tracking”, to present the technology at the 8th International

elec14-Dach_125x200_EETimesEurope_E.indd 1 18.08.14 14:52 www.electronics-eetimes.com Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 41 optoelectronics

Copenhagen starts large-scale smart LED lighting experiment

By Paul Buckley

The Danish capital city Copenhagen is planning to roll out and will indicate which lights are making the biggest difference a large-scale pilot project featuring smart LED lights that is aim- in terms of lowering costs and emissions. ing to save money, cut carbon emissions and even alert police DOLL wants to encourage more cities to make the change about suspicious activities. by demonstrating what different types of lamps can do and The city authorities are busy implementing a climate change describes the project as a “huge urban playground”. The project plan to turn Copenhagen ‘carbon neutral’ by 2025. An integral is described as a ‘Living Lab’. element part of the plan involves the city redesigning its street lighting solutions. Worldwide, lighting is the source of six per Michael Nissen-Petersen, key account manager in Street cent of global greenhouse emis- & Outdoor Lighting Thorn Light- sions. ing A/S explained it is important to show customers what is the The Danish Outdoor Lighting effect of dimming the lights by Lab (DOLL) a GreenLab by Pho- 50 percent. “It is our experience tonics is to be open September that customers are becoming 2014 and will stretch for about 9 more confident at turning down km along the roads of the Copen- the lights when they see it work hagen suburb Albertslund and will in practice. Typically, they think cover about 1.5 square kilometres that if we dim the lights by 50 or in total. Hundreds of lights will be 70 percent, it will have a dramatic installed in Albertslund and its local effect. But from personal experi- citizens will take part in a major ex- ence, they can see that in an periment to examine how future cities should use street lighting. outdoor environment it can be difficult to tell the difference.” As many as 25 companies have reserved space for their products in parcels of land 300 metres square. Each lamp is be- In the future, DOLL plan to incorporate other types of smart ing assigned a separate IP address to enable remote monitor- city services into their living lab. The same network that moni- ing. The project plans to test smart lamps that dim if it is sunny tors miles of lighting can be configured to manage parking and brighten if a few people pass by at night. Other smart lights spaces or water meters. will be used to automatically send out alerts when they are not “The light is just the first step. We work in the Living Lab operating correctly. with the intelligent city in which we can measure and manage Sensors that track traffic density, air quality, noise, weather other aspects of urban space. This could be sensors in bins that conditions and UV radiation will also be fitted throughout the indicates when to be emptied, “ explained Kim Brostrm, CTO of site to see what sort of environment the lights are operating in DOLL. Startup company prints commercially viable bendable displays

By Paul Buckley

Kateeva, a Californian startup company that has an In January 2013, Samsung demonstrated a flexible screen exclusive license from MIT for an OLED deposition technology, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, USA which has revealed plans to start shipping manu- promised the potential for smart watches facturing equipment that could finally bring with displays that wrap around your wrist, flexible displays to market. or portable devices that can be folded up Kateeva has pioneered an inkjet printing and popped in a pocket. manufacturing equipment solution enables OLEDs to be produced over large areas Subsequent to the event the prototypes and in high volume – with longer lifetimes, did not prove durable enough to commer- higher yields and lower costs. The startup’s cialize because of difficulties with sealing approach claims to solve key manufactur- the OLEDs used in the display from water ing challenges that previously prevented the vapour and oxygen. well-proven inkjet technique from scaling to perform reliable, high-volume OLED printing. Kateeva has developed an inkjet printing process that it claims can be used to apply The development should enable OLED a protective coating to OLEDs far faster producers of curved, bendable, and flex- than previous methods. The development ible displays, as well as large displays like promises to cut manufacturing costs in 55-inch TVs to use economically viable and production-worthy half, and make it possible to integrate the process into existing inkjet printing for low-cost mass-production of OLED displays. production lines more easily.

42 Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 www.electronics-eetimes.com Laser sensor system scans railway tracks

By Christoph Hammerschmidt

To keep the track infrastructure safe, railway operators movement at a track width of some 1.7 metres. With up to 2 need to acquire many track parameters in regular intervals. million single measurements per second, the instrument gener- Irregularities in the rail geometry can cause sudden cracks in ates up to 800 profiles, providing a detailed three-dimensional the steel rails since these are under high tensions. These cracks image of the tracks and the infrastructure that is associated in turn can initiate domino effects with rails and railway sleep- directly to it. Out of the cluster of points generated, appropriate ers tearing over large stretches. An innovative optical sensor algorithms extract parameters such as distance, height and tilt system surveys the tracks quickly and safely. A laser scan- of the rails as well as the exact geometry of the railheads. These ner acquires geometrical irregularities and parameters then are compared with set val- transforms them into 3D images. ues. The scan frequency can be adapted to Today the state of the art in surveying a the respective task. Topographic structures railway track infrastructure is camera-based and deviations are identified at an exact- systems. These systems however have a ness of less than 1 mm. number of drawbacks: The quality of the The scanner has the size of a shoebox results heavily depends on the lighting con- and thus can be mounted to any rail vehicle. ditions, and they require a rather complex Thus, the RTS offers a cost-effective option processing of image data. In addition, the to automatically survey the rail infrastruc- image data are demanding a very large ture without the need to acquire a specific memory space. measurement vehicle. Utilising an eye-safe infrared laser (class In its Rail Track Scanner (RTS), Fraunhofer IPM for the first I), the scanner can be deployed in the public space without any time utilises a laser scanner to measure rails, railheads, sleep- restrictions. The instrument, which will be introduced to the ers and rail bed. The specific optical design allows the scanner public at the Innotrans trade fair in September, will be utilised to be mounted just 1.2 meters above the rail bed. The device by Swiss mobile mapping services company iNovitas to survey scans the tracks transversely to the measurement vehicle narrow-gauge lines in Switzerland. Single-box, optical network field test set

Graham Prophet

Anritsu’s MT1000A Network Master Pro is a new genera- all-in-one OTN tester to give the user the capability to test the tion of all-in-one optical network field testers which support the network with Ethernet and SDH/SONET client signals. This multiple communications protocols used in converged telecom feature will become more important as the adoption of OTN and networks. OTN switching becomes more widespread. It is a portable, compact all-in-one transport tester, aimed Using the MT1000A, with its combination of OTN testing with at technicians who install and maintain mobile-access, fixed- Ethernet, SDH/SONET and PDH/DSn testing in one self-con- access, metro and core transmission tained unit, the field technician will be telecoms networks. better equipped to solve problems in Together with the MU100010A test the transport network autonomously, module, it provides all the capabilities without reference to a remote network required for field-testing an Optical operations centre. Transport Network (OTN). It supports “An increasing amount of traffic is the new OTN features ODU0 and transported over OTN lines; inside the ODUflex, as well as Ethernet, Fibre OTN system the traffic is transported Channel and SDH/SONET at rates as an Ethernet or SDH/SONET signal. up to 10 Gbps. It also handles legacy In some cases even Fibre Channel is PDH and DSn interfaces. used,” said Jonathan Borrill, Direc- The product can be configured tor of Marketing at Anritsu (EMEA). to support dual-port testing at all “Therefore it is important for field supported interfaces and rates. The technicians installing and maintaining two ports can be used independently, effectively providing the transport networks to have a universal tool like the MT1000A user with two instruments in one physical device, making the Network Master Pro to test all the technologies supported field tester’s work more productive. Two-port testing can also within the networks they manage.” be used for in-service bi-directional monitoring of live traffic links, providing a new ability to maintain and optimise existing Other key features of the battery operated MT1000A Network networks and test networks while they are in operation. This Master Pro include an easy and intuitive GUI, WLAN/Bluetooth/ enables operators to pinpoint problems faster and so reduce LAN connectivity, PDF and XML report generation for documen- the duration of network downtime. tation of test results, remote operation and control (scripting). The MT1000A Network Master Pro is also the first compact www.electronics-eetimes.com Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 43 optoelectronics

Dimmable bulb requires no dimmer

By Paul Buckley

Kickstarter-backed innovator Nanoleaf is claiming making it the most the world’s first dimmable bulb that does not need a dimmer. energy efficient LED In 2013 Nanoleaf introduced Kickstarter to what the company bulb in the world. claimed was the world’s most energy efficient light bulb and at- tracted 5000+ Kickstarter backers. Being able to dim down an already en- Nanoleaf has used part of the seed funding received from the ergy efficient light bulb initial Kickstarter project “to create something that is even more will save even more energy efficient and more convenient to use”. The result is the electricity. Nanoleaf Nanoleaf Bloom, which is a dimmable bulb that aims to encour- says there is no need to purchase additional hardware or gener- age more people to adopt energy efficient lighting. ate unnecessary waste.

The Nanoleaf At 100% brightness (10 W), the bulb consumes $1.53 of Bloom claims electricity per year. At to be so energy 50% brightness (2.5 efficient that the W), the device costs device is able to $0.38/year in electric- do away with the ity, uses only 25% of typical external the full power. At 5% heat-sink that brightness or Night adds bulk to the Mode (0.5 W), electric- LED bulb, ity costs $0.07/year.

LED-fitted tag operates as Low power 8-Megapixel CMOS image sensor UHF RF field detector captures HD video Equipped with a bright LED, Farsens’ This addition to Toshiba’s 1.12-micron CIS product series is suited for HD high- Photon RFID tag operates as a conve- frame-rate image capture and ultra-low-power operation in smartphones and nient UHF RF field detector tag. When- other portable devices. The 1.12-micron back-side illuminated CMOS image ever the sensor (CIS) enables high-performance image tag comes capture and video recording for handheld mobile close to devices. The T4KA3 8-megapixel (MP) sensor an RF field targets midrange smartphones, tablets and action source, it cameras with 720p resolution, enabling HD video harvests capture at a rate of 240 equivalent frames per sec- energy ond (fps). The T4KA3 operates at 15% lower power from the RF field and drives its LED and is significantly smaller in area than Toshiba’s according to the field’s strength. The prior 8MP sensor, making it one of the world’s smallest chips at this pixel count stronger the RF field in a specific point and enabling the development of smaller camera modules. In addition, the prod- and orientation, the brighter the LED il- uct incorporates Toshiba Bright Mode technology, which boosts image bright- luminates. Built in a PCB format, the tag ness by up to four times. This capability enables users to continuously record has a detection range up to 3 meters for and smoothly play back video on their handheld devices at an fps rate twice UHF RFID readers. Photon tags can be that achievable without Bright Mode. Another key feature of the T4KA3 is High used to assess the status of aging RFID Dynamic Range (HDR) technology. While non-HDR cameras take pictures at one implementations. RFID reader and reader exposure level with limited contrast range, losing detail in bright or dark areas of antennas deployed several years ago a picture, HDR takes multiple pictures at different exposure levels and intelligent- may not perform correctly. The devices ly stitches them together. The result is a picture with better image quality and help users assess how good the system brighter, more natural looking colours. Toshiba’s alternate-row, dual-exposure is performing. Such RF field detectors HDR also reduces motion artefacts and eliminates frame buffer requirements can also be used to signal activities without compromising frame resolution or speed. Optical format of the T4KA3 is to users. Entering a specific area may 1/4 inch, and pixel count is 3280 (H) x 2464 (V). The sensor has 8 kbit of one- require a certain set of procedures from time-programmable (OTP) memory for automatically storing two settings of lens the user. A sparkling LED could act as a shading correction data, and the setting can be quickly changed with a single visual indicator and reminder. command to accommodate changing light conditions. Farsens S.L. Toshiba Electronics Europe www.farsens.com www.toshiba-components.com

44 Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 www.electronics-eetimes.com A2E_EETimes_2_375x10.87_A2.qxd 8/6/14 4:56 PM

RGB LED fits in compact four-lead PLCC package U L T R A M I N I A T U R E SunLED has introduced a RGB LED for high brightness, multi-color design require- Surface Mount ments. The 4-leaded PLCC package provides a high intensity output in a reflective Audio casing for an optimal mixture of colors in a compact footprint. The cost effective RGB enables users to seamlessly create any color of the visible spectrum with the Transformers adjustment of forward current. Whether the design is to operate a single die at a time for emitting primary colors (Red, Green, and Inductors Blue), two dies together for a secondary color (Yellow, Magenta, Cyan), or three dies at once to uniquely blend colors in an unlimited range, the LED can accomplish all of those tasks. The size of the RGB LED makes it ideal across various applications from hand held devices to professional-use industrial equipment. SunLED www.SunLEDusa.com

CCD image sensor ups sensitivity, cuts noise Low Profile from Offering uprated performance for intelligent traffic, surveillance, medicalimaging and industrial inspection, ON Semiconductor’s KAI-08051 image sensor includes technol- .18"ht. ogy acquired with Truesense Imaging. Using the charge-coupled device (CCD) image sensor portfolio recently acquired from Truesense Imaging, with new technology that improves imaging performance for industrial applications, the See full Catalog immediately nics.com KAI-08051 Image Sensor provides improved light sensitivity, www.picoelectro reduced read noise, and improved colour accuracy compared to the previous generation device, expanding opportunities for 8 megapixel image capture in intelligent traffic, surveillance, • Manufactured and tested medical imaging, and industrial inspection. The KAI-08051 Image Sensor shares the same 5.5 micron pixel architecture, to MIL-PRF-27 8 megapixel resolution, 15 frame per second readout rate, and • Frequency range 4/3 optical format as the existing KAI-08050 Image Sensor, but improves key perfor- 20 Hz to 250 KHz mance parameters through the use of an improved amplifier design, newly optimised • Power and EMI Inductors microlens structure, and new colour filter pigments in both Bayer and Sparse colour configurations. The KAI-08051 is backward compatible with the KAI-08050, requiring, • Available from 100 milliwatts at most, minor modifications to the firmware used in existing camera designs. to 3 watts ON Semiconductor • Impedance from 20 ohms www.onsemi.com to 100 K ohms • Operating temperature -550C to ‘CrispWhite’ COB LED arrays ideal for retail applications +130oC (Class V, 155˚C available) • Low Profile from .18"ht. Philips Lumileds has launched a family of COB LED arrays that the company has termed ‘CrispWhite Technology’ which have been developed to make whites • Thru-Hole available appear vivid and bright while colors appear saturated. LUXEON CoB arrays with CrispWhite Technology are ideal for retail downlighting and spotlighting applications because they provide more inviting and attractive displays. Proper lighting is central to the perception and Delivery-Stock to one week evaluation of goods and is a critical component of brand- for sample quantities ing, highlighting and presenting merchandise and creating a space where shoppers want to visit. LUXEON CoB with PICOElectronics, Inc. CrispWhite Technology delivers the warm saturated colors of 143 Sparks Ave., Pelham, N.Y. 10803 high 90CRI solutions while creating the natural crisp white- www.picoelectronics.com ness required of merchandise in retail shops. As part of the LUXEON CoB family, E Mail: [email protected] the solution benefits from an industry-leading small Light-Emitting Surface (LES) as well as its world-class low thermal resistance. Philips Lumileds claims that all col- Pico Representatives Germany ors, including the white, show the best saturation, just like daylight. The CrispWhite ELBV/Elektronische Bauelemente Vertrieb LEDs maintain high CRI and bring out the white color in merchandise by utilizing a E-mail: [email protected] second peak in the blue spectrum. LED arrays are available in multiple lumen pack- Phone: 0049 89 4602852 Fax: 0049 89 46205442 ages, from 800 lumens for MR16 and PAR lamps, all the way up to 7000 lumens to England replace 70 W and 100 W CDM solutions. Creating a second blue peak (~410-415 Ginsbury Electronics Ltd. nm) in the spectrum activates fluorescent whitening agents paints/fabrics. E-mail: [email protected] Philips Lumileds Phone: 0044 1634 298900 www.philipslumileds.com/CrispWhite Fax: 0044 1634 290904

www.electronics-eetimes.com Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 45 Reader Offer GNSS module for tracking, automotive Trinamic’s stepper motor and wearable designs package gets you started Hong Kong based manufacturer of location receivers, Maestro Wireless Solutions, and CSR, have introduced the A5100- This month, Trinamic Motion Control is A, a next-generation SiRFstarV Global Navigation Satellite offering you to win one of four TMCM-1043 development Systems (GNSS) position- kits for its highly integrated, NEMA 17-compatible TMCM- ing module that combines 1043 stepDancer stepper motor module. Offering designers high performance GPS and an easy-to-use PC-based GUI that allows one-click modifi- GLONASS receiver technol- cation of motor drive current, micro-stepping and other key ogy in a 10x15 mm pack- parameters, the intuitive kits are age. The A5100-A is suitable custom designed and developed for applications including for direct mounting on a NEMA wearable devices, cameras 17 motor. Pre-programmed and and automotive trackers. pre-configured with all operating It is the first release in Maestro’s new line of GNSS receivers, parameters to support standard and achieves high levels of accuracy with quad-constellation 1.5A (peak) motors, the TMCM- support, up to 30% faster Time-To-First-Fix (TTFF), and up to 1043 board uses Trinamic´s 20% lower power consumption using CSRs TricklePower and single-axis TMC2660 stepper motor driver IC, which inte- Push-to-Fix (PtF) modes. The module reduces development grates a motor pre-driver and power MOSFETs. Controlled risks by integrating a number of features including, TCXO, SAW by industry standard step/direction pulses, the TMCM-1043 filter, RTC, antenna control mechanism, and flash memory for module automatically performs all motor coil current calcu- future-proof upgrades, as well as, offering a drop-in replace- lations, while driving an external NEMA 17 motor with the ment capability for Maestros previous SiRFstar4 generation industry’s lowest RDS(on) MOSFETs. modules. The castellated edge form factor also enables simpler Trinamic manufacturing and reduces assembly cost. Supporting all www.trinamic.com currently deployed GNSS, the A5100-A acquires and tracks all visible GPS, GLONASS, QZSS, and SBAS satellites. Concurrent Check the reader offer online at GNSS performance enables the A5100-A to choose the best satellites from different constellations and deliver optimal loca- www.electronics-eetimes.com tion information. By combining low power consumption with high sensitivity, high jamming immunity and concurrent GNSS operation, and with its drop in upgrade path to the A2200-A, the A5100-A creates a fast and convenient route to the latest GNSS Toshiba targets smart meters offering in the marketplace. Maestro Wireless Solutions with new ARM Cortex-M4F MCU www.maestro-wireless.com An addition to Toshiba Electronics Europe’s TX04 series of ARM Cortex®-M4F core-based microcontrollers, the TMPM- High directivity 0302 thin film couplers 411F20XBG MCU facilitates electric power calculation and communication in smart meters, as for WiFi bands well as sensing and communica- AVX’ high directivity 0302 thin film couplers for WiFi bands, tions in other measurement devices. including the latest, tight tolerance 0302 component are now A typical smart meter comprises available through distribution. The WiFi band couplers are separate controllers for electric power based on multilayer integrated thin calculation, data communication, and film (ITF) technology, which provides output display. By integrating multiple the miniature components with high functionalities, the TMPM411F20XBG achieves independent frequency performance across the control of the electric power calculation and communication WiFi spectrum (2,400-5,905 MHz) control in a single chip, reducing the circuit board area within and rugged construction for reli- the smart meter. The TMPM411F20XBG implements tamper de- able automatic assembly. Available tection and failure detection with very low power consumption, in 0302, 0402, and 0603 packages, each of which exhibit and also incorporates key security functions suitable for secure identical electrical performance, AVX’s WiFi band couplers network communication. These include Advanced Encryption also feature land grid array (LGA) packaging technology, the Standard (AES), Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA) and Entropy benefits of which include: inherently low profile, self align- Source Generator (ESG). Its large on-chip Flash memory allows ment during reflow, excellent solderability, low parasitics, for robust code and data storage as required for extensive and effective heat dissipation. AVX’s high directivity couplers service lifetime. Delivered in a 14x14mm VFGBA193 package, for WiFi bands are rated for an operating temperature range the TMPM411F20XBG operates at 2.7 to 3.6V, with a maximum spanning -40 up to +85C; and are 100% tested for electrical operating frequency of 80MHz. It has an internal memory of parameters. Part numbers are CP0302A5425ENTR and, for 2048 Kbytes Flash and 290 Kbytes total SRAM, 34-channel tight tolerance, CP0302P5425ENTR. direct memory access (DMA), 9-channel 12-bit analog-to-digital AVX converter (ADC). ww.avx.com Toshiba Electronics Europe www.toshiba-components.com

46 Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 www.electronics-eetimes.com A46E_EETimesEuro_2_375x10_875_A45.qxd 8/6/14 Page 1

DC-3 Series

DC-1 Series Ultra-low-jitter programmable clock cuts power A universal-clock IC, the XR81112 series generates output frequencies from 10 MHz to 1.5 GHz with ultra-low phase noise jitter of less than 200 fsec that suits them for demanding communications, audio/video, and industrial applications. The 3x3mm QFN-12 packaged devices are the smallest available with this broad HiQP Series feature set. The clock synthesiser uses a flexible delta- sigma modulator and a very wide-ranging VCO in a PLL block that has been optimised to be extremely power efficient. With a core current consumption of just 20 mA, these parts dissipate 60% less power than DC-DC equivalent devices. The PLL can operate from either an input system clock or a crystal, and incorporates both an integer divider and a high-resolution (<1 Hz) fractional divider for increased flex- CONVERTERS ibility to generate any clock frequency. Additionally, up to four different frequency multiplier settings can be stored, allowing for different application configurations and providing BOM savings compared to multiple synthesisers. The XR81112 is NEW!! configurable for LVCMOS, LVDS or LVPECL outputs. HIGH INPUT VOLTAGES Exar www.exar.com UP TO 900 VDC. DC-1 Series Voltage regulators connect directly to car battery • 120-370 VDC input voltage range • 5-300 VDC regulated isolated outputs With the introduction of 17 new AEC-Q100-qualified high-voltage LDOs, Texas Instru- • Up to 300 watts output power ments further broadens its portfolio of low drop-out regulators. Designed for applica- • 4.5” X 2.5” X 0.50” encapsulated package tions that connect directly to a car or truck battery, the new LDOs feature 60V input and ultra-low quiescent current. Target applications include instrument cluster, power • steering, infotainment systems, door modules and lighting DC-3 Series controls. The LDOs achieve quiescent current as low as 10 • 300-900 VDC input voltage range uA in standby mode, resulting in lower power consumption • 3.3 -300 VDC regulated isolated outputs and increased battery life. Internal equivalent series resis- • Up to 50 watts, single and dual outputs tance (ESR) compensation can help optimize system cost • Thru hole and terminal strip models and stability. High input voltage allows automotive subsys- • tems to connect directly to the car battery: the LDOs support input voltages of up to 40 V for normal operation and up to HiQP Series 45 V to support transient spikes in automotive designs. Additionally the TPS7A1601- • 125-475 VDC input voltage range Q1 can support up to 60 V normal operation for trucks and heavy-duty equipment. A • 24-200 VDC regulated isolated outputs • Up to 50 watts output power tracking function allows for more accurate data from the off-board sensors. • 2.50” X 1.55” X 0.50” encapsulated package Texas Instruments www.ti.com

Memsic launches monolithic 3-axis accelerometer ALL MODELS AVAILABLE WITH EXPANDED OPERATING TEMPERATURES Memsic has introduced what it claims is the world’s first monolithic 3D accelerom- SELECTED MILITARY SCREENING eter and the first to make use of wafer-level packaging. The MXC400xXC makes CUSTOM DESIGNS use of Memsic’s patented thermal convection, heated gas method to detect acceleration and inclination. The method has been used for many years by Memsic in For full characteristics of these and the entire PICO single-axis or dual-axis form for automotive stabil- product line, see PICO’s Full line catalog at ity control and rollover detection, digital cameras, www.picoelectronics.com projectors and many other applications. MEMSIC’s designers have now combined 3D sensing with wafer scale packaging to reduced cost and size for mobile PICOELECTRONICS, Inc. applications such as phones, tablet computers, toys Pico Representatives and wearable devices. Memsic claims to offer a 60 Germany percent reduction in cost and a 50 percent reduction ELBV/Electronische Bauelemente Vertrieb E-mail: [email protected] in size but only partially benchmarks what it is com- Phone: 0049 89 4602852 paring the MXC400xXC against. The MXC400xXC provides 12-bit resolution on all Fax: 0049 89 46205442 three axes, programmable FSR of ±2g/±4g/ ±8g, an 8-bit temperature output, plus England orientation/shake detection. With a package size of 1.2mm by 1.7mm, board space Ginsbury Electronics Ltd. is reduced by 50 percent over 2x2mm industry-standard. E-mail: [email protected] Phone: 0044 1634 298900 Memsic Inc. Fax: 0044 1634 290904 www.memsic.com

www.electronics-eetimes.com Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 47 Meter-on-chip for portable device Microminiature board-to-board applications offers 16-bit precision connector system Analog Devices has posted details of the AduCM350, which Molex’ SlimStack SSB6 SMT allows maximum space savings is a complete, coin cell powered, high precision, meter- in mobile devices, with an innovative mating alignment that on-chip for portable device applications such as point-of- ensures easy and secure contact Measuring 0.35x0.60x2.00mm care diagnostics and body-worn devices for monitoring wide, the SlimStack SSB6 connec- vital signs. The ADuCM350 is designed for high precision tors save space in the compact potentiostat, current, voltage, and impedance measurement packaging of smartphones and other capabilities. The device’s analogue front end (AFE) features portable mobile devices, as well as a 16-bit, precision, 160 ksamples/sec analogue-to-digital a wide range of surgical, therapeutic converter (ADC); 0.17% precision voltage reference; 12-bit, and monitoring medical devices. The no missing codes digital-to-analogue converter (DAC); and SlimStack SSB6 connectors (plug a reconfigurable ultralow leakage switch matrix. It has four and receptacle) incorporate several innovative design features voltage measurement channels, up to 8 current measurement that help to ensure high connector performance and reliability, channels and an impedance measurement DFT engine. The even when mobile devices are dropped or subjected to shock ADuCM350 also includes an ARM Cortex-M3-based proces- or vibration. Some key features include wide mating-alignment sor, memory, and all I/O connectivity to support portable me- housing lead-in areas to facilitate fast, easy alignment and ters with display, USB communication, and active sensors. It mating without risking connector damage due to forced mat- is packaged in a 120-lead, 8×8 mm CSP BGA and operates ing; a strong audible/tactile click to provide extra assurance from −40°C to +85°C. To support extremely low dynamic and of successful mating; a dual-contact design to provide secure hibernate power management, the ADuCM350 provides a electrical and mechanical contact and prevent open contacts; collection of power modes and features, such as dynamic and a wipe length of 0.13 mm to help remove dust and debris, and software controlled clock gating and power gating. The providing further contact assurance. The housing canopy cover AFE is connected to the ARM Cortex-M3 via an advanced provides an anti-zippering barrier that prevents contact pullout high performance bus (AHPB) slave interface on the AMBA from angled unmating. In the future, the SlimStack SSB series matrix, as well as direct memory access (DMA) and interrupt will be expanded with additional versions for different stack connections. heights, an EMI shielded version and a version with a power nail Analog Devices ‘armour’ feature.” www.analog.com Molex www.molex.com

Bluetooth development kit for PIC 32 users Dual power MOSFET reduces losses Microchip’s PIC32 Bluetooth starter kit is intended for projects for DC-DC applications such as thermostats, wireless gaming controllers, barcode International Rectifier has expanded the company’s power scanners and diagnostic tools. The kit integrates a PIC32 MCU block family of devices with the introduction of the IRF- with LEDs, analogue sensors, user-defined push buttons, USB HE4250D FastIRFET dual power MOSFET that reduces power and I2S/SPI connectivity and losses by more than five percent at 25 mTouch capacitive touch sensing. A compared to best-in-class con- As well as the PIC32, there is an ventional power block devices. The HCI-based Bluetooth radio, Cree 25 V device is targeted at 12 V input high-output multi-colour LED, DC-DC synchronous buck applica- three standard single-colour LEDs, tions including advanced telecom and an analogue 3-axis accelerometer, netcom equipment, servers, graphic analogue temperature sensor and cards, desktop, Ultra book and notebook computers. The IR- five push buttons for user-defined FHE4250D features IR’s latest generation silicon and expands inputs. The kit includes PICkit On Board (PKOB) which elimi- the power block packaging platform with a 6x6 PQFN pack- nates the need for an external debugger/programmer; USB age with exposed top and slim profile for back-side mount- connectivity; and GPIOs for development of Bluetooth Serial ing that combined with excellent thermal performance, low Port Profile (SPP), USB and general-purpose applications. The on-state resistance (RDS(on)) and gate charge (Qg) delivers starter kit also features a plug-in interface for an audio CO- superior power density and lower switching losses to shrink DEC daughter card which is set to release at a later stage to PCB size and improve overall system efficiency. As with all IR support Bluetooth audio. The Bluetooth Starter Kit includes a power block devices, the IRFHE4250D works with any con- PIC32MX270F256D MCU for main processing that runs at 83 troller or driver to offer design flexibility while delivering higher DMIPS with 256 kB Flash and 64 kB RAM. The kit reduces soft- current, efficiency and frequency capability in a small foot- ware development time by offering a free Bluetooth SPP stack print, and extends IR’s power block offering to a 6x6 PQFN optimised for the on-board PIC32 MCU for setting-up emulated package. The IRFHE4250D is qualified to industrial grade and serial port connections between two peer Bluetooth devices. moisture sensitivity level 2 (MSL2), and is available in a 6x6 The Bluetooth Starter Kit is targeted at low-cost applications in PQFN package with exposed top that features an environ- the consumer market such as Bluetooth thermostats and wire- mentally friendly and RoHS compliant bill of materials. less gaming controllers. International Rectifier Microchip www.irf.com www.microchip.com

48 Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 www.electronics-eetimes.com EBVchips get their own dedicated website Free software tool provides circuit simulation EBV Elektronik has set up a dedicated website to offer its and PCB layout customers comprehensive online information on its unique Distributor Mouser is to release the MultiSIM BLUE software EBVchips program under which the distributor defines custom package, based on code by National Instruments; the NI semiconductor solutions developed with and for its custom- Multisim Component Evaluator - Mouser Edition. In col- ers. The chips are then manufactured by laboration with NI, this EBV’s supplier partners, fulfilling special Mouser version of the requirements not covered by products free tool will add features already available. This makes EBV the and functionality to pro- first semiconductor specialist to offer vide engineers with an such a service. The new site presents all industry-standard SPICE the latest available products, shows an simulation environment explanatory film about the EBVchips program and has a dedi- of electronic circuits us- cated FAQ section. On top of that, the microsite contains the ing Mouser Electronics’ EBVchips Innovation Contest at www.ebv.com/innovation-con- distributed components. This forthcoming release of Multi- test. Here customers can participate in the definition of a new SIM BLUE will include more than 100,000 electronic compo- EBVchip, a device that could solve their application needs with nents with intuitive simulation features and SPICE analyses. a higher integration level and the right performance/price ratio. Mouser Electronics EBV Elektronik www.mouser.com www.ebv.com Digi-Key to distribute dual-mode Bluetooth SparqEE boards bring cellular connectivity Low-Energy products for BlueCreation to Raspberry Pi and Arduino Distributor Digi-Key has announced a distribution agreement RS Components is now taking orders for the SparqEE develop- with BlueCreation, UK-based maker of dual-model BLE solu- ment boards, designed to enable easy cellular connectivity and tions. Focused on enabling innovative devices integrating Internet access for projects based on the Raspberry Pi and Ar- wireless technologies, BlueCre- duino platforms. A total of seven ation specialises in the manufac- new SparqEE boards are avail- ture of Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low able to order exclusively from RS, Energy, Wi-Fi and other embedded including the CELLv1.0 – a tiny wireless technologies, with a deep cellular development board that knowledge of their interactions implements a 2G+3G chipset to with smartphones, tablet PCs, and provide wireless worldwide. This other similar equipment. BlueCreation - www.bluecreation. means that the CELLv1.0 module will use 3G primarily and only com - is an engineering team formed by ex-CSR employees. revert to 2G when 3G is not available. In addition, the CELLv1.0 The company offers a dual-mode Bluetooth Low Energy measures only 36x42x7mm, making it the smallest cellular mod- solution with concurrent stack. ule currently available on the market. Digi-Key RS Components www.digikey.com www.rs-components.com Qi-certified power coils charge portable Monolithic Power Systems signs consumer devices with Avnet Memec Luso Electronics has wireless power transmitter and receiver Monolithic Power Systems (MPS) and Avnet Memec have coil modules from Elec & Eltek (E&E), manufacturer of mag- agreed on a Pan-European value-added distribution partner- netic components. These small, thin and highly efficient mag- ship. Avnet Memec is chartered with sales and value-added netic-induction-coil modules have support for the extensive MPS product portfolio that includes been designed for use in wireless DC/DC and AC/DC converters, LED drivers, battery chargers, charging applications for portable motor drivers, and other advanced analog devices throughout electronic devices. These E&E Europe. “MPS has been successfully diversifying its product coils are compliant with the Qi portfolio from consumer to industrial, automotive, lighting, interface-standard specifications, and white goods markets in the past few years,” said Maurice which have been developed by Sciammas, EVP Worldwide Sales and Marketing at MPS. “Avnet the Wireless Power Consortium Memec’s pan-European sales infrastructure with its core focus (WPC). The Qi standard enables on demand creation is an excellent partner for MPS to further inductive electrical power transfer over distances of up to 4 expand our footprint into new markets and geography.” “The cm. Two transmitter and receiver coil modules are available partnership with MPS is a good complementary fit with our line- offering 5W low-power transfer and the 15W medium-power card and target vertical markets,” said Steve Haynes, President extension to the WPC standard. of Avnet Memec. Luso Electronics Avnet Memec www.lusoelectronics.com www.avnet-memec.eu www.electronics-eetimes.com Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 49

Publisher André Rousselot IoT: sensor fusion or confusion? +32 27400053 [email protected] By Jay Esfandyari

Editor-in-Chief What keeps the Internet of Things tion as a strapdown inertial navigation Julien Happich from becoming a tangled jumble of or pedometer-based portable navigation +33 169819476 incoming data from various connected device. The accelerometer provides step [email protected] devices? And within a single device that detection, and the tilt-compensated EDITORS feeds information into the IoT, how does compass – a three-axis magnetometer Nick Flaherty sensor fusion work? – if disturbed, allows the +44 7710236368 Implemented in a wide gyro to make heading ad- [email protected] variety of product catego- justments. The compass Christoph Hammerschmidt ries, sensor fusion is a calculates magnetic field +49 8944450209 necessity for applications and compensates for the [email protected] like wearable gadgets gyro’s zero-rate drift over Peter Clarke supporting health and time. Meanwhile, the pres- +44 776 786 55 93 fitness and the body sure sensor, working with [email protected] motion tracking devices the accelerometer, acts as Paul Buckley used in the production an altimeter and conveys +44 1962866460 of advanced CGI mov- floor changes for indoor [email protected] ies and gaming. Even navigation. Jean-Pierre Joosting products as “simple” as So much data, so little +44 7800548133 your smartphone require “Even products as time... [email protected] multiple sensors with lots “simple” as your The MCU houses the of degrees of freedom Kalman Filter, which pre- Circulation & Finance and a powerful MCU, to smartphone require dicts sensor errors from Luc Desimpel collect, coordinate, pro- the equations of inertial [email protected] cess, analyze, filter, and multiple sensors with navigation. It estimates communicate data. and compensates for the Advertising Production & lots of degrees of Reprints The latest versions of gyro’s long-term bias drift, Lydia Gijsegom sensor fusion are a set of freedom and a powerful magnetic anomalies, and [email protected] adaptive prediction and provides data for dead- filtering algorithms based MCU, to collect, reckoning applications Art Manager on extended Kalman Fil- coordinate, process, when GPS info is unavail- Jean-Paul Speliers ter theory that uses qua- able. Accounting ternion concepts to avoid analyze, filter, and Et voila! Sensor fusion. Ricardo Pinto Ferreira mathematical singularity In the next few years, and deliver more reliable communicate data.” the market pundits project Regional Advertising results. These algorithms significant growth of sen- Representatives “make sense” of all of the complex in- sors fueled by sensor fusion. According Contact information at: formation coming from multiple sensors, to many analysts, that growth in annual http://www.electronics-eetimes.com/en/ including accelerometers, gyroscopes, sales could increase from the multimil- about/sales-contacts.html compasses, and pressure sensors, by lion units recorded in 2012 to reach taking each sensor’s measurement data more than a couple billion by 2016. European Business Press SA as input, and compensating for drift and This analysis suggests the IoT will be 7 Avenue Reine Astrid other effects and limitations of each pretty limited to the kinds of applications 1310 La Hulpe individual sensor, to output accurate and we’re all familiar with. But if you close Tel: +32 (0)2 740 00 50 european responsive dynamic results. your eyes and dream a bit, perhaps you business press Fax: +32 (0)2 740 00 59 For one example, let’s take a look can see, as I do, components of future www.electronics-eetimes.com at the application of pedestrian dead sensor modules expanding beyond VAT Registration: BE 461.357.437 reckoning (PDR) and the fusion of four the current fusion of pressure sensors, RPM: Brussels sensors and five inputs. You’ve got your accelerometers, gyros, and magne- Company Number: 0461357437 GPS input as well as your accelerom- tometers to such applications as PDR eter, gyro, magnetometer, and pressure- and cardiac monitoring by including UV © 2014 E.B.P. SA sensor data coupled to an MCU. index sensors, gas, and volatile organic ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING TIMES EUROPE is published 11 times in 2014 by European Business Press SA, Working together, a three-axis accel- compound sensing for applications 7 Avenue Reine Astrid, 1310 La Hulpe, Belgium erometer and three-axis gyroscope func- such as safety SmartWear. In my mind, Tel: +32-2-740 00 50 Fax: +32-2-740 00 59 robotic autonomous surgery function- email: [email protected]. VAT Registration: BE 461.357.437. RPM: Nivelles. Volume 16, Issue 8 EE Times P 304128 Jay Esfandyari, director of ing through sensor fusion is no longer It is is free to qualified engineers and managers involved in MEMS product marketing at the stuff of science fiction, and bionics, engineering decisions – see: http://www.electronics-eetimes.com/subscribe STMicroelectronics, has more nano-biosensors fusing organic tissues Copyright 2014 by European Business Press SA. than 20 years of experience in the with sensor technology, is the next logi- All rights reserved. P 304128 semiconductor industry. cal step in sensor fusion.

50 Electronic Engineering Times Europe September 2014 www.electronics-eetimes.com mentor_graphics_IESF2014_210x297_rev2.pdf 1 22.08.2014 11:53:54

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