January 2011 Business Press

european January 2011 business press www.electronics-eetimes.com

10 execs and 10 technologies that are changing the game 8

Focus: Test & RF & Wireless Measurement 21 Technologies 40

CoNTENTS JANUARY 2011

A European Business Press Publication

Publisher André Rousselot +32 27400053 [email protected]

Editor-in-Chief Julien Happich Using a century-old phenomenon discovered in St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, applied scientists +33 153907865 at Harvard University have demonstrated highly collimated unidirectional microlasers. [email protected] 5

EDITORS opinion batteries Philip Ling | Uncommon Market: Forget +44 1622746580 4 [email protected] fab-lite, this is fab-tight design + products

Christoph Hammerschmidt 50 Last Word: Don’t be an easy SPECIAL FOCUS: +49 8930779786 catch: test your products before TEST&MEASUREMENT [email protected] deployment 21 Measuring the resistivity of bulk CONTRIBUTING EDITORS materials Paul Buckley Cover story 24 Radar measurement +44 1962866460 [email protected] 8 10 execs and 10 technologies comparison: swept and FFT- that are changing the game based signal analyzers Jean-Pierre Joosting +44 1202543405 28 Optical power measurement and [email protected] news & TECHNOLOGY resolution

Circulation & Finance 5 | Unidirectional ‘whispering SPECIAL FOCUS: Luc Desimpel gallery’ microlasers show higher INTERCONNECT [email protected] output efficiency 32 Automotive Ethernet diagnostics Advertising Production & Reprints 6| ECC toolbox could extend scaling and beyond! Lydia Gijsegom for new nand Flash interface [email protected] 36 Automotive connectors evolve to 18 Software to take half of the total meet EV challenges Art Manager navigation market by 2016 Jean-Paul Speliers SPECIAL FOCUS: european Accounting 19 Audio processing puts greater RF&WIRELESS Ricardo Pinto Ferreira business press demand on DSPs Regional Advertising Representatives: 40 Inside Bluetooth low-energy Contact information at: 19 | Blue Link: Hyundai’s next in- http://www.electronics-eetimes.com/en/about/ sales-contacts.html vehicle telematics interface Reader offer 20 | Nanoscoops’ could spark new European Business Press SA 46 Ten RDK-251 reference kits 144 Avenue Eugène Plasky generation of electric automobile 1030 Brussels - Belgium Tel: +32 (0)2 740 00 50 Fax: +32 (0)2 740 00 59 www.electronics-eetimes.com ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING TIMES EUROPE is published monthly in 2011 by European Business Press SA, 144 Avenue Plasky, 1030 Bruxelles, Belgium Tel: +32-2-740 00 50 Fax: +32-2-740 00 59 email: [email protected]. VAT Registration: BE 461.357.437. RPM: Brussels. VAT Registration: BE 461.357.437 / RPM: Volume 13, Issue 1 EE Times P 304128 AD_ecomm_EPN.qxp:EETimesBrussels 1/6/11 12:39 PM Page 1 It is is free to qualified engineers and managers involved in engineering decisions – see: http://www.electronics-eetimes.com/subscribe Company Number: 0461357437 / © 2011 E.B.P. SA Copyright 2011 by European Business Press SA. All rights reserved. P 304128

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Forget fab-lite, this is fab-tight By Philip Ling

Over-cautiousness during the recent hard times may other words, ICs destined for high volume have left the semiconductor industry struggling to applications. This can only lead to the loss of keep up with expected demand, according to indus- innovation. The problem may be that the real value try analyst Malcolm Penn, CEO of Future Horizons, in semiconductor manufacturing is now in who has coined the phrase ‘fab-tight’ to highlight the (re)packaging and distribution, which is why fabless companies are able to command the need for more capacity across the board. the greatest – and possible only commercially sustainable – margins. A FLAT-LINED CAPITAL EXPENDITURE curve sic economics. With a subsequent glut of The good news is Penn sees many new over six quarters means many fabs have ‘commodity’ parts, it may be apparent that markets needing many new devices, pre- been running at close to 100% capacity for the ASP is falling but clearly that should be dominantly devices that aren’t 20nm SOCs. three years, a trend that is set to continue something under the control of the industry, This includes mixed signal ICs, power de- due to the missing investment, leaving vices, compound semi- little or no room for flexibility. Penn high- conductors and display lighted that the last quarter of last year saw drivers; applications a 147% increase in capital expenditure but and devices that could fears it is a case of ‘too little, too late’. offer smaller IDMs real Instead of adding capacity in anticipation opportunities. of demand, Penn believes that manufactur- Penn proposed that ers have taken to building it in response to the industry is riding on demand; a ‘just in time’ approach that may the back of six prem- work well in certain supply chains, but ises that are essentially doesn’t fit the semiconductor model. Subse- wrong; myths that are quently, with a lack of sales there has been a perpetuated through reduction in R&D by the manufacturers of either a lack of under- semiconductor fabrication equipment, caus- standing, confidence or ing an even more severe dearth of capacity vision. The first three and lack of cutting edge technologies to feed Fab shortage versus fab shortage. declare that the market the now rising demand. not driving it. has reached a level of maturity that dictates Behind the lack of investment is reduced Likewise, the problem may stem from its cyclic nature is at an end and, as a result, confidence in the market caused by the device manufacturers being too eager to pass ASPs must continue to decline. But perhaps downturn, but Penn was keen to stress that savings on to their customers, as each new more interesting are the ‘myths’ that state this wasn’t a classic cycle or recession; it was process node delivers more transistors per there is no strategic value in fabs and that a ‘pause’ with a subsequent bounce back, not square inch, or larger wafers render a greater the fabless model is a recipe for success. a boom. As a result, there will be a market number of die. These two substantiate, in Penn’s view, correction, not to be misread as a crash, Economics aside, it seems clear that the ‘Wall Street’ dictate that, as it is a mature which may ultimately help reduce the stress an over-reliance on fabrication partners market with low growth and declining ASPs, on existing manufacturers. may ultimately promote the resurgence of everything should be outsourced and the His forecast is for a ‘steady’ 4 to 6% independent device manufacturers (IDMs), focus should be on IP and branding. growth which some may feel is too low, how- if the cost of the equipment can be justified. Penn’s forecasts, which historically have ever Penn believes the industry has an abil- The alternative is the ‘fab-lite’ model, which been relatively accurate, are derived from ity to see what it wants to see; for instance Penn feels is now defunct (and, perhaps, was fierce analysis and common sense; the it is perceived that the average selling price never viable), or the more mainstream ‘fab- former helps uncover the trends behind (ASP) for ICs continues to fall where, in fact, less’ solution. the data, while the latter helps provide the it has been rising for eight quarters. The danger here is that, as technology context. n Penn points out that the perception may evolves, fabless manufacturers may become be founded on the lack of premium devices more closely tied to a single fab partner, who Philip Ling is Editor for embedded electronics at entering the market, which command a will ultimately need to prioritise between EETimes Europe - he can be reached at higher selling price, as dictated by clas- those that offer the greatest potential, in [email protected]

4 Electronic Engineering Times Europe January 2011 News & TECHNOLOGY Unidirectional ‘whispering gallery’ microlasers show higher output efficiency QUANTUM PHYSICS By Julien Happich

USING A CENTURY-OLD phenomenon dome in St. Paul’s Cathedral could hear each discovered in St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, other by whispering into the circular wall. applied scientists at Harvard University He discovered that the sound skirts along the have demonstrated, for the first time, highly smooth surface of the wall with negligible collimated unidirectional microlasers. The attenuation due to scattering or absorption. result of a collaboration with researchers The optical analogy of whispers in a dome from Hamamatsu Photonics in Hamamatsu are light rays confined to the perimeter of City, Japan, and the Institute of Theoretical tiny circular disks by multiple reflections The new microlaser uses an elliptical resonator Physics of the University of Magdeburg, Ger- from the boundary as they circle around. with a wavelength-sized notch (seen at top right) many, the advance has a wide range of new Because attenuation is minimal within the on the boundary to create unidirectional rays applications in photonics such as sensing smooth disk, these resonators have already (bottom left). and communications. been used to make some of the world’s low- The research team took advantage of a est-threshold lasers. Circular disks, however, gallery modes with little chance to escape concept in physics referred to as “whispering have posed certain challenges. except by a faint isotropic emission. Strate- gallery modes.” Over a century ago, British “One of the crucial unsolved problems of gies to suitably deform the disks to solve this scientist Lord Rayleigh wondered how two these microlasers for practical applications problem have yielded disappointing results,” people standing on opposite sides of the has been that their emission is non-direc- Capasso added. tional and their optical power output is neg- By shaping the microlaser as an ellipse ligible,” said team leader Federico Capasso, with a wavelength-size notch carved out Robert L. Wallace Professor of Applied Phys- from its edge, Capasso’s team found that ics and Vinton Hayes Senior Research Fellow the cycling whispering gallery modes scat- in Electrical Engineering at Harvard’s School ter efficiently off the notch and emerge as of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). nearly parallel beams from the microlaser. “Light gets trapped by these whispering The prototypes are quantum cascade lasers emitting an optical power of 5 milliwatts at a wavelength of 10 microns. The microlaser performance is insensitive to the details of the notch, making this device design very robust. “Our calculations show that the notched elliptical microlaser should have even better performance at the shorter wavelengths near 1 micron, typical of laser diodes used in optical communications, where the attenuation of whispering gallery modes is negligible,” said coauthor Jan Wiersig of the Institute of Theoretical Physics of the University of Magdeburg. “The realization of these simple- structured and robust microlasers through standard wafer-based fabrication makes Upper panel: This is a scanning electron micro- small-volume directional light sources pos- scope image of the notched elliptical resonator sible for many important applications such Upper panel: Schematic illustration of the with a minor radius X = 80 μm, a major radius Y as photonic ICs with high-density chip- notched elliptical resonator. Lower panel: Ray = 96 μm and notch dimensions o = 3 μm, and d scale integration, optical communications, simulation of whispering gallery mode dynamics. = 2 μm. Lower panel: Zoom-in view of the device biological sensors, and lab-on-a-chip,” said Credit: Courtesy of the laboratory of Federico showing the smooth sidewall of the laser cavity. coauthor Masamichi Yamanishi, Research Capasso, Harvard School of Engineering and Ap- The two white dashed lines indicate the boundar- Fellow of Central Research Laboratories at plied Sciences (SEAS). ies of the active region. Hamamatsu. n

January 2011 Electronic Engineering Times Europe 5 NEWS & TECHNOLOGY MEMORY TECHNOLOGY ECC toolbox could extend scaling while defining a new nand Flash interface standard By Philip Ling

THROUGH THE DEVELOPMENT of innova- Micron claims the continued scaling of specific, unlike wear levelling, it makes tive scaling techniques, Micron believes it nand Flash is helping it displace other forms sense to integrate the function in to the has at least a 6 month process advantage of mass storage, most notably hard disk memory device. Other memory manufactur- over its competitors’ nand Flash technol- drives. Currently the company claims it is ers are believed to be working on similar ogy. However, the company acknowledges it producing devices with 25nm features and solutions, although there is no evidence of comes with a downside of reduced endur- can extend this to 18nm and possible 15nm, this as yet. ance and increased error checking and cor- using pitch doubling/double patterning It could mean that the first manufacturer rection (ECC) requirements, which threaten with a proven solution will effectively to limit the density of Flash memory just set the standard with JEDEC and ONFI, as its momentum builds in mainstream ap- although Micron’s Kilbuck points out that plications. the standard is more about the electrical The solution to this problem, put forward interface and not the protocol used. by Micron, is to integrate the ECC function For manufacturers of nand controllers in to multi-chip packaged Flash memory, this may be a double-edged sword; on one further extending the lifetime of its process side it removes the burden of ECC manage- technology. This may also create the need for ment, but on the other it also reduces the bespoke Flash memory, so the real challenge complexity of the controller and, therefore, faced by the company is to convince the its perceived value. industry it has the best solution to a problem The next logical step may be to integrate that doesn’t actually exist at the moment. other functions from the controller in to the The move could see the technology being Flash memory, although at the moment Mi- adopted as a standard by JEDEC and the cron states this isn’t the intention, it admits Open Nand Flash Interface group, ONFI, the ClearNAND controller will ‘evolve’. At with whom Micron says it has already the moment the controller uses around 200k started discussions; Micron claims both Kevin Kilbuck: “Future products will rely on logic gates but in the future this could rise to ONFI and JEDEC have been working on an ClearNAND taking ECC out of the system and 1 million. interface that ‘could develop into a Clear- developing devices specifically for ClearNAND The technology falls in to what Micron is NAND standard’. enabled memory.” describing as a ‘toolbox’ for nand error man- The target market for the ClearNAND techniques. However, scaling beyond that agement, which will include other firmware technology is developers working with ‘raw’ will require more extreme measures such and signal processing algorithms, and will nand who are now struggling with ECC. as the move to EUV technology. That puts be used in various Micron Flash memory According to Micron’s Director of Strategic pressure on Flash manufacturers to develop products. Marketing, NAND Product Group, Kevin a method to extend the lifetime of existing, The company’s roadmap includes ‘stan- Kilbuck (pictured): “Future products will working processes to meet the demand from dard’ and ‘enhanced’ ClearNAND; the latter rely on ClearNAND taking ECC out of the tomorrow’s applications. targeting larger devices (up to 64Gbyte) and system and developing devices specifically Micron argues that, as ECC is entirely applications that more random access and for ClearNAND enabled memory.” technology-dependent and not application less data streaming. n

Micron also announced its system responsive- the company’s fastest C300 drive. The new first SSD product line to incorpo- ness including fast- SSDs also provide benefits that desktops, rate the company’s 25-nanometer er boot times and workstations and industrial applications nand Flash technology. Offering a speedier application can take advantage of including low power broad portfolio of capacities rang- loads. The new consumption, lightweight construction ing from 64 to 512GB, the drives drives reach read and resistance to shock and vibration. will be available in 1.8-inch and speeds up to 415 Micron is currently working with 2.5-inch form factors. As with its megabytes/s, which notebook manufacturers to qualify its new predecessor, the product line also supports is 17 percent faster than Micron’s previ- RealSSD drives under the C400 product the SATA 6Gb/s interface, which opens up ous generation drives, while the 512GB name. Samples of the RealSSD C400 drives the data path between the host processor drive achieves up to 260 MB/second write are available now and Micron expects mass and the SSD delivering improved overall speeds, more than 20 percent faster than production to begin in February.

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Ten execs to laud for 2010; ten technologies to watch in 2011 By Junko Yoshida

AFTER HUNKERING DOWN and fighting for survival in 2009, many electronics industry players—both the companies and those who lead them—have bounced back in 2010, some more emphatically than others. In many cases, those who have rebounded most dramatically have done so by acting more boldly and taking more risks than their competitors and peers. But while they weren’t afraid to move aggressively, they also applied more discipline, sharpening their focus on their products, their technologies and—here’s an idea—their customers. In this issue, we have picked 10 CEOs who we believe made a real difference in 2010. Many undertook gutsy moves intended to change the game in the marketplace; some breathed new life into the stagnant cultures within their own companies. We have also selected 10 top technologies that we think are on the verge of blossoming on the market in 2011 and beyond. Some of the choices are more obvious than others, but overall the list is intended to illustrate where companies and engineers are channeling their development efforts right now. Sit back, scan the lists and apply your own expert analysis; then tell us your own picks at www.eetimes.com. We’d love to compare your list with ours and let you peruse other readers’ selections, just to see where the discussion leads—and who gets to claim bragging rights a year from now. — Junko Yoshida is editor in chief of EETimes Jha rides the winds around Android TI’s Templeton flouts convention to win in analog

SANJAY JHA SPENT 2010 at the helm of one of the most high-profile TEXAS INSTRUMENTS IS ARGUABLY the most nimble vendor in the turnaround efforts in electronics as chief executive of Motorola IC business. TI focused on DRAMs when that market was hot, then Mobility. Plenty of stormy seas exited the business when it went south. After DRAMs, the com- are still ahead, but the engineer- pany’s mantra was DSPs. It has recently focused on analog and taken turned-executive is making the lead in that sector’s revenue rankings. Now chairman, president progress on a carefully plotted and CEO Rich Templeton is doing what in today’s outsourcing- course. obsessed world is seemingly Estimates are that Motorola unthinkable: He’s expanding will have shipped about 14 mil- the company’s fab capacity. lion of its new Droid smart- TI says its recent analog phones this year, putting it back capacity additions will amount in the game of high-end hand to more than $4.5 billion of sets. That’s significant for a additional analog revenue per company that had sprung a big year when the fab lines are leak in its financials and market fully operational. Last year, the share after essentially missing company began ramping up the the emergence of the super-hot smartphone market. industry’s first 300-mm analog In October, the company’s handset business broke even for the fab, in Richardson, Texas. In first time in three years, a quarter ahead of plan, said Mark McKech- July, it purchased two Spansion nie, a Wall Street analyst who follows Motorola for Gleacher & Co. “I fabs, capable of 200- and 300- am definitely positive on what he [Jha] has done so far. Sanjay really mm production, in Aizu-Waka- breathed some life into the company, and runs a tight ship,” often matsu, Japan. And in October, TI having a hand in which products make it to market, McKechnie said acquired a 200-mm fab in Chengdu, China, from Cension Semicon- of the former chip set designer from Qualcomm. ductor Manufacturing Co. that had been operated by Semiconductor Icebergs ahead include a long-rumored Apple iPhone for Verizon, Manufacturing International Corp. which has been Moto’s biggest partner and a leading Android advo- The added fabs in China and Japan are targeted for analog. Ana- cate. Jha is tacking toward huge markets in sub-$200 smartphones lysts said TI could be challenged to fill them during slow periods, but and China to weather that squall. Templeton believes TI’s fab strategy will bring added market share With a doctorate in electrical engineering, this CEO hasno short- and lower costs. That worries many of its analog rivals, which use age of brainpower to read the changing stars. Andhe is not alone older fabs or have outsourced their production to foundries. navigating the high seas of mobile systems. Nokia’s new chief execu- Under Templeton, “TI continues to execute its strategy of exploit- tive, Stephen Elop, has even a bigger boat to turn around. ing low-cost manufacturing advantages and growing embedded pro- — Rick Merritt cessing and analog faster than its peers,” said analyst Doug Freedman

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of Gleacher & Co. a year ago. One of the most TI’s earnings for 2010 are projected to come in at $2.52 a share on debt-ridden chip companies in sales of $13.9 billion, compared with $1.16 per share on sales of $10.4 the world since its acquisition billion in 2009, according to FBR. by private-equity firms in 2006, — Mark LaPedus Freescale has also improved its debt structure under Beyer. Laub at last brings magic touch to long- What’s more, the company will likely go public in 2011. suffering Atmel Beyer has brought a much- needed focus to Freescale’s once NOT LONG AGO, Atmel Corp. seemed destined for oblivion. In 2006, sprawling product and business it fired CEO George Perlegos, who subsequently attempted to regain segments. His decision to exit control of the company in an ugly proxy battle. The chip maker was the mobile handset chip market losing money, had too many fabs and lacked focus. was controversial, painful and In 2007, Atmel appointed chip veteran Steven Laub president and emotionally taxing, especially CEO in a move to fix the mess. But the cleanup effort got sidetracked among Freescale’s veteran staff. in 2008 as the company fended off hostile takeover bids by Micro- But a laserlike focus on the network and basestation market has chip Technology Corp. and On Semiconductor Corp. allowed Freescale to seize a growing opportunity in the global tele- More recently, Laub has realized his vision—and more—for Atmel. communications market. The company is also establishing tighter The company has shed its excess fab capacity, and Laub has reshaped relationships with automotive manufacturers. Atmel into a focused, fab-lite Many analysts agree that Freescale has done well recently on the microcontroller play. strength of its products. Indeed, it has come far enough along to have FBR analyst Craig Berger become a formidable competitor to Texas Instruments. believes Atmel hit the jackpot in Beyer’s best trick might have been his foresight and leadership in 2008 when it acquired Quantum building a strong and cohesive team of senior executives at Freescale. Research Group Ltd., a developer They include Lisa Su, senior vice president and general manager of a capacitive sensing technolo- for networking and multimedia; Reza Kazerounian, senior vice gy for touchscreens. “We did not president and general manager for microcontroller solutions; and expect maXTouch handset vol- Tom Deitrich, senior vice president and general manager for cellular umes to ramp so meaningfully products and RF, analog and sensor solutions. Describing each execu- in 2010, nor did we expect very tive as smart, capable and aggressive but also “congenial,” Beyer said robust industrial shipments to he has high confidence in this team. be sustainable,” said Berger. Freescale clearly needs more time before Beyer and his congenial Analyst Doug Freedman at lieutenants can heal all the wounds inflicted by the internal rivalries, Gleacher & Co. acknowledged political maneuvering and reorganizational turmoil of the past few that his firm “underestimated years. But Beyer is determined to change the corporate culture at the magnitude of growth resulting from rapid adoption of Atmel’s Freescale, and he appears to be moving in the right direction touch solution by high-volume players in the smartphone (Verizon’s — Junko Yoshida Evo, Motorola’s Droid X, Samsung’s Galaxy) and tablet (Samsung’s Galaxy Tab)” markets. ASML’s Meurice: Litho outsider revives the Atmel’s maXTouch sales alone have jumped from nearly zero in 2008 to $140 million in 2010. Freedman estimates that the product industry’s giant could hit $240 million in sales in 2011. The question is whether the company can sustain that growth in BACK IN 2003, struggling ASML Holding NV lost the top spot in the the face of competition from a growing number of rivals, including lithography market to Nikon Corp. and was looking nervously over Cypress, Microchip, Renesas and Synaptics. its shoulder at perennial No. 3 player Canon Inc. Desperate times Earnings expectations for Atmel this year are 33 cents per share called for desperate measures. In 2004, ASML went outside the indus- on sales of $1.6 billion, according to FBR. In 2009, Atmel lost 23 cents try and named little-known Eric Meurice, an executive vice president per share on sales of $1.22 billion. of Thomson Television Worldwide, as president, CEO and chairman. — Mark LaPedus The consumer electronics executive put the litho specialist back on the map. ASML accelerated its efforts in 193-nanometer immer- Freescale’s Beyer: Mr. Congeniality doesn’t sion and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, and growth took off. By 2009, according to Gartner Inc., ASML held 51 percent of the shy from controversy lithography market, followed by Nikon, 39 percent (Canon remained mired in third place, with 9 percent). RICH BEYER JOINED troubled Freescale Semiconductor in 2008 and Barclays Capital estimates ASML’s current share of the leading- has put the company back on a healthy trajectory. edge, 193-nm immersion market at a whopping 80 percent, leaving The company recorded $1 million in income from operations in Nikon and Canon in the dust. Nikon, which once filled 100 percent the third quarter, ended Oct. 1, compared with a loss of $251 million of Intel Corp.’s leading-edge lithography requirements, took another

10 Electronic Engineering Times Europe January 2011 COVER STORY

body blow from ASML this year “…the when the Netherlandsbased vendor won half of Intel’s lead- support ing-edge lithography business at the 22-nm node. ASML’s sales are believed to they’ve have hit $5.99 billion in 2010, up 170 percent over 2009, accord- given us… ing to Barclays. What’s more, amid a supposed slowdown has been in the fab equipment market, ASML is “seeing no restraint exceptional.” for tool demand” heading into 2011, Meurice told analysts during a conference call to discuss the Director of Engineering, company’s strong third-quarter results. Medical Interconnect Manufacturer Meurice is leading the charge in the monumental task of commer- cializing EUV, which has spent decades in R&D. By 2012, ASML could generate sales from $500 million to $1 billion in EUV scanners alone, according to Barclays. But the challenge remains to make EUV a production-worthy technology, as some of the pieces—including the power source, resists and masks—are still not ready for prime time. — Mark LaPedus Vij mobilizes for a reenergized MIPS

WHEN A COMPANY is struggling, the dreaded CEO change is a move MAXIMUM of last resort that doesn’t guarantee a successful makeover. But MIPS Service Technologies’ strong comeback this year in the highly competitive processor IP market traces directly to Sandeep Vij’s installation at the helm in January. MIPS’ revenue “…they make things simple. Where others grew by 50 percent, to $22.5 mil- find ways to complicate the process, Mill-Max lion, in the September-ended fiscal consistently delivers what’s needed, when first quarter compared with the it’s needed, with little or no fuss. year-ago period. Revenue from roy- ” alties increased 40 percent, to $13.6 At Mill-Max we do everything we can to make your million; licensing revenue soared job easier — from our easy-to-use website to quick- 71 percent, to $8.9 million. turnaround quotes…responsive customer service and Developments afoot at MIPS before Vij’s arrival included the technical support…on-time delivery…free samples… company’s early jump on Android, and so much more. its development of the M14K core Quality is not open to compromise, in China and its first forays into the “ mobile baseband and app processormarkets. Work on Android began and Mill-Max components meet our a few years back as a skunk works at MIPS; the M14K core develop- very stringent standards. ment was initiated by a senior engineering leader who returned to ” Shanghai. But MIPS’ move into the mobile market was still viewed ® as somewhat suspect. Vij brought much-needed support to virtually every risk in the Our connectors speak for pipeline. He created a believable road map for MIPS’ resurgence, not themselves…so do our customers. only in the digital home and networking markets but also in the mobile space, in a bid to reenergize the customer base. MIPS has identified several “mobile chip licensees”; they include Altair, Beceem, Mavrix, Sequans, Wintegra and an unidentified “anchor” licensee, based in Asia, that MIPS claims to have wooed away from ARM. To view our Design Guide, new product offerings It may be a few more years before MIPS poses a real threat to ARM and request a datasheet with free samples, in mobile, but given its progress under Vij, the notion is no longer folly. — Junko Yoshida visit www.mill-max.com/EETE608

January#LIENTæ-ILL -AXæsæ*OBæ. 2011 Electronic EngineeringOæ--!8 æsæ3UBJECTæ3ERVICE Times Europe 11 3IZEævæXævæsæ#OLORæ#æsæ0UBLICATIONæ%%æ4IMESæ%UROPEæsæ)SSUEæ$ATEæ*ANUARYæ 4HISæ!Dæ0REPAREDæBYæ3ANNAæ-ATTSONæ-AC,EOD COVER STORY

Renesas Electronics’ Akao goes for the bold Maier’s method is to get into targeted markets quickly and PERHAPS NO CHIP INDUSTRY chief did more to boost his com- then get out before the me-too pany’s fortunes in 2010 than did Yasushi Akao, president of Renesas followers slash prices—and kill Electronics Corp. With his plate still full from the April merger of margins—just to get business. Renesas Technology and NEC Electronics that created Renesas Elec- Linear capitalized on its early tronics, Akao in July bought Nokia’s wireless modem business for involvement in mobile handsets about $200 million. but has made a deliberate move It was a bold move for a Japa- away from that market as mar- nese electronics company. Still gins have become squeezed. This working to combine two Japa- year saw the company complete nese giants with nearly 50,000 a clean break from consumer- employees worldwide into a oriented markets and renew its cohesive whole, Akao now focus on the automotive, industrial and networking sectors, where it had to integrate 1,100 Finnish can get full value for the innovative chips it makes. engineers into the operation and — Peter Clarke move Renesas into an entirely new market. East ARMs for battle on Intel’s turf While the new company is an MCU powerhouse—Renesas and NEC were ranked No. 1 and IN HIS NINTH YEAR as CEO of ARM Holdings, Warren East guided No. 2, respectively, pre-merger— the processor intellectual property licensor to declare a record order the Nokia deal advances two key parts of the strategy Akao laid out backlog for its fiscal third quarter, as well as an upbeat outlook for in his “100-day” post-merger plan: growing revenue outside of micro- the fourth quarter and into 2011. controllers and outside of Japan (in the latter case, to 60 percent of Perhaps most notably, 2010 total sales). was the year that ARM—envi- Renesas has already spun much of Nokia’s wireless modem sioning a day when its processor business back out into a wholly owned subsidiary, Renesas Mobile architecture is embedded in Corp. The move was billed as positioning Renesas to compete in a everything—emerged as a rival market for cellular baseband chips that differs dramatically from the to Intel. company’s core microcontroller business; Akao has called Nokia’s The IP provider rode the technology critical to Renesas’ overall prospects. wave of Apple’s iPad tablet com- The jury is still out on many of Akao’s moves. Critics have said puter, for which it supplies the Renesas is getting into the cellular modem business way too late to main processor core, as the pop- capture meaningful share. Linley Gwennap, principal analyst of The ular platform slowed the rise of Linley Group, said Nokia’s LTE/HSPA+ technology gives Renesas the the netbook—the form factor potential to be a significant player as the industry transitions from through which Intel has taken 3G to 4G, but he added that the company lacks legacy products and aim at ARM’s mobile device the kind of key relationships that its competitors already claim. hegemony. At the same time, In May, Akao spoke with EE Times about the struggles of other ARM made strides on Intel’s turf, particularly in the server market. It Japanese semiconductor company mergers in recent years. To avoid also announced the Cortex-A15 processor core and achieved further repeating their mistakes, he said, “we need to make choices up front traction with its Mali line of graphics processor units. to reduce development costs and improve throughput. These are the ARM’s share price has reflected the markets’ favorable opinion lessons I learned from having worked at Renesas Technology over of East’s stewardship; hovering at £1.55 (about $2.44 at current the last seven years.” — Dylan McGrath exchange rates) on the London Stock Exchange a year ago, the stock was flirting with £4.00 ($6.29) as this article went to press. Maier keeps Linear agile, focused and out of — Peter Clarke me-too markets Gou keeps Foxconn ahead of the newshounds

LOTHAR MAIER, chief executive of analog and power management chip company Linear Technology since January 2005, executes a CHIEF EXECUTIVES ARE NO STRANGERS to managing through bad management strategy that emphasizes profits and margins over mar- news cycles, especially during downturns, but in 2010 Foxconn Tech- ket breadth and growth for growth’s sake. Linear can be said to have nology Group’s Terry Tai-Ming Gou has shepherded his company had a “good recession”; it had an even better 2010. For the September- through a tough year in which the bad news has had nothing to do ended quarter, the company reported record quarterly revenue of with sales or profits. $389 million, 25 percent above its previous best before the industry Gou cofounded Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Ltd. in downturn. Linear continues to be highly profitable, with a profit 1974 to make cheap plastic parts for TVs. From that humble start, margin of 35 percent for the recent quarter. Hon Hai, whose public face is the Foxconn brand, has grown to

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become the world’s largest con- Gesture recognition for hands-free convenience tract electronics manufacturer (CEM), with 2010 sales expected GESTURE RECOGNITION has been a research curiosity for years, to come in at NT$3 trillion with a lot of admirable work languishing in the lab despite the seem- ($98.4 billion), up from NT$1.96 ingly obvious appeal of hands-free operation. Now PrimeSense Ltd.’s trillion ($64 billion) in 2009. design win in Project Natal, which resulted in the Kinect hands-free Hon Hai OEMs the iPhone and controller for the Xbox 360, may have yielded the killer app field iPad for Apple, along with prod- needed. The accelerometer- and gyroscope-based Wii baton piqued ucts for Dell, Hewlett-Packard, the public’s interest in more innovative user interfaces. But moving Sony and countless others. the recognition hardware into the console, leaving the user’s hands But Foxconn is battling an free, is (pardon the pun) a game changer. The perceived success image problem that surfaced of hands-free interfaces like Kinect will motivate companies like in January, when a 19-year-old Canesta (recently acquired by Microsoft), Hillcrest Labs and Movea male employee was found dead of an apparent suicide at a Foxconn to begin offering hands-free interfaces for such other platforms as facility in Shenzhen, China. A string of suicides followed among the TVs and notebook computers. In fact, the next best step might be the company’s Chinese staff. On at least two occasions, Gou raised sala- development of a standard lexicon of “gestures for control.” ries sharply in China in response to criticism of the company’s prac- — Peter Clarke tices. Just last month, however, another Chinese employee was said to have committed suicide, bringing the total number of presumed Personal power management puts you in charge suicides to 13, and workers at a Foxconn factory in the southern Chinese city of Foshan staged a massive protest over pay. “THE GOAL OF GIVING every household and business access to Further embarrassment was heaped on Gou’s company in recent timely, useful and actionable weeks when press reports surfaced that Fei Lam, a 17-year-old New information on their energy York er, had made about $130,000 by selling white housing conver- use” was the focus of a recent sion kits for black iPhones at $279 apiece (Apple isn’t due to release a open letter to President white version until next year). Lam is alleged to have sourced some Obama from GE, Google, Intel, parts illegally from Foxconn factories in China, a claim Foxconn Honeywell, Whirlpool and 42 denies. other companies. “By giving None of this has stalled Foxconn’s growth. It recently opened a people the ability to moni- factory in Chengdu that is ramping up iPad production; according to tor and manage their energy reports, the new Chinese fab will manufacture a new version of the consumption, for instance, via popular tablet. their computers, phones or other devices . . . we can harness the pow- And in 2011, Foxconn will account for 50 percent of total CEM er of millions of people to reduce green-house gas emissions—and sales worldwide, according to iSuppli. save consumers billions of dollars,” the companies told the President. — Mark LaPedus Google already has a free downloadable app, the Power-Meter, that can monitor overall energy consumption in a home with an installed breaker-box add-on, such as Energy Inc.’s TED (The Energy Detec- tive). Intel is taking the approach one step further by “personalizing” Here’s what we’ll energy management as it once helped personalize computing; the company has crafted a prototype personal-energy monitor that plugs be talking about into the wall (instead of the breaker box) and uses artificial intel- ligence to deduce which appliances in a household are on and how much power they are using. EACH YEAR In 2011, a whole ecosystem of personal power management devices electronics will be announced by Intel, its partners and competitors. becomes a — R. Colin Johnson deeper and more in- Touchscreen tabs advance ‘consume only’ model extricably intertwined ELECTRONIC DEVICES part of our daily lives. And with the DESIGNED exclusively to burgeoning service infrastructure— consume, rather than both from wireless medical to broadcast consume and create, began 3-D—electronics will assume an even with Apple’s iPod music greater role in the coming years. Here are 10 technologies that player, which only Micro- our editors think will generate buzz, attract developers and soft’s Zune has effectively investors, and get end users to open their wallets in 2011 and challenged. Following the beyond. debut of Apple iPad, however, every major electronics producer is taking on Apple. Makers of laptops, netbooks, smartphones and, yes,

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even music players will all be marketing competing touchscreen more governments to mandate automotive radar. tablets in 2011. Almost all will try to emulate the trend-setting iPad Going into 2011, automotive radar already offers collision avoidance while adding some differentiator; Dell’s Streak, for example, also lets and mitigation in the forward-facing direction, as well as blind-spot you make phone calls. monitoring and parking support via rear-facing radar. Only a few vendors will try to build an ecosystem that goes head- Beyond 2011, the technology will eventually enable driverless free- to-head with Apple’s. One is Samsung, whose Galaxy Tab matches way motoring, with smart algorithms using forward-and rear-facing the iPad’s features, right down to a companion phone with a similar radar, as well as lane detection systems, to control drive-by-wire name (as the iPhone is to the iPad, the Galaxy S is to the Galaxy Tab). steering, acceleration and braking systems. Others will aim for underserved markets. HewlettPackard’s busi- — Peter Clarke ness-oriented Slate, for example, features a stylus input, suiting it for corporate clientele, such as the insurance companies that have Augmented reality: Geotaggingthe real world put Slates in the hands of their adjusters in the field. Research in Motion’s PlayBook, meanwhile, banks on the BlackBerry phone’s reputation for superior security compared with the iPhone. Tether- ing the iPad-like PlayBook to a BlackBerry phone lets RIM users keep pace with iPad owners without sacrificing security. — R. Colin Johnson Wireless connects for health care

HOME HEALTH CARE is peg- ging its success on wireless technologies, which in 2011 and beyond will be crucial to delivering health maintenance and management remotely. Companies such as General Electric, Intel and Qualcomm are refocusing their telehealth AUGMENTED REALITY, or the overlay of information on live images and independent-living app development efforts on wireless connec- via a device display, has already been proved in military applica- tivity. In a Qualcomm-developed illustration of the power behind tions such as heads-up windscreen displays in fighter aircraft. owN wireless medical gateways as a critical part of the remote medical consumer AR is coming to GPS-enabled camera phones. care solution, the data from body sensors communicates with a In 2011, Apple, Google and a dozen startups plan to offer apps and handheld wireless device via Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or ultralow-power systems that will relay commercial information—such as what’s on BAN radios. Another company engaged in this market is MedApps, sale at the various stores in the mall you’re visiting—AR-style. Even whose HealthPAL mobile health monitoring device automatically Intel Capital is looking to cash in on the craze by investing in Layar and wirelessly transmits biometric readings to a server, making pa- (Amsterdam, Netherlands), an AR platform company that offers tient data available for remote monitoring and review. LynuxWorks, online tools for the development community. meanwhile, has teamed with Portwell Inc. to deliver a proof-of-con- But social networking may be the killer AR app. Sekai Camera, for cept wireless sensor platform, based on Intel chips, that can monitor instance, lets users leave their own AR posts at points of interest. more than 25 Bluetooth wireless biometric sensors and graphically A visitor to an ice cream shop, for instance, could aim a phone’s portray the patient sensor data for visual monitoring in the familiar camera at the front of the shop and type a message recommending Windows environment. the soft-serve pistachio. Other Sekai Camera users would see the — Nicolas Mokhoff pistachio fan’s posting when they aimed a camera phone at the shop. — R. Colin Johnson Automotive radar coming to cheaper cars Energy storage media sought RADAR TECHNOLOGY has registered on automakers’ own radar MANY EXOTIC TECHNOLOGIES loom as long-term prospects for for more than a decade, though the efficient energy storage, but to date none poses a commercially fea- car manufacturers have proceeded sible alternative to lithium-ion batteries, and recent refinements to with their typical caution in lithium-ion technology will keep it in the lead for the short haul. adopting what has been a costly A123 Systems, a developer and manufacturer of advanced Li-ion technology with safety implica- batteries based on nanoscale materials that were conceived at MIT, tions. But as silicon sensor costs was recently selected to develop battery packs for a 2012-model-year come down and as the technology electric passenger car from Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp., gains traction in luxury models, the largest automaker in China. A123 has also signed a deal to sell radar systems will begin to trickle 44 megawatts’ worth of its batteries to AES Energy Storage, in a step down over the next few years to toward putting solar and wind farms on the grid. midpriced autos. Lower silicon and While lithium-ion today is the poster child for energy storage, system prices will also encourage the technology has inherent limits in energy density and readily

16 Electronic Engineering Times Europe January 2011 COVER STORY

available raw materials. Those restrictions, in turn, could limit the production of electric vehicles if a commercially feasible alternative to lithium-ion batteries is not found soon. — Nicolas Mokhoff Debiotech S.A. (Lausanne, Switzerland); a biodegradable version would function for an expected lifetime of a few months and then Mobile 3-D to drive user acceptance simply dissolve away. Success with biodegradable implants, and improved speeds for RETAILERS HAVE PLENTY OF 3-D TVS in stock this holiday season, organic circuitry in general, could one day allow environmentally but the products’ acceptance has been hampered by limited content compostable electronics to become ubiquitous. and by the need for LCD-shutter glasses that dim displays as they — Peter Clarke switch the view between eyes. User uptake has only been strong in the home theater market, for which DisplaySearch expects that 3.2 3-D optical metrology measures up million 3-D TVs will have been shipped in 2010. OUTPUT IN 3-D from TVs, That same forecast, game consoles and mobile however, predicts that 3-D handsets will be joined by TVs will grow to over 90 3-D input in 2011. Called million units in 2014—ac- 3-D optical metrology, the counting for 41 percent technique projects stripes of all flat-panel sets sold of light onto objects, then that year, up from just 2 makes measurements percent today—as autoste- of the distortions in the reoscopic displays that reflected light to deduce do not require the glasses size and shape, thereby al- enter the market. Toshiba, lowing real-world scenes to for one, is already selling be input automatically to a glasses-free 3-D televisions 3-D model. in Japan. Generating accurate 3-D Many of the users who models traditionally re- buy glasses-free 3-D TVs in 2014 will have already gained experience quires either manual mea- with autostereoscopic displays by using the ones built into their mo- surements or expensive, bile devices, such as Fuji’s 3-D still camera. In-Stat predicts that more laser-based 3-D rangefind- than 60 million autostereo-scopic 3-D displays for mobile devices ing systems. Now Texas In- will ship in 2014. struments and others are downsizing their microelectromechanical — R. Colin Johnson system-based picoprojectors to do the same job inexpensively using structured light illumination. Biodegradable electronics SLI offers automated 3-D sensing by projecting matrices of light onto objects, the reflected distortions from which allow the objects’ PROGRESS HAS BEEN made in efforts to promote recycling of elec- dimensions to be deduced automatically. tronic and electrical goods, but the ultimate goal is fully biodegrad- Applications range from 3-D video game development to fingerprint able electronics. scanners that could identify people at a distance. Seikowave (Lex- Early biodegradable circuits being designed at Stanford University ington, Ky.), for instance, is harnessing a specialized infrared MEMS and elsewhere could find use as control circuits for drug delivery via picoprojector that brings SLI to medical diagnostics; the device can implanted medical systems, for which the slower speed of organic noninvasively monitor the rise and fall of the chest of a respiratory electronics is not a hindrance. Nanopumps for insulin, for instance, patient, for example, during medical testing. are already being designed by a team from STMicroelectronics and — R. Colin Johnson

January 2011 Electronic Engineering Times Europe 17 NEWS & TECHNOLOGY

TELEMATICS Software to take half of the total navigation market by 2016 By Julien Happich

THE PERCENTAGE OF new passenger cars However, concerns still remain as to the (LBS) market will be primarily funded by ad- globally shipping with factory-installed long-term viability of a still highly fragment- vertising rather than direct fees. By 2016, ABI telematics will increase from less than 10% ed telematics ecosystem, with traditional estimates that revenues will to all intents in 2010 to 62% in 2016, according to ABI players such as Telematics Service Provid- and purposes be a 50:50 split. Research. ers (TSPs) and automotive Tier 1 suppliers “For years (world economic crash aside) ABI Research practice director Domi- threatened with being squeezed out of the the in-car navigation market has grown rela- nique Bonte comments: “Several factors are value chain by a new breed of connected tively unabated,” says ABI Research senior driving the uptake of OEM telematics, the navigation and software developer challeng- analyst Patrick Connolly. “It was a niche most important being an automotive indus- ers. Other market barriers include stalling within an established market that was large try that is emerging from a painful recession telematics legislation with both the EU’s enough for everyone to succeed concurrent- and finding renewed dynamism. eCall and Brazil’s SVT stolen vehicle track- ly. However, with penetration rates in some “At the same time soaring interest levels ing projects continuing to suffer from delays regions approaching 50%, it starts to become in the adoption of open platforms and the and indecisiveness. more competitive. integration of smartphones and telematics Finally, despite the many benefits offered The result is a clear transition away from applications into vehicles represents noth- by telematics smartphone applications, pure hardware sales to software based-solu- ing less than a renaissance of both the con- they also bring new safety risks through tions and revenues.” sumer and commercial telematics markets, increased driver distraction which in turn Other pronostics from ABI Research in- borrowing the hugely successful application could lead to legislation limiting the use of clude a fall in ASPs for in-dash applications store paradigm from the mobile industry to portable devices in vehicles. as companies look to open up the market. improve time-to-market and industry inno- The research firm also noted in a different Connected PNDs will become commonplace vation, and most importantly to reduce the report that while in 2009, almost 95% of as the likes of TomTom and Garmin in- costs of telematics services for end-users. revenues came from established, hardware- novate and drive new revenue streams. The Initiatives such as the open source based technologies such as factory-fitted arrival of application stores and free naviga- GENIVI infotainment platform and Nokia’s navigation and unconnected PNDs, by 2014, tion will help to drive uptake and revenue Terminal Mode standard are creating high more than 60% of the installed base will con- in the handset-based market. It is expected expectations and result in industry wide sist of software-based navigation solutions, that location-based advertising will create a cooperation.” and the off-deck location-based services viable alternative to subscription services. n

IBM, Samsung expand IC alliance FOUNDRY WATCH By Mark LaPedus

IBM CORP AND SAMSUNG Electronics have next-generation technology nodes. But at the recent 2010 IEEE International announced they will collaborate on basic No other details were given, however. IBM, Electron Devices Meeting in San Francisco, research into new semiconductor materials, Infineon, Freescale, GlobalFoundries, Renesas, Samsung presented a paper on a rival technol- manufacturing processes and other tech- Samsung, ST, Toshiba and others are part of ogy: ‘’gate-last high-k/metal gate devices.’’ nologies. IBM’s ‘’fab club.’’ The group is collaborating The agreement also renews IBM and Sam- on process R&D. If so, this would be a major departure sung’s joint process development agreement But a question remains: Is South Korea’s from Samsung’s original position. This may (JDA) to multiple nodes starting at 20-nm. Samsung switching gears in high-k? have caused a rift in the ‘’fab club,’’ especially For the first time, Samsung researchers Initially, Samsung plans to roll out a between IBM and Samsung. Perhaps the two will join IBM scientists in the Semiconductor gate-first, high-k technology. As previously companies are kissing and making up as a Research Alliance at the Albany Nanotech reported, this technology will be offered at result of the new announcement. Complex, Albany, N.Y. the 32- and 28-nm nodes for foundry custom- Researchers will investigate new materials ers, which will be rolled out this year. The camp is still far behind Intel Corp., and transistor structures, as well as innova- The gate-first technology was developed which has shipped 45- and 32-nm processors tive interconnect and packaging solutions for and is now being touted by IBM’s ‘’fab club.’ based on its gate-last, high-k technology. n

18 Electronic Engineering Times Europe January 2011 NEWS & TECHNOLOGY DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSING Audio processing puts greater demand on DSPs By Philip Ling

THE MIGRATION TO DIGITAL A/V is creat- in standby power over ing demand for higher performing DSPs the CEVA-TL3210 core. for audio processing, particularly in post- However, the processing. As standards begin to emerge company admits, the for surround sound effects and a more power demand dur- convincing audio experience, the complex- ing active operation ity and bit-rate of some audio codecs is now remains similar to outpacing those for video, according to DSP the TL3210. For this IP provider, CEVA. reason, CEVA believes Using its TeakLite-III DSP core, CEVA there will still be has developed what it claims is the most demand for the first powerful single-core audio DSP available generation TeakLite-III The data cache controller, PSU and AXI support are all new features for the today; running at 1GHz on a 40nm process, core, in applications TeakLite-III based DSP. it is able to handle complex and demanding where the use-case is audio codecs where other existing solutions closely defined. ing is also putting greater demand on the would need two DSP cores. Key to CEVA’s For applications where more flexibility DSP sub-system; once representing around value proposition for using the CEVA- is required, the new core should present one tenth of the total bandwidth require- TL3211 is that embedding two DSP cores is greater benefits. The core’s performance is ments, it can now account for as much as considerably more complex and expensive primarily delivered through another innova- 25%. that using one. tion, the data cache controller, which allows The TL3211’s performance comes pri- The new core, which is the second device the device to use slower (and therefore marily from the addition of the data cache to use the TeakLite-III core, features several cheaper) external DDR RAM than competi- controller, but also through the introduction improvements over its predecessor, the tive devices. This also creates what CEVA of an AXI bus interface, replacing the older TL3210. Primarily, it now integrates the describes as a ‘fully cached’ solution, allow- AHB bus as used in the TL3210. Both the PSU same power scaling unit (PSU) as used in ing greater DDR latencies and therefore and AXI bus are expected to be standard fea- CEVA’s larger, more powerful DSP cores, this reducing system cost, while delivering the tures of future TeakLite-III based DSPs. The allows large areas of the core to be power- DSP performance needed for highly demand- AXI bus also supports a low power mode, scaled through voltage and/or clock gating, ing HD audio codecs such as those found in which helps minimise active power. CEVA saving power during inactive modes. This Blu-Ray DVD playback. stated that typically the TL3211 consumes can equate to as much as an 80% reduction According to the company, post-process- 50uW/MHz for MP3 decode. n Blue Link: Hyundai’s next in-vehicle telematics interface AUTOMOTIVE By Julien Happich CAR MANUFACTURER HYUNDAI introduced stead of vehicles. In addition to turn-by-turn phones and tablet PCs with the vehicle; the its new global telematics brand Blue Link navigation ability, a restaurant finder and Motion Sensor Moustick recognizes the and other independently developed in- more than 30 other features, Blue Link will driver’s hand movements through sensors vehicle technologies at the 2011 Consumer let Hyundai owners start their car remotely, to control the car’s audio and navigation Electronics Show (CES). will call emergency services if the driver system; the Intelligent Haptic System is a Blue Link, which makes its world debut cannot, will share vehicle location on social- control system inspired by popular con- in the U.S. market, is a telematics system network sites and will let drivers browse sumer technology; and the Dynamic Cluster unique to Hyundai models that offer con- the Web, text and e-mail in a non-distract- combines an LCD gauge and information sumers seamless connection between the ing manner. Blue Link will even let parents system that is driver-customizable. office, home, smart phone and automobile monitor how far and how fast their teens are The Car Browser System and Web Plat- with fast and reliable IT technology. driving when they borrow the family car. form deliver a fully functional Internet termi- As consumers shift their lifestyles, the car Hyundai also displayed six concept in- nal; the Multifunctional Safety Vision System maker said it aims to concentrate on provid- car technologies. The Smart Connectivity completes the list, supporting a four-camera, ing more services focused on customers in- System allows drivers to connect their smart 360-degree view around the vehicle. n

January 2011 Electronic Engineering Times Europe 19 NEWS & TECHNOLOGY BATTERIES

Nanoscoops’ could spark new generation of electric automobile batteries By Julien Happich

AN ENTIRELY NEW TYPE of nanomate- starting the vehicle and rapid rial developed at Rensselaer Polytechnic acceleration, in conjunction Institute could enable the next generation with conventional batter- of high-power rechargeable lithium (Li)-ion ies that deliver high energy batteries for electric automobiles, as well density for normal cruise as batteries for laptop computers, mobile driving and other operations. phones, and other portable devices. Koratkar said the invention of The new material, dubbed a “nanoscoop” nanoscoops may enable these because its shape resembles a cone with a two separate systems to be scoop of ice cream on top, can withstand combined into a single, more extremely high rates of charge and discharge efficient battery unit. that would cause conventional electrodes The anode structure of a used in today’s Li-ion batteries to rapidly Li-ion battery physically grows deteriorate and fail. and shrinks as the battery The nanoscoop’s success lies in its unique charges or discharges. When material composition, structure, and size. charging, the addition of Li The Rensselaer research team, led by Profes- ions increases the volume of sor Nikhil Koratkar, demonstrated how a the anode, while discharging The new material, dubbed a “nanoscoop” because its shape nanoscoop electrode could be charged and has the opposite effect. These resembles a cone with a scoop of ice cream on top, can withstand discharged at a rate 40 to 60 times faster than volume changes result in a extremely high rates of charge and discharge that would cause conventional battery anodes, while main- buildup of stress in the anode. conventional electrodes used in today’s Li-ion batteries to rapidly taining a comparable energy density. This Too great a stress that builds deteriorate and fail. stellar performance, which was achieved up too quickly, as in the case of a battery to Koratkar. “Due to their nanoscale size, over 100 continuous charge/discharge charging or discharging at high speeds, can our nanoscoops can soak and release Li cycles, has the team confident that their new cause the battery to fail prematurely. This is at high rates far more effectively than the technology holds significant potential for why most batteries in today’s portable elec- macroscale anodes used in today’s Li-ion bat- the design and realization of high-power, tronic devices like cell phones and laptops teries,” he said. “This means our nanoscoop high-capacity Li-ion rechargeable batteries. charge very slowly – the slow charge rate is may be the solution to a critical problem “Charging my laptop or cell phone in a intentional and designed to protect the bat- facing auto companies and other battery few minutes, rather than an hour, sounds tery from stress-induced damage. manufacturers, how can you increase the pretty good to me,” said Koratkar, a professor The Rensselaer team’s nanoscoop, howev- power density of a battery while still keep- in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, er, was engineered to withstand this buildup ing the energy density high?” and Nuclear Engineering at Rensselaer. “By of stress. Made from a carbon (C) nanorod A limitation of the nanoscoop architec- using our nanoscoops as the anode architec- base topped with a thin layer of nanoscale ture is the relatively low total mass of the ture for Li-ion rechargeable batteries, this is aluminum (Al) and a “scoop” of nanoscale electrode, Koratkar said. To solve this, the a very real prospect. Moreover, this technol- silicon (Si), the structures are flexible and team’s next steps are to try growing longer ogy could potentially be ramped up to suit able to quickly accept and discharge Li ions scoops with greater mass, or develop a the demanding needs of batteries for electric at extremely fast rates without sustaining method for stacking layers of nanoscoops on automobiles. significant damage. top of each other. Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic The segmented structure of the nano- Another possibility the team is explor- Institute developed an entirely new type of scoop allows the strain to be gradually trans- ing includes growing the nanoscoops on nanomaterial that could enable the next gen- ferred from the C base to the Al layer, and large flexible substrates that can be rolled or eration of high-power rechargeable lithium finally to the Si scoop. This natural strain shaped to fit along the contours or chassis of (Li)-ion batteries for electric automobiles, gradation provides for a less abrupt transi- the automobile. laptop computers, mobile... tion in stress across the material interfaces, Published in the journal Nano Letters, Batteries for all-electric vehicles must leading to improved structural integrity of this study was supported by the National deliver high power densities in addition the electrode. Science Foundation (NSF) and the New York to high energy densities, Koatkar said. The nanoscale size of the scoop is also State Energy Research and Development These vehicles today use supercapacitors to vital since nanostructures are less prone Authority (NYSERDA). n perform power-intensive functions, such as to cracking than bulk materials, according

20 Electronic Engineering Times Europe January 2011 DESIGN & PRODUCTS SPECIAL FOCUS: Test&Measurement Measuring the resistivity of bulk materials By Mary Anne Tupta

Accurate resistivity measurements cally found by sourcing a known current (I), in the circuit are at different temperatures. are critical when characterizing materials, measuring the voltage drop (V), then calcu- To reduce thermoelectric voltages construct but they are not always easy to make and lating the resistivity (r) from the measured test circuits using the same materials for different material types require different voltage, the magnitude of the source current, interconnects. Minimize temperature instrumentation and techniques. This article the cross-sectional area (A=wt), and the gradients within the test circuit and allow addresses best practices for making resistiv- distance between the voltmeter leads, using the test equipment to warm up and reach ity measurements. this equation: thermal equilibrium. Finally, use an offset Electrical resistivity is a basic property compensation method to overcome these that defines how well a material conducts unwanted offsets, such as a current-reversal current. It’s determined by measuring the method or the delta mode offset compensa- resistance of a material sample, then factor- tion technique. ing in its geometry. The three basic types The delta mode technique for removing of bulk materials—metals, insulators, and For conductive materials like metals, this offsets and low frequency noise involves ap- semiconductors—can be described by their voltage drop is usually just microvolts or plying a current and measuring the voltage, resistivity: nanovolts, so precise measurements are then reversing the current and re-measuring • Metals are good conductors of current crucial. Potential error sources include test the voltage. The difference between the two with typical resistivities of about 10-6 lead resistance, thermoelectric voltages, measurements divided by two is the voltage ohm-cm. low frequency noise, external noise sources, response of the sample to the applied cur- • Insulators are poor conductors with Johnson noise, and the use of a voltmeter rent level. Repeating the process and using typical resistivities from about 109 to with insufficient sensitivity. Fortunately, averaging reduces the noise bandwidth 1020 ohm-cm. special techniques can reduce the impact of and therefore the noise. Although this was • Semiconductors conduct current better these errors. For example, using the four- once a manual technique, which limited than insulators but not as well as met- wire method, in which one set of leads are the reversal speed to less than 1Hz, newer als; they may fall anywhere from about used to source the current and another set instruments now automate the technique, 10-3 to 107 ohm-cm. are used to measure the voltage drop across increasing the reversal speed. The reversal the sample, will eliminate the effects of lead speed sets the frequency that dominates the Measuring the resistivity of metals resistance. noise. Higher reversal speeds remove low and other good conductors Thermoelectric voltages are a common frequency noise and thermal drift better be- source of error when making low voltage cause these noise sources have lower power Characterizing a metal’s resistivity de- and low resistance measurements. These at higher frequencies. Keithley’s Model mands measuring very low resistances (and voltages are generated when different metals 2182A Nanovoltmeter and Model 6220 or therefore, low voltages) accurately. Many 6221 Current Sources, which include techniques used for metals are applicable software to automate these measure- to other applications that involve measur- ments, are appropriate for a wide ing small voltages, such as the resistance of range of resistances. superconductors, nanowires, graphene (a External noise sources are interfer- one-atom-thick form of carbon), and other ences created by motors, computer nanomaterials in which the applied power screens, or other electrical equip- must be kept low to prevent device self-heat- ment. They can be controlled by ing. shielding and filtering or simply by Figure 1 illustrates a system for determin- eliminating the noise source. Because ing the resistivity of a metal bar or rod. A these noise sources are often at the current source is connected to both ends of power line frequency, avoid test the sample and voltmeter leads are placed a frequencies that are exact multiples known distance apart on its surface (L). The or fractions of 60Hz or 50Hz. When resistivity of conductive materials is typi- using DC instruments and reversal methods, the same result can be Mary Anne Tupta - [email protected] - achieved simply by integrating each is Applications Engineer at Keithley Instruments - Figure 1: Determining the resistivity of a metal bar or rod. measurement for an integer num- www.keithley.com ber of power line cycles.

January 2011 Electronic Engineering Times Europe 21 DESIGN & PRODUCTS SPECIAL FOCUS: Test&Measurement

In any resistance, thermal energy pro- time, usually 60 seconds, the current is duces the motion of charged particles. This measured using an ammeter capable of charge movement results in Johnson noise. measuring nanoamps or lower. Volume Johnson noise may be reduced by reducing resistivity is calculated based on the area the bandwidth by analog or digital filtering (A) of the electrodes and the thickness of or by reducing the temperature of the device. the sample (t): Most digital multimeters can’t measure microvolt- or nanovolt-level voltage drops accurately, so a sensitive voltmeter, such as Keithley’s Model 2182A Nanovoltmeter, which has 1nV resolution, is a better choice. Figure 3 illustrates the test configuration for measuring surface resistivity Figure 4: Resistivity test current trace. Measuring the resistivity of insulators (s), that is, the electrical resistance on delay. Next, the polarity is reversed and the The techniques used to measure the resistiv- the sample’s surface. Two electrodes are current is re-measured using the same delay. ity of insulators such as paper, rubber, and placed on the surface of the sample a known This process can be repeated any number plastics are very different from those used distance apart. The ammeter’s high termi- of times. The resistance is calculated based for conductors. The resistivity of an insula- nal is placed on one electrode; the voltage on a weighted average of the most recent tor is determined by applying a voltage to source’s high terminal is placed on the other. current measurements. The Xs on the graph the sample for a specified period of time, A potential difference is applied for a known in Figure 4 represent the calculated cur- measuring the resulting current with an period of time and the ammeter measures rent based on a weighted average of the electrometer or picoammeter, then calculat- the resulting current. The surface resistivity last few measurements, which cancels out ing the resistivity based on Ohm’s law and s is calculated by factoring in the width of the background current. Keithley’s Model geometric considerations. the sample (w) and the distance between the 6517B Electrometer includes a built-in test Both volume and surface resistivity electrodes (L): sequence that automates this alternating measurements can be made on insulators. polarity technique. Volume resistivity is a measure of the leak- A high-quality electrode system that age current directly through the insulator. provides good contact to the test sample is Electrodes are placed on the top and bottom essential. Conductive rubber on these elec- of the sample to be tested (see figure 2). The Potential error sources when character- trodes enables good contacts to the sample, high terminal of the ammeter is placed on izing an insulator’s resistivity include choos- especially if the sample is a rigid material. one side of the sample; the high terminal of ing an ammeter without sufficient sensitiv- Avoid electrodes that will add appreciable the voltage source is placed on the other. A ity, using an inappropriate electrification resistance to the measurement circuit or potential difference is placed between the time or test voltage, electrostatic interfer- could contaminate the sample. Choose two electrodes. Although the magnitude of ence, and background currents due to charge an electrode configuration that supports the applied voltage usually depends on the stored in the material, static or triboelectric calculating the resistivity from the measured material under test, it is often 500V DC (per charge, or piezoelectric effects. resistance, which several of the commercial ASTM D257). After a specified electrification Electrostatic interference occurs when an systems now available provide, includ- electrically charged object is brought near an ing Keithley’s Model 8009 Resistivity Test uncharged object. High resistance materi- Chamber. als do not allow the charge to decay quickly and unstable measurements may result. Measuring the resistivity of Electrostatic shielding will help to minimize semiconductors these effects. Shield the material by using a The four-point collinear probe technique conductive shielded enclosure and connect- is the most common way of measuring the ing the low terminal of the ammeter to the resistivity of semiconductor materials; it shield. involves bringing four equally spaced probes An alternating polarity technique can be employed to counter the effects of background currents, which can equal or exceed the current stimulated by the applied voltage. In this technique, a bias voltage of positive polarity is applied, then Figure 2: Determining the resistivity of an the current is mea- insulator. sured after a specified Figure 3: Test configuration for measuring surface resistivity s( ).

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in contact with a material of unknown resistance (Figure 5). The outer probes (1 and 4) source current; the inner probes (2 and 3) measure the resulting voltage drop across the sample’s surface. The volume resistivity is calculated thus:

where r = volume resistivity (ohm-cm), V = voltage measured between 2 and 3 (V), I = source current (A), t = sample thickness (cm), Figure 6: The van der Pauw method and k = a correction factor based on the ratio for determining the resistivity of of the probe to wafer diameter and on the semiconductor materials. ratio of wafer thickness to probe separation. Using four probes eliminates measurement Figure 5: The four-point collinear probe technique materials with resistances of hundreds of errors due to the probe and lead resistance, for semiconductor materials. kilo-ohms or higher: use a 4-point collinear the spreading resistance under each probe, are unimportant. It requires making eight probe that has excellent isolation between and the contact resistance between each met- measurements around the periphery of the the probes to avoid leakage current errors. al probe and the semiconductor material. sample to compensate for offsets and geo- • Choose a current source with high output Another method for measuring the resis- metric considerations; these measurements impedance (1E14) to avoid loading errors tivity of semiconductors is the van der Pauw are combined mathematically to compute and a built-in guard to reduce the effects method (Figure 6), which involves applying the resistivity. A switch matrix is often used of shunt capacitance. Use voltmeters with a current and measuring voltage using four to switch the current source and voltmeter high input impedance (1E14 ohms). small contacts on the circumference of a flat, to all sides of the sample to automate these • Always shield the DUT and all sensitive arbitrarily shaped sample of uniform thick- measurements. Typical sources of error for circuitry and use shielded cabling to ness. The current is forced to two adjacent van der Pauw measurements include voltage prevent errors due to electrostatic interfer- terminals of the sample. The voltage is mea- drops due to lead and contact resistances, ence. Connect the shield to the system’s sured on the opposite pair of terminals. This voltage offsets, and incorrect instrumenta- low terminal. method is particularly useful for measuring tion choices. • To avoid common mode current issues, use very small samples because the dimensions Special considerations must be taken into differential voltage measurement tech- of the sample and the spacing of the contacts account when measuring semiconductor niques. n Radar measurement comparison - swept and FFT-based signal analyzers By John S. Hansen

Modern pulsed radar systems use ad- is crucial when designing high-performance wide frequency measurement ranges [1]. vanced waveform and modulation charac- and cost-effective radar systems. This article Advances in digital signal processing teristics to obtain greater range resolution, will review several measurement approach- have resulted in two significant technologi- enhanced clutter suppression and superior es for characterizing the spectral content of cal developments: 1) the inclusion of digital target recognition. Specifically, performance low duty-cycle, wideband radar signals. IFs in traditional swept-tuned spectrum improvements are achieved using radar sig- The basic tool for characterizing radar analyzers, and 2) the emergence of Fast nals with wide bandwidths, low duty-cycles, signals is the spectrum analyzer or signal Fourier Transform (FFT)-based analyzers as high linearity and sophisticated modulation. analyzer, which measures the power content an alternative to the traditional spectrum The nature of these waveforms makes them of radar signals as a function of frequency. analyzer architecture. The inclusion of difficult to measure and synthesize. This capability is important because an digital IFs in traditional spectrum analyzers Understanding how different types of incorrect spectral profile indicates a number has greatly enhanced the accuracy, repeat- instruments respond to these radar signals of problems that result in wasted power and ability and speed of these instruments. emission of undesired signals. Traditional FFT-based signal analyzers provide unprec- John S. Hansen is Senior Application Engineer spectrum analyzers use a swept-tuned archi- edented modulation analysis capability and at Agilent Technologies - www.agilent.com tecture to achieve high dynamic range and can result in much faster measurements in

24 Electronic Engineering Times Europe January 2011 DESIGN & PRODUCTS SPECIAL FOCUS: Test&Measurement

some cases, but much slower measurements between the pulses during the transmit- analyzers can easily analyze 1 GHz chirp where many FFT segments are stitched ter-off time. Pulse compression techniques radar signals. The two measurements shown together to form a display. Selecting the using linear frequency modulated (LFM) in this figure were captured using a swept- optimal measurement approach requires or “chirped” waveforms can improve range tuned analyzer configured with different some knowledge of the instrument capabili- resolution with a relatively higher average sweep times in order to compare the effects ties and signal under test. To understand transmitted power as compared to narrow of instrument configuration on low duty-cy- how the instrument’s architecture affects pulsed waveforms operating with a similar cle waveforms. The measurement on the left the displayed frequency response, measure- operating bandwidth [2]. was captured using an analyzer configured ment speed and dynamic range, the spectral Whether accomplished by implementing with a sweep time automatically set to 1-mil- responses of a wideband low duty-cycle radar pulsed or chirped waveforms, increasing the lisecond. In this case, the analyzer’s sweep waveform will be compared using swept- range resolution and unambiguous range time is too fast to capture all of the spectral tuned and FFT-based analysis techniques. requires wide bandwidth and low duty-cycle energy in the waveform. Spectral energy is Fortunately, some signal analyzers, such waveforms respectively. The combination of captured every 20-microsecond during the as the Agilent N9030A PXA, contain both wide bandwidths and low duty-cycle creates sweep, but nothing is captured as the sweep swept and FFT capabilities allowing a direct unique measurement challenges, as there advances between pulses. As swept-tuned comparison of these two techniques within is a lower probability of intercepting these analyzers continuously measure the signal the same instrument. In addition, some signal types during a typical measurement. during a sweep, these periodic pulses appear signal analyzers can also be used as a vector as individual frequency energy components signal analyzer for measurement of phase Wideband chirped radar measure- with equal spacing. These are often referred profiles, modulation, transient analysis and ments using swept-tuned analyzers to as pulse repetition frequency (PRF) lines. spectrograms. As an example, figure 1 shows the measured Note that these signals have no specific frequency responses of a wideband chirped frequency domain meaning and will move Chirped radar signals signal for an 80 MHz frequency deviation around with each sweep [2]. To measure the A pulsed radar transmits a periodic sequence with a 2-microsecond pulse width and a 20- complete spectral content of the chirped of narrow pulses and receives target echoes microsecond period, although today’s signal waveform, slow the analyzer’s sweep time

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January 2011 Electronic Engineering Times Europe 25 DESIGN & PRODUCTS SPECIAL FOCUS: Test&Measurement

Figure 1: 80 MHz chirped radar signal measured as a function of sweep time on the Agilent PSA spectrum analyzer in swept mode. The resolution bandwidth (RBW) was 3 MHz in both measurements. so that a pulse occurs in each measurement analysis bandwidths this can also be fast. function is not the same even though it may bucket or point of the sweep. This approach works reasonably well for simulate a conventional sweep control. In this example, peak detection was turned continuous signals but is less effective for An alternate approach of improving a pulsed on and the sweep time was increased to 100- pulsed signals – due to measurement ef- RF measurement that does work with an milliseconds. The desired chirped spectrum ficiency. The time required by the analyzer to FFT-based spectrum analyzer is to reduce is the result as shown in figure 1. retune between each segment of the desired the RBW setting. As the RBW is reduced, the spectrum is long relative to the short time measurement slows increasing the prob- Wideband chirped radar data is sampled for each FFT computation. ability of intercept. If the RBW is reduced measurements using FFT-based The result is a low probability of intercept- enough, missing the signal is no longer an spectrum analyzers ing the signal, especially for signals with low issue because the analyzer sees the spectral Measuring this same chirp with an FFT- duty cycles. components of the signal as continuous based spectrum analyzer is less optimal. In the swept analyzer example, the sweep waveforms, the sum of which forms the The reasons for this have to do with how time was slowed to increase the number of pulsed signal. the FFT-based spectrum analyzer “sweeps” times the pulsed energy was intercepted With a narrow RBW setting the FFT-based or measures across spans greater than the during the sweep. This resulted in a better spectrum analyzer actually becomes more ef- FFT analysis bandwidth of the instrument. view of the signal as shown in figure 1. How- ficient at measuring spectrum than a swept Essentially, the analyzer must measure ever this approach will not work with an analyzer with an equivalent narrow RBW the spectrum a section at a time and then FFT- based spectrum analyzer as it may not setting, despite the fact that the analyzer still concatenate or “stitch” the results. For wide even have a sweep time control. If it does its must “stitch” together the spectrum from

Figure 2: 80 MHz chirped radar signal measured on the Agilent PSA in FFT mode as a function of instrument RBW. Sweep time control is not available in FFT mode.

26 Electronic Engineering Times Europe January 2011 DESIGN & PRODUCTS SPECIAL FOCUS: Test&Measurement

several computed FFT segments. For example, the time required to References measure 140 MHz of spectrum with 1 kHz RBW is 3.3 s on the PXA [1] Agilent Application Note 150, “Spectrum Analyzer Basics”, Litera- in FFT mode. Nonetheless, reducing the RBW to measure a pulsed RF ture number 5952-0292. signal has its costs in both measurement speed and dynamic range. [2] Agilent Application Note, “Radar Measurements”, Literature num- Figure 2 shows a measurement of the same chirped radar as measured ber 5989-7575EN. in figure 1, this time using the FFT mode of the Agilent PXA spectrum [3] Agilent PSA Series High Performance Spectrum Analyzers, Litera- analyzer and different RBW settings. With the default RBW of 3 MHz, ture number 5980-1283E. the measurement is sporadic. By decreasing the RBW to 1 kHz we are [4] Agilent Application Note 150-2, “Spectrum Analysis – Pulsed RF”, able to measure the spectrum. However, the measurement now takes Literature number 5952-1039. 3.3 seconds versus the 30 ms for the swept mode shown in figure 1. In addition, reducing the RBW also increases the amount of pulse desensitization resulting in less dynamic range. Comparing the figures, the swept mode achieves about 15 dB more dynamic range for this example. An explanation of pulse desensitization can be found in the Agilent Radar Measurements Application Note [2].

Chirped radar measurements using a vector signal analyzer As shown in the previous examples, an FFT-based analyzer has limits when the span and/or signal of interest extends beyond the analysis bandwidth (FFT bandwidth) of the analyzer. However, for signals within the instruments analysis bandwidth, an FFT-based signal analyzer can provide rich analysis when implemented as a vector signal analyzer. Modulation analysis is possible because a vector signal analyzer measures both the magnitude and phase of the signal over time Figure 3: Frequency, time, and phase measurements using the Agilent VSA and frequency. Figure 3 shows the amplitude, phase and frequency software and PSA spectrum analyzer. responses for a radar chirp as a function of time measured simultaneously using the Agilent 89601A VSA software connected to the Agilent PSA spectrum analyzer. A vector signal analyzer’s performance is determined largely by the capacity of its digitizer [2]. For instance the Agilent PXA uses a 400 MSa/s digitizer with 14 bits of resolution for 140 MHz of analysis bandwidth and 75 dBc distortion-free dynamic range. Wider bandwidths can be achieved using an ultra-wideband (UWB) vector signal analyzer such as the Agilent Infiniium DSO90000A Series oscilloscope-based VSA. The DSO90000A analyzer samples at 40 GSa/s with 8 bits of resolution and is therefore capable of analysis bandwidths up to 13 GHz (though with less dynamic range than the PXA). This can be very useful for analyzing wideband chirps such as the 1-GHz chirp shown in the previous examples. In this case, the oscilloscope uses the same VSA software as used by the PXA. Because the oscilloscope is sampling at 40 GSa/s, it can measure this X-Band radar signal directly without requiring down conversion (see figure 4). Figure 4: Frequency, time, and phase measurements of a 1-GHz radar chirp using Agilent VSA software and DSO90000A Series oscilloscope. Conclusion Signal analyzers use different approaches to measuring a signal’s spectrum. Each approach has its advantages and limitations. These differences are most apparent and critical when measuring wideband pulsed signals such as radar. The pros and cons are summarized in Table 1. Instruments that perform as swept, FFT and vector signal analyzers, such as the Agilent PSA, PXA and MXA signal analyzers, provide optimal performance and capability regardless of the characteristics of the signal being measured. Additional information concerning measurements for radar can be found in Agilent’s Radar Measurements Application note mentioned previously. This application note can be ordered from www. agilent.com/find/radarprogram or downloaded from Table 1: Summary table comparing performance and capability of swept www.agilent.com/find/ad. versus FFT- based signal analyzers.

January 2011 Electronic Engineering Times Europe 27 DESIGN & PRODUCTS SPECIAL FOCUS: Test&Measurement Optical power measurement and resolution By Daniel van Brechtå

The modern optical spectrum analy- the slit and reaches the ser (OSA) is a powerful tool for carrying out surface of a photodetec- a variety of measurements, but many users tor. Here, the slit acts as a do not appreciate some of its potential ap- bandpass filter. The narrow plications. In this article, the relationship spectrum that passes between power measurement and resolution through the slit is often Figure 4: The recorded spectrum of a perfectly flat spectrum is drop- will be discussed, with the aim of show- referred to as “resolution ping towards longer wavelengths ing users how understanding the technical bandwidth”. Owing to the uneven distribu- that the OSA (with its power/wavelength principles of the OSA will allow them to get display) will produce the same perfectly the most out of the instrument. flat spectrum. However, this is not the case The particular type of OSA described (see figure 4). In fact, the increasing effec- in this article is based on a Czerny–Turner tive resolution towards longer wavelengths monochromator. In this type of monochro- causes the recorded trace to drop. At short mator, the different wavelengths of input wavelengths, the slit allows passing of more light are spatially separated by a diffraction wavelengths (i.e. more power reaches the grating. By rotating the grating, a spectrum photodetector). On the other hand, at long of wavelengths is swept across a narrow slit, Figure 2: The same slit provides a different reso- wavelengths the same slit offers higher reso- allowing passage of only a narrow band- lution for different wavelengths lution and less power reaches the photode- width of light (see figure 1). tion of wavelengths, the bandwidth that is tector. The spectrum is shown in an absolute selected by the filter depends on the selected power display, which plots power (PdBm) wavelength (see figure 2). Whereas many against wavelength. wavelengths fit through the slit (i.e. low Dividing the recorded power at each resolution) at short wavelengths, the same point by the local effective resolution again slit allows passing of only few wavelengths produces the flat spectrum. Now the spec- (i.e. high resolution) at long wavelengths. trum is shown in the power density display, This means that the bandwidth of this filter which plots power per nanometre (PdBm/ nm) as a function of wavelength (see figure

Figure 1: The wavelengths that are diffracted from the grating are not evenly distributed.

Figure 3: At 1550nm, the OSA has a stored value Effective resolution for the effective resolution of 17 pm, i.e. higher It is important to understand that the separa- resolution than the selected 20pm tion between the diffracted wavelengths (effective resolution) is often quite different is not evenly distributed. In fact, at long from the selected resolution setting on the wavelengths, the separation between the instrument (see figure 3). diffracted wavelengths is larger than at short The effective resolution vs. wavelength Figure 5: Recorded OSA trace (a) is converted to wavelengths. curve is determined and stored during fac- the power density spectrum (b) by dividing the In the monochromator, almost all of the tory calibration of the OSA. measured power by the local effective resolution diffracted wavelengths are blocked. Only a 5). The OSA does this automatically when narrow portion of the light passes through Absolute power display the user selects dBm/nm instead of dBm for Assume an OSA that records the output the power level scale. For the calculation, the Daniel van Brecht is Product Marketing Manager of a lamp with a perfectly flat spectral OSA uses values for the effective resolution Photonics at Yokogawa – www.yokogawa.com power distribution, so that within each 1 that are determined during factory calibra- He can be reached at nm bandwidth the lamp offers the same tion. [email protected] amount of radiant power. One might expect Because of the opto-mechanical nature

28 Electronic Engineering Times Europe January 2011 DESIGN & PRODUCTS

of the OSA, the stored values for the effective resolution will devi- High bandwidth probes ate slightly from the true value. This will cause a small error in the in a compact and lightweight housing calculation of the power density display. These errors are kept to a minimum by regular calibration of the instrument, but the absolute Pico Technology announced two ation 10:1 +/- 5%; cable length power display will always offer slightly better level accuracy. high bandwidth Tetris probes in 1.3 m; weight (probe only) 96 g. a compact and lightweight hous- The probe heads have a T-shaped Power density display ing, for testing densely-packed cross-section that allows them In contrast to the absolute power display, the power density display high-speed circuits. With their to be stacked side by side, closely can immediately be read and understood. This is the display used for active circuitry, these probes de- enough to probe adjacent pins of publication of results. There is no need to know the effective resolu- liver a significant performance a 0.1 inch IC package. The probes tion at each point in the spectrum for interpretation of the power improvement over level. This means that power levels at different wavelengths can passive probes. be compared in a single view, and the power inside a peak is easily While the input calculated by integrating the trace over the desired bandwidth. If the capacitance of a recorded spectrum is extremely narrowband (i.e. less than the effec- passive probe loads tive resolution bandwidth), the absolute power is independent of the the signal source effective resolution. Here, the recorded peak level equals the total even at frequen- power inside the spectral peak. n cies below 1MHz, causing distortion, the Tetris probes maintain a high input impedance into the GHz range. This enables are supplied with a comprehen- the accurate display of pulses sive accessory pack consisting with sub-nanosecond rise times. of: low-inductance ground blade, The Tetris probes are compat- assorted ground leads, L‑In ible with all standard high- adapter, Z‑Ground, 2 adhesive bandwidth oscilloscopes with copper pads, two pico hooks, 50-ohm BNC inputs, such as the replacement solid and sprung PicoScope 6000 Series. The Tetris tips, 0.8 mm socket adapter, 1000 has a probe bandwidth of and coloured cable markers. A 1 GHz, while the Tetris 1500 is universal mains power supply is rated at 1.5 GHz. Other specifi- also included. cations are: input impedance 1 Pico Technology megohm in parallel with 0.9 pF; Figure 6: The Yokogawa AQ6370C optical spectrum analyser measuring range +/-8 V; attenu- www.picotech.com

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January 2011 Electronic Engineering Times Europe 29 47613_e14_webinar_EEtimes_90x190.indd 1 22/12/2010 14:55 DESIGN & PRODUCTS SPECIAL FOCUS: Test&Measurement

LeCroy enhances LogicStudio 16G fibre channel to include Tektronix and Agilent oscilloscope connectivity analyzer blade option LeCroy Corporation has announced the oscilloscope are displayed alongside digital JDSU announced the Xgig 16G fibre chan- latest version of its LogicStudio software and serial signals from the digital channel analyzer, what the company claims to that enhances the oscilloscope connectivity nel enabling quick and easy mixed signal be the industry’s first FC testing solution of the LogicStudio 16 providing support for measurements. With support for ten differ- to enable storage equipment manufactur- not only the LeCroy WaveJet oscilloscope ent oscilloscope series from three different ers to complete the development of storage but also several popular oscilloscopes from manufacturers, the LogicStudio is a versatile, equipment compatible with advanced 16G Tektronix and Agilent. This software adds time saving tool for embedded system design technology. 16G FC continues to evolve as a an unprecedented level of flexibility to the and debug. LogicStudio provides a wide high-speed, high-capacity technology critical LogicStudio, letting users of a wide range of range of tools for digital debug including for storage area networks (SANs) to handle oscilloscopes from 40 MHz up to 1 GHz turn timing cursors, unique zooming and pan- more data at greater speeds using fewer links. their PCs into mixed signal oscilloscopes. ning of waveforms, a persistence display and The JDSU Xgig 16G fibre channel analyzer The 16 digital channels, 1 GS/s sample rate, a history mode which can replay old data provides accurate, fast and comprehensive 3.75 ns glitch capture, and serial protocol captures. Additionally, protocol analysis analysis of 16G fibre channel links to quickly analysis (I2C, SPI, UART) of LogicStudio can for I2C, SPI and UART is included to decode identify and fix mission-critical errors, en- now combine with the analog channels from waveforms as they are captured and provide sure quality data transmission, and improve a wide range of oscilloscopes, including the the ability to trigger on specific address or overall equipment and network perfor- LeCroy WaveJet, six Tektronix product lines, data packets on the bus. mance. The instrument provides network or three Agilent product lines. The lively, Data is captured and displayed at a high rate, equipment manufacturers with a solution dynamic waveform display with a smart, which when combined with the persistence to validate crucial development, integra- intuitive user-interface is now more power- tool and history mode can quickly help tion and interoperability functions that are ful than ever, providing a deep toolset for identify glitches or problems. A magnifier in compliance with the 16G fibre channel digital, serial and analog debug. Like most tool will let the user search longer captures specification. For end users, the advantages logic analyzers, LogicStudio can capture and for more details without changing the scale of 16G storage equipment include increased display digital and serial signals. However, of the main acquisition. For timing measure- bandwidth for the network, lower power the software goes a step further and provides ments, activate a pair of cursors anywhere consumption (at least 25% compared to 8G a communication link to a wide range of on the display or snap them right to an edge FC), as well as lower cost of associated equip- oscilloscopes turning the PC into a true of one of the waveforms for precise measurement by reducing the number of cables, ports mixed signal debug environment. The comments. Triggering can be operated in Auto, and devices required. The new Xgig 16G fiber munication from the LogicStudio software Normal or Single modes just like a modern channel analyzer comes as a blade option to the oscilloscope will allow for configuring oscilloscope. that fits into the JDSU Xgig 5000 chassis. the trigger and transferring data, present- LeCroy Corporation JDSU ing all the digital, serial and analog data in a single display. Analog waveforms from the www.lecroy.com www.jdsu.com

Modulation domain analyzer software package for precise frequency analysis and visualization The Pendulum TimeView modu- discontinued model 53310A. lation domain analyzer software An MDA (Modulation Domain package launched by Spectra- Analyzer) can visualize fre- com is designed to support quency variations over time, just critical test functions for precise as oscilloscopes show voltage signal frequency analysis. variations over time. TimeView 3 turns the Pendulum Spectracom’s MDA solution CNT-91 timer/counter into an ad- consists of two parts: the CNT- vanced, real time measurement 91 frequency analyzer, as fast analyser claims the company. sampling front end and the Applications include analysis of TimeView 3 MDA software, pulsed RF in radar equipment, running on a PC. TimeView 3 real time monitoring of short- builds on the features available term stability in synthesizers in the existing version 2.1, but As well as the Agilent 53310A and TDEV), and improved and test of frequency control has an even more user-friendly emulation mode, new features pulsed RF visualization. components. graphical interface and more include precise FM calibration, Spectracom This enhanced version also emu- automated settings to meet user new post-processing functions lates the behavior of Agilent’s requirements. including wander metrics (MTIE www.spectracomcorp.com

30 Electronic Engineering Times Europe January 2011 DESIGN & PRODUCTS SPECIAL FOCUS: Test&Measurement

Automated test software In-system emulation technology for PCI Express 3.0 transmitter compliance with dedicated model library for the TigerSHARC DSPs Agilent Technologies announced for PCIe 2.5-GT/s, 5-GT/s end Goepel electronic has developed emulation tests to be carried an automated compliance test point, root complex systems and a dedicated model library for the out in parallel or interactively package for PCI Express (PCIe) devices and for 8.0-GT/s chipsets. TigerSHARC series of Digital to Boundary Scan tests within 3.0 physical-layer transmitter The software provides auto- Signal Processors (DSP) from a test program. The number of compliance testing that includes mated compliance test support Analog Devices to enable the use Taps’ is effectively unlimited by measurement support for the for the BASE and CEM measure- of VarioTAP emulation technol- utilising the hardware platform new PCIe 8-GT/s interface. The ment points supporting PCIe ogy. VarioTAP’s functional range Scanflex for instance, up to eight Agilent N5393C compliance test 1.x and 2.x standards, as well as goes from programming of ex- Taps’ can be controlled indepen- software for Infiniium 90000 BASE specification support for ternal Flash devices, interlaced dent from and simultaneously to Series oscilloscopes performs a the PCIe 3.0 standard; it supports bus emulation tests (BET) up to other I/O resources. In addition wide range of oscilloscope-based de-embedding of test fixtures emulation tests on system level. to dynamic tests of externally tests for the PCIe 1.x, 2.x, and 3.0 and cables to help improve It is based on processor specific connected components such standards. It also provides early voltage and jitter margin mea- library models in software IP as RAM or I/O resources, the IP 8-GT/s physical layer transmitter surements when used with the form. The VarioTAP IP models functions for bus emulation and measurements for customers optional Agilent N5465A Infinii- for TigerSHARC DSP has been system emulation enable the designing to the requirements Sim waveform transformation developed in close cooperation functional testing of on-chip of the PCIe 3.0 specification. The toolset. It displays the results with the Estonian Company resources as well as the execu- N5393C PCIe compliance test in a flexible report format and Testonica, and enables Flash pro- tion of program codes defined by software provides design and provides a margin analysis. gramming as well as numerous the customer. validation engineers with a fast Agilent Technologies emulation test functions. The Goepel electronic and easy way to verify physical adaptive streaming technol- layer transmitter compliance www.agilent.com ogy of the TAP signals allows www.goepel.com EasyPoint. AS5013 – The Hall Sensor Technology behind the EasyPointTM Module Concept

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January 2011 Electronic Engineering Times Europe 31 DESIGN & PRODUCTS SPECIAL FOCUS: INTERCONNECT Automotive Ethernet diagnostics and beyond! By Mike Jones

ETHERNET HAS now been widely accepted by carmakers as the interface of their On- Board-Diagnostics (OBD) for the next generation of cars. This adoption will be accelerated with the introduction of standardised IP Diagnostics interface, as specified in ISO 13400, using Ethernet as the physical layer. Download times are reduced from hours to minutes from the increased speed of 100Mbps Ethernet (or 1000Mbps Gigabit Ethernet), full duplex bandwidth available by the network. Costs are also reduced by seamlessly interfacing the car directly to a service centre network or remote laptop. Micrel has led the way by offering the first AECQ-100 qualified Ethernet devices, deployed in the market since 2008. However, Ethernet is unlikely to just stop at OBD interface applications. It’s low cost of owner- ship, open standard and ample bandwidth makes it attractive to many other applica- Fig. 1: Example Ethernet car network. tions in the car, including infotainment and camera networks. cific media like POF (Plastic Optical fibre) by group as part of 802.1. The original work Ethernet offers complete flexibility when running over common Unshielded Twisted on the AVB specification migrated from the designing a multi-node network, allowing Pair copper. Residential Ethernet Study Group investigat- topologies of ring, star or a hybrid of both. ing next generation Digital Home Network- Traditional networks in the car like MOST Ethernet audio/video bridging ing. Interestingly, it is this AVB standard are restricted to only ring topology, which To guarantee an Ethernet quality of that is attracting a keen interest not only although can ease cabling logistics, is very service for timing critical services, for from the consumer multimedia market but bandwidth inefficient. Ethernet configured example audio / video in home; professional also the automotive sector. By leveraging in a star topology will provide full 100Mbps, environments, such as recording studios and the technology and volumes of scale from full duplex (or 1000Mbps) point-to-point for concert halls; car infotainment, the IEEE has the Digital Home the automotive market each node, unlike a ring where this band- formed an Audio/Video Bridging (AVB) task will crucially have the ability to offer latest width is shared across all nodes. One of the major growth applications in the car today is the camera, both as image and sensor. Increasing the ease of driving and safety in cars is becoming not just popular but mandatory. Enhanced picture image and sensor resolutions needed to support such applications such as, lane departure, sign / traffic light recognition and collision avoidance requires increased bandwidths. Ethernet can deliver this performance in the most cost effective manner and becoming the choice across the industry. Figure 1 below shows the flexibility of Ethernet to provide a simple hybrid network for these applications. Cabling costs are also reduced for Ethernet compared to other spe-

Mike Jones is Senior FAE at Micrel – www.micrel.com Fig. 2: The AVB cloud.

32 Electronic Engineering Times Europe January 2011 DESIGN & PRODUCTS

digital multimedia services at the lowest cost on-board local oscillator. The master is the ingress and egress PTP packets. In the point possible. responsible for providing all the slaves in ingress direction the switch will forward the The AV Bridging system is based on three the network with an advertisement of its incoming PTP packets directly to the proces- specifications; IEEE 802.1as Time Synchro- position. If the slave does not receive any sor port. nization; IEEE 802.1Qat Stream Reservation; advertisement from the master then it will The synchronization process is divided and IEEE 802.1Qav Queuing & Forwarding designate itself as the master. into two phases. First, the offset time be- for AV Bridges. To synchronize the master and slaves tween the master and slave is calculated and Using these standards allows a single 1588 operates PTP (Precise Time Protocol) corrected. To perform this function the mas- standard Ethernet (802.3 and 802.3) network based on IP multicasting. The switch needs ter continuously transmits a unique message to carry multimedia applications as well as to identify PTP packets and timestamp to the slave at defined intervals, usually ev- non-time critical traffic (data) by establishing an ‘AVB cloud’ within the network. Time critical traffic is bounded to within the AVB cloud, where all devices must support AVB capability, as shown in Figure 2. To establish a link between two AVB devices, an enhanced LLDP (Link Layer Discovery Protocol) is run, following auto-negotiation completion, to ensure both devices support AVB. Then the 802.1, as Precision Time Protocol (PTP), is used to ensure that the link delay is less than 2us.

IEEE 802.1as time synchronization 802.1as is based upon the IEEE 1588 Time Synchronisation specification that utilizes UDP (User Datagram Protocol) packets over IP to synchronization the network by providing a common 8kHz clock source. Figure 3 shows a typical Hardware implementation of the IEEE 802.1as/1588 functionality. To achieve synchronization with the rest of the network each node must determine which clocking source it should use. All nodes perform the ‘Best Master Clock’ algorithm Correct-A-Chip™ to select timing. If the node is to be a master to many of the nodes in the ring then a high Makes It Easy! precision source, such as GPS, is used. If the node is not designated as a master then it Aries Correct-A-Chip lets you take advantage of will extract timing from the network using device enhancements, or dodge the problems of chip the 1588 protocol. Failure to extract timing obsolescence without board rework, redesign or delays. from the network will result in using the With Correct-A-Chip, you can change from one footprint or package type to another, from surface mount to through-hole, from one pinout to another, or even add additional componentry and circuitry– all in the same space! Now available in both standard and RoHS compliant versions!

Visit our web site Tel: +1 215 781 9956 or call us. Fax: +1 215 781 9845 ISO 9001 e-mail: [email protected] Certified http://arieselec.com/products/correct.htm Fig. 3: Hardware implementation of IEEE 1588/802.1as. Sensible Solutions... Fast!

January 2011 Electronic Engineering Times Europe 33 DESIGN & PRODUCTS SPECIAL FOCUS: INTERCONNECT

Fig. 4a: Example of PTP synchronization – offset calculation Fig. 4b: Example of PTP synchronization – delay calculation. ery 10ms. The second phase of the synchro- Figures 4a and 4b provide an example of the listener, for example listener B in Figure nization process is the delay measurement. Offset and Delay phases of the PTP synchro- 5, subscribes to a stream already being for- The slave will send a ‘delay request’ to the nizations process. To achieve the required warded by the bridge, the bridge will act as a master that is returned and the round trip latency jitter, the maximum drift allowed is proxy and generate a reserve message. delay calculated using the timestamps. The around 4ppm, equivalent to a 4ns drift every SRP usually limits the maximum total assumption here is that the delay between 10ms synchronization cycle. allocated bandwidth to around 75 percent to master and slave is always symmetrical. reserve sufficient bandwidth for any future IEEE 802.1Qat stream high priority traffic. De-registration will reservation occur in the same manner as reservation, in The 802.1Qat allows network this case freeing up the reserved resource as bandwidth and buffer resources the leave message propagates through the to be reserved for specific traffic bridges. schemes using SRP (Stream Res- ervation Protocol). SRP is con- IEEE 802.1Qav queuing & forwarding ducted in two parts, registration Queuing and Forwarding methods are and reservation; listeners register based on segregating traffic into isochro- for a stream and sources reserve nous (time critical) and asynchronous the required resource to provide (non-time critical) packets and prioritising the stream. Figure 5 shows a during a time cycle provided by the 8kHz simple example of the SRP pro- synchronized 802.1as clock source. Traffic cess. A listener will initially send segregation is achieved using the priority a registration message which will class defined in 802.1p (see Priority and propagate through the bridges QoS). Egress port buffers are then separated in the ARP cloud until it reaches into two or more queues, each allocated to a the talker. If the talker’s identity specific priority class. Isochronous packets is unknown by any of the bridge will be given the highest priority, while along the route they will broad- asynchronous packet the lowest. cast the message to all ports. As A number of priority forwarding well as forwarding the registra- algorithms exist for the queues, including tion messages, each bridge will credit-based and weighted round robin. make a temporary entry in its Both methods are preferred over simple database to forward the associ- strict priority, which could starve low prior- ated reservation message reply ity traffic in cases where high priority traffic back from the source. If another rate is high. Fig. 5: IEEE 802.1Qat Stream Reservation.

34 Electronic Engineering Times Europe January 2011 DESIGN & PRODUCTS

is possible. BMW have themselves recently published a White Paper discussing this very subject, ‘Audio/Video Transmission in Cars using Ethernet’. The paper suggests that only a subset of the AVB specification is needed, which they refer to as AVA (Audio Video Bridging for Automotive). Here they recommend a solution consisting of the following parts from AVB: IEEE 1722 AVB Packet and the PTPv2 Time Synchronisation (IEEE 802.1as).

Conclusion Today, Ethernet has already emerged in- Fig. 6: Example of IEEE 802.1Qav Forwarding & Queuing. side the car to provide an IP-based standard Real time performance is achieved by followed by payload data. An example of interface for diagnostics and software downtime multiplexing the communication with- the standard 802.3 Ethernet frame with AVB loading. However, the growth of Ethernet in in the networks AVB cloud. 802.1as provides encapsulation is shown in Figure 7 below. the car has not stopped there. Ethernet can a synchronized 8kHz clock to each node that be considered to form the backbone of the is used to create a 250ms (2x 8kHz clock pe- AVB automotive profile next generation automotive multi-media riod) frame. Critical isochronous data trans- The automotive environment has distinct networks, carrying ‘live’ traffic. fer is performed at the start of the time slot, differences to other adopters of the AVB New standards such as IEEE 802.3AVB followed by non-critical TCP-IP traffic, if it is standard in the fact that it is generally well (Audi-Video Bridging) initially defined for not going to delay the start of the next frame. defined. Unlike digital home applications, Digital AV Home networking are being A frame of 250us, rather than a single 125ms where the specification has to provide a adapted to support the same real-time ser- clock period, is used since the largest permis- guaranteed service when ‘anyone’ can con- vices in the car. Following this the ultimate sible Ethernet packets (1518 bytes) introduce nect ‘anything’ to ‘anywhere’ at ‘any time’, goal would to converge other bus systems themselves more than 120uS forwarding a car network is fixed during assembly with inside the car into a single common bus; delay. AVB streaming will usually frag- relatively limited additional user connec- Ethernet. n ment traffic into a number of smaller packets every cycle rather than using fewer large packets which results in an undesirable bursty traffic flow. La- tency jitter performance is reduced to a minimum using this method of time slot multiplexing. Any jitter caused by queue delay in a cycle is removed by re- scheduling during the following cycle. An example of 802.1Qav Forwarding and Queuing of isochronous and asynchronous traffic is shown in Figure 6. Fig. 7: AVB encapsulation within IEEE 802.3 frame. It is usual to limit isochronous traffic allocation to no more than around three tivity. By utilising quarters of the available bandwidth as not to these observations ELECTRONIC INTERCONNECTION starve the network of asynchronous traffic. it can be argued that COMPONENTS MANUFACTURER This is essential to ensure that an AVB cloud automotive applica- can operate transparently and seamlessly tions do not actually within an 802.3 Ethernet network, without require support of the any noticeable degradation in the standard full specification to State of the art hermetic TCP/IP traffic data. deliver the required Glass to metal and ceramic to metal To provide interoperability with standard QoS. The need for Sealing technology non-AVB Ethernet switches, AVB packets are IEEE802.1Qat Stream High and low temperature brazing normal 802.3 Ethernet frames identified by Reservation is debat- using a special type field. The AVB packet is able. By optimising encapsulated within the Ethernet data field. the Ethernet AVB The AVB packet, defined in IEEE 1722 (AVB specification to MICRONOR 7 DOLOY Tél. : +33 (0)1 60 17 60 60 Layer 2 Protocol Specification), consists of a automotive needs 62, Boulevard Beaubourg Fax : +33 (0)1 60 17 33 44 header with type, 802.1Qat streaming reser- then a low cost, high 77184 Emerainville - FRANCE www.micronor-7d.com vation information and 802.1as time-stamp performance solution

January 2011 Electronic Engineering Times Europe 35 DESIGN & PRODUCTS SPECIAL FOCUS: INTERCONNECT Automotive connectors evolve to meet complex demands and EV challenges By Ted Worroll CONSUMER DEMANDS drive many trends brakes, airbags, and GPS navigation in the dynamic automotive industry, which means that electronic compo- whether it is cost, comfort, style, safety, reli- nents used in key electronic systems ability, functionality, or any number of other must be ultra-reliable and durable. factors. These customer demands, combined Failures in any critical system could with consistent technology advancements, have disastrous results. performance enhancements, and the re- While today’s electronic systems quirement for smaller, lighter systems and have demonstrated reliability, they components, have shaped the evolution of cannot be visually inspected and the automotive connector. physically tested like traditional Historically, many automotive connec- rod-and-gear mechanics. As electronic tors were developed based on industrial designs continue to replace mechani- connector designs. The original industrial cal control systems, connectors must Electric vehicle charging plug. designs were developed to address many evolve to eliminate the reliability of the same environmental factors that are concerns. wheels on a vehicle, to high frequency vibra- found in the automotive environment, in- tion caused by engine turbochargers. Shock cluding high temperatures, vibration, shock, The automotive challenges loads vary, with some extreme, undamped and fluid exposure. Engineers adapted Temperature: under-the-hood applications shocks resulting in 100s of Gs of force on the industrial designs to meet automotive must perform on both ends of the tempera- impact surfaces. requirements; however, the increasing com- ture spectrum, from sub-freezing tempera- Sealing: many electronics tradition- plexity of automotive electronics, particular- tures prior to ignition, to high operating ally used in automotive applications were ly control systems and sensors, has created temperatures when an engine is running. developed for environments not typically demands for interconnect solutions that Temperature stresses are common in subjected to moisture and chemicals. Fortu- vary greatly from the traditional pin-and- automotive applications, and these stresses nately, some manufacturers have been able socket connectors, and can adapt to electric require connectors that can operate at tem- to use their industrial experience to imple- and hybrid vehicles. peratures between -55 and 125ºC, but these ment sealing techniques designed to meet Designers using the latest electronic aren’t the only concerns. Current electronic IP65 (splash), IP67 (submersion) and IP69 technologies to enhance systems such as fabrication processes require connectors (spray) specifications. Manufacturers have safety features, user interfaces, and electric withstand processing temperatures for RoHS employed anti-corrosive materials to ensure vehicle charging must implement high-per- compliance up to 260ºC. connectors survive in wet and corrosive formance connectors. In addition to meeting This elevated processing temperature environments for applications found on ve- quality and reliability standards, connector requirement has emerged in response to the hicle engines, batteries, and systems exposed requirements in today’s vehicles include European initiatives that eliminated lead to the external environment. increased I/O counts, higher densities, small from soldering operations, thus elevating PCB footprints, and lower costs. Although the processing temperatures during elec- Quality these requirements may appear incompat- tronics fabrication. Beyond the performance and environmental ible with lowering costs, connector suppliers Shock and vibration: interconnects for exposure issues for connectors, there are are responding by developing new solutions automotive electronics have incorporated important quality concerns as well. Condi- that challenge traditional parameters in much experience from industrial applications, such as bent pins from connector regard to both technology and cost. tions with regard to shock and vibration. It misalignment during assembly are an old can be challenging to find interconnect solu- problem, one that not only affects reliability, Reliability and durability tions that are able to withstand both low and but assembly costs and production delays as One of the biggest challenges in the evolu- high frequency vibrations typical of automo- well. However, even this issue is being ad- tion of the automotive connector is meeting tive applications, hence, the critical need to dressed through the latest plug-only landed reliability and durability standards. Today’s find an interconnect partner with the ability contact designs, which minimize these vehicles rely heavily on electronics to to work on a project from the beginning to types of quality issues. There has been a control critical systems, including steering, ensure that a reliable solution ends up in the tremendous move away from traditional pin finished product. and socket connectors to pressure contacts Ted Worroll is Product Manager at Examples of vibration range include low that can be better controlled in under-hood ITT Interconnect Solutions - www.ittcannon.com frequency sources, caused by out of balance environments.

36 Electronic Engineering Times Europe January 2011 DESIGN & PRODUCTS

These plug-only landed contact systems include pressure contacts Bus-powered USB-to-CAN adapters designed to mate directly to pads on a PCB, yet able to withstand enable an easy connection of CAN devices to PCs the thermal shock, vibration, and hostile environments common in automotive applications. In these systems, all of the contacts are EasySYNC has announced two or for permanent installation in a plug-side connector so OEMs can have receptacles integrated new USB-to-CAN adapters that in industrial and commercial into their housing with essentially no connectors and no contacts. provide a fast and easy way to locations. The enclosure features The advantages for this approach include a cost-reduction from the connect CAN bus devices to a a standard USB type-B socket, removal of contacts, an increased density, due to requiring only a pad PC via USB. The USB2-F-7001 is a allowing the adapter to be con- on the PCB, and the simplification of the connection in the plug-side. non-isolated adapter, while the nected to a Host type-A socket. New connector designs provide a plug-only solution that is scalable USB2-F-7101 features Each device integrates and sealed, which increases density, reduces PCB space, and cuts built-in digital isola- a USB-to-FIFO interface total installed costs. tion. Both devices are IC, CAN controller and powered directly from CAN bus transceiver, Innovations the USB connection and is compatible with With recent environmental concerns and the rising cost of oil, the eliminating the need USB1.1 and USB2.0 automotive industry has once again seen a shift, as consumers are for an independent Host and Hub ports for demanding more compact, fuel-efficient vehicles. Technological power supply. The new adapt- easy plug-and-play installation. advancements have enabled automobile manufacturers to address ers are built into a tough plastic The CAN bus signals are output the demands of its customers with the mass-production of environ- enclosure capable of operat- to an industry-standard DE-9P mentally friendly vehicles, such as hybrid and electric cars. ing throughout the industrial connector conforming to the Since the introduction of electric vehicles, a primary concern temperature range from -40°C CiA DS102-2 pin-out. Maximum from many skeptical consumers has been the reliability of the to +85°C. Flexible mounting al- CAN bus data rate is 1Mbps. charging solution. Not only is the operating life of the rechargeable lows use in a variety of applica- Easysync lithium-ion battery being questioned, but also the lengthy battery tions, including as a portable recharging process is an issue. adapter accompanying a laptop www.easysync-ltd.com These obstacles have undoubted- ly delayed the mass-production of electric vehicles by major au- LIVE & WEBCAST AND ONLINE AUCTIONS tomotive manufacturers. With recent interconnect technology due to the closing of a former Freescale facility advancements, the charging WAFER FABRICATION SITE, UNUSED of a lithium-ion battery can be BUILDING SERVICES ASSETS (1997/1998) significantly reduced from the Backshells, flange gaskets, and Dunlin Drive (off Halbeath Interchange) DUNFERMLINE - KY11 8HT - SCOTLAND - UK standard eight hours down to mounting plates four hours. With the release of the SAE Electric Vehicle J1772 charging 3 DIESEL ENGINES “Isotta Fraschini”; 3 diesel power genera- specification in January 2010 (a standard adopted in both the U.S. tors “Leroy Somer”; steam generators “Clayton” and “Finn-Agua”; 3 liquid ring vacuum/compressor systems “Siemens”; 10 CENTRIFUGAL and Japan for Level 1 and Level 2 electric vehicle charging), the au- MILLENNIUM CHILLERS “York”; 4 HOT WATER BOILERS “Viess- tomotive market demanded a robust coupler capable of passing the mann”; UNUSED AIR COMPRESSOR “Atlas Copco”; 20 air dryers “Domnick Hunter”; water separators; 75 electr. transformers “S.E.A.”; stringent UL 2251 certification. In addition, the application required 200 electr. power/switch cabinets a.o. “Lounsdale Electric”; 8 180 cell a high amperage charging solution that could provide fast, easy, and uninterruptable power supplies; bushing current transformers; air hand- safe charging of any electric vehicle. Manufacturers have addressed ling units; ± 10.000 ceiling super fan filter systems “Shinsung”, etc.; the needs for a high amperage solution and have reduced the Level 2 200 (LIQUID) CHEMICAL PROCESS PUMPS a.o. “War- man”, “Torishima” and “Ingersoll Dresser”; chemical pumps; sump gard charge time by 50%. With a single inlet design that allows for Level 1 pumps; > 500 VALVES, etc.; 25 (PLATE) HEAT EXCHANGERS incl. and Level 2 charging, this advanced interconnect system has proven “SWEP”, “Hisaka”; 2 tube uv sterilisation units; FILTER PRESS “R&B its ability to meet both electrical and mechanical UL specifications. Baker”; ± 70 tanks/vessels and silos; 15.000 m2 ALUMINIUM CLEAN- ROOM FLOOR TILES; sprinkler system; water purification plant, 3 The design features high efficiency power contact technology to reverse osmosis systems; 160 membrane housings “Code-Line”, etc.; provide flexible functionality, with minimal modifications, across a power curve ranging from a low of 15A/120V to a high of 75A/240V. LIVE & WEBCAST AUCTION The interconnect solution utilizes standard ITT VEAM CIR series on Thursday 27 JANUARY from 11.00 hrs backshells, flange gaskets, and mounting plates, providing for an in the Carnegie Conference Centre enhanced cable management system that incorporates robust and Halbeath - Dunfermline - KY11 8DY - Scotland - UK proven techno and ground pin contacts on the inlet side. Freeze-pre- venting drain holes enable outdoor use in extreme environments. Closing Online Auction (smaller items): Tue 1 February from 15.00 hrs As manufacturers adapt designs to be on the front end of consum- VIEWING: Tue 25 and Wed 26 January from 10.00 till 16.00 hrs er trends, engineers must continuously develop reliable, durable, and by appointment. PHOTOS / Catalogue on our website and scalable connector designs with high-density packaging that take up less space while reducing costs. n www.TroostwijkAuctions.com

January 2011 Electronic Engineering Times Europe 37 DESIGN & PRODUCTS SPECIAL FOCUS: Interconnect

IO-Link analog plug IP67 sealed DIN valve connector converts analog signals into IO-Link signals external thread for consistent torque Until now it has been costly they provide significant savings Molex augments its range of increased by up to 115%, when to connect and incorporate potential. In place of expensive externally-threaded Brad mPm compared to traditional internal analog input/output signals, shielded cables, simple unshield- DIN valve connectors with the nut designs. The new design even though they generally only ed, 3-conductor cable is used. addition of Form C and Form reduces the number of compo- make up less than 10% of the The signal neutrality of the IO- Micro housings, combining nents in the connector, making signals used in a system. The rea- Link ports on the IO-Link Master IP67 sealing properties with an customer assembly and secure sons include the use of shielded module in combination with external-thread mounting, easier cable on the installation the IO-Link plugs design. The and quicker. The side and expensive multi- ensures maximum mPm DIN valve Brad mPm range channel input modules signal variance. Mix- connector range of DIN valve con- on the controller side. ing of different input, provides superior nectors conform to Balluff has launched IO- output, current and cable retention for Industry Standard Link analog plugs with voltage signals can increased perfor- EN 175301-803. a high resolution of 14 be mixed on one mance and reliability, simplifies The connectors can accommo- bits designed for systems module. Versions the manufacturing process and date PG9 and PG11 cable and up with limited instances of are available with a reduces overall applied costs for to 9mm cable outer diameter. analog signals. With an current input of 4-20 hydraulic, pneumatic and elec- Standard circuitry options IP 67 enclosure rating, the plugs mA, voltage from 0-10 V or PT tromagnetic drive systems. available include light-emitting feature a space-saving housing, 100, a current output of 4-20 mA The external nut on the new diode and bi-polar LED indica- are connected directly to the and a voltage output of 0-10 V. generation mPm DIN valve con- tors, blocking diodes to protect sensor and convert the analog Balluff nector provides greater and con- against over voltage or peaks signals into IO-Link signals sistent torque, which ensures when switching off and voltage- before transmission. In this way www.balluff.co.uk good cable retention and high dependent resistors (VDR) to reliability. The Molex mPm DIN protect supply and switch. connectors achieve a sealing per- Molex formance from dust and water Smart managed switches www.connector.com with two diagnostics-capable POF interfaces to IP67. Cable retention force is In addition to six RJ-45-ports, the the received power is continu- FL switch SMN 6TX/2POF-PN ally measured and the optical Low-profile DC jack from Phoenix Contact also offer system reserve is displayed in raises only 4.4mm above the PCB two diagnostics-capable POF the Web-based management interfaces, in a narrow system using an SNMP For applications that face par- a way that is partially counter- control cabinet-friendly object or Profinet com- ticularly tight space restraints, sunk into the board by 0.9 mm. housing. Both polymer munication. The switch Suyin has developed the two-pin The jack’s underside, which is and HCS fibers can be can be used as a Profinet type 040068FR designed for in- connected via the fiber- IO device with a PDEV right-angle DC board mounting, optic interfaces with function and can be power jack con- has a cross shape. SCRJ connections. These utilized in redundant nector. Rated As a result, after optical fibers facilitate Ethernet networks with for a maximum mounting, it is user-friendly and easy as- RSTP Fast Ring Detec- of 6.3V DC and able to withstand sembly in the field. Combining tion or in an MRP environment. 2.0A DC, this the strongest this switch with the new field For Ethernet/IP networks, it has THT jack is removal forces assembly-capable HCS fibers multicast filtering with an IGMP equipped with in all horizontal with gradient index FL FOC snooping function. A connection a spring-loaded switch contact directions. The number of guar- PN-C-HCS-GI-200/230 enables to high performance switches and a centre pin with a diameter anteed mating cycles is specified transmission distances of up to in the backbone area, e.g. to of 1.65 mm. It accepts a cylindri- at 5,000, the contact resistance at 250 meters to be achieved. The the Gigabit Modular Switch FL cal DC connector with an outer 20mΩ (initial) and the insula- fiber-optic cable connectors are Switch GHS 12G/8 from Phoenix diameter of 4.0mm. The jack’s tion resistance is 100 MΩ. A assembled on site in less than Contact, can be established not extremely low height of just Capton film on top of the jack two minutes. Complex crimp- just via copper interfaces but 4.4mm above the printed circuit ensures trouble-free automatic ing, gluing and polishing are no also via POF-SCRJ interfaces us- board is achieved through two pick & place assembly using a longer required. Using the inte- ing GIHCS fiber-optic cable. clever design tricks: first, the vacuum-assisted pipette. grated fiber-optic diagnostics, Phoenix Contact jack housing is partially open Suyin the switch supports users when towards the top. Secondly, its troubleshooting faults, whereby www.phoenixcontact.de underside can be mounted in www.suyin-europe.com

38 Electronic Engineering Times Europe January 2011 DESIGN & PRODUCTS

Miniature rectangular connectors qualified to ESA, save up to 60% in weight Souriau obtained the qualifi- to be qualified and are subject Superior Solutions for cation of the European Space to an extensive manufacturing Agency (ESA) for its rectangular follow-up with full traceability. miniature microComp range of This traceability permits the Communications connectors, offering a smaller identification of the batch of footprint replacement for raw material in case of failure in ESA/ESCC D-Sub connectors, order to isolate the potentially which is widely used today in defective components. satellite payloads. The micro- The complete shell for this Comp allows rectangular mi- a space saving croComp range up to 40% is made of com- and a weight posite materials, reduction then metalized down to 60%. to ensure an ef- Connectors fective electrical currently used on equipment continuity between the plug, the and harnesses of telecommu- receptacle, the backshells and nication satellites or scientific the harness braid. The electrical missions are of the same type crimp contacts are removable as those on laptop and home and allow users to wire and computers. Reliability is the key unwire their equipment. word in the space industry, for Souriau both launchers and satellites. All the mounted components have www.souriau.com low footprint 8-channel ESD diode array offers all-in-one protection for HD display ports s 0LQLDWXUL]HG6$:ILOWHUVIRUDOOV\VWHPV STMicroelectronics has devel- protection IC family to save part s /7&&PRGXOHVIRUFHOOXODUPXOWLEDQGDQG:/$1 oped what it calls virtually invis- count and PCB space, and enable s 0XOWLOD\HUFKLSEDQGSDVVILOWHUV ible protection for high-defini- high-definition equipment to s $SSOLFDWLRQVSHFLILF(0,(6'ILOWHUPRGXOHV tion connections. The 8-channel maintain ultra-high data rates. s ,QWHUIDFHWUDQVIRUPHUVVXSSO\WUDQVIRUPHUVDQG ESD diode array delivers all-in- With ultra-low capacitance per FKRNHVIRU'6/DSSOLFDWLRQVDQGEDVHVWDWLRQV one protection for HDMI, Dis- line and extremely close match- s 7KLQILOPFRPPRQPRGHILOWHUVIRUKLJKVSHHG playPort, DiiVA, SATA, USB3.0 ing between capacitance values, VLJQDOOLQHV interconnects, and minimizes the 3.3x1.5x0.6mm HSP061- s &RPPRQPRGHILOWHUVIRUDXGLROLQHV loading on ultra-high-speed data 8M16 also minimizes slowing lines. These of data edges and s 0XOWLOD\HUFKLSLQGXFWRUVIRUKLJKIUHTXHQF\ FLUFXLWVDQGPRGXOHV interconnects prevents signal ® combine sever- skew between s &HUD'LRGH DQGIRU(6'SURWHFWLRQ al multi-gigabit adjacent lines. s 6XUJHDUUHVWHUVDQGYDULVWRUVIRUDOOV\VWHPV data channels This prevents s 17&WKHUPLVWRUVIRUWHPSHUDWXUHPDQDJHPHQW to achieve total communication s 37&WKHUPLVWRUVIRUOLQHSURWHFWLRQ data rates in excess of 10 Gbit/s errors that ultimately can pro- s 0XOWLOD\HUFHUDPLFFKLSFDSDFLWRUVIRUORQJ in the case of HDMI 1.4 and up duce glitches in played-back HD VHUYLFHOLIH to 13.5 Gbit/s for DiiVA. The images or audio. The HSP061- s (0&ILOWHUPRGXOHVIRUEDVHVWDWLRQV high per-channel data rates of 8M16 offers 15kV ESD protec- advanced multimedia connection, has 100 Ohm differential tions increase the demands on impedance, 0.6 pF input/output www.tdk-epc.com devices protecting internal cir- capacitance and support a cuitry as the equipment is con- 6.3GHz bandwidth. nected and disconnected. ST says STMicroelectronics +DQRYHU)DLUs+DQRYHU*HUPDQ\ it is responding to this challenge $SULOs+DOO6WDQG& by expanding its HSP high-speed www.st.com

January 2011 Electronic Engineering Times Europe 39 DESIGN & PRODUCTS SPECIAL FOCUS: RF&Wireless Inside Bluetooth low-energy technology By Kjartan Furset

But there is one critical difference: Blu- etooth low-energy technology was designed from the outset to be an “ultra-low power” (ULP) wireless technology whereas Classic Bluetooth technology forms a “low power” wireless connection. Classic Bluetooth technology is a “connection oriented” radio with a fixed connection interval ideal for high activity connections like mobile phones linking with wireless headsets. In contrast, Bluetooth low-energy technology employs a variable connection interval that can be set from a few milliseconds to several seconds depending on the application. In addition, because it features a very rapid connection, Blue- tooth low-energy technology can normally be in a “not connected” state (saving power) where the two ends of a link are aware of each other, but only link up when absolutely necessary and then for as short a time as possible. The operational mode of Bluetooth low- energy technology ideally suits transmission of data from compact wireless sensors (exchanging data every half second) or other Figure 1: Dual mode chips will use the Bluetooth low energy part of their architecture to communicate peripherals like remote controls where fully with single mode devices asynchronous communication can be used. chips using their conventional Bluetooth highly specialized Classic Bluetooth applica- These devices send low volumes of data (i.e. architecture. Dual-Mode Chips will be used tions that can run on batteries with a lower a few bytes) infrequently (for example, a few anywhere a Classic Bluetooth chip is used capacity than AAA cells.) times per second to once every minute or today. The consequence is that cell phones, more seldom). PCs, Personal Navigation Devices (PNDs) or The technology of ultra-low other applications fitted with a dual-mode power wireless A tale of two chips chip will be capable of communicating There are three characteristics of Bluetooth There are two types of chips that together with all the legacy Classic Bluetooth devices low-energy technology that underlie its ULP form Bluetooth low energy architecture: already on the market as well as all future performance: maximized standby time, fast single mode and dual mode. A single mode Bluetooth low energy devices. However, connection, and low peak transmit/receive device is a Bluetooth low energy-only chip because they are required to perform Classic power. that’s brand new to the Bluetooth specifica- Bluetooth and Bluetooth low energy duties, Switching the radio “on” for anything tion – it’s the part of the technology opti- dual-mode chips are not optimized for ULP other than very brief periods dramatically mized for ULP operation. operation to the same degree as single-mode reduces battery life, so any transmitting Single mode chips can communicate devices. or receiving that has to be done needs to with other single mode chips and dual-mode Single-mode chips can operate for long be done quickly. The first trick Bluetooth chips when the latter are using the Blue- periods (months or even years) from a coin low-energy technology uses to minimize tooth low-energy technology part of their cell battery such as a 3V, 220mAh CR2032. In time on air is to employ only three “advertis- architecture to transmit and receive. (See contrast, Classic Bluetooth technology (and ing” channels to search for other devices or figure 1). Dual-Mode Chips will also have the Bluetooth low energy dual mode devices) promote its own presence to devices that capability of communication with Classic typically requires the capacity of at least two might be looking to make a connection. In Bluetooth technology and other dual-mode AAA cells (which have 10 to 12 times the comparison, Classic Bluetooth technology capacity of a coin cell and much higher peak uses 32 channels. Kjartan Furset is Senior Applications Engineer at current tolerance), and often more, to power This means Bluetooth low-energy Nordic Semiconductor - www.nordicsemi.com them for days or weeks at most (depending technology has to switch “on” for just 0.6 to on the application). (Note: There are some 1.2ms to scan for other devices, while Classic

40 Electronic Engineering Times Europe January 2011 DESIGN & PRODUCTS

Bluetooth technology requires 22.5ms to ogy (although Classic Bluetooth technology scan its 32 channels. Consequently, Blue- uses 79 data channels). tooth low-energy technology uses 10 to 20 Another reason why Bluetooth low-ener- times less power than Classic Bluetooth gy technology spends minimal time on air is technology to locate other radios. because it features a raw data bandwidth of Note that the use of three advertising 1Mbps – greater bandwidth allows more in- channels is a slight compromise: it’s a trade formation to be sent in less time. An alterna- between “on” time (and hence power) and tive technology that features a bandwidth of robustness in what is a very crowded part 250kbps, for example, has to be “on” for eight of the spectrum (with fewer advertising times as long (using more battery energy) to channels there is a greater chance of another send the same amount of information. radio broadcasting on one of the chosen Bluetooth low-energy technology can frequencies and corrupting the signal). The “complete” a connection (i.e. scan for other specification’s designers are confident they devices, link, send data, authenticate, and have balanced this compromise – they have, “gracefully” terminate) in just 3ms. With for example, chosen the advertising chan- Classic Bluetooth technology, a similar con- nels such that they don’t clash with Wi-Fi’s nection cycle is measured in hundreds of default channels (see figure 2). milliseconds. Remember, more time on air Once connected, Bluetooth low-energy requires more energy from the battery. technology switches to one of its 37 data Bluetooth low-energy technology also channels. During the short data transmis- keeps a lid on peak power in two other ways: sion period the radio switches between chan- by employing more “relaxed” RF param- nels in a pseudo-random pattern using the eters than its big brother, and by sending Figure 2: Bluetooth low energy technology’s Adaptive Frequency Hopping (AFH) technol- very short packets. Both technologies use advertising channels have been carefully chosen ogy pioneered by Classic Bluetooth technol- a Gaussian Frequency Shift Keying (GFSK) to avoid clashes with Wi-Fi.

January 2011 Electronic Engineering Times Europe 41 [B((7LPHV(XURSHB0LQGG DESIGN & PRODUCTS SPECIAL FOCUS: RF&Wireless

modulation, however, Bluetooth low-energy whereby sensors around a technology uses a modulation index of 0.5 large public building (such compared to Classic Bluetooth technology as an airport or rail station) 0.35. An index of 0.5 is close to a Gaussian constantly broadcast infor- Minimum Shift Keying (GMSK) scheme and mation about their location. lowers the radio’s power requirements (the A Bluetooth low energy reasons for this are complex and beyond the equipped cell phone passing scope of this article). Two beneficial side within range could then effects of the lower modulation index are display that information to increased range and enhanced robustness. its owner. Classic Bluetooth technology uses a long Sensors could transmit packet length. When these longer packets other information such as are transmitted the radio has to remain in a flight times and gates, loca- relatively high power state for a longer dura- tion of amenities, or special tion, heating the silicon. This changes the offers from nearby shops. material’s physical characteristics and would alter the transmission frequency (breaking Final step the link) unless the radio was constantly Several silicon vendors are recalibrated. Recalibration costs power (and well advanced in the design requires a closed-loop architecture, making of Bluetooth low-energy the radio more complex and pushing up the chips, and have released device’s price). Figure 3: Bluetooth Core Specification Version 4.0 defines Bluetooth low samples and development In contrast, Bluetooth low-energy tech- energy technology’s architecture. Profiles are due for imminent release. kits to selected customers. nology uses very short packets - which keeps The current specification for the silicon cool. Consequently, a Bluetooth ers because they’ll cost only very slightly Bluetooth Version 4.0 allows these compa- low energy transceiver doesn’t require power more than Classic Bluetooth technology yet nies to qualify their silicon to the Bluetooth consuming recalibration and a closed-loop offer so much more functionality. This will low energy specification. architecture. allow cell phone makers to offer a security Nordic, for example, offers sample avail- device comprising a Bluetooth low energy ability of its µBlue (“MicroBlue”) Bluetooth Extending the Bluetooth ecosystem powered watch that periodically communi- low energy chips (and a µBlue Prototype Kit Bluetooth low-energy technology was cates with the cell phone. If the cell phone for key customers). The first product in the designed for applications where Classic moves out of range - and hence can’t contact µBlue family is the nRF8001 – a single mode Bluetooth technology is not viable because the watch worn by the user – it would au- peripheral solution in a 32-pin 5 by 5mm of severe power restraints. This is the first tomatically lock and the watch would emit QFN package incorporating a fully embed- time a ULP wireless technology with guar- an alarm. This would prevent the cell phone ded radio, link controller, and host sub- anteed interoperability has been available to being accidentally left behind and prove a system - suitable for watches, sensors, and electronics designers and promises to kick major deterrent for any would-be thief. remote controls among other applications start hundreds of new applications. The proximity alarm application could (see figure 4). A clue to some of the likely early appli- be extended to a portable The final piece of the cations is provided by the Bluetooth SIG’s PC that locks when the Bluetooth low-energy intention to follow up the December 2009 user moves out of range puzzle is imminent. The publication of Bluetooth Version 4.0 Core (and perhaps unlocks to Bluetooth SIG says the Specification (which includes Bluetooth low be ready for use when the first profiles – such as energy) with the release of the first Profiles: approaching user presses Proximity Alarm - will these Profiles optimize a generic Bluetooth a button on their watch). start appearing within low energy chip for a specific application The application could also months. That means such as Personal User Interface Devices be used as a child safety electronics designers will (PUID) (such as watches), Remote Control, device where the child’s get their hands on fully Proximity Alarm, Battery Status and Heart watch communicates qualified chips to begin Rate Monitor. Other health and fitness with a parent’s while they Figure 4: Nordic Semiconductor’s µBlue their actual product monitoring profiles such as blood-glucose remain in range with an nRF8001 will be one of the first Bluetooth development towards the and -pressure, cycle cadence, and cycle crank alarm sounding if the child low energy chips on the market. end of the year. power will follow (see figure 3). wanders away. Once the fully qualified silicon reaches Let’s take a look at how Bluetooth low- The low cost and low maintenance the market, expect a tsunami of Bluetooth energy technology will be used in just two (because batteries require only infrequent low energy products to follow. Analyst IMS potential applications: Proximity Alarm and changes) of Bluetooth low energy sensors estimates that by 2013, a billion Bluetooth Indoor Location (sometimes referred to as will encourage widespread use in public low energy devices will be sold every year. “Indoor GPS”). Dual-Mode chips are being places. One key application could be indoor That represents the fastest adoption of any adopted by cell phone and portable PC mak- location (where there is no GPS signal) wireless technology by far. n

42 Electronic Engineering Times Europe January 2011 DESIGN & PRODUCTS SPECIAL FOCUS: RF&Wireless

High thermal conductivity laminates Microwave power divider target high frequency circuits handles 250W at up to 2.5 GHz Rogers Advanced Circuits Mate- constructions requiring excel- The Model 2372A-2 now avail- directly attached to the housing rials Division (ACM) is introduc- lent stability, XT/duroid 8100 able from Link Microtek is a to optimise thermal transfer ing two laminates to the market. laminates have a reinforced two-way power divider which so that the film temperature The company’s latest XT/duroid woven-glass resin system for operates over microwave remains stable throughout the 8000 series high performance added dimensional stability. frequencies from 500 MHz unit’s operating temperature thermoplastic laminate materi- That makes them capable of to 2.5 GHz and can handle an range. Featuring an insertion als include the XT/duroid 8000 supporting multilayer circuits input power of loss of less than 0.6 dB, laminates for simpler multilayer while providing them thermal up to 250 W CW the 2372A-2 provides designs (less than 6 layers) and and chemical ruggedness, as or 2 kW peak. exceptional phase and XT/duroid 8100 laminates for well as outstanding electri- Manufactured by amplitude balance of constructions consisting of six cal performance. XT/duroid Narda, the device ±5 degrees and ±0.25 or more layers. Highly reliable 8100 laminates feature z-axis can also be used dB respectively. VSWR and halogen-free flame retar- dielectric constants of 3.54 ±0.05 as a non-coherent is less than 1.5:1, and dant, XT/duroid laminates are and 3.32 ±0.05 at 10GHz and dis- 125 W-per-signal isolation is specified as thermally and chemically robust sipation factors of 0.0049 (0.0508 power combiner at least 13 dB up to 700 with melting points higher than mm) and 0.0038 (0.1016 mm) and is suitable MHz, rising to 18 dB at PTFE materials and an estimated at 10 GHz. They deliver stable for a variety of 2.5 GHz. maximum Relative Thermal electrical performance over wide applications in Employing N-type Index (RTI) greater than 210°C, frequency ranges, with a low telecommunications infrastruc- female connectors, the power making them well suited for thermal coefficient of dielectric ture. It incorporates proprietary divider is finished with tri- rugged military and aerospace constant of +9 ppm/°C from -50 high-power, thin-film resistors alloy plating and measures applications. XT/duroid 8000 to +150°C. Both laminates are to ensure broadband impedance 88.9x63.5x25.4 mm. laminates feature a z-axis di- available with a dielectric thick- matching and high isolation Link Microtek electric constant of 3.23 ±0.05 at ness of 0.0508 mm with low between inputs when used as 10GHz and a dissipation factor profile reverse treated electrode- a combiner. These resistors are www.linkmicrotek.com of 0.0035 or less at 10 GHz. They posited copper foil cladding. deliver stable electrical perfor- XT/duroid 8100 is also available mance over wide frequency with dielectric thickness of RF ceramic capacitor ranges, with a low thermal coef- 0.1016 mm. includes non-magnetic terminations for MRI use ficient of dielectric constant of Rogers Advanced Circuits Materials +7 ppm/°C from -50 to +150°C. AVX Corporation has expanded equivalent series resistance than For complex multilayer circuit www.rogerscorp.com its porcelain and ceramic other MLC versions,” said Larry dielectric multilayer capacitor Eisenberger, senior field applica- (MLC) chip product offering to tions engineer, at AVX. With TI releases tools and chipset include non-magnetic termina- these high performance materi- for wireless power charging tion versions. Designated the als and design, along with its SQ Series, the RF high current car- Texas Instruments has in- ated magnetics for applications capacitor series is rying capabilities troduced what is says is the requiring 5 watts of power or rated at 50 VDC and high quality industry’s first Qi-certified less. The company states that to 500 VDC with factors, the SQ wireless power development kit, no additional software develop- capacitance val- Series capacitors which enables design engineers ment is required, offering true ues ranging from offer superior to speed the integration of wire- plug-and-play functionality. 0.1 pF to 1000 pF. stability under less power technol- The kit contains Ideal for medical the stresses of ogy in consumer bq500110 wireless devices such as MRI coils, the changing voltage, frequency, electronics, such power transmit- SQ Series offers low ESR, high Q, time and temperature. The SQ as digital cameras, ter manager, high current and high self-reso- Series capacitors are rated for smartphones, MP3 bq25046 single- nance frequency values. “The SQ operation between -55 ºC to players and global input, 5-V power Series capacitors’ porcelain and 125ºC and features P90 and NPO positioning sys- supply IC and ceramic multilayer construction characteristics as well as a 100 tems, along with MSP430bq1010 features palladium internal elec- percent tin finish. The SQ Series infrastructure applications such wireless power control and com- trodes as well as fine-grained, capacitors are available in 0603, as furniture and cars. The bq- munications high density, high purity dielec- 0605, 0805 and 1210 case sizes. TELSA development kit includes Texas Instruments tric materials to keep moisture AVX Corporation a single-channel transmitter, a out. This advanced design allows direct-charge receiver and associ- www.ti.com/bqTESLA100LP-preu for as much as 40 percent lower www.avx.com

January 2011 Electronic Engineering Times Europe 43 DESIGN & PRODUCTS SPECIAL FOCUS: RF&Wireless

Picochip shares femtocell roadmap 4G/LTE broadband connectivity to enable 3G basestations on a USB dongle supports robust in-vehicle telematics Picochip unveiled its vision gateways, cable modems and set- Harman and Sierra Wireless Service expected include driver for next-generation femtocells, top boxes, simply by plugging have underlined their commit- enhancements, such as real-time including picoXcell technology in a USB key. A “private cellsite” ment to bring automotive cus- mapping and traffic updates, to that will allow its customers to solution like this will solve tomers the first 4G broadband dynamic loaded applications, create an entire 3G cellular bas- consumer problems of ‘not- connectivity. HARMAN will sup- content, gaming, streaming estation in an ultra-small form spots’ or coverage holes, deliver port Sierra Wireless AirPrime video and full internet access factor such as a USB dongle. The far faster data services than on a intelligent embedded modules that can be shared among concept of a conventional cell, for LTE networks to offer robust multiple devices. According to basestation on improve battery in-vehicle wireless connectivity automotive researchers Strat- a USB dongle is life and enable a enabling high bandwidth tele- egy Analytics, 70% of vehicles one of several variety of innova- matics, navigation, and online produced globally in 2009 have Picochip de- tive “home zone” infotainment applications some form of connectivity solu- velopments in services. For pub- The AirPrime modules also le- tion and the number is expected the spotlight at lic access prod- verage broadly adopted applica- to increase to 95% by 2012. It CES 2011. Oth- ucts, Picochip’s tions programming interfaces comes at a time when consumers include en- dual-mode LTE / (APIs) to encourage a growing ers are rapidly adapting to abling technol- HSPA+ solution is ecosystem of software provid- lifestyles where multi-featured ogy for small the only opti- ers’ solutions for connectivity, smart-phones and handsets are form factor mized platform location, and manageability. The the norm, believes Harman, public access HSPA+ femtocells for designers of ‘small cell’ solution should provide wireless who is working on solutions to (sometimes known as picocells basestations that provide both data access at download speeds address vehicle-centric demand or microcells); picoArray tech- LTE and HSPA+ cellular services. of up to 100Mbps and upload for wirelessly-enabled, mobile nology that is already delivering It enables operators to deploy speeds up to 50Mbps on LTE broadband solutions. 4G services around the world LTE in an evolutionary man- networks, providing a multi- Sierra Wireless and enabling LTE trials today; ner. The development builds on faceted media, office and online and the company’s new platform Picochip’s optimized range of experience within the vehicle. www.sierrawireless.com for dual mode (LTE and HSPA+) silicon and software products for small cells. The availability of high-volume manufacturers of ultra-small femtocells will allow residential HSPA+ femtocells, HSPA+ M2M module operators to easily add HSPA+ Picochip supports 2G and 3G networks and bridges to LTE home-basestation capabilities to appliances such as residential www.picochip.com Cinterion announced the PH8, operators helps ensure a fast and an M2M grade, fully rugge- cost effective road to market. Us- dized, high bandwidth module ing the latest 45 nanometer chip- 250 to 4000 MHz RF driver amplifier for global markets, designed set from Qualcomm’s long-life surface mount device exhibits high linearity to deliver high-speed wireless program, PH8 provides a future connectivity on both 2G proof, dependable bridge M/A-COM Technology Solutions reflow temperatures up to 260°C. and 3G networks as well to LTE. The HSPA+ mod- has introduced the MAAM- The ESD susceptibility achieves as offering a bridge to ule offers reliable M2M 009560, an HBT driver ampli- a class 2 ESD rating. The versa- evolving 4G networks grade functionality with fier for cellular and WiMAX tile MAAM-009560 HBT driver such as LTE. The PH8 speeds up to 14.4 Mbps infrastructure applications. This amplifier delivers high linearity module makes it easier for downloads and 5.76 driver amplifier covers a broad performance while consuming to integrate data rich Mbps for uploads and frequency low power, pro- M2M applications like it is compatible with range of 250 viding a highly streaming video on out- Quad-Band GSM/GPRS, to 4000 MHz efficient driver door billboards, mobile EDGE and five UMTS with excellent amplifier solu- medical monitoring ap- bands for true global linearity of tion for cellular plications, video surveillance so- roaming and worldwide sup- 42 dBm OIP3 and WiMAX base lutions and Industrial PDAs. The port. Full voice support includ- over a greater stations. Engi- robust, single-sided design leads ing analog audio processing than 20 dB neering samples, to superior heat dissipation, enables quick and easy audio input power range, as well as fea- sample boards and production allowing PH8 to outperform implementation for OEMs and tures a typical gain of 15 dB. The devices are available now. power-consuming PCIe devices, developers. lead-free SOT-89 surface mount M/A-COM Technology Solutions says the manufacturer. Full type Cinterion plastic package is RoHS compli- approval and pre-approval by ant and compatible with solder www.macomtech.com major global mobile network www.cinterion.com/ph8

44 Electronic Engineering Times Europe January 2011 DESIGN & PRODUCTS SPECIAL FOCUS: RF&Wireless

Switched-bit 63-dB attenuator Analog-to-wireless network converter operates from 2 to 6GHz, 30ns switching speed extends machine-to-machine options Narda has introduced the Model bit attenuators, the attenuation The growing penetration of DSL transmitted using phone line DA64-63B switched-bit attenua- values of the DA64-63B are and Cable networks and the emulation over a GPRS or GSM tor, which offers the high level guaranteed to be monotonic, and growing popularity of the mo- data cellular network. of performance required in elec- the unit is hermetically sealed. bile phone as a replacement for In the home, the WireX can tronic warfare and radar systems It operates over a temperature fixed line phones has resulted in be used with different types as well as precision automated range of –54 to +95°C, meets less and less availability of fixed of already-in-the-field devices test equipment. The Model MIL-STD-202F for humidity (95 phone lines that are compat- equipped with analog modems. DA64-63B is a 6-bit device that h at 95 percent), shock (76 G ible with traditional In the case of SOHO provides attenuation analog modems. The and small shops, of 0 to 63 dB in 1-dB WireX converter WireX can be used steps, and operates solves this problem by to immediately and from 2 to 6 GHz with allowing legacy equip- smoothly convert a switching speed of ment with embedded point-of-sale equip- 30 ns (50 percent TTL analog modems to im- ment, energy meter- to 90 percent RF) and mediately be switched ing systems, and ac- rise and fall times of from connecting cess control devices to 10 ns. It has an inser- through the traditional phone cellular. WireX allows wireless tion loss of 4.3 dB or less, VSWR for 6 ms), altitude (50,000 feet), line to connecting through a carriers to gain market share in of less than 2:1, and attenuation vibration (0.06 inches double cellular GSM / GPRS wireless the “Connected Device” category flatness of± 0.5 dB to 31 dB and amplitude or 15 G), and thermal network. According to manufac- that encompasses home-based ±1 dB to 63 dB. The Model DA64- shock (5 cycles). Its SMA female turer eDevice, WireX is the first Machine-to-Machine (M2M) 63B will handle up to +23 dBm connectors are removable, mak- analog-to-wireless converter de- applications. End-users can then RF input power, operates from ing the attenuator suitable for signed for self-installation by the take advantage of subscriptions +5 VDC at 350 mA, and measures drop-in mounting. end-user: it does not require any adapted to M2M data usage 25.4x19.1x6.1mm. Control is Narda changes on the existing legacy levels and also enjoy mobility provided by TTL. Like all models device, the user only needs to outside the home including in Narda’s DA Series of switched- www.nardamicrowave.com disconnect the phone cable from internationally with worldwide the wall and plug it into the Wi- cellular coverage. reX dial-up connector. The data eDevice previously transferred over the 2.4GHz RF and ANT products www.edevice.com soon available in 2.6x2.7mm WLCSP options phone link is then automatically Nordic Semiconductor said it and emerging sports, fitness will expand its 2.4GHz RF and and health applications such as Hirschmann foil antennas ANT product range with the ad- wireless watches, bike comput- can be integrated into the vehicle’s body dition of a brand new line-up of ers, sensors, hearing aids and wafer level other devices For vehicles predominantly a patented process, Hirschmann chip scale designed to made of plastic materials such as prints the conducting antenna package be worn on or campers, caravans or license-free structures onto a carrier foil. The (WLCSP) near the body. light vehicles, Hirschmann Car antenna is glued or laminated options as The new Communications has devel- into place. It is then integrated small as nRF24LE1 oped a foil antenna that can be invisibly into the skin. Drill 2.6x2.7mm WLCSP op- integrated into windscreens and holes and complex earth con- in size and tion (Flash or even into the body structure. nections are no longer needed. occupying OTP) will be a Through their flex- The antennas are up to 5x less 400µm (regu- ibility, foil antennas available for radio footprint lar array) offer high degree and DVB-T TV area. Sam- 32-ball pitch of design freedom reception, with or pling in Q1 2011 and available BGA measuring 2.7x2.7mm in at minimum space without integrated for volume orders in Q2 2011 footprint area for the Flash ver- requirements, the preamplifier. The will be the nRF24AP2 (1- and 8- sion and 2.6x2.7mm for the OTP company promises. vendor adapts channel) WLCSP and nRF24LE1 version. Both devices are 0.5mm The antenna do away with rod the antenna individually to the WLCSP (Flash or OTP) options. in thickness. aerials and enable designers to respective vehicle design. The products will be designed Nordic Semiconductor integrate the antenna in virtu- Hirschmann to meet the highly space-con- ally all kind of structures as long strained needs of both existing www.nordicsemi.com as they are not made of metal. In www.hirschmann-car.com

January 2011 Electronic Engineering Times Europe 45 DESIGN & PRODUCTS 5W LED lamp reference kit Reader Offer 10 on offer, complete with PFC and flicker-free dimming capability High-current inductors This month, Power Integrations mers and more sophisticated with 1-MHz maximum frequency and low DCR gives away ten of its RDK-251 trailing-edge dimmers. It oper- reference designs for 5W LED ates over the universal AC input Vishay Intertechnology has from 11.4 mΩ to 22.0 mΩ. The lamps. The reference design range (85 VAC to 265 VAC, 47 launched two new IHLP low- IHLP-1212AE-11 offers an induc- includes flicker-free TRIAC dim- Hz to 63 Hz) and can withstand profile, high-current inductors tance range from 0.22 µH to 1.0 ming and single-stage power an input range of 0 VAC to 300 in the 1212 case size. The com- µH, a saturation current range factor correction (PFC), based VAC. Power factor is high (>0.9) pact IHLP-1212AB-11 and IHLP- from 5.3 A to 9.0 A, typical DCR on the company’s LNK457DG, and input current total harmon- 1212AE-11 offer a 3.0x3.6mm from 9.5 mΩ to 29.5 mΩ, and a member of the LinkSwitch- ic distortion (THD) is low (<10% footprint with ultra-low profiles maximum DCR from 11.4 mΩ PL family of LED at 115 VAC and of 1.2 and 1.5mm respectively. to 33.0 mΩ. The new inductors driver ICs optimized <15% at 230 VAC), With a high maximum 1 handle high transient current for compact, non- enabling a single MHz frequency and standard spikes without hard saturation. isolated installations. universal input inductance values from 0.22µH Packaged in an RoHS-compliant, The reference design design to be used through 1.0 µH, IHLP-1212AB- 100% lead (Pb)-free shielded, provides a single worldwide. The 11 and IHLP-1212AE-11 serve composite construction that constant-current board fits inside a as high-performing, space- and reduces buzz noise to low levels, output of 350mA at pear-shaped A19 power-saving solutions for the new devices are specified for a nominal LED string voltage LED replacement lamp with an voltage regulator module (VRM) an operating temperature range of 15V. The output current can E26/27 base. The RDK-251 pack- and DC/DC converter applica- of − 55 to + 125 °C, with high be reduced using a standard AC age contains full power supply tions. The IHLP-1212AB-11 resistance to thermal shock, mains TRIAC dimmer down to specifications, schematic, bill of offers an inductance range from moisture, mechanical shock, 1% (3 mA) without instability materials, transformer docu- 0.22 µH to 0.56 µH, a saturation and vibration. or flickering of the LED array. mentation, PCB layout, and current range from 6.7 A to 9.3 Vishay Intertechnology The supply is compatible with performance data. A, typical DCR from 9.5 mΩ to both low-cost, leading-edge dim- Power Integration www.vishay.com 18.7 mΩ, and maximum DCR Check the reader offer online at www.electronics-eetimes.com www.powerint.com USB audio system development kit full range speaker drivers in sealed enclosures FAT32 for Android, Linux HiWave Technologies launched audio effects. The developers’ kit includes FAT, FAT32, exFAT and NTFS drivers the DyadUSB kit for rapid allows each element of HiWave’s development of USB-powered patented audio technology to be Tuxera, a provider of computer the GPL software in Linux, or consumer audio systems. The assessed, including enclosure files systems that are compatible you risk a copyright lawsuit.” DyadUSB Development Kit design and tuning. It enables with the Windows operating Tuxera, founded in 2008, works comprises two 12W RMS bal- designers to build up their own system, has announced a GPL- with operating system vendors anced mode radiator (BMR), implementations by integrating compliant FAT32 replacement to take care of IP issues and legal full-range speaker drivers in DyadUSB components into their package for Android- and Linux- compliance and Tuxera was the tuned and sealed products. Design en- based systems. FAT32 is a file al- first file system vendor to license enclosures, plus a gineers will learn the location table system developed exFAT patents and source code DyadUSB amplifier benefits of combining by Microsoft for use with disk from Microsoft in 2009. module featuring HiWave’s electronic drives. GPL is the general public “Both exFAT and NTFS lift the HiWave’s ultra- and transducer license promoted by open- 4-Gbyte file size limit, which efficient Audium technologies to create source advocates. The package seriously compromises the use amplifier chip. stunning sound qual- from Tuxera (Helsinki, Finland) of FAT32 in HD video applica- The module is configured to ity from very small speakers, includes FAT, FAT32, exFAT and tions,” said Szabolcs Szakacsits, deliver 15W per channel burst powered by a computer’s USB NTFS drivers that work with Tuxera president and CTO. audio from a host USB port’s port. The solution is aimed at all Android and Linux kernel “exFAT is required for the next- 2.5W of electrical power. The high-end desktop and portable versions. “Companies who have generation SDXC memory card DyadUSB module is mounted on audio applications. The Audium licensed FAT patents from Mi- support. NTFS is needed for a break-out printed circuit board amplifier chip employs dynamic crosoft cannot use the publicly universal PC compatibility be- that enables easy connection rail switching and on-chip available GPL-licensed VFAT cause NTFS has been the default of the speakers and USB cable. voltage boost, it also features on- implementation,” noted Mikko Windows file system from the Software is supplied to enable board digital signal processing Valimaki, CEO of Tuxera, in a mid-1990s to Windows 7 and engineers to programme the Au- for equalisation. statement. “If you don’t license beyond.” dium amplifier chip with equal- HiWave Technologies Microsoft patents, you risk a Tuxera ization (EQ) settings in order to patent lawsuit. If you license the evaluate voicing options and www.hi-wave.com patents, you need to also replace www.tuxera.com

46 Electronic Engineering Times Europe January 2011 DESIGN & PRODUCTS

Freescale magnetometer shrinks e-compas with magnetic field compensation and digitization ASIC Electronic compasses can now be built commonly used magnetometer today, and with a magnetometer that Freescale draws only 25mA says the company. Using a Semiconductor claims is smaller and less magnetometer together with GPS services power-hungry than competing devices. The allows smartphones, touchscreen tablets and Xtrinsic MAG3110 is a three-axis device other mobile devices to determine heading that can determine headings for naviga- even when a GPS signal and, for that matter tion, dead-reckoning indoors and a range of cell phone service is unavailable. emerging location-based services (LBSes) for Freescale smartphones and other mobile devices. The device is four times smaller than the most www.freescale.com

Dual 600-W power supply delivers up to 80V or up to 50A on each 600W output The QPX600D from Aim-TTi design of the QPX600D enables is a dual-output 1.2 kW power higher currents to be generated at supply using the company’s lower voltages within an overall latest PowerFlex+ regulation power limit envelope. Each technology to provide up to output can provide more than six 80 V or up to 50 A on each 600 W output. times the current of a conventional supply Whereas a conventional power-supply unit of the same maximum voltage and power. has a fixed current limit giving a power Aim-TTi capability that decreases directly in propor- tion with the output voltage, the PowerFlex+ www.aimtti.co.uk

Embedded firewall source code with dynamic filtering to protect medical devices Icon Labs, provider of embedded networking Threshold-based filtering protects against and security technology, launched the Flood- denial of service attacks, broadcast storms gate-Packet Filter, an embedded firewall and other conditions that result in a flood that allows networked devices to control of unwanted packets. Rules-based filtering the packets they process. Floodgate protects allows white-listing and black-listing based against potentially malicious attacks by on criteria such as port number, protocol or filtering packets before they are processed source IP address. by an embedded device. Floodgate provides Icon Labs both threshold-based filtering and rules- based filtering. www.icon-labs.com

Vented DC-DC variable differential transducers for high-pressure environments Pewatron’s DC-DC LVDT Series 240 of direct DC-in/DC-out operation precision linear displacement transducers in a single package. from Trans-Tek is widened with a specially Simple power requirements designed model for high-pressure applica- include a single-ended 6 to tions. When exposed to a non-conductive 30VDC regulated. Non-lin- and non-corrosive fluid or gas up to 350bar earity is specified as +/-0.5% (5000psi), a vented housing allows for equal maximum full scale (+/-0.25% pressure in and around the LVDT. As with available). the standard Series 240 line, working ranges Pewatron from +/-1.3mm to +/-100mm are available and integral signal conditioning provides www.pewatron.com

January 2011 Electronic Engineering Times Europe 47 DESIGN & PRODUCTS

Multistate variable-gain amplifier Home networking chips fully programmable, dual analog & digital device compliant with the ITU G.hn standard With the MAX2062, Maxim an IF or RF all-purpose VGA, Lantiq has rolled out the in- supporting Wi-Fi and HomePlug Integrated Products launched interfacing directly with 50ohm dustry’s second family of home powerline nets. The company what the company claims to systems operating over the networking chips complaint claims its quality-of-service be the industry’s only fully 50MHz to 1000MHz frequency with the new ITU G.hn standard features operate over G.hn, programmable, multistate, dual- range. Since the stages within to drive data over powerline, Wi-Fi, Ethernet, DSL and passive channel, analog + digital IF/RF each path have their own RF coax or twisted pair networks. optical networks. The chips variable-gain am- input and RF output, The Lantiq XWAY HNX chips provide real-time diagnostics, plifier (VGA). The the MAX2062 can be support data rates up to a automatically select the optimal device delivers an configured to optimize Gbit/second using a 100 MHz network to avoid noise and unparalleled com- either noise figure channel. The Lantiq products support spectrum management bination of VGA (amplifier config- are part of a growing trend to features. The HNX 156 and HNX performance, pro- ured first within the hybrid home networks to enable 176 transceivers support the 25, grammability, and cascade) or linearity connecting any systems to any 50 and 100 MHz band plans de- component inte- (amplifier configured service. The devices come with fined in the G.hn standard. They gration. As with its predecessor, last). Alternately, it can be con- drivers for other Lantiq chips, in- include a MIPS core, Gigabit the single-channel MAX2065, figured to provide a compromise cluding gateway processors and Ethernet PHY and switch and the MAX2062 provides unique between the two parameters controllers for 802.11n, DECT, PCI Express interface. “rapid-fire” gain selection for (amplifier configured second). In VoIP and analog voice. Sigma A G.hn powerline networking four customized attenuation its typical configuration (digital Devices rolled out the first G.hn evaluation kit is available now. states per path, fast 25ns digital attenuator to analog attenuator chips late last year. Companies Lantiq switching, and very low digital to driver amplifier), the cascade such as Atheros have debuted VGA amplitude overshoot/un- yields a total gain range of 64dB, hybrid home network designs www.lantiq.com dershoot. The MAX2062 also a maximum gain of 19.4dB, and a provides the convenience of SPI noise figure of 7.3dB. The cascad- control for its two analog attenu- ed linearity is equally impressive Triple-axis inertial sensor ators through its on-chip 8-bit with +41dBm of OIP3, +56dBm measures both angular rate and acceleration DACs. It is an ideal choice for of OIP2, and +19dBm of OP1dB the “fast-attack” automatic gain performance. The MAX2062 Temperature-compensated, cali- impedance and a continuously control (AGC) circuits found in incorporates nine unique circuit brated and universally usable, running self-test. The microme- all 2.5G/3G/4G wireless infra- functions into a single, compact the SD746 combo sensor from chanical combo sensor is now structure transceivers, including monolithic device. SensorDynamics combines iner- available from Gleichmann GSM/EDGE, CDMA, WCDMA, Maxim Integrated Products tial, acceleration and gyroscopic Electronics and is provided in LTE, and WiMAX applications. functions in a single package. a compact QFN40 package de- The MAX2062 can serve as either www.maxim-ic.com Key features of the inertial signed for an operating voltage sensor are three measurement of 2.55 V to 3.6 V and an operat- axes each for angular rate and ing temperature range of -40°C 1-W DC/DC converter acceleration as well to +85°C. The offers high efficiency and tighter load regulation as a wide measure- typical power ment range of up to consumption Aimtec Inc. is broadening the without derating, the AM1D-RZ ±2048°/s for angular is 6.5mA. Its company’s product line with the series is designed for versatil- rate and ±8g for low power addition of the AM1D-RZ series ity and can be integrated into acceleration. The consumption of 1-W power supplies featuring a multitude of applications. maximum offset and small-scale 80 models with ef- Designed in a com- error at room tem- package are said ficiency rates as high pact SIP7 package perature is ±5°/s for to make the as 89 percent and (19.50x6.00x9.50 the gyroscope signal SD746 combo load regulation of 6 mm), the AM1D-RZ and ±0.1g for the ac- sensor suitable percent. Input volt- is offered with I/O celerometer signal. for use both ages of 5, 12, 24 and isolation of 1000 Sensitivity error at in battery- 48 VDC convert to VDC or 3000 VDC room temperature is ±2% for powered consumer applications single and dual output voltages with load regulation of 6 percent the gyroscope and acceleration and sophisticated industrial of (±)5, (±)9, (±)12 and (±)15 VDC and low ripple and noise of typi- signal, respectively. Additional instrumentation & control ap- with momentary(1 sec) short cally 50 mV p-p. features of the SD746 include a plications. circuit protection. Operating Aimtec special power-off mode in which SensorDynamics within an ambient temperature no power is consumed, but the range of -40 to +85 °C at full load www.aimtec.com SPI interface remains high- www.sensordynamics.cc

48 Electronic Engineering Times Europe January 2011 DESIGN & PRODUCTS

TCXOs include power management with programmable ASIC to enable low power standby modes The Charon is a SPI controlled the on-board 32-bit timer, which high accuracy TCXO with embed- coupled to a 32-bit programmable ded timer and alarm function. The comparator and alarm circuitry, 7x5mm SMD digitally controlled enables a system to enter a low temperature controlled crystal power standby mode and be wo- oscillator is designed and specified to bring ken at a precise time. All digital control is via together the highest stability TCXO perfor- a standard 4-wire SPI interface. The oscillator mance with digital frequency control, sepa- operates from 2.5 to 5.5V and draws 2 to 6mA rate low frequency output, timer and alarm in a frequency range from 3 to 40MHz. functionality. A low frequency timing pulse is Rakon derived from a programmable division ratio of the high stability oscillator. This drives www.rakon.com

Ruggedised 19” subrack with enhanced shock and vibration resistance Electronics packaging specialist Schroff has or clamshells in 0.8in. intervals, and special extended its europacPRO range of modular cover plates reduce noise caused by vibra- subracks with a new version designed for tion. All front surfaces of the subrack parts use in demanding environments such as are anodised, giving a functional, scratch-re- military systems, on aircraft, close to rotat- sistant and visually attractive finish. Yellow ing machinery or in power chromated finishes are also generation applications. A available on request. Avail- standard subrack consists of able in heights from 3 to 12U two side panels and at least and widths from 21 to 84HP, four horizontal rails. By using the europacPRO subracks are stronger side panels, reinforced designed to satisfy the require- horizontal rails, 19” brackets ments of IEC 60297-3-100 to and corner profiles, the new subrack is IEC 60297-3-105 and IEEE 1101.1, 1101.10 able to achieve a shock resistance up to 25 and 1101.11. They can be supplied in kit g. Standard guide rails can be used in the form or fully assembled. ruggedised subrack, and where necessary Schroff these can be bolted to the horizontal rails. There are also ductings to accept Card-Loks www.schroff.co.uk

Outdoor thermoelectric cooler series with bi-polar thermostatic control Laird Technologies has released its outdoor capacity operating at 24 V or 48 V and 200 W thermoelectric cooler series with bi-polar ther- capacity operating at 24 V or 48 V. The LE-80 mostatic control. The AA outdoor cooler series is programmed to cool when the internal is a ruggedized air-air thermoelectric assembly temperature of the enclosure exceeds 35 °C and (TEA) that uses impingement flow to transfer heat when it drops below 5 °C. Products in this heat. It offers dependable, compact perfor- series are also offered in four models: 150 W mance by cooling or heating enclosures via capacity operating at 24 V or 48 V and 200 W convection. A bi-polar thermostatic controller capacity operating at 24 V or 48 V. This product with predetermined set points is integrated in- series has been designed to pass rigorous side the TEA to maintain its tight form factor. Telcordia test requirements conducted by Laird The unit is available in two of Laird Technolo- Technologies’ customers, such as earthquake gies’ most popular set point configurations. resistance, salt fog, wind-driven rain, high tem- The LK-81 is programmed to cool when the perature exposure and dust contaminants. internal of the enclosure exceeds 25 °C and Laird Technologies heat when it drops below 10 °C. Products in this series are offered in four models: 150 W www.lairdtech.com

January 2011 Electronic Engineering Times Europe 49 LAST WORD

Don’t be an easy catch: test your products before deployment By Juha-Matti Tirilä

Bugs are more than a nuisance; they are a hole in your complete and hard-to-employ patches that, in the worst case, also introduce new attack security through which hackers can access your sys- angles in the form of new bugs! The list goes tems. The number one security threat is not a mali- on. And, this cost is not only inflicted upon the vendor who provided the software, but cious attacker, but poorly managed development also on their customers using the programs. processes. It really is this simple: the earlier vulnerabilities are discovered, the easier and THE LATER TESTING is carried out, the more by hackers, these vulnerabilities are used in cheaper they are to fix. With pure software difficult it is find the problem. And, the exploits that are invariably able to bypass products, the difference in the price of a bug later you test, the more expensive and less intrusion detection and prevention sys- found during development and a bug found thorough the fixes are. So, to test effectively, tems by virtue of their novel nature – their only after the release is already significant, test proactively. characteristics are unknown to security however, the more complex the product in It is not always clear what you need to do mechanisms so there is no one to stop them. which the software is used, the bigger the to be properly prepared for security threats Such a suddenly emerging threat is called a price difference. Just think about the recent – with the growing market of add-on secu- Zero Day Vulnerability, and what companies car recall programs as an example. New rity products aiming at making us pay for security processes should not be frowned the comforting feeling of being secured, one Understanding the upon as an extra cost, but rather welcomed should be aware that the biggest danger lies as cost savers. Proactive testing is an invest- within. It is not that systems are purpose- nature of built-in ment that will pay for itself. By testing your fully left insecure, with the intention of systems proactively, you can avoid security adding security armour around the product vulnerabilities is also related issues later on during the software afterwards, but rather; they accidentally and the key to understanding life-cycle. invariably turn out that way. Companies While robust security testing, immediate- offering software-operated products must why off-the-shelf add-on ly before deployment, does prevent vulner- understand that security is something that security solutions can abilities from being delivered to the market, has to be built into the product from the it is just the first step in the right direction. ground up; the most common source of ex- not truly secure systems Whether the product is pure software or a ploitable vulnerabilities is the ever-abound- hardware system relying on software coming population of software bugs. Yes, just the from attackers. ponents, robustness testing should be an programming mistakes, that many think integral part of development as early as pos- of just as development-phase nuisances or practicing solid and well managed security sible. Production phase processes, as such, quality issues at worst, are the ones that measures at all phases of production, aim for have dramatically improved over the years. leave the back door open for intruders. is that day ‘0’ should never dawn! However, instead of just looking at the Understanding the nature of built-in vul- It is important to understand that the product life cycle from a feature oriented nerabilities is also the key to understanding bug peril not only affects companies build- perspective, the developers must also why off-the-shelf add-on security solutions ing software, but also the next layers in the consider products’ security life-spans, can not truly secure systems from attackers. food chain, reaching out to end customers. and perform the appropriate security and What makes those hiding bugs so dangerous As soon as buggy software hits the mass mar- robustness checks at each phase. Therefore, is that they are frequently only discovered ket, the time bomb is ticking: when someone security testing procedures must not be seen after product deployment and delivery. In or something makes the flaw surface, the to live in a domain separate from product contrast to flaws discovered before release, race is on between the vendors and attackers. development, but should be considered an vendors are unaware of these unknown Exploitation implies cost, and this is enough integral component therein. So, don’t ignore bugs, and are therefore not prepared to proof an incitement for attackers. Vendors, be- those annoying little bugs. That way only vide fixes for them. Attackers are constantly ing well aware of this race, have to rush with the hackers win. looking for such holes. When discovered writing and deploying fixes, and this process By testing your software proactively, you subjects involved parties to many dangers. are able to produce better, safer software Juha-Matti Tirilä is security researcher at What follows may be downtime, impaired making your customers, and ultimately you, Codenomicon - www.codenomicon.com QoS, exposure of confidential material, or in- the winner. n

50 Electronic Engineering Times Europe January 2011 www.electronics-eetimes.com Where electronics engineers go for News and Know-How

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