Designmed Europe: Special Focus Motors & Drives Mobile Dram Analysis

May 2011
european
business press www.electronics-eetimes.com
DesignMed Europe 22
Mobile DRAM Special Focus

analysis 10 Motors & Drives 30
CoNTENTS May 2011
Publisher
André Rousselot
+32 27400053
andre.rousselot@eetimes.be
Editor-in-Chief
Julien Happich
+33 153907865
julien.happich@eetimes.be
EDITORS
Philip Ling
Mobile apps bring momentum to DRAMs. 8
+44 1622746580
phil.ling@eetimes.be
24 Designing an artificial retina for
Christoph Hammerschmidt opinion sight restoration
+49 89 44 45 02 09
chammerschmidt@gmx.net 4 | Uncommon Market: 11 tablet 26 Low EMI isolation for medical
trends from TI’s OMAP chief equipment applications
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Paul Buckley 50 Last Word: Engineering software SPECIAL FOCUS:
+44 1962866460 updates to the future
paul@activewords.co.uk MOTORS & DRIVES
Jean-Pierre Joosting
30 The end of sensor-based BLDC
+44 1202543405 news & TECHNOLOGY control?
jean-pierre.joosting@eetimes.be
6 | Magnetic graphene harnesses 33 Precise magnetic position
Circulation & Finance Kondo effect sensors for more efficient
Luc Desimpel Magnetic effect could yield optical control of BLDC motors
luc.desimpel@eetimes.be
battery 35 Increasing motor efficiency with
Advertising Production & Reprints 8| Mobile apps bring momentum to power factor control
Lydia Gijsegom
DRAMs SPECIAL FOCUS:
lydia.gijsegom@eetimes.be
14 Malcolm’s corner DISPLAY TECHNOLOGIES
Art Manager
Jean-Paul Speliers 40 Cutting costs with custom LCD
Accounting design + products and LED technology

Ricardo Pinto Ferreira
SPECIAL FOCUS: 42 The future belongs to
Regional Advertising Representatives MEDICAL ELECTRONICS DisplayPort
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Commentary: UNCOMMON MARKET
11 tablet trends from TI’s OMAP chief

By Dylan McGrath
USER EXPERIENCE, - as opposed to raw like Amazon and Barnes & Noble, which right infrastructure to pump 1080p video to
processor performance - is what sells media offer the Kindle and the Nook, respectively three screens.”
tablets, according to Deepu Talla, general - both of which are marketed as e-readers as
manager of Texas Instruments’ OMAP mo- opposed to tablets. But he cautioned players 3. HD video conferencing
bile computing business unit. in the market not to underestimate com- “Anyone who can do video encode and de-
Speaking to an audience at the Interna- panies such as Barnes & Noble, which has code can claim to have video conferencing,”
tional Data Corp (IDC) Smart Technology reportedly shipped an estimated 3 million Talla said. The key here is bandwidth and
World conference, Talla noted that the PC colour Nooks. the ability to interface with other types of
industry has emphasized processor speed in devices, Talla said.
marketing campaigns for many years. “Un- “The PC industry has
fortunately, smartphone marketing seems to 4. Cloud computing.
be going that way,” Talla said, in an address emphasized proces- This has become a buzzword concept for
titled, “The year of the tablet: Transforming sor speed in marketing devices of all types. But Talla noted that secu-
mobile experiences.” rity is a key feature to enabling it.
“At the end of the day, user experience campaigns for many
is what sells,” Talla said. “Apple has proven
years. Unfortunately, 5. Computational photography.
that.” Using computational techniques to enhance
smartphone marketing images is resource intensive, and Talla sug-
Talla added that few people know much
about the technology inside Apple’s A4 of A5
seems to be going that gested that using the processor of an SoC
was inefficient.
processors, but the iPhones and iPads they way too” He said chip firms have as of late been
power are near universally praised for the acquiring firms that have technology for
user experience that they provide. image processing, referencing Intel Corp.’s
Talla joked that the estimated 100 or more “They [the tablet makers] are all excited February acquisition of Silicon Hive BV.
tablets that were showcased at the Con- about the opportunity, but nobody knows
sumer Electronics Show in January gave rise what the ending will be,” Talla said. Talla 6. Augmented reality.
to the acronym JAAT - just another Android said tablets could one day displace all net-
tablet. With so many tablets of similar ap- books and even “thin notebooks.” 7. Premium content sharing.
pearance and planning to run the Honey- At Mobile World Congress in February, TI
comb version of Android, people wondered 1. Tablets that support multiple oper- highlighted the OMAP 4’s M-Shield security
how any would differentiate themselves in ating systems features on Android through a Nextflix HD
the market, Talla said. Motorola Mobility’s Atrix 4G smartphone video streaming demo.
has already pioneered this concept, running
“This is just the first step into the mar- the Froyo version of Android and, when 8. Gesture recognition/projection.
ket,” Tall said. He noted that two years ago docked, Motorola’s own proprietary web- Talla described gesture recognition and
the Android operating system was in its based desktop environment. projection interface technology akin to
infancy and the dominant smartphone OS Talla said TI also demonstrated this Microsoft Corp.’s Kinect for the Xbox 360
was Symbian, now all but left for dead. Two concept on a tablet at the Mobile World - but using much less expensive technology.
years later, IDC projects that in 2011 Android Congress in February. “We think that mul- Again, Talla emphasized that for efficiency’s
will hold nearly 40 percent market share in tiple operating systems are going to happen sake this work must be offloaded from CPUs
the smartphone market. because end users want to have a mobile and GPUs and performed by other parts of
Talla noted that Honeycomb - version 3.0 profile and an enterprise profile on the same the SoC.
of Android, the first optimized for tablets device,” Talla said.
- was just rolled out earlier this year. The 9. Mobile/secure transaction
next version of Android for tablets should be 2. Multi-screen computing. support.
comparable or even better than Apple’s iOS, Some vendors, including Toshiba and Acer,
Talla predicted. already offer dual-screen tablets. According 10. Immersive 3-D gaming.
He noted that the tablet product category to Talla, supporting multi-screen comput-
has caught the eye of a host of vendors, from ing is less about the number and speed of 11. Stereoscopic capture with audio
traditional PC OEMs to content providers processors on a chip and more about “the convergence. n
4 Electronic Engineering Times Europe May 2011

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News & TECHNOLOGY
Magnetic graphene harnesses Kondo effect
By R. Colin Johnson
Artist’s rendering of a graphene transis-
tor showing gold electrodes (yellow),
PURE SHEETS OF CARBON - graphene - can (15,000- com-
silicon dioxide (clear), silicon substrate
be made magnetic by introducing patterns pared to 1,400-
(black) and graphene (red), with inset
of vacancies into their crystalline lattice, cm2/Vs, square
showing graphene lattice vacancy
according to researchers at the University centimeters per
defects (blue). Source: University of
of Maryland. By controlling the magnetic volt second).
Maryland
properties of graphene semiconductors Now the team
with vacancy-doping, the researchers hope claims that properties tunable by virtue of the
to enable the pure carbon material to tackle their newest Kondo effect. The researchers mea-
new applications as magnetic sensors and characteriza- sured the temperature of the Kondo
random access memories (MRAMs). tion attempts effect in graphene with vacancies
Semiconductors are usually made mag- for the first and found it to be about the same
netic by doping with a metallic material time explain as in metals with electron densities
such as iron or cobalt, but the University of how magnetic much higher that un-doped gra-
Maryland team, led by professor Michael properties can phene—about 90 degrees Kelvin.
Fuhrer, claim that just introducing empty also be intro- Next the researchers are at-
spaces into graphene’s otherwise perfect duced into graphene—namely by adding tempting to arrange the vacancies in a
hexagonal pattern—called vacancies—can vacancy defects to its crystalline lattice. pattern that could exhibit ferromagnetism
dope the material for magnetism. Others Semiconductor defects are usually caused by forcing all the magnetic moments in a do-
have used surface treatments to make gra- by doping, which in this case are vacancies main of vacancies to line up by virtue of the
phene magnetic, but the new method is said instead of a different material, each of which Kondo effect, potentially allowing them to
to work better by virtue of eliminating the acts like a nanoscale magnet with its own be electrically switched to make pure carbon
need for any other material except carbon. “moment.” The researchers demonstrated magnetic memories and sensors.
Fuhrer’s Lab was one of the first to charac- that these vacancy defects strongly interact- Funding was provided by the National
terize the carrier mobility in graphene as be- ed with any electrical currents in the mate- Science Foundation and the Office of Naval
ing more than 10-times higher than silicon rial, potentially making is semiconducting Research. n
Magnetic effect could yield optical battery

By Julien Happich
RESEARCHERS AT the University of Michi- equivalent to a strong electric effect. up a voltage, similar to that in a battery. This
gan discovered a magnetic effect from light “This could lead to a new kind of solar electric effect had previously been detected
that could lead to solar power without tradi- cell without semiconductors and without only in crystalline materials that possessed a
tional semiconductor-based solar cells. absorption to produce charge separation,” certain symmetry.
The researchers found a way to make an Rand said. “In solar cells, the light goes into Rand and Fisher found that under the
“optical battery,” according to Stephen Rand, a material, gets absorbed and creates heat. right circumstances and in other types of
a professor in the departments of Electrical Here, we expect to have a very low heat load. materials, the light’s magnetic field can also
Engineering and Computer Science, Physics Instead of the light being absorbed, energy create optical rectification. “It turns out that
and Applied Physics. is stored in the magnetic moment. Intense the magnetic field starts curving the elec-
Until now, scientists thought the effects magnetization can be induced by intense trons into a C-shape and they move forward
of the magnetic component of light were so light and then it is ultimately capable of a little each time,” Fisher said.
weak that they could be ignored. What Rand providing a capacitive power source.” “That C-shape of charge motion gener-
and his colleagues found is that at the right What makes this possible is a previously ates both an electric dipole and a magnetic
intensity, when light is traveling through a undetected brand of “optical rectification,” dipole. If we can set up many of these in a
material that does not conduct electricity, says William Fisher, a doctoral student in row in a long fibre, we can make a huge volt-
the light field can generate magnetic effects applied physics. In traditional optical recti- age and by extracting that voltage, we can
that are 100 million times stronger than pre- fication, light’s electric field causes a charge use it as a power source.” The university is
viously expected. Under these circumstanc- separation, or a pulling apart of the positive pursuing patent protection for the intellec-
es, the magnetic effects develop strength and negative charges in a material. This sets tual property. n
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NEWS & TECHNOLOGY
Mobile DRAM
analysis
Mobile apps bring momentum to DRAMs

By Mark LaPedus
AS THE WIDER DRAM MARKET sputters Mueez Deen, director of mobile DRAM at
along, the mobile DRAM segment is firing Samsung Semiconductor Inc., said it’s still
on all cylinders, scrambling to keep pace too early to predict a technology winner,
with the volume demand and bandwidth but he noted there is only room for “one
requirements of the fast-moving markets it new technology” or a “maximum of two” for
serves. mainstream devices in the future.
Mobile DRAMs are specialized DRAMs Bandwidth concerns cry out for new
that incorporate low-power features. Ven- technology. In one example, LG Electronics
dors of the devices, such as Elpida, Hynix, recently rolled out the Optimus 3D, a 4G
Micron and Samsung, face inventory short- smartphone that features a “glasses-free”
falls as OEMs of hot-selling smartphones and stereoscopic 3-D display, a dual-camera and
tablets race through the stock now on the HD video.
shelves. Elpida Memory Inc. alone is shifting The LG smartphone is build around Texas
much of its production from PC DRAM to Instruments Inc.’s OMAP 4 dual-core appli-
mobile DRAM to meet demand from Apple cations processor as well as mobile DRAMs
Inc.’s iPad 2, sources said. based on LPDDR2. Apple’s iPad 2 also uses
At the same time, mobile market LPDDR2 mobile DRAM.
bandwidth requirements are lapping the Some believe that LPDDR2 is obsolete
capabilities of current-generation mobile even before the parts ramp in volumes.
DRAM technology, forcing a lane change to Mobile DRAM based on LPDDR2 technol-
next-gen standards. ogy has a maximum of 8.5 Gbytes/second
“The requirements for bandwidth are of peak data throughput at an estimated
going through the roof,” said Jim Venable, power consumption of 360 mW. By 2013 at
president of the Serial Port Memory Tech- the latest, the industry is shooting for data
nology (SPMT) consortium, a group that is rates of “12.8 Gbytes/s at 500 mW,” said Herb
devising a next-generation memory technol- Gebhart, vice president of strategic develop-
ogy. Low-power double-datarate 2 (LPDDR2) ment at Rambus Inc. iSuppli. Now, thanks to smartphones and
mobile DRAM, the latest and fastest mobile Brian Carlson, product line manager for tablets, the mobile DRAM sector is expected
DRAM technology, “is already seeing the end TI’s OMAP 5 applications processor, said mo- to grow by 71 percent in 2011, Howard said.
of its life,” Venable said. bile DRAM may need to run at 25.6 Gbytes/s Mobile DRAM is outpacing the overall
Various factions have rolled out rival in the future. The challenge is to devise a DRAM business. Amid a slump in PCs, the
next-gen mobile DRAM technologies faster technology, while also reducing the DRAM market will total $35.5 billion in
in response to the urgent need for more chip size and power consumption to extend 2011, down 11.8 percent from $40.3 billion in
bandwidth. The contenders are LPDDR3, battery life, he said. 2010, according to IHS.
LPDDR4, the Mobile Industry Processor The stakes are high in mobile memory. The average DRAM content in smart-
Interface Alliance’s M-PHY, Rambus’ Mobile Before the onslaught of snazzy smartphones phones and tablets is increasing from 512
XDR, Silicon Image’s SPMT and wide I/O. and tablets, mobile DRAM was considered Mbytes today to 1 Gbyte in the future; in
Samsung and others are backing wide I/O; the “sleepy backwater” in the memory contrast, PC DRAM content averages 3.4 to
Micron is pushing LPDDR3. market, said Mike Howard, an analyst at IHS 3.5 Gbytes, said Hans Mosesmann, an analyst

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NEWS & TECHNOLOGY
Mobile DRAM
analysis
with Raymond James & Associates Inc.

A mobile DRAM costs two to four times
more than a PC DRAM because of mobile
apps’ stringent size and power demands.
The mobile DRAM business is based on a
build-to-order model, with pricing driven by
cost reductions rather than the fluctuations
of supply and demand, as in commodity
DRAM, IHS’ Howard said.
But as competition mounts, the predict- which is said to operate at 800 MHz, or 1.6 30-nanometer-class technologies. The new
able supply/demand model is cracking. Gbytes/s. With four devices, LPDDR3 has a devices will enable lighter mobile products
Supply and demand are in “balance right peak throughput of 12.8 Gbytes/s, said Dan with a longer battery life, Deen said.
now, moving into oversupply in the second Skinner, director of mobile DRAM architec- Previously, four 2-Gbit LPDDR2 chips had
quarter,” Howard said. “We see tighter sup- ture for Micron. to be stacked to create a 1-Gbyte package.
ply in the second half.” LPDDR2 will satisfy most mobile system Stacking only two 4-Gbit LPDDR2 devices
Broad changes are expected on the requirements, but in the near term, the will achieve the same 1-Gbyte density, while
technology front. The previous-generation “top 10 percent [of high-end systems] will reducing the package height by 20 percent
mobile DRAMs were based on low-power need LPDDR3”, said Skinner, who chairs and cutting power consumption by 25 per-
synchronous DRAM technology, and, more Jedec’s LPDDR3 task group. A final draft cent, according to Deen.
recently, LPDDR1. LPDDR1 mobile DRAMs specification for LPDDR3 will be completed Beyond LPDDR2, Samsung has an-
are 1.8-V, 200-MHz parts, enabling 400- by year’s end. nounced support for SPMT and wide I/O.
Mbyte/s throughput. Wide I/O operates at lower frequencies to
Now that LPDDR1 is hitting the per- reduce power. Traditional DRAM has up to
formance wall, vendors are ramping up to Mobile DRAM pricing 32 data lanes. In contrast, wide I/O DRAM
provide LPDDR2-based devices, which are
1.2-V parts said to reduce power consump-
is driven by cost is a four-channel, 128-lane technology,
which enables a total of 512 I/Os and a total
tion by more than 50 percent. LPDDR2 cuts reductions rather than bandwidth of up to 12 Gbytes/s, according to
power by using such techniques as partial supporters of the technology.
array self-refresh.
the fluctuations of By 2013, vendors hope to roll out robust
LPDDR2 runs from 100 to 533 MHz, supply and demand wide-I/O DRAMs. In the distant future,
resulting in data transfer rates from 200 to vendors believe they can stack multiple
1,066 Mbytes/s. Up to four devices can be Rival Samsung is lukewarm on LPDRR3; wide-I/O memories using through-silicon
housed in a package-on-package, resulting in LPDDR2 has long legs and will be the via 3-D stacking technology, but for now TSV
a total data transfer rate of 8.5 Gbytes/s. “memory of choice” at least until 2012, said remains hampered by high implementation
Just as vendors are pushing LPDDR2 Samsung’s Deen. costs and scant EDA tool support.
devices into the channel, Micron Technology Samsung is now shipping 533-MHz, 4- “TSV is not ready for prime time,” said
Inc. is leading the charge toward LPDDR3, Gbit mobile DRAMs based on LPDDR2 and SPMT’s Venable, while LPDDR2 is running
HANDICAPPING THE MOBILE DRAM RACE

Which next-generation mobile DRAM technology will ultimate- Raj Talluri, vice president of product management for applica-
ly prevail in the market? Though it’s far too soon to call a winner, tions processors at Qualcomm Inc., said it’s still too early to predict
wide I/O DRAM technology was fast out of the gate and has a slight a winner, but he noted the industry is begging for “more CPU
lead. Nokia reportedly has endorsed the spec, and Hynix and Sam- power” for new and data-intensive applications.
sung have jumped on the bandwagon. Indeed, the exploding demand for more bandwidth in mobile
But other cell phone companies aren’t talking. Motorola and Re- devices has given rise to more powerful apps processors. That leg of
search in Motion did not respond for interview requests. And Apple the race is being run by companies such as Nvidia, Qualcomm and
is perhaps the world’s most secretive OEM. TI.
One possible clue is to watch the applications processor vendors. Earlier this year, Qualcomm rolled out its next architecture for
Apps processors support functions such as wireless connectivity, its Snapdragon family of applications processors. The processor
power management, audio and video in smartphones, tablets and microarchitecture, code-named Krait, is said to provide speeds of up
other mobile devices. Each apps processor also supports a given to 2.5 GHz per core. Built around an ARM-based architecture and a
OEM-endorsed mobile DRAM standard. 28-nanometer process, the devices will be available in single-, dual-
One applications processor vendor, Texas Instruments Inc., is and quad-core versions.
watching all standards but says one technology appears to be lead- TI recently rolled out the multicore OMAP 5, based on a 28-nm
ing by a nose. “Wide I/O has a lot of advantages,” said Brian Carlson, process. The processor will come in two versions: the OMAP5430,
OMAP 5 product line manager for TI. “Ultimately, that’s where the targeting smartphones, and the OMAP5432, for mobile computing
industry will move.” and consumer products. — Mark LaPedus

www.globalfoundries.com
May 2011 Electronic Engineering Times Europe 11

NEWS & TECHNOLOGY
Mobile DRAM
analysis
“I can’t say
enough about
…the efficiency
of speaking
engineer-to-
engineer…”
New Product Development Engineer,
Fluid Controls Manufacturer
MAXIMUM
Support
“andMill-Max is willing to come to us, consult,
turn projects around quickly. Other high
volume shops don’t offer that kind of attention
unless your part order runs into the millions. ”
At Mill-Max we don’t believe that service and technical out of steam, and LPDDR3 is a “stopgap” technology that is faster but
will consume more power.
support should be dependent on the size of an order. In SPMT claims it has the right solution although it remains un-
fact, we’re never content with simply filling an order… proven. Last year, SPMT scrapped its original serial approach and
not if we can see ways to improve component functional- rolled out a hybrid parallel/ serial technology. Called Serial- Switch, it
ity or simplify the manufacturing process. runs at 1.6 Gbytes/s in parallel mode and up to 6.4 Gbytes/s in serial
mode per channel.
“ …with a design we thought would require
a lot of secondary operations…they found a way
SPMT group members include ARM, Hynix, LG, Marvell, Sam-
sung and Silicon Image. The first SPMT-based DRAMs are due by
to machine it at once…resulting in a very year’s end.
functional, very low-cost part. ” Rambus’ Mobile XDR, meanwhile, reportedly delivers up to 17
Gbytes/s of bandwidth. But Rambus burned bridges in an earlier
attempt to push its technology for PC main memory, and any ill
® will that lingers from that affair might work against its new spec.
Our connectors speak for Mobile XDR addresses “the shortcomings” of LPDDR3, said
themselves…so do our customers. Gebhart. LPDDR3 is “well over” the industry goal of meeting a power
consumption threshold of 500 mW in the future, he said. “There is
plenty of bandwidth [with LPDDR3], but the power is way too high.”
What’s next? Some market trackers are already talking about
LPDDR4, which may or may not materialize. Another technology to
To view our Design Guide, new product offerings watch is M-PHY, backed by the Mobile Industry Processor Interface
and request a datasheet with free samples, Alliance. MIPI’s spec is for a chip-to-chip interface for display, cam-
era, audio, video, memory, power management and communications
visit www.mill-max.com/EETE612 from baseband to RF chip. It is indirectly competitive with mobile
DRAM, but it has some implications for memory. n
12 Europe May 2011
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TI’s Analog Applications Journal
Analog Applications Journal is a collection of analog application articles designed to give readers a basic
understanding of TI products and to provide simple but practical examples for typical applications. Written
not only for design engineers but also for engineering managers, technicians, system designers and marketing
and sales personnel, the book emphasizes general application concepts over lengthy mathematical analyses.
Data Acquisition
Clock jitter analyzed in the time domain, Part 2
High-speed ADCs are often used in undersampling applications. At higher input frequencies, clock jitter can become a
dominant factor in limiting SNR. This article presents a method of calculating the ADC’s SNR by using the combined clock
and aperture jitter determined in Part 1. The results are then compared against actual measurements.
The IBIS model: A conduit into signal-integrity analysis, Part 1

TI is developing a new arsenal of digital input/output buffer information specification (IBIS) simulation models to meet a
variety of customer needs. This article, the first of a three-part series, shows the fundamental elements of IBIS models and
how they are generated in the SPICE environment.
Power Management
A low-cost, non-isolated AC/DC buck converter with no transformer
Off-line equipment such as a smart meter or a power monitor has electronics that require non-isolated DC power under 10 W.
Until recently, the typical low-power DC rail circuit was extremely inefficient and cumbersome to design. This article presents
a unique solution for an ultra-low-cost DC power rail with an innovative gate-drive circuit for a hysteretic buck controller.
Save power with a soft Zener clamp

Flyback converters are popular because they are inexpensive, they can be isolated, and they can have multiple output
voltages. Multiple outputs, however, can be a problem if tight regulation is required on more than the main output. This article
shows how a soft Zener clamp can be used as a compromise in limiting output voltages when the load on the main output
voltage suddenly changes.
Interface (Data Transmission)

Interfacing high-voltage applications to low-power controllers
Industrial applications often require interfacing high-voltage potentials to input
ports of low-voltage microcontrollers and processors. This article is about a new
generation of interface circuits called digital-input serializers. These low power
and cost-effective devices can sense input voltages ranging from 6 V up to 300
VDC and can convert them into 5-V serial data streams.
Amplifiers: Op Amps
Using single-supply fully differential amplifiers with negative input
voltages to drive ADCs
Split-supply amplifiers are not required to amplify signals that swing around
ground. This article discusses how to use a fully differential amplifier (FDA)
like the THS4521 with a single +5-V supply to condition single-ended input
signals that swing around ground (±0 V) to drive a differential-input ADC.
A link to a TINA-TI™ SPICE file is included to illustrate implementation.
Download the complete Analog Applications Journal
The platform bar is a trademark of Texas Instruments. © 2011 TI

NEWS & TECHNOLOGY
MALCOLM’s
CORNER
Malcolm’s semiconductor update

THE CHIP INDUSTRY took March’s one- cially mobile phones, it is not yet clear how much
two-three knocks with remarkable calm, iPads and their deriva- of this is panic profiteering
hit first by the spike in oil prices following tives, digital cameras, and how much is sustain-
the politic unrest bordering on civil wars and portable storage able. But shortages are
in North Africa, then the dreadful 11 March devices, account for ap- inevitable and recovery
earthquake and Tsunami in Japan, culminat- proximately 50 percent due to the long production
ing on 19 March with a multi-state coalition of the market, almost cycle times and already
military intervention in Libya to implement all of which are pro- tight capacity – will not
United Nations Security Council Resolution duced by one Japanese happen over night.
1973. firm, Toshiba/Sandisk. The automotive semi-
Last year any of these events would prob- Damaged buildings conductor market grew 37
ably have been enough to deal the industry a and infrastructure and per cent in 2010, clearly
knockout blow, as with the September 2008 halts to some semi- leaving the problematic
Lehman Brothers collapse; this time around, conductor fabs will 2009 behind. However the
despite the still fragile global economic without doubt have a knock on affect upon recent earthquake in Japan has once again
confidence, the industry seems to have taken the global semiconductor supply chain, with awoken auto manufacturers concerns about
these events in its stride. many of the big names i.e. Nokia, General the industry. Even before the earthquake
Whilst it is far too early to quantify Motors and Apple already experiencing sup- purchasing managers had expressed concern
exactly what the industry impact will be, ply shortages. about supply levels; inventories were unusu-
the oil price and North Africa situation pales Many manufacturers, not directly hit by ally low, resulting in heightened concern
into insignificance when compared with the the earthquake, have experienced power fail- from purchasing executives around the
aftermath of the Japanese earthquake. ures interrupting production; just a micro- world.
Japan is a major producer of semiconduc- second power supply glitch can result in the It is difficult to estimate the extent auto
tor components accounting for around 22 scrapping of weeks of in-process production, manufacturers will be affected, but follow-
per cent of global semiconductor produc- and with manufacturers no longer holding ing an official announcement from Japan
tion. The Flash memory market sector – cru- inventory it will impact IC supply availabil- that car production will be down 33 percent
ity in Q2. To what extent, still remains to be from its normal monthly production level
Malcolm Penn is Chairman & CEO of Future seen. As in any shortage situation, compo- of 750k cars per month to 500k it looks as
Horizons - www.futurehorizons.com - he can be nent price increases are inevitable and this though the 2010 market growth may be
reached at mpenn@futurehorizons.com has already happened in memory, although short lived. n
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Design & PRODUCTS
SPECIAL
SPECIALFOCUS:
FOCUS:
MEDICAL ELECTRONICS
XXXXXXXXXXXX
The high potential of wireless

body-area networks in healthcare
By Jan Provoost and Julien Penders
Worldwide, an estimated 50 million people into a comfortable cap, and a few other patch-
suffer from epilepsy. Many of them would like sensors, all wireless and unobtrusive.
be greatly helped if they could be warned of These sensors would measure relevant body
an oncoming epilepsy attack. It would allow parameters and send them wirelessly to a base
them the time to take seizure blocking medi- node, for example integrated in a wrist watch.
cation, get to a safe place, or call for assistance. The wrist watch crunches the data, scan-
As a matter of fact, such an alert service ning for patterns that point to an attack.
When such a pattern is found, the watch Fig. 2: Power budget of components for a 100µW
sends out an alert, in time to take measures. sensor node.
For some of the patients, this would be a unobtrusive. BANs are intelligent and capable
welcome, but minor help; for others, such of doing multi-parameter data acquisition
technology would be life changing. And and data analysis, data which they can send
because this is a potentially cheap technology, and receive wirelessly. Installing a BAN shoud
unlike with seizure alert dogs, this could be a be hassle-free; you add a new node, and it
life-improver for all sufferers of epilepsy. automatically starts working with the other
installed nodes. They should be autonomous
A wireless network for your body or near-autonomous, driven by an intelligent
Networks of miniaturized sensors worn on power management.
the body, that continually measure body With today’s technology, several compa-
parameters and send these wirelessly to a base nies have already made BAN-like devices,
station are called body area networks (BAN). but compared to the plug-and-play sensors
BANs are one of the emerging technologies that we envision, these are still orders of
in ICT-driven healthcare; they drive what is magnitude too large, too expensive, and too
Fig. 1: Necklace with prototype heart monitor sometimes referred as the second telehealth power-hungry. A BAN node, for example,
(imec/Holst Centre). wave. powered by energy harvesting from the body,
already exists, albeit for a happy few. Seizure Eventually, BANs could become as ubiq- would have a power budget of around 100µW,
alert dogs detect an oncoming seizure min- uitous and cheap as mobile phones, allow- for all components together. But even without
utes, sometimes hours, before it occurs. Some ing continuous, individualized medical or relying on energy harvesting, these nodes
of the people who own such a dog say it gives wellness monitoring for existing conditions, would still have to be ultra-low power, so as to
them a second chance at life, allowing them identifying when a medical intervention or be sufficiently autonomous with few battery
to move around without constant fear. change in therapy is needed, or monitoring replacements or recharges.
But seizure alert dogs are expensive: stress levels. Further advances are needed in ultralow-
few dogs have the talent to feel upcoming Epilepsy patients are only one of many power sensors, ultralow-power DSPs, and
seizures, and it is impossible to train them to groups that would hugely benefit from ultralow-power radios before we can reach
give a predictable alert. So only a small num- such cheap, wireless sensors that track body this ultimate BAN concept. Even after such
ber of patients can be helped, and the help is parameters. Think for example of diabetes pa- components are developed, you would still
not consistent. tients, people at risk from a cardiac arrest, or want to win another order of magnitude in
Now imagine that all epilepsy patients people suffering from stress-related diseases cost, size, and power budget, through co-op-
could wear small, inexpensive sensors: an and high blood pressure. timization of the components with a specific
EEG scanner (electro-encephalogram) woven application in mind.
Dirt cheap, no hassle, forever on Ultimately, all the technology for a BAN
Jan Provoost works at imec as a science writer To be universally accepted and used, BANs node should be integrated on one chip that
– www.imec.be - Julien Penders is imec pro- should consist of cheap, small, intelligent can be mass-produced and packaged in an IC
gram manager body area networks and can be modes. Worn close to the skin or woven into fab. It would be a cheap flexible microchip
reached at julien.penders@imec-nl.nl clothing, they should be conformal to become of a few square millimeters integrating the
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DESIGN & PRODUCTS
SPECIAL FOCUS:
MEDICAL ELECTRONICS
ultra-low power biomedical signal processor,

codenamed CoolBio, made in collaboration
with NXP. It consumes only 13pJ/cycle when
running a complex ECG algorithm at 1MHz
and 0.4V operating voltage. The chip is volt-
age- and performance scalable supporting a
frequency range of 1MHz up to 100MHz with
an operating voltage from 0.4 to 1.2V. The
result is a highly reduced power consumption
at low operating frequencies, while main-
taining the possibility of high-performance
computing for multi-channel biomedical
Fig. 4: imec and Holst Centre’s 30µW ASP for signal processing.
Fig. 3: Prototype for EEG-sensing headset.
biopotential signal monitoring. Integrating ultra-low power components
sensor, DSP (digital signal processor), wireless play, storage and analysis. for an application will not necessarily make
radio, and energy harvesting together power With this sensor node, designers and engi- for the most energy efficient solution for a
management. neers made a comfortable EEG-sensing head- given application. It is possible to make ad-
This vision of telemedicine with wireless set. To make contact with the skin they use ditional energy gains by exploiting the char-
sensors has sparked a lot of interest of R&D dry electrodes, which drastically improve the acteristics of the application and its signals. In
labs around the world. The brain monitor and ease-of-use and set-up time. The wireless sen- the case of the heart monitor, for example, an
the heart monitor demonstrators developed sor node consumes 9.2mW when measuring important part of the signal processing may
at imec (Leuven, Belgium) and Holst Centre 8 channels of EEG at 1024Hz. This allows for be implemented much more economically in
(Eindhoven, Netherlands) illustrate some of an autonomy of 45 hours with a rechargeable an analog way. In addition, the engineers have
the technological challenges and the break- battery of 140mAh. For some applications that found a way to severely limit the consump-
throughs that have already been made. can do with single-EEG channel recording at tion of the wireless radio, also thanks to a
a lower sampling frequency, up to 5 days of small, energy-efficient analog intervention: in
Brain monitor – capturing signals autonomy are possible. the ECG-sensor the analog-to-digital convert-
A first step in building a sensing node for Tests have proved that signals captured ers on the signal acquisition IC use a sampling
body parameters is to come up with a low- with this wireless headset are comparable to scheme that adapts based on (analog) activity
power analog solution to capture the signal signals recorded using commercially available detection. As a result, the DSP has to crunch
and amplify it. wired systems. But because this headset is less signals and the radio transmits less data.
In a brain monitor, for example, you want wireless and quasi-autonomous, the wearer And as a third energy-saving intervention, the
to measure a brain signal with a very small can have brain signals measured in a much motion artifacts are detected in the analog
amplitude, typically between 1µV-20µV. But wider range of situations, at work or at rest in component, via continuously monitoring the
you somehow have to hear that signal against a natural environment. electrode-skin impedance, not in the DSP via
a backdrop of a few mV noise caused by the energy-intensive computation.
environment (e.g. mains). You do that by Heart monitor – processing and trans-
ensuring that your amplifier has a sufficiently mitting signals Smart, cheap BANs, a game changer
high common mode rejection ratio (CMRR), Once the signals have been captured, sensor in healthcare
of around 120dB, to extract the much smaller systems may still waste a lot of power. They Further R&D is working towards the ultimate
brain signals. have a DSP that continuously processes BAN that is cheap, comfortable and easy to
But to obtain such a high CMRR, you need biopotential signals (e.g. from an electro-car- use. The brain and heart monitor demonstra-
powerful instrumentation amplifiers, and diogram or ECG), or a radio that continuously tors point to some of these devices’ potentials
these are traditionally very bulky and power transmits raw data over the wireless link. to replace and extend the functionality of
hungry. Imec and Holst Centre’s scientists Free-moving, wireless sensors also result in today’s much larger and more expensive
were able to integrate this functionality on motion artifacts, glitches in the signal caused medical devices.
a chip, a low-power ASIC that can handle 8 by movements of the sensor. Trying to com- With the technology that is becoming
input channels. It includes the instrumenta- pensate for these glitches demands even more available, it is possible to make relevant dem-
tion amplifiers (120dB, 55nV/√Hz), low-power processing power. onstrators that can be compared and validated
analog-to-digital converters (11bits), and imec and Holst Centre have built a pro- successfully against commercial equipment
calibration and electrode impedance measure- totype heart monitor with a greatly reduced that is orders of magnitudes larger and more
ment modes. While finding brain signals, the power budget. They did so by designing new expensive. In contrast to such equipment,
chip consumes a mere 200µW. ultralow-power components: an ASP (analog BANs could be used at home, by everyone,
This ASIC was further integrated into a full signal processor), DSP, and radio chip. In not only in case of emergencies, but also for
sensor node, adding a commercially available parallel, they made another important gain by prevention. We expect BANs to appear first
low-power radio, microcontroller, and power carefully optimizing the distribution of func- in wellness, sports and gaming applications,
circuit. The total node measures 35x25x5mm, tions over the analog and digital domains, ex- and later on in healthcare devices, which have
excluding the battery. It can transmit data ploiting the characteristics of the application. much more stringent requirements and ap-
wirelessly to a base station for real time dis- The new DSP, for example, is a versatile proval procedures. n
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DESIGN & PRODUCTS
SPECIAL FOCUS:
MEDICAL ELECTRONICS
Making life less difficult

By Philip Ling
Think of any trend present in any of the vertical sectors where next five years.
embedded electronics plays a role today and it will almost definitely As mentioned, the
apply to the medical market. It’s a long list: low power; high integra- medical market dem-
tion; ease of use; high reliability; low cost; stability of supply; fast onstrates all the main
time to market; quality assurance and, some may say, there are many challenges present in
others. other vertical markets
A subset of these are present in all markets; consumer demands and for Tom Zemites,
low cost, networking demands high performance, the defence & director of marketing
aerospace market needs stability of supply, while industrial control for Microsemi’s High
increasingly needs greater integration. But arguably it is only one Reliability Group, the
market, the medical market, where they are all likely to influence medical market can
developments. be addressed in terms
The unique requirements of the medical market mean that for of three sub-catego- Steve Kennelly, Senior Manager, Medical
a long time not all suppliers were keen to enter it, however current ries; clinical, imaging Products Group, Microchip: “The average product
socio-economic trends mean that the medical market is both chang- and home applica- life cycle of medical devices is coming down”.
ing and growing, bringing with it opportunities that may be difficult tions. “The trends in all these are common,” he stated, but adding: “In
to address but are even harder to ignore. clinical applications, reliability takes centre stage, where decisions
One of the most significant impacts on healthcare is that despite are based on data collected.”
an increase in chronic illness, Increasingly, however, the data is collected at the point of interest,
we have a longer life expectancy. often not in a hospital environment. This imposes its own demands
Precision & Reliable While our ageing population on the devices, as Microsemi’s product marketing manager, Medical
Ultimate Thin Film has helped demand grow for Solutions, Minal Sawant explained: “Electronic content continues to
Chip Resistors consumer medical devices, grow and with it so too does the need for greater accuracy of sensor
which bring their own unique technology, analog to digital conversion and processing power. To ad-
requirements, it is also impact- dress the rising cost of health care, more out-of-the-office monitoring
ing on how the traditional will emerge, and the transmission of patient monitoring informa-
healthcare market operates, par- tion over wireless networks will continue to grow.”
ticularly on how equipment tar- General manager for Texas Instruments’ Medical and High
geting professional healthcare Reliability Business Unit, Karthik Vasanth, agrees: “The ability to re-
providers is being developed. motely monitor vital signs such as blood pressure, heart rate, glucose
The bottom line is, an ageing levels, temperature, and weight takes healthcare out of hospitals and
Susumu established in but demanding population is doctors’ offices and in to patients’ homes via technologies such as
Kyoto, Japan in 1964 has driving up the cost of health- Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy, ZigBee, ANT and WiFi. We believe
been the industrial leader care, as ST Microelectronics’ that this can significantly reduce healthcare cost and allow people to
in thin film resistors for Matteo Lo-Presti, IMS Group better manage their health and maintain a good quality of life.”
over 45 years, enjoying the vice president, systems Lab and The senior manager of Microchip’s Medical Product Group, Steve
largest share of the thin technical marketing general Kennelly, believes this is driving innovation not only from inte-
film resistor market in the manager, explained: “In most grated device manufacturers (IDMs) but also from their customers:
world. developed countries, healthcare “Infusion pumps, patient monitors, surgical tools, imaging systems
costs are running at 15 to 20% and many other devices that are used by doctors and other trained
Products
if GDP and are acknowledged to professionals are being reinvented with modern electronics.”
Thin film resistors/networks
be out of control.” However this is putting new pressure on the IDM to create prod-
Low resistance resistors
Power choke coils It is widely believed that the ucts that are both flexible enough to meet the different customer
High frequency components semiconductor industry can demands, but robust enough to meet regulatory requirements.
help make healthcare more Kennelly added: “In most countries, government regulations make
www.susumu.de accessible and affordable, not the OEM responsible for determining the impact of any changes in
least through telemedicine. purchased components, in turn they tend to impose requirements on
+49-6196-9698407 Freescale’s Medical Segment the IDMs to communicate the details of any changes, prior to their
Lead for EMEA, Mickael Viot, implementation.”
believes this sub-segment will Jan-Hein Broeders is the healthcare business development man-
see double-digit growth for the ager in Europe for Analog Devices, he explained that the medical
DESIGN &PRODUCTS
market almost demands the economies of scale that come with the
consumer sector, but with the reassurances of the defence mar-
ket: “You rarely find million unit opportunities unless it is really
consumer or disposable; when this is not the case the challenge is to
come up with smart solutions that are flexible with all kinds of ‘bells
and whistles’.” However the danger is this will make the solution
too expensive for some applications, Broeders added: “It really is a
balancing act, making trade-offs between functionality, flexibility,
performance, power and finally cost.”
Microchip’s Kennelly echoed this point: “The OEMs are being
constantly challenged to invent new devices and improve old ones.
Each generation must be smarter, safer, faster, more reliable and less
expensive, at the same time competitive pressures are squeezing
development times, while the design process has to keep up with an A batch of ST’s MEMS technology to be used in Sensimed’s contact lens
evolving regulatory environment.” sensor, developed for the continuous monitoring of fluctuations in intra-
While, in general, IDMs are successful by making general pur- ocular pressure (IOP) of glaucoma patients.
pose products that can be used across many vertical markets, the market coming from our FPGA and mixed signal analog devices.
unique demands of the medical market means that ultimately some Adding our RF capability, we can offer the medical world the brains,
products are developed to meet these specific and unique demands. the brawn and the communication link.”
Broeders explained how ADI sees the medical market as five distinct ST’s Matteo Lo-Presti added: “The healthcare market, more than
segments; imaging, patient monitoring, instrumentation & lab the classical medical market, is opening new scenarios for people
equipment, consumer care, and implants. “For these segments we are and companies; home healthcare is the first example of this trend.
making unique products,” he confirmed. ST’s Matteo Lo-Presti ex- The possibility to manage the personal care from one’s own home
plained: “We are working on diagnostic-quality acquisition systems will be a big opportunity for many OEMs.”
for several biological sensors. These will cover many different types ADI’s Jan-Hein Broeders believes the opportunities are only
of diagnostic equipment, from electrocardiography to electromyog- just emerging: “There are still a lot of companies that make their
raphy.” money in the medical market
The increased activity around patient-based healthcare can give with plastics and disposable
the impression that it’s becoming more like the consumer sector products. The need for medical
where the time-to-market is being driven ever lower and the time- support and services are increas-
in-market is shrinking with it. In some cases, this is true; changes in ing and this will bring us in to
regulatory requirements aren’t uncommon, particularly for devices resource limitations, as well as
operated by the patient, such as insulin pumps. Coupled with the an increased risk of making mis-
fact that these devices are used on a daily basis, often constantly, takes. Making products smarter
means they may be replaced as often as every year and, as with all to anticipate possible failures
electronics products, the consumer expects the next version to be and improper use will help the
better, smaller, last longer or be easier to use. population and care providers
Microchip’s Steve Kennelly said: “The average product life cycle of to improve the overall level of
medical devices is coming down, but I think that the decreasing aver- medical care. It is also one of the
age is mainly driven by a mix of factors. One example is the portable goals that the healthcare insur-
blood-glucose monitor; the companies making these have embraced ance companies proactively
the mobile phone model of multiple new versions every year. As an drive; improve the level of care
IDM this highlights the fact that our customers expect us to continu- at a lower cost. Electronics can
ously enhance and add to our portfolio of new parts, but they don’t help make this happen.”
want us to remove older products from production.” Microchip’s Kennelly con-
While tele-health is a strong driver in the short-term, mid- to cluded: “I see new OEMs enter-
long-term growth may come from other areas. Director of Frees- ing the medical market all the
cale’s Metering, Medical and Connectivity Division, Bruno Baylac, time and I expect that to con-
commented: “The drug delivery market is also changing rapidly as tinue. There is lots of room for
a result of the pharmaceutical companies. We see more and more innovation and new solutions in
demand for electronic features in auto-injectors or dry powder inhal- consumer devices, tele-health,
ers. Knowing the pharmaceutical industry volumes, this is going to surgical instruments, patient
be a huge opportunity in the mid-term.” Further out, Baylac believes monitoring, imaging and other
sensors worn around the body and integrated into medical bandages sub-segments. The best part of
are key applications of the future, adding: “It is the next step in my job is when I get to meet a
terms of medical remote monitoring, providing more comfort to the device designer who is mak-
patients.” ing something that has never
Microsemi’s Tom Zemites sees opportunities for greater integra- existed before and will improve
tion: “We will continue to support the implantable medical device peoples’ lives.” n
DESIGN & PRODUCTS
SPECIAL FOCUS:
MEDICAL ELECTRONICS
Telehealth: huge opportunities for

established technologies
By Christoph Hammerschmidt
At the DesignMed trade fair that recently took place in Stuttgart
versatile and reliable products to the medical technology industry.
(Germany) the close ties became visible that link medical technol-
Measured by the number of forum presentations, the industry
ogy and electronics. The exhibition also made clear how electronics
and software can contribute to future applications in the greater sees particular good market chances in one specific segment of medi-
health technology market place. At the exhibition in close vicinity to cal electronics: Telehealth. “Telehealth is not the same as telemedi-
Stuttgart’s airport, vendors of communications technology, semi- cine”, explained Iboun Sylla, business development manager for
conductors, real-time software and measurement technologies were Texas Instruments. “Telemedicine includes the communication with
canvassing manufacturers of medical equipment, and during numer- remote specialized physicians, such as surgeons. Thus, telemedicine
ous presentations and seminars future electronic helpers to doctors is part of the cure. Telehealth, in contrast, focuses on remote moni-
and nurses took shape. toring of chronic diseases and does not contain any elements of the
The market for medical technology products is huge. According to treatment.”
European medical technology industry association Eucomed, annual This differentiation has important consequences for the technol-
sales volume reached 72.6 billion euros - and Europe accounts for just ogy. In telehealth, an increasing number of consumer electronic
one third of the World market. There are numerous opportunities devices and products are being deployed, including HMI concepts.
for the electronics industry to join this growing segment. A variety Consumer electronics technologies have a number of properties
of social, political, demographic and economic factors is currently highly desired in the realm of telehealth: they are proven and avail-
creating an environment which greatly encourages the electronics able, they are produced in high quantities and thus they are afford-
industry to contribute with its expertise in generating cheap, small, able. “In an environment characterized by cost pressure and an
ageing population driving mass demand for telehealth products, it
is important that telehealth can leverage existing technologies”, said
Ross Mitchell, industrial systems solution engineering manager for
Freescale Semiconductor. For this reason, telehealth solutions will
widely be based on popular terminal devices such as smartphones or
tablet computers.
Wireless communication technologies being a crucial part of any
telehealth application scenario, one could wonder which wireless
technologies will be the favorites in product design. Since cost and
reliability reasons widely rule out the development of new tele-
health-specific communication technologies, product designers will
have to select from the spectrum of available technologies which
however offers a wide range to choose from.
A typical telehealth scenario consists of various elements, ar-
ranged to some extend in a hub-and-spoke manner. An aggregation
manager application forms the hub while several personal health
devices (PHDs) form the spokes. Examples for PHDs are sensors for
blood pressure, glucose level, temperature, motion or heart rate.
They send their data
to the aggregation
manager which in
turn communicates
with a health service
provider such as a
physician or a hos-
pital.
On the sensor side,
the communication
technology of choice
depends on factors
such as data rate, Medical electronics for the masses have to be
transmission range or cheap like this disposable insuline pump display.
power requirements.
DESIGN &PRODUCTS
they will have to work for long periods on very low power, and they
must not degrade over time.
The security requirements results from the nature of the appli-
cation. Since the systems transmit highly sensitive personal data,
privacy and thus encryption is an important ingredient of telehealth
systems. It is also crucial that the data is trustable and correct since
the practitioner might take therapeutic action based on the collected
data. Vendors of secure real-time operating systems such as QNX and
Green Hills software see a chance to benefit from the requirements
of security, reliability and connectivity associated to telehealth ap-
plications. “There is a link between safety and security”, said Green
Hills business development manager Chris Tubbs, adding that the
company’s Integrity and µ-velOSity RTOSes with their separation
kernel meet a number of relevant certifications including IEC 61508,
SIL B and FDA Class 3. With a similar feature set, QNX sends its Neu-
trino RTOS into the race.
Again at the sensor level, the industry tries to lean on available
technologies and solutions. “We see synergies for medical solutions
with existing sensor product portfolios”, an engineer at the STMicro-
electronics booth explained. “MEMS, Gyros, accelerometer, pressure
sensors - for all of them we see a demand in medical applications”.
This does not mean that there is no new territory in telehealth.
Fraunhofer Institute IPA (Stuttgart) is developing motion detection
sensors and related sensor fusion algorithms. “In telehealth, and in
general in medical monitoring applications, motion is a critical vari-
able to determine the health status of a person”, explained Fraun-
hofer researcher Urs Schneider.
While the institute provided
Ease-of-use is a critical success factor for telehealth applications. Vendors a glimpse into its research
are experimenting with intuitive user interfaces. A test platform from STMi- topics, no ready solutions were
croelectronics. provided.
With all these sensor data
Engineers can select from established technologies such as Blue- available, the processing
tooth, Zigbee, WiFi or even USB. “All standards are already in place,” algorithms take centre stage for
said Sylla. In some cases, it might be necessary to develop additional future applications. After all,
protocol layers - for instance to define application profiles or specific the physician at the other end
security functions. At the WAN side, the application aggregator will of the information chain is very
use existing communications technologies such as fixed telephone often overloaded and does not
line, GSM or UMTS. have the time to constantly keep
The availability of many technology building blocks for tele- an eye on the monitor which
health solutions does not mean that this application field is free of displays the health status of his
challenges. Data security and reliability issues demand that engi- patients.
neers go back to their desks and labs in order to solve some existing And, if someone has failed to
problems. The same holds true for the sensor devices, in many cases move for a certain time, would
this mean that he / she has
fallen and needs help - or could
this mean that the patient is
simply taking a nap?
Intelligent processing
schemes for this kind of ap-
plication will be key to success,
believes Freescale’s Ross Mitch-
ell. “Where can the line been
drawn between the urgency to
see the patient and to know that
it is OK not to see the patient?”
“Keep it simple” is the golden rule interface design in telehealth applica- Mitchell asked. “This is a matter
tions. (Image: courtesy Freescale) of data quality and smart algo-
rithms”. n
DESIGN & PRODUCTS
SPECIAL FOCUS:
MEDICAL ELECTRONICS
Designing an artificial retina

for sight restoration
By Ra’anan Gefen
According to World Health Organization data

for 2010, 285 million people (65 percent of whom are over
50-years-old) suffer some degree of visual impairment,
and 39 million people (82 percent over 50-years-old) are
estimated to be blind. The three leading causes of visual
impairment are cataracts, glaucoma and age-related
macular degeneration (AMD).
Retinal degenerative diseases such as AMD, diabetic
retinopathy and retinitis pigmentosa have no cure to
date. These degenerative conditions cause a gradual
loss of vision, and within ten years of their onset, high
degrees of blindness ensue. For some of these conditions
there are medications, but they entail risk and can only
slow the progression of the diseases.
Figure 1: Nano Retina implant “glued” to the macula (left) and its interface electrodes.
Headquartered in Herzliya, Israel, Nano Retina’s sole
mission is to develop a functional artificial retina. Maybe one day, properly designed artificial retinas will be able to replace
damaged human retinas. Resolution and visual acuity are key param-
eters for artificial vision, which can contribute to the independence
of patients following implantation of an artificial retina.
2SXSRP]LMKLP]WIRWMXMZI Nano Retina’s tiny artificial retina can be inserted into the eye and
attached to the original retina in a minimally invasive procedure
JSVXLIQIEWYVIQIRXSJPS[HMJJIVIRXMEP that is no more complicated than conventional cataract surgery. The
TVIWWYVIWFYXEPWS© implant, shown in figure 1, consists of a small imager, similar to
that used in a digital camera, and an electronic interface including a
network of electrodes designed to stimulate the optic nerve so that it
sends the visual data – collected by the chip – to the brain.
The implant’s power source is an infrared, wireless beam trans-
mitted from specially designed eyeglasses that the patient will have
to wear. Although the concept is simple, implementation poses a
significant technical challenge.
Scientific researchers have set the level of 600 (distinguished)
gray scale pixels as the threshold for functional vision, i.e. vision
sufficient for independent activities such as walking along a street
or eating at a restaurant. Beneath the threshold of functional vision
is ambulatory vision, which is achieved by the 60 pixel black&white
VSFYWXimmunity against Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System designed by Californian company
dust and humidity Second Sight Medical Products. The company has just obtained the
MRRSZEXMZI¾S[GLERRIP CE Mark, approving the Argus II for sale in the European Economic
MRXIKVEXIH[MXLMRXLIWIRWSV Area. Following implantation of this device, ambulatory vision was
GLMT attained with a 50% success rate for basic daily challenges such as
LMKLVIWSPYXMSREREPSK walking through a door and its next generation devices could feature
'137WMKREPGSRHMXMSRMRK up to 240 electrodes (that translate again to black&white pixels).
WTEGIWEZMRKQMRMEXYVI
4'&QSYRXEFPILSYWMRKW Talking the neuron language
The human retinal network consists of millions of neurons which re-
ceive an analog image in the first layer of 100-150 million photorecep-
Ra’anan Gefen is the managing director of Nano Retina –

www.sensortechnics.com
www.nanoretina.com He can be reached at gefen@nano-retina.com
DESIGN &PRODUCTS
tors, convert it to the neuron

digital language in the second
bipolar layer, and connect to
the third ganglia layer that
transfers the information to
the brain – see figure 2.
Along the way, processing
takes place that reduces the
data by a factor of 100 and em-
phasizes important features
such as motion detection and
edge enhancement. An artifi-
cial retina must be integrated
into this natural process so
that its stimuli will be ef-
ficiently converted to an image Figure 3: Gray scale resolution of a facial image compared with black and white resolution. The 600 (24X24) pixel
recognizable by the brain. threshold provides marginal acuity even on the gray scale.
Localizing the response Gray scale

Within the retina there is a photoreceptor every 5 micro-meters, The gray scale provides a simple representation of the visual envi-
creating a very condensed visual network in the central area of the ronment when color information is in short supply, but offers better
retina, i.e. the macula, where vision is sharpest. Due to stimulation clarity than black and white, as can be seen in figure 3. The real
technique requirements, the electrode surface area of an implant challenge is to convey this information so that it can be decoded by
should consist of hundreds of square micrometers on a totally differ- the brain.
ent scale. So far, most devices avoid this challenge and seek black and white
Placing such electrodes over the retina (epi-retina) or under the solutions (pixels are either On or Off). Some have tried to interpret
retina (sub-retina) requires a lot of power for retinal stimulation. this information on the stimula-
This standard approach stimulates hundreds of neurons at a time, tion level (amplitude), but this
sometimes affecting an area ten times larger than the electrode size enlarged the stimulation area,
itself, thus it greatly reduces achievable resolution. reduced resolution and created
New studies suggest that proximity to the neurons reduces neces- difficulties in translating the
sary activation charges and thereby decreases the affected area. Nano intensity level.
Retina’s innovative approach will use more than 600, 3D electrodes Recent studies show that a
that penetrate the retina and achieve close proximity to the neurons, new paradigm should be used
while providing a large electrode surface. This method can use small to provide the basis for retinal
stimuli charges, retain localized response and provide good resolu- implants: frequency modulation
tion perception. instead of intensity modulation.
This makes sense, given that
neuron language is dependent
upon frequency, like any serial
communication channel.
Accordingly, Nano Retina has
translated 100-shade gray scale
ladder into the frequency domain,
so that intensity information can
be combined with high resolu-
tion to create understandable
images at the highest possible
resolution.
Restoring sight to the blind is
an ambitious mission being pur-
sued by only a few companies
around the world. Nevertheless,
as artificial retina prostheses
become a reality, we will be bet-
ter able to compare the benefits
of the various solutions under
development. n
Figure 2: Natural neuron structure within the retina.
DESIGN & PRODUCTS
SPECIAL FOCUS:
made in Germany MEDICAL ELECTRONICS
We (r)evolutionize Low EMI isolation for

the SSD
medical equipment
applications
By Don Alfano
Electromagnetic interference levels. EMI is especially problematic in
(EMI) is defined as any electromagnetic medical systems that acquire low-amplitude
disturbance that interrupts, obstructs or signals, such as electrocardiographs (ECGs),
otherwise degrades or limits the effective where signals collected from patients can
performance of electronic equipment. Unfor- range from 400µV to 5mVpk with 3dB corner
tunately, EMI sources are plentiful and give frequencies at 0.05 and 100Hz. Looking
rise to seemingly endless combination of forward, the trend towards higher-frequency,
disturbance characteristics. For this reason, lower-power medical systems will compli-
the Industry categorizes different types of cate EMI management by emitting broader
1.0“ Solid State Drives EMI by their characteristics. bandwidth RF noise at higher energy levels.
- the next generation Medical environments are electrically From a design point-of-view, EMI effects
storage medium can be minimized by designing sys-
tem circuitry for high EMI immunity
and low emission. Traditional prac-
tices include proper printed circuit
Innovative industrial standard board (PCB) layout and grounding
for removable devices and limited trace lengths. Electronic
components must be optimally
Your advantages of the F-100
placed on a PCB, and the system
CFast TM SSD from Swissbit:
enclosure design, cable shielding and
• 4 GB up to 32 GB filtering must be adequate. Obvious-
• SATA II SLC with perfor- ly, the use of EMI-hardened semicon-
mance of 105 MB / s ductor components (i.e. low-emission
• Global wear leveling with Figure 1: Block diagram of a typical silicon isolator and high-immunity) should be used
15 bit / 512 byte ECC in critical signal paths. This is espe-
• S.M.A.R.T Monitoring noisy; RF interference (RFI) generated by cially true for EMI issues that exist within
• Low power consumption communications devices and local equip- the system itself, such as in mixed-signal or
ment can produce RF fields of 50 V/m or wireless data transmission applications.
more. In addition, certain types of medical
equipment use RF energy for diagnosis or Isolation in Medical Systems
treatment (e.g. MRI systems) or wireless To ensure that medical electronic systems
communication (e.g. medical telemetry are immune to disturbances from local-
systems). Given these numerous and potent ized fields and other phenomena, isolators
sources, EMI management in medical envi- are safety tested to a number of IEC-61000
ronments can be challenging. standards using test limits specified by IEC
EMI can cause medical devices to 60601-1-2.
malfunction with potentially catastrophic For example, electrostatic discharge
results. For example, errant signals induced (ESD) is tested to IEC 61000-4-2 and uses
by EMI can cause portable life support the test limits specified by IEC 60101-1-2.
systems to malfunction, corrupt measure- RF emissions, and power line perturbations
ments in patient monitoring equipment and are tested using methods from CISPR11
quality manufacturer of change patient intravenous medicine dosage test methodology, a subset of automotive
DRAM & Flash Memory Products specification J1750. (CISPR does not specify
Don Alfano is the director of applications test limits - it is a test methodology standard
engineering, isolation products at Silicon Labs only. Limits for emissions and power line
swissbit.com/cfast www.silabs.com sensitivities are specified in IEC 60601-1-2).
The criteria for passing these tests are
DESIGN &PRODUCTS
neither of which are optimal. Transformers generate EMI

and are highly susceptible to signal corruption by external
magnetic fields. Optocouplers offer the benefits of low EMI
emission and high immunity but suffer from poor reliability
and low common-mode transient immunity (CMTI), which
can negatively impact isolator data transmission integrity.
As an alternative to transformers and optocouplers, sili-
con isolators leverage advanced process technologies to dra-
matically improve EMI characteristics and create significant
gains in performance and reliability. These isolators fabricate
insulating devices directly on the semiconductor die using
process oxides or other native process materials as shown
in Figure 1. The more successful silicon isolator suppliers
implement the insulator (aka isolation barrier) using either
Figure 2A: A transformer-based silicon isolator transformers or capacitors.
Figure 2B: The measured radiated EMI of a transformer-based silicon isolator The silicon isolator of Figure 2A operates by encoding
very stringent. The system cannot exhibit any component failures, the logic state of each incoming digital edge, transmitting this data
parametric changes, configuration errors or false positives. In addi- through isolation transformer T1, then decoding and storing the data
tion to external field immunity, the system under test cannot gener- in an output latch. Figure 2B shows the radiated EMI response from
ate significant radiated or conducted emissions of its own. this device, as measured using the CISPR test methodology stan-
Specifications published by various agencies place limits on dards. The measurement shown was made with all isolator inputs
conducted and radiated EMI. One of the more common specifica- low and 90 degree rotation. Note that the device generates EMI reso-
tions is FCC Part 15, which covers circuit assemblies used in or near nant peaks as high as +20dB between 100 and 300MHz. While the
the home. Testing to this specification is conducted in an open-air exact cause of these resonant peaks is unknown, it is assumed they
environment using a 10 meter antenna positioned approximately 5 are at least partially caused by T1’s structural size, inductance and Q.
meters above the ground plane. Another specification, SAEJ1752-3, is The silicon isolator in Figure 3A operates by transmitting a
more IC-centric in its test methodology and recommends mounting carrier wave across the dif-
the IC to be tested on a small shielded circuit board (i.e. “TEM cell”, ferential capacitive isolation
per CISPR11 test methodology) designed to measure only the radi- barrier when the isolator input
ated emissions from the isolator itself while operating within the is logic-high. The receiver as-
actual application environment. serts logic-high on the output
Many medical systems incorporate galvanic isolation to protect when sufficient carrier energy is
patients and equipment from hazardous voltages, to level shift detected. Unlike the transformer
signals between ground voltage domains and/or to mitigate ground design, there is no Q-dependant
noise in highly sensitive circuit areas. Medical electronic systems resonant peak in the capacitive
often use transformers and/or optocouplers for signal isolation, isolation path to selectively
boost incoming EMI
frequencies. Figure
3B shows the radiated
EMI response from
this device as mea-
sured using exactly
the same methodology
used in the transform-
er-based isolator test.
This device exhibits a
flat, lower amplitude
radiated EMI response
compared to the
transformer imple-
mentation. As a result,
this device passed FCC
Class B Part 15 in a test
using 6-channel differ-
ential capacitive isola-
tors with all inputs
tied high to maximize
Figure 3A: A capacitor-based silicon isolator internal transmitter
Figure 3B: The measured radiated EMI of a capacitor-based silicon isolator emissions.
DESIGN & PRODUCTS
SPECIAL FOCUS:
MEDICAL ELECTRONICS
path cause the receiver to

amplify only the differen-
tial input voltage within a
very narrow frequency band
but reject all other input.
Figure 5 shows the
magnetic field immunity of
the transformer and capaci-
tor-based silicon isolators.
To meet the requirements
of IEC61000-4-9, the isolator
must operate normally
Figure 4: A comparison of the electric field immunity for a Figure 5: A comparison of the magnetic field immunity while subjected to the flux
transformer- and capacitor-based silicon isolator for a transformer- and capacitor-based silicon isolator. density versus frequency
Figure 4 shows an electric field immunity comparison between curve shown by the purple line at the bottom of the chart. Values at
the transformer and capacitor-based silicon isolators where isolator or above the purple line are acceptable, while values below the line
output voltage is monitored while the external RF field frequency are failures. The point placed midway up the Y-axis is the single-
is swept from DC to 10GHz. Both the transformer and capacitive point equivalent specification (61000-4-8). Note that both silicon
isolators have grounded inputs to hold their outputs low continu- isolators meet the criteria for both specifications, but the capacitive
ously. The capacitive silicon isolator output (green trace) remains isolator demonstrates a much higher degree of magnetic field immu-
low across the frequency range from DC to 10GHz, whereas the nity compared to the transformer-based isolator.As shown, silicon
transformer-based isolator output is high (corrupted) between 1 and isolators can offer many performance advantages over optocouplers
2GHz. The capacitive isolator demonstrates high EMI immunity be- and transformers, and typically implement the isolation barrier
cause local common-mode fields are rejected by a combination of the using chip-scale transformers or capacitors. However, as transformer-
differential capacitive isolation path and high receiver selectivity. based silicon isolators characteristically have lower EMI immunity
That is, signal levels on each side of the internal differential signal and higher emissions compared to capacitor-based silicon isolators,
for EMI-hardened applications such as medical electronics, capaci-
tive silicon isolators are put forward as the best solution. n
Miniature telemetry crystal

for use in medical implantable devices
The CX-16 series crystal +/-10ppm over the commercial
launched by IQD is designed operating temperature range of
for use in medical implantable -10 to +70ºC and +/-30ppm over
devices. The device is specifi- the extended military tempera-
cally targeted at applications in ture range of -55 to +125ºC.
the fast growing medical RF The ceramic package with glass
telemetry mar- lid design pre-
ket and comes vents out-gassing
housed in a her- and contamina-
metically sealed tion which is cru-
ceramic package cial to achieving
measuring just its excellent age-
2.0x1.2x0.4mm. ing characteristic
The crystal is manufactured of better than +/-3ppm max over
using a photolithographic and the first year. The specific C0/C1
chemical milling processes and ratio, Q and ESR levels which the
then sealed within a ceramic CX-16 crystal can meet ensures
package for high stability and that it is suitable for medical
low aging. Initially offered applications where remote com-
in frequencies of 24MHz and munication between devices
26.5MHz, other frequencies will such as pacemakers and defibril-
be developed throughout 2011 lators and consultants/medical
including 32.768kHz. support staff is required.
The CX-16 features a calibration IQD Frequency Products
tolerance of +/-5ppm and will
deliver temperature stabilities of www.iqdfrequencyproducts.com
“Visit us at Sensor+Test 2011, booth 12-511!”

DESIGN &PRODUCTS
SPECIAL FOCUS:
MEDICAL ELECTRONICS
135W medical power adapters 9-axis inertial measurement unit

with 270W high peak power capability miniaturized for rehabilitation applications
Tumbler Technologies + of output voltages including 12 RM Ingénierie is using Movea’s for easy attachment to the body
TRUMPower has unveiled the V, 13 V, 14-16 V, 18-19 V, 20-21 V, miniaturized MotionPod , Iner- or even to be patched directly
TMP135 series of medical and 24-25 V, 28-29 V, 30-32 V, 36-38 V, tial Measurement Unit (IMU) to onto the body. Each MotionPod
ITE power adapters, which or 46-50 V. The TMP135 models enable a new generation of joint has a built-in, 2.4 GHz wireless
are approved to the latest UL come equipped with the IEC assessment and transmitter that
60601-1, EN 320/C14 AC rehabilitation uses Movea’s
60601-1 3rd edi- inlet for the applications. proprietary wire-
tion medical Class I models The MotionPod less technology
standards and and the IEC is a patented to deliver a range
UL 60950-1, EN 320/C18 AC in- hardware solu- of up to 30m
60950-1 2nd let for the Class tion for motion with low power
edition ITE II models. The sensing that consumption to
standards. fanless units incorporates support up to
The series of- come with a a 3-axis accelerometer, a 3-axis eight hours of use. Data from the
fers a low earth leakage current power-on LED indicator and a gyroscope and a 3-axis magne- MotionPod is transmitted wire-
of less than 200 µA at 264 VAC 4-pin circular DIN output con- tometer in fully integrated pack- less to a receiver that’s connected
and 63 Hz. The peak power for nector. TRUMPower also offers age complete with software and to a computer via a standard USB
10 seconds is as high as 270 W. many other connector options wireless interface. The device is connection. Up to 32 Motion-
With an active efficiency of up and can accommodate special a wireless inertial measurement Pods can be connected to a single
to 91%, these units are compli- requirements. The TMP135 units unit that uses MEMS sensors MotionController.
ant with the CEC and Energy are protected against overvolt- to accurately measure 9 degree- RM Ingénierie
Star Level V standards. age and overcurrent conditions. of-freedom motion with a PCB
Offering up to 135 W of continu- Tumbler Technologies module that is about the size of a www.movea.com
ous output power, the TMP135 small wristwatch.
series provides a flexible range www.trumpower.com The miniaturized MotionPod is
now an off-the-shelf component,
ready to be used in a wide range
Zero-drift amplifier of applications including fitness,
gaming, and sports.
99nVp-p voltage noise is industry’s lowest RM Ingénierie, which special-
Analog Devices has introduced over 150 kHz in A/D converters izes in medical and paramedical
what the company claims is while improving system ac- management software, uses
the industry’s lowest-noise, curacy. The 5.3-nV/rtHz voltage Movea MotionPods in their
zero-drift operational amplifier. noise density allows designers Physical Rehabilitation solution.
The ADA4528 zero-drift op amp for the first time to use the zero- The MotionPods capture limb
is designed for drift amplifier in movement and provide precise
instrumentation broadband ap- information on limb orienta-
and medical plications, such tion and mobility. MotionPods
applications that as piezoelectric provide a fast and accurate record
require preci- transducers of a patient’s progress to be used
sion over time and precision for biofeedback into evaluation
and temperature data acquisition and exercises, making limb
without system systems. The rehabilitation interesting and
calibration. ADA4528 zero- fun by engaging the patient. A
The design drift amplifier single MotionPod can provide in-
achieves an ul- offers low offset formation like range of motion,
tra-low integrated voltage noise voltage of 2.5 µV max and the rotation, speed, and acceleration.
of 99 nVp-p over 0.1 Hz - 10 Hz industry’s lowest guaranteed Multiple MotionPods can also be
meaning that the ADA4528 de- offset-voltage drift of 0.015 µV/˚C networked to gather information
livers a 26 percent lower voltage maximum. The device has a 140 simultaneously from different
noise at 40 percent less power dB gain and a common-mode re- parts of the body for applications
consumption than the closest jection ratio of 135 dB and a 130 such as performance analysis
competing amplifiers. This dB power-supply rejection ratio. and full body motion capture.
improves system SNR (signal-to- Analog Devices The MotionPod measures
noise ratio) and lowers the noise 33x22x15 mm and weighs 14g.
floor, enabling 24-bit resolution www.analog.com It is designed to clip onto a strap
DESIGN & PRODUCTS
SPECIAL FOCUS:
MOTORS & DRIVES
The end of sensor-based BLDC control?

By Thomas Freitag
Vehicle manufacturers are increasingly appreciating the production for some years in
benefits of brushless DC (BLDC) motor control as a response to the high end car models mainly
challenges of making their fleet meet legal fuel economy regula- for fuel and water pumps,
tions. Brushless DC motor control typically increases efficiency 20% engine cooling fans and HVAC
to 30% compared to equivalent speed controlled DC solutions. Fur- blowers.
thermore they may offer a weight and size reduction of up to 50% In the first generation sen-
especially in high temperature environments like in the power train. sor less solutions the commu-
Electric and hybrid vehicles generate less noise especially at lower tation points were captured
speeds, making low noise BLDC motors the preferred solutions for using BEMF sensing on a free
pumps and fans that have been taken off the belt. running coil. For noise sensi-
Brushless motor control requires the accurate knowledge of the tive applications like HVAC
commutation points to achieve the praised (lauded) efficiency. A blowers, sine wave BLDC
first method requires the application of Hall Effect based sensors motor control, also referred Fig. 1: Integrated electronics inside an
in order to detect the rotor position. Next to the cost of the sensors, to as Permanent Magnet electrical water pump
their implementation renders the motor and pump design larger Synchronous Motor (PMSM) control, is applied. For PMSM control
and more complex. For fuel pumps the implementation of commu- there is no free running coil, but instead Field Orient Control (FOC),
tation sensors incurs prohibitive sealing costs from the aggressive also called Vector control was applied using multiple shunt inputs
fuel environment and is therefore not considered. A second sensor in combination with DSPs, making component, development and
less method detects the commutation points via the stator coils. This validation cost such that sine wave motor control was only viable for
technology does not suffer the above limitations and has been in high end models. Additionally FOC control had to be complemented
by sensor-based operation for reliable start up and operation at low
speeds.
contact@absopulse.ch Based on their experience with the first generation of such solu-
tions, automotive electronic suppliers have developed a range of
www.absopulse.ch application specific standard product (ASSP) solutions and control
algorithms to expand sensor less BLDC technology into a wider
range of applications, reducing development complexity and
High-Performance, high reliable Power Supplies component cost. An example of a basic BLDC application is a speed
controlled fuel pump that should replace a legacy DC solution. In
15 W to 12 kW+ adapted to your challenging projects
so called Mechanical Returnless Fuel delivery Systems (MRFS) the
l AC/DC Power Supplies fuel pressure is mechanically regulated so that the motors don’t see
l Rectifiers and Battery Chargers significant load changes, and the speed regulation is only to optimize
l DC/DC Converters for fuel economy and extend service life, not to respond in real time
l Sine-Wave Inverters to a change in demand. Standard zero crossing BEMF detection in
6-step, or so called block mode is enough.
l Phase and Frequency Converters
The only challenge here is to start up in a reliable and fast way.
l AC- Input, DC-output UPS systems Current solutions often still rely on rotor pre-positioning during
l Open Frame start up. During rotor positioning the BLDC motor is forced twice
l Wall mount in stepper mode to a predefined motor state, in order to ensure that
l 19” Cassettes the motor will start in the correct direction. Starting up is done in
l DC-input dimmable back-light inverters an open loop mode by applying the maximum allowed current to
for LCD displays accelerate the motor as fast as possible to a speed where BEMF can
l Complete Power Systems in 19" and 23" Racks be captured. When no BEMF signal is available, today’s state of the
art is to sense the rotor state by measuring its influence on the stator
ABSOPULSE Marketing Europe GmbH coil inductance values, so called reluctance sensing. The MLX81200
PoBox 1501 Melexis BLDC motor controller is able to perform reluctance sensing
8620 Wetzikon CH as part of its TruSense sensor less technology. For low inertia applica-
Tel. +41 78 896 50 49 tions like fuel pumps the MLX81200 has demonstrated the benefits
Fax +41 44 944 38 44 of reluctance sensing by reducing start up times from approximately
200ms to 50ms. By applying reluctance sensing at start up and dur-
Write us: contact@absopulse.ch
See us: www.absopulse.ch Thomas Freitag is product line manager for advanced motor control at
Melexis - www.melexi.com – He can be reached at tfr@melexis.com.
DESIGN &PRODUCTS
the little available heat in an

even way during engine cold
start. On the other hand this
same water pump has to be able
to deliver maximum flow rates
under maximum towing condi-
tions. In traditional engines
with belt driven water pump,
the water conduits had to be
overdesigned to limit the water
pressure at high motor speeds.
Fig. 3: Phase integration guarantees tracking of the zero-crossing under severe load conditions with a narrow mea- Therefore an engine designed
surement window, enabling robust and high performing On-Demand operation. Blue line: BEMF Voltage / Pink line: to operate with an on demand
Phase Current water pump can be made more
compact and lighter.
ing acceleration the startup time tolerances are also significantly To ensure robust operation at very low operating speeds the
reduced, making the application very robust. MLX81200 integrates the BEMF voltage using phase integrators. At
low speeds, voltage integration results in a net amplification of the
On demand: fast speed and load changes BEMF signal, whilst filtering any switching noise. Typically the ap-
In mechanical returnless fuel delivery systems, some headroom in plication of phase integrators allows the reduction of the minimum
flow rate has to be maintained. So called Electronic Returnless Fuel possible operating motor speed using classical control schemes by a
delivery Systems (ERFS) do not imply a spill valve, and therefore factor of 2 to 4.
offer a better fuel efficiency. The engine control unit (ECU) dictates Alternatively at maximum speeds the zero crossing may be
the required flow rate to the fuel pump electronics based on feedback masked by the flyback pulse. Comparator-based technologies can
from a fuel line pressure sensor. In return the fuel pumps in ERFS only make best guess assumptions as to the exact position of the zero
have to be designed with minimum inertia to vary flow rates with crossing, limiting the maximum torque, and leading to increased
very fast response times. In a similar way water pumps have to oper- torque ripple. Phase voltage
ate under sudden load changes due to air bubbles, ice, etc. measurements allow to accu-
When applying such fast acceleration/deceleration, or due to rately extrapolate the zero cross-
ing. In exceptional conditions,
for instance for a water pump
operating under maximum tow-
ing load, efficiency is less of a
concern. Then phase integrators
allow to further boost the motor
speed by increasing the lead
angle at the expense of motor
efficiency, disregarding any fly
backpulse masking effect.
As the TruSense sensor less
technology is not depending on
the width of the BEMF measure-
ment window to ensure robust
zero crossing detection the
maximum motor speed can also
be increased by applying over-
lapping motor states. The over-
laps can be realized as slopes, in
Fig. 2: Sensor less BLDC application classification so called trapezoidal control to
sudden pressure changes the BEMF zero crossing may fall outside of reduce torque ripple, acoustic
measurable window. The MLX81200 measures the phase voltages, noise and conducted emissions.
and extrapolates the position of the zero crossing from the voltage The TruSense technology can
measurements. This ensures robust detection of the zero crossing, also be applied in full sine wave,
even when it falls outside of the measurement window - see figure 3. or PMSM motor control if noise
is the critical design parameter
On demand: wide dynamic range – see figure 3. As more and more
On demand water pumps have proven to have one of the largest electrical motors are applied to
impacts on fuel economy by reducing as much as 7g CO2/100km. optimize fuel efficiency they
Water pumps are required to operate at very low speeds to distribute also increase the electrical load
DESIGN & PRODUCTS
SPECIAL FOCUS:
MOTORS & DRIVES
on the battery. To minimize this electrical Pressure control

load any possibility to reduce the minimum Hydraulic systems leverage the control
operating speed is highly appreciated. The capabilities of Brushless DC motors one step
ratio between minimum and maximum further by rendering an expensive pressure
speed (RPMmin/RPMmax) is referred to as sensor obsolete. From motor speed and
the dynamic range. On a fuel pump applica- torque output information corrected for tem-
tion the TruSense features of the MLX81200 perature effects and combined with specific
reduced the dynamic range to approx. 5% pump information it is possible to control
(400rpm/8000rpm) compared to approx 22% the hydraulic pressure.
of a standard DSP based solution (1800rpm A key challenge to implement hydrau-
vs 8000rpm). lic pumps in a sensor less way is to ensure Fig. 4: Sensor less BLDC HVAC flap with LIN
communication interface
reliable and fast startup under a wide range
of loads. For instance a 500W transmission
pump should start up to 12 Bar in less than
50ms, and this at -40ºC with a highly viscous
fat load, as well as at maximum engine tem-
perature with liquid oil.
The MLX81200 have shown that its Tru-
maxon EC motor and controller: Sense sensor less technology is able to meet
Dynamic, intelligent, linked.
these requirements in a very robust and
reliable way.
Positioning applications
Combining rel uctance sensing at low speeds
with BEMF sensing at higher speeds, today’s
state of the art sensor less BLDC motor
controllers like the MLX81200 are able to
track in a robust way the rotor position over
the complete speed range and independent
from the applied load. Not only for pumps
and fans, but also for positioning applica-
tion sensor less technology might find its
applications.
The core idea here is to use the sensor less
rotor position detection algorithms and to
maxon drives in arm prostheses.
calculate and regulate to a given position of
the actuator as this is required for a flap and
When it really matters.

valve control or for car seat positioning. As
example HVAC flaps can be given.
Medical technology also relies on our drive systems. They are used, for instance, in modern
Feeding back the sensor information
arm prostheses which enables the wearer to make precise movements. of the remote BLDC motors into the ECU
requires up to 12 wires in the wiring harness,
and an equal amount of connector pins on
the ECU printed circuit board, each connec-
tor pin and sensor being a potential cause for
reliability problems.
Removing the commutation hall sensors
and reducing the connector size not only
reduces costs, but also reduces actuator size.
By replacing the sens-based pre-driver by
The maxon product range is built on an extensive maxon motor is the world’s leading supplier of high-
modular system, encompassing: brushless and precision drives and systems of up to 500 watts
an MLX81200 the application is optimized
brushed DC motors with the ironless maxon wind- power output. Rely on the quality of the highly spe- in cost, reliability and removes the motor
ing, planetary, spur and special gearheads, feedback cialized solutions which we develop with and for you.
devices and control electronics. www.maxonmotor.com control tasks from the ECU.
Additionally the MLX81200 is able to in-
crease the maximum speed and reduce EMC
by applying more intelligent motor control,
like overlap, current shaping as discussed
above. n
Electronic Engineering Times Europe May 2011
32125x200.indd 4 31.03.11 09:36
DESIGN &PRODUCTS
SPECIAL FOCUS:
MOTORS & DRIVES
Precise magnetic position sensors for

more efficient control of BLDC motors
By Shawn Rezaei
BLDC motors consist of a rotating permanent magnet
(rotor) and minimum of three equally spaced fixed windings
(stator) as shown on figure 1. By controlling the currents in the
stator, a magnetic field of arbitrary direction and magnitude can
be produced.
Many implementations of brushless DC (BLDC) motor
control use the ‘trapezoidal commutation’ technique to con-
trol the current applied to the fixed stators. Trapezoidal com-
mutation operates by switching the stator coils on and off in
sequence, generating a rotating magnetic field that acts on the
rotor, and thus producing torque. As figure 2 shows, this is a
simple technique to implement, and requires the processing of
a small number of position data inputs (as few as six steps per Fig. 2: Trapezoidal commutation is a simple control scheme for BLDC motors.
revolution for a two-pole rotor) in order to control the current
delivered to each stator winding. Position data in such systems are pulse-width modulated currents to the stator coils - see figure 3. The
normally derived from three Hall switches or, in sensorless systems, aim of sinusoidal schemes is to produce maximum torque at any
by back-EMF sensing. angle and speed, adjust speed and torque independently from each
Torque in a BLDC other and minimise the genera-
motor is produced tion of heat and audible noise.
by the attraction and While basic sinusoidal
repulsion between the control is very effective at low
rotor and stator field. speeds, however, performance
A stator field (d) in the deteriorates at higher speeds
same direction as the due to the increased frequency
rotor field produces no of the position feedback signal
torque. A stator field resulting in negative torque.
(q) orthogonal to the
rotor field produces An enhanced sinusoidal
Fig. 1: The basic construction of a BLDC motor. maximum torque. control scheme called Field-
Therefore, for best ef- Oriented Control (FOC) com-
ficiency and maximum torque, a stator field should be applied that is mutation, however, solves the
orthogonal to the rotor field. problem of controlling the mo-
tor efficiently at high rotation
A technique, such as trapezoidal commutation, that switches the speeds. An FOC scheme achieves
stators using crude position data is not precise enough to achieve this by controlling the rotation
this. As a result, trapezoidal schemes are plagued by undesirable of the stator current space vec-
torque ripple: this causes vibration, acoustic noise, heat and speed tor in the (static) d-q reference
fluctuation in BLDC motors. In demanding machine tool applica- frame of the rotor. Instead of
tions, torque ripple can even lead to speed oscillation, and to vibra- controlling an AC signal (as in
tion that leaves visible patterns in high-precision machined surfaces. the trapezoidal commutation
scheme shown on figure 2), the
Implementing enhanced motion control schemes requires precise PI controllers only need to con-
position data. To eliminate torque ripple and provide a smoother trol a DC signal, independent of
output, advanced BLDC motor control designs have implemented rotation speed - see figure 4. This
sinusoidal commutation: here, position feedback is provided in the isolates the controllers from the
form of phase-shifted sine waves, which determine the delivery of time-variant winding currents
and voltages, and therefore
Shawn Rezaei is field applications engineer at austriamicrosystems – eliminates the limitation of con-
www.austriamicrosystems.com - he can be contacted at troller frequency response and
info@austriamicrosystems.com phase shift on motor torque and
DESIGN & PRODUCTS
SPECIAL FOCUS
MOTORS & DRIVES
speed. Using FOC, the quality of

current control is largely unaf-
fected by the speed of rotation of
the motor.
In FOC schemes, the motor
current and voltages are manip-
ulated in the d-q reference frame
of the rotor. This means that the
measured motor currents must
be mathematically transformed Fig. 3: Sinusoidal commutation schemes produce a smoother output.
from the three-phase static reference frame of the stator windings to cation. The most common implementation of BLDC motor control
the two-axis rotating d-q reference frame, prior to processing by the today uses three Hall switches for position sensing. This provides for
PI controllers. Similarly, the voltages to be applied to the motor are resolution of six steps/revolution for a two-pole rotor, 12 steps/rev for
mathematically transformed from the d-q frame of the rotor to the a four-pole rotor and 18 steps/rev for a six-pole rotor. An FOC scheme
three-phase reference frame of the stator before they can be used for demands much more precise position feedback than this.
PWM output. These transformations typically require the fast math- A variety of position-sensing technologies is available that
ematical capability of a DSP or high-performance processor. provides the required level of resolution. But the implementation
of magnetic encoders is emerging as the best suited to the particular
Requirements for position sensing to support FOC conditions of a BLDC application. Optical encoders, which use an
In order to run the motor smoothly at its maximum efficiency, the LED shining on or through a rotating disc, provide high-resolu-
exact position of the rotor must be known at any given time. FOC tion measurements, but are impractical in smaller motors. This is
therefore requires a high-resolution position feedback device. Provid- because they are large devices, a drawback exacerbated by the need
ing absolute as well as incremental position data enables optimal for complete encapsulation to protect them from dust, grease and
performance from a stationary position. other contaminants which would otherwise impair their sensing
To appreciate the requirement for high resolution, it is helpful to performance.
compare an FOC application with a trapezoidal commutation appli- In addition, optical encoders usually offer only an incremental
Simply Magnetic.
8- to 16-bit
resolution
Insensitive against
external magnetic
Broadest range stray fields
of high performance
AEC-Q100
magnetic linear and automotive qualified
rotary encoder ICs
www.austriamicrosystems.com/MagneticEncoders

DESIGN &PRODUCTS
mentation of this principle. Magnetic

encoders of the type manufactured
by austriamicrosystems contain an
array of Hall sensors. The sensors,
configured in pairs, produce a dif-
ferential output that is amplified and
digitised before being processed by an
on-board DSP. The outputs of the DSP
include a serial bit stream and a PWM
signal. It can operate at speeds up to
30,000rpm, and provides high resolu-
tion of from 360 steps/revolution (in
the case of the AS5134) up to 4,196
Fig. 4: Using a reference frame translator isolates PI controllers from time variances in current and voltage.
steps/revolution (AS5145).
output, which means that they have no absolute position informa-
tion at start-up. This means they need up to one full turn before they All of this functionality is contained in a small monolithic IC. The
know the absolute position of the rotor. Absolute optical encoders AS5134’s package measures 5.3x7.2mm and when mounted on the
are available, but are more expensive. rotor shaft, the magnetic encoder is small enough to be used even in
Resolvers use an inductive magnetic sensing technique to space-constrained BLDC motors. This assembly can be used in any
produce high-resolution outputs, but these devices are bulky and size or configuration of BLDC motor.
expensive, and their mounting (flanged directly on to the rotor shaft) Due to the magnetic principle of operation, it is immune to dust
is inflexible from a design point of view and expensive from a pro- and other contaminants as well as to stray magnetic fields, and is not
duction point of view. By comparison with both of these technolo- subject to mechanical wear and tear. The emergence of a new breed
gies, a magnetic encoder is far better suited to BLDC motor control. of magnetic encoders from suppliers such as austriamicrosystems
The benefits of a magnetic encoder derive from its basic operating offers motor control system designers the opportunity to deploy FOC
principle, and from the high level of integration in the CMOS imple- control in more systems. n
Increasing motor efficiency

with power factor control
By Mark Steinmetz
“Global Warming, Carbon Footprint, and are ran at full speed. Currently, the average motor
energy efficiency are becoming mantras for the in- in use today has an efficiency of 88% in convert-
dustrial manufacturing sector.  With energy costs ing electrical into mechanical energy. Even an ef-
constantly rising leading to increased overhead ficient compliant motor can reduce energy by no
costs, the need to use electrical energy in a more more than 10%, even under optimum operating
efficient manner by reducing the amount is at the conditions (i.e. full line voltage). Industrial motor
fundamental basis of this crisis.  users are finding that further energy savings can
Over 40 million electric motors are used in man- be realized by using electronic speed controls (i.e.
ufacturing operations in the United States alone inverter based), which can reduce energy by 30%,
and electric motors account for 65 to 70% of indus- and mechanical energy by 60%.
trial electrical energy consumption and approxi- Numerous motors operate at light loads and
mately 57 percent of all electrical consumption according to a Department of Energy study, 44%
worldwide. Governments around the world are of motors in industrial facilities operate at 40%
mandating regulatory pressure to increase motor or less of full load and are thus, operating inef-
efficiency. Though, many motor applications use ficiently. A drive’s contribution to energy savings
an oversize motor for their required mechanical lies in its ability to allow you to manage motor
load while other applications employ a motor’s full operations to reduce output power by controlling
speed operation and control the output by mechan- its speed. Managing motor speeds, ramps, and
ical means. These types of implementation for mo- available torque translates directly into managing
tor applications waste precious energy, since they power consumption.
Mark Steinmetz is field applications engineer at Vincotech GmbH - www.vincotech.com

DESIGN & PRODUCTS
SPECIAL FOCUS
MOTORS & DRIVES
has increased losses, it is

bulky and costly due to
the large amount of cop-
per being used.
In comparison, the in-
terleave PFC features two
parallel boost stages work-
ing 180° out-of-phase with
each other. It requires
two small current sense
transformers for feedback
control, because the two
boost circuits work 180°
out-of-phase. This unique
technique reduces both
the input and output
ripple current, which also
reduces the total inductor
boost volume and the size
Fig. 1: The TI interleave controller IC along the Vincotech flow 0 power module (i.e. P98x) shown within the dotted line. The of the EMI filter. Thus
flow 0 module comprises of a bridge rectifier, a current sense resistor, two high speed MOSFETs or IGBTs depending on the this topology yields over-
version, two silicon carbide or ultra fast boost diodes and two high frequency noise capacitors. all lower systems costs.
The power factor Link capacitors

Electronic designers are now looking to maximize the energy effi- Depending on the allowable motor ripple current, the single boost
ciency of a motor drive application using Power Factor Control (PFC).  inductor will require a large amount of electrolytic capacitors to
Using an electronic drive to regulate the output speed of the smooth the output from the PFC. Again, the interleave PFC roughly
motor for the mechanical load required, with the addition of Power requires 50% less high-frequency output capacitor current than a
Factor Control improves efficiency of the drive by correcting the single-stage topology.  This reduction in current can translate into a
out of phase voltage and the current being used. The power factor is 25% reduction in boost capacitor volume.
defined by the relationship between the instantaneous voltage and
current waveform being applied.  When the PF=1 (maximum), both Complexity
the voltage and current are completely in phase with one another.  Single boost PFC circuits are supported by a wide variety of con-
This happens when the load is purely resistive. trollers and as a mature technology, advanced designs from various
If the current and voltage are out of phase, the power factor is IC suppliers already integrate the functionality into a controller,
less than one.  This happens when the load looks inductive (the case making this type of circuits easy to implement.
of electric motors) which causes an out of phase condition. Thus Previously, designing an interleave PFC circuit was rather
the power being applied is not used optimally and energy is being complex and required a lot of analogue circuitry.  However, Texas
wasted.  Since the voltage at the motor input is fixed, the current Instruments has made designing this topology much simpler us-
increases to compensate for this phase shift to supply the necessary ing their UCC28070 controller.  Although more support discrete
mechanical power required. Not only does this situation cost more components are required over the single boost type of PFC, the
money to operate, it impacts infrastructure cost having to use larger two out of phase boost circuits are identical which simplifies the
conductors to power motors and larger circuit breakers.  Finally, design.
more heat is generated by the motor yielding a shorter operating life
for it. Thus implementing a power factor design in a drive will yield Efficiency
less energy usage, lower implementation cost (size, mechanical, wir- Both the single boost and interleave will increase the drive’s effi-
ing, safety), flexibility (speed), and longer motor life. ciency over the ±10% input voltage range. 
The TI UCC28070 interleave controller has additional provisions
Types of power factor control to improve light load conditions by turning off a phase under these
A classic single boost topology is often used for the power fac- conditions. The size reduction of the boost inductors, along with the
tor control circuits present in many drive applications. Recently, lower electrolytic capacitor requirements give the interleave PFC
Interleave Power Factor (IPF) has gained much interest in the drive topology a clear advantage over single boost PFC, both for density
community. Each of these types of PFC topologies has distinct ben- and overall drive size. 
efits.  Let’s take a closer look at what each has to offer the designer.
Power module solutions
Inductors Based upon these two power switch technologies, Vincotech has
The single boost PFC requires a single boost inductor and power designed a large portfolio of power modules from which to choose,
switch. However, in high power motor applications (i.e. 3HP or great- based upon using silicon carbide boost diodes for performance, or
er), the boost inductor becomes quite large. In addition, this larger coil stealth types for lower cost considerations.  The right power switch
alpha argomax ™
37
May 2011 Electronic Engineering Times Europe
ALPHA® Argomax™ sinter technology enables higher
performance and reliability from your Si/SiC/GaN
power devices while protecting our environment.
Click on: www.alphadieattach.com
New ALPHA® Argomax™ sinter technology will meet the Alpha supports you every step of the way – from first proof of
®
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hybrid electric vehicles, wind and solar power generation, through implementation in your facilities. As part of our green
transportation, industrial applications, consumer electronics, philosophy, our reclaim services are designed to meet or exceed
telecommunications and more. your health, safety and environmental standards.
ALPHA® Argomax™ sinter technology for die attach is easy ALPHA® Argomax™ – Wherever electrical power is generated
to use, and is engineered to perform extremely well in low and consumed.
pressure, fast sintering, high volume manufacturing processes,
For more information about ALPHA® Argomax™, go to
resulting in highly reliable lead-free silver bonds.
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ALPHA® Argomax™ delivers:
Visit us at PCIM Stand #668 Hall 12
• Fast sintering – high throughput
• Low pressure – high yield
• High reliability – greater than three times that of solder
• Green – lead-free, enables energy-efficient technology
Worldwide/Americas Headquarters • 109 Corporate Boulevard • South Plainfield, NJ 07080 • USA • +1-814-946-1611 – Dial 0 • www.alpha.cooksonelectronics.com
European Headquarters • Forsyth Road • Sheerwater • Woking GU215RZ • United Kingdom • +44-1483-758-400
Asia-Pacific Headquarters • 1/F, Block A • 21 Tung Yuen Street • Yau Tong Bay • Kowloon, Hong Kong • +852-3190-3100
© 2011 Cookson Electronics
DESIGN & PRODUCTS
SPECIAL FOCUS
MOTORS & DRIVES
and diode combination will depend on the designer’s requirement of This means that fewer
switching frequencies, losses, and cost. components are required
to filter out noise, cutting
Module versus discrete solution implementation costs.
With drives becoming a commodity product, especially in the lower Fully assembled and
horsepower ranges, cost is the driving factor. Many designers have conformity-tested mod-
used low cost discrete packaged power switches and have ignored ules offer higher reliabil-
the benefits of a module solution.  ity from a component’s
From a design standpoint, Vincotech’s modules are designed to standpoint than multiple
have very low inductance and extremely tight current loops.  This point to point connec-
keeps the effects of electrical noise to a minimum. tions found in discrete
Fig. 2: The Vincotech flow 0 power module.
solutions. Using Vincotech’s flowSIM simula-
Can a simple blood test tor, a designer can determine the exact losses,
die temperature, and other electrical charac-
teristics for a given drive application. Each
detect cancer before component that Vincotech qualifies has
numerous actual measurements taken under
it’s cancer? a wide range of electrical test conditions.

This results in a very accurate model for
each component used in the database’s simu-
lator, hence the power modules’ electrical
parameters are true to real world results. This
further saves design time and guess work. 
Finally, assembly becomes much easier since
a single component (versus many discretes)
is used on the PCB.
Find the latest biotechnology  
Single boost type
research in IEEE Xplore The V2390-P802 provides designers with a
diode bridge (D30) or 1/2 controlled inrush
Wherever you find the most advanced biotechnology,
SCR (D40) front end plus a 500V CoolMOS
chances are you’ll find the IEEE Xplore digital library. power switch. For the interleave type, where
That’s because IEEE Xplore is filled with the latest small size and low losses are the driving fac-
research on everything from DNA sequencing and tissue tor, a PFC module using advanced CoolMOS
engineering—to moving one step closer to predicting CP plus a SiC boost diode will be the best
solution. 
cancer with a simple blood test.
If you need to keep the magnetics and
capacitance small by using a high switch-
When it comes to biotechnology, the research that
ing frequency, the FZ062TA99FH-P980D18
matters is in IEEE Xplore.
will give you the ability to switch up to 200
KHz. In applications where size or volume
See for yourself. Read “Genomic Processing for Cancer
is not a major consideration but cost is, the
Classification and Prediction,” only in IEEE Xplore. FZ062TA030FB-P983D18 using IGBT plus
Stealth diode technology comes as a good
Try IEEE Xplore free— compromise.  As for the single boost type,
either a full diode bridge or a 1/2 control SCR
visit www.ieee.org/detectingcancer
can be specified.
For a more integrated approach such as
incorporating a six pack inverter with a PFC
solution, a broad range of modules is avail-
able from Vincotech. Offered in a low cost
but ruggedize flow0 package, the PIM [PIM
IEEE Xplore® Digital Library (C +PFC) i.e. P37x series] will meet both per-
formance and cost considerations for single
Information driving innovation
boost PFC applications on motor sizes 2HP to
3HP range. n
Electronic Engineering Times Europe May
3809-CRS-0223m-Biotech-5x7.875-Final-2010.indd 1 2011 11/23/09 2:04:03 PM
DESIGN &PRODUCTS
Extended temperature photocoupler Text and graphics controller board

for industrial motor control for Fujitsu printer mechanisms
Toshiba Electronics Europe logic, open collector output and GeBE Elektronik und Feinwerk- himself. The board can be up-
(TEE) has unveiled an ultra- offers transmission rates up to technik GmbH launched the graded easily and supports a
compact, extended temperature 1 Mbps. Maximum transmis- GCT-6692, a text and graphics very large range of applications.
photocoupler that provides sion delay time is only 550 ns controller board
a space-saving solution for and maximum switching time developed for
industrial dispersion is printer mecha-
applications just 400 ns. nisms with a
that require The new pho- cutter for the series
an isolation tocoupler is FTP-627/637 from
interface be- based around Fujitsu.
tween intel- a GaAlAs LED The compact and
ligent power that is opti- low-cost GeBE con-
modules cally coupled troller works with
(IPMs) and to an inte- both the extremely
IC control grated, high- small 12V as well
circuitry. Ideally suited to indus- gain, high-speed photodetector. as the 24V printer
trial motor control and general- A wide input capability supports mechanisms of
purpose inverter applications, input voltages from 4.5 V to 30 this series, helping them show It can be connected to RS232 or
the new TLP2404 provides a V and an internal Faraday shield off their print speed of up to 150 USB interfaces.
minimum isolation voltage ensures a guaranteed, minimum mm/s. The customizable control- GeBE Elektronik
of 3750 Vrms. Operation is common mode transient immu- ler board allows firmware to be
guaranteed across the extended nity of ±15 kV/µs. altered by the OEM customer www.oem-printer.com
EET InStk+18650 4/26/11 11:51 AM Page 1
industrial temperature range of Toshiba Electronics Europe
-40 to 125 degrees C. Toshiba’s
TLP2404 features an inverter www.toshiba-components.com
24h motor prototyping

from Haydon Kerk Motion Solutions’ website
A premier manufacturer of engi- is the 2D/3D Model Downloads
neered linear motion products, feature. The Haydon Kerk 2D/3D
Haydon Kerk Motion Solutions download allows a designer to
launched a new website with configure a part using multiple
enhanced look and navigation, parameters including stroke
including new
tabbed naviga-
tion, access to
24 hour proto-
type ordering,
configurable 2D
• Low profile SMT and THM versions
drawings, and
• Available for one or two cells
3D CAD model
• Holds battery securely in place
downloads. • Polarity clearly marked for orientation
The “buy online” • Battery installation and removal does
feature allows the not require tools
customer access to a wide range length, screw lead, motor step • UL 94V-0 heat resistant nylon housing
well suited for reflow soldering
of standard off-the-shelf prod- angle, operating voltage, and • Accommodates cells with or without
ucts for 24 hour shipping. This is other technical specifications. built-in PCB protection circuits
perfect for a designer or engineer Once configured, the file can be
wanting to quickly prototype downloaded in various 3D file RoHS Compliant ~ ISO 9001 Certified
®
a concept while deciding what formats or a 2D dimensioned

customizations will be neces- outline drawing. European Headquarters: 80, Rue Orfila, 75020 Paris, France
Fax: 33 (1) 46 36 81 57 • e-mail: euro@keyelco.com
sary for the final component or Haydon Kerk Motion Solutions
Tel: 33 (1) 46 36 82 49 • Web: www.keyelco.com
subassembly design.
Another tool for the engineer www.haydonkerk.com Available from our global distributor network

DESIGN & PRODUCTS
DISPLAY
TECHNOLOGIES
Cutting costs with custom

LCD and LED technology
By Jeff Oliveros
One of the most significant developments in the global opto-
electronics and display markets over the past few years has been
a complete revolution in the value proposition offered by custom
technologies. Recent technological advancements have radically re-
defined industry notions about the inherent benefits and drawbacks
of custom versus standard technologies. Understanding how custom
technology has evolved, the unique benefits it provides end users,
and the process through which quality providers create custom solu-
tions can help brands speed time to market, identify cost savings,
improve product performance and enhance brand differentiation.
Updating outdated assumptions about LCD and LED

technologies
For much of the past 20 years, custom LCD and LED technolo-
gies were commonly associated with enhanced application-specific
performance but also with higher costs, long lead times and reduced
reliability. Over the past five years- technological advancements have completely redefined how custom technology performs on each of
these fronts. As custom tooling has been simplified and quality sup-
pliers have developed expertise in the specific challenges of custom
V-LOCK
technology development, processes have been streamlined resulting
in shorter lead times. Whereas previously a custom technology could
have a lead time of three to four months, today custom technologies
can have lead times as short as two to four weeks for LEDs and four
IEC Connectors with to six weeks for LCDs.
integrated cord retaining It is also no longer appropriate to view custom technologies as
mechanism less reliable than standard products. A good supplier can deliver
products with less than 50 to 100 parts per million (PPM) failure
rates. Identifying the most effective technology for a particular appli-
cation and creating a streamlined production process that integrates
various components (like light pipes, switches, connectors, PCBs,
etc.) in the most efficient way possible will generate cost savings in a
number of different ways.
As a single custom LCD or LED supplier can provide a compre-
hensive custom solution, the number of suppliers needed is reduced,
reducing procurement costs. Acquiring various components through
a single supplier allows for a single bill of materials, simplifying ac-
counting processes and reducing transaction costs. Complimentary
product integration support from your supplier will cut your design
engineering costs as design engineers no longer need to spend time
and money researching individual components and integrating
them in a way that ensures maximum efficiency. This also translates
into faster time to market. Because the product is custom-tailored
to specific application requirements, cost savings are achieved by
- Prevents unintended disconnection
identifying the components that most exactly fit specific product
- Ease of use and no additional parts required
- Suitable for safe power supply in mobile equipment demands. For example, energy savings can be generated if a high
output / low power consumption technology can meet and fulfill all
www.schurter.com/pem_news
performance expectations (rather than over spending on high power
that is not needed).
Jeff Oliveros is director of OEM products at Lumex – www.lumex.com

DESIGN &PRODUCTS
sign support for small, medium

and large volume products.
Streamlining the entire

production process
Custom product development is
not completed until the product
has passed through the entire
production process – from in-
bound inspection, to production,
to in-field performance. A quality
supplier not only provides tips
Over the past five years, there has been a radical improvement in the qual- on how to streamline the entire
ity, cost and speed of custom LED and LCD product creation. production process for maxi-
mum efficiency, they also have
Case study experts available worldwide to
A LCD solution recently created for the medical industry il- provide assistance in each step A major manufacturer of portable
lustrates how custom technology can generate both performance of the process. This helps ensure defibrillators was able to enhance
enhancements and cost savings compared to off-the-shelf solutions. that the custom product de- performance and reduce costs with a
A major manufacturer of portable defibrillators wanted to increase signed for maximum efficiency custom LCD technology solution.
the operating range of their premier brand of equipment primarily and performance can in fact provide superior performance as the
used in mobile emergency transportation. product moves out of design and into production and distribution.
The customer was experiencing cold start issues with the display Representatives worldwide should guide products out of the develop-
having slow response times and segment inconsistency. In addition, ment process and through production in tangent with any contract
they wanted to ruggedize the face of the display against blunt force manufacturers or other production partners. n
EET InStk+LEDSpacersRev1 4/27/11 12:13 PM Page 1
and bodily fluids. The Lumex Custom design team was able to create
a unique LCD module designed to function in the most strenu-
ous temperature conditions (-40°C to 85°C). A fluid and polarizer
combination was created that was stable enough to survive repeated
high/low temperature cycling while maintaining the contrast and
performance. Thus the performance offered by the custom solution
was superior to any available standard technology and the brand was
able to eliminate their cold start screen performance issues.
At the same time, the custom solution allowed for significant
cost savings by working closely with the customer’s design and
manufacturing teams throughout the process, coming up with the
highest performance integrated display solution. After significant
lab testing, Lumex was able to integrate the display within a custom
LCD module including integrated PCB, backlight, holder, connectors
and a scratch/impact resistant cover. The integrated solution reduced
procurement, transaction and design engineering integration costs
while simplifying the bill of materials and ordering processes.
Thus by selecting a custom solution- the brand was able to en-
hance performance and reduce costs compared to available standard
• Designed for Bi-Lead T-1 LED’s
products. • Unique internal retaining teeth secures
LED leads onto spacer
The Custom LCD & LED product development process • Reduce labor costs by preassembly of
LED and Spacer
The first step of a custom design process should always be to ask • Internal tapered barrier design eliminates
questions in order to understand exactly what the customer´s needs crimping or shorting of leads
• Dual purpose boss design dissipates heat
are for a particular application. Rather than pushing a customer and eases post soldering clean-up
towards a particular product solution already in their portfolio, a • Available in lengths from .120(3.1) to
quality supplier will instead put their focus on customer needs and .925(23.5) long
• No special tools required
identify a solution that is custom-tailored to an application´s specific
performance and cost requirements. RoHS Compliant ~ ISO 9001 Certified
®
Expert and complimentary product design support should be pro-

vided flexibly enough to best match the application needs, whether
European Headquarters: 80, Rue Orfila, 75020 Paris, France
it be designing a solution from scratch or helping tweak an existing Fax: 33 (1) 46 36 81 57 • e-mail: euro@keyelco.com
product design. Several design options should be presented that meet Tel: 33 (1) 46 36 82 49 • Web: www.keyelco.com
and exceed expectations, with complementary custom product de- Available from our global distributor network

DESIGN & PRODUCTS
DISPLAY
TECHNOLOGIES
The future belongs to DisplayPort

By Zeljko Loncaric
The Video Graphics Interface (VGA) has firmly established The Digital Visual
itself since IBM launched the first graphics cards in 1987 in order Interface (DVI) is a
to display graphics on a CRT monitor. Over time, VGA signals were borderline case. De-
complemented by a confusing variety of interface options such as pending on the imple-
DVI, LVDS, HDMI and, most recently, DisplayPort. mentation, this inter-
The success of flat panel displays has greatly helped drive this face enables analogue
development forward. and digital video data
Modern computer modules such as COM Express and Qseven transmission via a
allow the flexible implementation of customized applications and single connector. DVI
support a variety of display interfaces for an optimal solution. The has established itself Fig. 1: A wide variety of interface options
latest COM Express Type 2 modules from congatec already support firmly in the high-end
the DisplayPort graphics interface, which looks set to become the PC sector, but it has not managed to replace VGA entirely.
standard of the future for internal graphics control in embedded The all-digital High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) has
applications. found broad acceptance in private television and video applications
Image quality is the driving factor behind the development of due to the growing use of HDTV (High Definition Television). HDMI
new display technologies. Current display interface technologies also enables encryption of video data, a function that is very much in
already take the increase in the amount of data to be transmitted into demand by the film and entertainment industry. HDCP (High-band-
account. While the analogue VGA connector is still by far the most width Digital Content Protection), an encryption system developed
common video interface, it looks likely to die out soon because the by Intel, is used for Digital Rights Management (DRM).
current alternatives offer clear advantages. To enable even higher resolutions, UDI (Unified Display Interface)
was launched. However, this standard did not succeed due to a lack
of support by the manufacturers. By contrast, DisplayPort – which
was introduced by the Video Electronics Standards Association
(VESA) – is enjoying increasing popularity. As more and more mod-
ern chipsets and devices support DisplayPort, it seems likely that this
very powerful interface will soon replace VGA ports.
In addition to these interfaces for external devices, there are other
definitions for use within systems. Small displays with up to 12” and
resolutions of 800x600 pixels can be controlled via a simple paral-
lel data interface (often called TTL interface). Internal displays with
higher resolutions are usually directly controlled by Low Voltage
Differential Signalling (LVDS).
A comparison of VGA, DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort

After more than 20 years, the VGA interface standard is by now
significantly restricting the uses of modern displays. The fact that
the resolution is limited to about 1280x1024 pixels is an issue as is
the fact that the analogue video signals need to be digitized in the
display or monitor.
On the computer side, the original digital image data needs to be
converted to analogue signals. Even if both transformations - digital to
analogue, then analogue to digital - are executed perfectly, systematic
rounding errors will occur on both sides leading to a visible reduction
in image quality. The analogue VGA signals are also transmitted in the
DVI-A variant of the DVI standard. The advantage of the DVI connector
over the older 15-pin VGA D-sub connector is higher data bandwidth.
While it is possible to achieve higher bandwidth and thus higher resolu-
tions with DVI-A, this is not a real alternative to purely digital transmis-
sion. The DVI standard was published by the Digital Display Working
Group (DDWG) in 1999 and became the first digital display interface
with a wider distribution. DVI comes in two forms: DVI-I supports both
Zeljko Loncaric is marketing manager at congatec AG - www.congatec.com

DESIGN &PRODUCTS
analogue VGA and digital display signals; and DVI-D, which works only
digitally. The group also defined a third form, DVI-A, which transmits
only analogue signals and is really just another connector for VGA.
Depending on the required data bandwidth, the digital interface can
contain up to two links. A DVI link consists of three data pairs and one
clock pair permitting data transfer rates of up to 4.8 Gbit/s. The optional
second link adds another three data pairs thereby increasing the raw Table 1: The different interface options at a glance.
capacity to 9.6 Gbit/s. DVI-I with a single link can be used to control
displays with up to 1915x1436 pixels at 60 Hz refresh rate and an aspect applications. HDMI will remain the preferred interface for home TV
ratio of 4:3. The two link version increases the maximum resolution to applications. Because of the licensing costs it incurs it is unsuitable
2708x2030 pixels. for industrial applications as a rule. Both DisplayPort and HDMI can
Since DVI is not optimally suited for the consumer devices market, transmit audio signals, but with DisplayPort enabling about twice the
leading companies have joined forces to define a special variant of the data bandwidth as compared to HDMI or DVI, it can handle extremely
DVI specification for TV applications. The result was the above-men- high resolutions.
tioned High-Definition Multimedia Interface. HDMI is essentially a DisplayPort can be used both for external and internal display
single-link Transition Minimized Differential Signalling (TMDS) as an control. A specific definition - the so-called Embedded DisplayPort
electrical interface (like DVI), as well as a standard for embedding digital (EDP) – enables cheap internal connection of displays. DisplayPort’s
audio signals into the video stream. HDMI also supports Intel High Defi- differential data lines allow cable lengths of up to 15 meters. But even
nition Content Protection (HDCP) for copy protection. While HDCP is for short distances within a computer system DisplayPort looks likely to
optional according to the specification, it is implemented in virtually all replace the LVDS interface. According to the COM Express specification
HDMI consumer devices. DVI displays can be connected to HDMI ports DisplayPort support will not be available until the release of Type 6 pin
without a problem via a simple adapter. assignments. Many of congatec’s COM Express Type 2 modules, such as
In addition to image data, HDMI transmits up to 8 channels of audio conga-BM67 with Intel Quad Core, or the conga-BAF with AMD Fusion
at 192 kHz sample rate and 24 bit resolution from version 1.2 upwards. technology, already support the DisplayPort video interface today. The
The maximum pixel rate for video data is currently 340 Mpixels/s. This DisplayPort signals are transmitted via the PEG lines without violating
EET InStk+MiniSTerm 4/26/11 11:52 AM Page 1
means that all current consumer electronics image and sound formats, the specification. n
including HDTV (up to the highest 1080p resolution) can be transmitted
at the highest quality. Other image resolutions of up to 2560x1600 pixels
at 75 Hz refresh rate are also supported. With HDMI 1.3, the transmis-
sion of colour depths up to 48 bits can be transmitted. HDMI is not a free
standard; companies that develop devices with HDMI capabilities have
to pay license fees to the HDMI organization - www.hdmi.org .
DisplayPort which was defined in late 2005, it has now been accepted
as a display interface specification by the VESA. It differs from TMDS-
based interfaces such as DVI and HDMI primarily because it follows
a packet-oriented communication protocol. This allows the optional
transmission of audio signals along with the video information. In the
future, it will be possible to realize multiple video channels per cable
or a screen tiling (where multiple screens make up one overall image)
without changing the specification.
A DisplayPort can consist of one, two or four “lanes” (differential data
pairs). Depending on the required data rate the interface is configured
automatically to make the best use of the transmission capacity. If all
four lanes are used a data bandwidth of 10.8 Gbit/s is available. This is
adequate for resolutions up to 4096x2560 pixels at 60 Hz frame rate and
24 bit colour depth. Version 2.0 of the DisplayPort specification doubles
the capacity along with the possible number of pixels.
• Cost effective PCB connectivity
DVI is currently the most popular and widely used digital display • Easily connect wire, crimp lugs or terminals
interface. For private television applications, HDMI is now the domi- • Ideal for 22-14 AWG wire applications
nant solution. However, because of its efficiency and the direct support • 15 Amp rating
of chip makers, the role of DisplayPort has started to accelerate even • Available assembled with wire retention contact
to prevent wire damage
more rapidly now, in particular since Intel and AMD have announced • Durable Tin Plating for excellent solderability
that as of 2015 they will no longer support the VGA display interface in
their products. RoHS Compliant ~ ISO 9001 Certified
®
Intel will stop supporting LVDS as of 2013 and AMD is also plan-
ning to drop support from most products. Together with Dell, Lenovo,
European Headquarters: 80, Rue Orfila, 75020 Paris, France
Samsung and LG Display, Intel and AMD plan to radically speed up the Fax: 33 (1) 46 36 81 57 • e-mail: euro@keyelco.com
change over to the digital display interfaces DisplayPort and HDMI. Tel: 33 (1) 46 36 82 49 • Web: www.keyelco.com
DisplayPort and HDMI enable the construction of compact, low-power Available from our global distributor network

DESIGN & PRODUCTS
DISPLAY
TECHNOLOGIES
LED-backlit wide VGA LCDs 15.4“ wide WXGA TFT

target industrial, medical and handheld applications for industrial applications
LCD manufacturer Optrex and a standard LVDS interface. With its 15.4“ TFT for industrial with a minimum 50,000 hours.
America has launched a new A touch screen version is also applications the Taiwanese dis- The LED light bar is replaceable.
family of compact LCDs with a available. This display is well play specialist CHIMEI-Innolux CMI guarantees for all G-mod-
range of advanced features for suited for industrial handheld (CMI, former CMO) has followed ules an availability of at least 5
a variety of industrial, medical applications, GPS, medical the market trend for displays years starting from the date of
and handheld diagnostic in wide-for- design-in at
applications. devices, mat with LED the customer.
The 5” diagonal and more. backlight. The Thus the
LED-backlit The com- G154I1-LE1 display is
WVGA (wide pany also supports a suitable for
VGA 800x480 launched a WXGA resolu- industrial
resolution) TFT- 3.5” QVGA tion (1.280x800 applications
LCD features (Quarter dots) with a that require
Optrex’s Super VGA 320 x 6-bit/8-bit LVDS both optimal
Wide View 240) TFT- interface and optical perfor-
(SWV) technology with viewing LCD with a 400 cd/m2 bright- has a contrast ratio of 700:1 with mance and long-time availabil-
angles of 85/85/85/85 and true ness, a 750:1 contrast ratio, view- a brightness of 450nits/m2. ity. Data Modul offers fitting
outdoor readabity. It has a slim ing angles of 80/80/80/80, and a The converter for the backlight driving solutions and certified
design, with a total thickness of long lifetime LED backlight (50 unit has already been built in. accessories for the new G154I1-
only 3.9 mm, and provides high K hours on average). Measuring 352x230x9mm, the LE1 as well.
brightness (800 cd/m2), a 900:1 Optrex America unit is compatible to the earlier Data Modul
contrast ratio, a wide operating version with CCFL backlight.
temperature range of -20 to 70ºC, www.optrex.com The LED lifetime is specified www.data-modul.com
Key Features
3.5, 4.3, 5.7 & 7.0 inch
iSMART TFT Modules
256K+ Colours Fast Access 64Mbyte Display Memory
64Mbyte Display RAM
128Mbyte Flash 7.0 inch
4G+ Micro SDHC Slot Upgrade your Character or Graphic LCD
LED Backlight Control module to TFT with our low cost easy to
5V Supply 3.3V Logic programme unique display solutions
ASCII + Unicode Fonts
RS232 / Async Ports 4.3 inch

SPI - I2C Interfaces
5.7 inch
USB Device Interface
Resistive Touch Screen
Up to 12x12 Key Control
Up to 24 User Digital I/O
Up to 4 PWM Outputs
2 Analogue Inputs
Real Time Clock + Date
Price
Size 1+ 100+
3.5, 4.7 €89 €79
• ARM9 core +3.5 inch
5.7, 7.0 €135 €122
Prices subject to VAT & terms
• Low Profile
for -K612A1TU versions • 5yr+ Product Platform availability
Noritake Itron www.itrontft.com sales@itrontft.com

DESIGN & PRODUCTS
DISPLAY
TECHNOLOGIES
Widescreen colour TFT

LCDs target industrial
applications
By Julien Happich
IN FACTORY AUTOMATION applications
where high reliability and a long life back-
light are really mandatory, TFT-LCD modules
are gaining in popularity with wide format
displays very much in demand.
Addressing the industrial market, Mit-
subishi Electric has designed TFT-LCD mod-
ules relying on LED backlights rather than
cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFL). This Fig. 1: a 12.1” TFT-LCD module with built-in LED
ensures a longer backlight driver
lifetime, typi-
cally 100,000
hours at 25ºC,
and also elimi-
nates the need
for high-voltage
inverters which
require safety
and electrical
noise reduc-
tion measures.
The product
portfolio ranges
from 4.3” to
17.5” colour
units operating Fig. 2: Comparison of a conventional and super-wide viewing angle from different angles
in the -30 to 80°C
temperature range and under all kinds of angles models extend their display capabili-
environments where extreme vibrations and ties to 170 degrees in both the vertical and
shock loads are present. According to the horizontal directions, ensuring a clear image
company’s figures, the luminance of the LED regardless of the screen position.
backlight-equipped LCD modules tops LCD Four widescreen LCD modules versions
modules employing CCFL backlights over are available, namely the 9.0, 12.1, 14.1 and
the entire temperature range. 17.5-inch diagonal units with the same
Mitsubishi Electric has also developed height as the more conventional 4:3 aspect
LCD materials that maintain image quality ratio LCD modules measuring 6.5, 8, 10.4,
at high temperatures as well as structural 12.1 or 15-inch. n
designs that minimize increases in local
temperature by efficiently releasing the heat
generated by the CCFL/LED backlights.
The display modules are checked at an
in-house EMI evaluation centre to ensure
that they meet the standards for industrial
products. For enhanced results, the units
use Natural Color Matrix colour conversion
technology to reproduce colours as closely Fig. 3: Widescreen TFT-LCD modules
to the true colours of objects. Wide viewing accommodating 4:3 aspect ratio configurations.

A8E_EE-Times-Eur_2-375x10-875:A8.qxd 4/5/11 1:2
DESIGN & PRODUCTS
rf ace Mount Analog front end digitiser ICs

Su ug In)
(and Pl ers and offer innovative imaging solution for home office appliances
rm
Transfo uctors Wolfson Microelectronics plc has intro- the analog output signals from CCD sensors
Ind duced a new range of analog front end (AFE) or contact image sensors. The devices offer a
ly
mediate digitiser integrated circuits, which can be variety of channel and ADC configurations,
ll C a talog im c o m easily integrated into the latest generation allowing system designers to choose the con-
o’s fu .
See Pic r o n ic s
o e le c t
ic of imaging equipment in the home or office figuration which best suits their purpose.
w w w. p
including digital copiers, scanners (includ- For the consumer, this means higher scan-
Low Profile from ing portable bar code scanners) and multi- ning speeds at high scan resolutions.
function printers (MFPs). Part of Wolfson’s
.19"ht.
Wolfson Microelectronics
imaging portfolio, the WM8232, WM8233,
WM8234 and WM8235 process and digitise www.wolfsonmicro.com
Space saving 500mA dual POL regulator

Audio Transformers replaces LDOs with higher efficiency alternative
Impedance Levels 10 ohms to 250k ohms,
Power Levels to 3 Watts, Frequency Response Semtech’s SC197 500 mA, dual-output, point- integrated 4-bit VID pins to provide dynamic
±3db 20Hz to 250Hz. All units manufactured and of-load (POL) regulator voltage scaling, without the need for external
tested to MIL-PRF-27. QPL Units available.
combines two PWM programming resistors. Both regulators in the
Power & EMI Inductors DC-DC regulators in SC197 operate from inputs of 2.9 to 5.5 V and
Ideal for Noise, Spike and Power Filtering low-profile 2x3x0.6mm provide 15 pin-programmable output voltages
Applications in Power Supplies, DC-DC
Converters and Switching Regulators package. Power efficien- from 0.8 V to 3.3 V, covering all the typical core
cy up to 94% makes the and I/O voltage rails with one device.
Pulse Transformers device a higher efficien- Semtech
10 Nanoseconds to 100 Microseconds.
ET Rating to 150 Volt Microsecond, Manufactured cy alternative to LDOs.
and tested to MIL-PRF-21038.
The SC197 also features www.semtech.com/info
Multiplex Data Bus
Pulse Transformers
Plug-In units meet the requirements
of QPL-MIL-PRF 21038/27.
Surface units are electrical equivalents
Battery-free wireless sensor system
of QPL-MIL-PRF 21038/27. monitors busbars and busways
DC-DC Converter Micropelt launched qNODE, a wireless condi- sustain ultra-low
Transformers tion monitoring sensor designed to increase power (ULP) wire-
Input voltages of 5V, 12V, 24V And 48V.
Standard Output Voltages to 300V (Special both operating safety and power availability less devices on a
voltages can be supplied). Can be used as self
saturating or linear switching applications. All units in 24/7 production environments. Thermal en- duty cycle basis, where sensing and transmit-
manufactured and tested to MIL-PRF-27. ergy harvesting uses the busbar current load’s ting takes fractions of a second and occurs
400Hz/800Hz resistive heat to operate the wireless sensor every minute or so. It only takes a few seconds
Power Transformers nodes. Micropelt’s chip-scale thermoelectric to fit the qNODE onto a busbar.
0.4 Watts to 150 Watts. Secondary Voltages 5V to technology generates 140 millivolts per Kelvin Micropelt
300V. Units manufactured to MIL-PRF-27 Grade 5,
Class S (Class V, 1550C available). of temperature differential. This permits ef-
ficient DC conversion and enough power to www.micropelt.com
to one week
Delivery-Stock ntities
ua
for sample q M2M and geolocation made simpler
daughter board comes with all application code
PICO Electronics, Inc.
143 Sparks Ave. Pelham, N.Y. 10803
Microchip has developed a Machine-
to-Machine (M2M) platform using its
Microchip’s Multimedia Expan-
sion Board and PIC32 Starter Kit.
E Mail: info@picoelectronics.com PICtail Daughter Board format, that The M2M PICtail daughter board
www.picoelectronics.com
comes with all of the hardware, wire- enables phone, text, e-mail and
Pico Representatives
Germany less-communication protocols and Web communications, including
ELBV/Electronische Bauelemente Vertrieb application-code examples needed to images and location information.
E mail: info@elbv.de
Phone: 0049 (0)89 4602852 help designers jump start their fleet-manage- Microchip offers free-for-download M2M soft-
Fax: 0049 (0)89 46205442 ment or location-based service application. ware libraries to further reduce time to market.
England
Ginsbury Electronics Ltd. Developed with u-blox, the daughter board Microchip
E-mail: rbennett@ginsbury.co.uk
Phone: 0044 1634 298900
includes the u-blox NEO-6Q GPS and LEON
Fax: 0044 1634 290904 GSM/GPRS modules, and interfaces with www.microchip.com

DESIGN & PRODUCTS
Royalty-free capacitive touch library

for TI’s MSP430 16-bit microcontroller platform
Texas Instruments has unveiled a ultra- wheels and proximity. Although the soft-
low-power MSP430 16-bit microcontroller ware library supports all MSP430 devices,
capacitive touch portfolio. The royalty-free some include new peripherals optimized
MSP430 capacitive touch library gives specifically for touch sense applications.
developers the option to add touch sense The MSP430 Value Line G2xx2 and G2xx3
capabilities to any MSP430 microcontroller. devices include capacitive touch IOs which
The open source software library eliminates interface directly with capacitive touch pads.
the need to develop complex touch sensing Texas Instruments
algorithms and supports various capacitive
touch sensors, including buttons, sliders, www.ti.com
Capacitive type humidity SMD sensor

is accurate up to 100% humidity
Alps Electric Europe’s HSHCA is a capaci- is suitable for reflow
tive type humidity sensor delivered in a soldering. It ships in
2.5x2.2x1.0mm surface mount package. It minimum packag-
precisely detects relative humidity in the ing units of 45.000
range of 0 to 100 percent while delivering pieces for automatic
a high measuring accuracy of ±5%.The mounting, packaged
humidity sensor is rated for supply voltages on embossed tape with a width of 8mm.
from 2.2V to 3.6V and operates in the -20 to Alps Electric Europe
+85°C temperature range. The new humidity
sensor complies with the RoHS directive and www.alps.com
Development tool optimized for dual-core debug

features a shared JTAG/SWD interface
Version 3.0.7 of the Universal Debug Engine asymmetrical dual-core digital signal con-
(UDE) from PLS is equipped troller architecture. Both pro-
with optimized test and debug cessors each operate with their
functions for NXP’s LPC4300 own clock supply and their
highly integrated dual-core SoC own power management. The
family and offers unlimited JTAG/SWD interface is shared
dual-core debugging under via shared memory.
a single user interface. The PLS MC
LPC4300 family brings together
an ARM Cortex-M4 with a Cortex-M0 to an www.pls-mc.com
MP3 encoder and audio codec chip

numerous audio formats, echo cancellation
The VS1063 IC from VLSI Solution can very suitable for hi-fi
encode an unforeseen multitude of audio audio playback and
formats, from MP3 and Ogg Vorbis to G.711 streaming applica-
u-law, G.711 A-law, G.722 and 16-bit PCM. tions. The codec also offers a full-duplex
The proprietary MP3 and Ogg Vorbis encod- codec mode with optional acoustic echo
ers have been carefully tuned for highest cancellation for real-time voice applications
possible audio fidelity for high-quality audio over the internet and two-way radio links.
streaming or recording. The chip can play Many built-in sound effects are provided.
back MP2, MP3, WMA, OGG, LC-AAC, HC- VLSI Solution
AAC, FLAC, IMA, G.711 u-law, G.711 a-law,
G.722 and WAV PCM formats, making it www.vlsi.fi

A43E_EETimes-Eur-1-3V_2-375x10-875:Layout 1 4/4
DESIGN & PRODUCTS

DISTRIBUTION
CORNER
PCB test points

HIGH VOLTAGE for high temperature solder up to 300ºC
Aerco now stocks a new range of high undercoat to give
DC-DC Converters temperature HT SMOX surface-mount test a more robust fin-
points, an extension of the PCB interconnect ish that ensures
s
NEW! SA Serie
products from Oxley Developments. Higher the correct adhe-
temperature versions have been introduced sion properties
to cater for more aggressive soldering are achieved at
profiles that have sustained temperatures higher temperatures up to 300ºC.
100 to 1000 VDC out above 200°C as used, for instance, while Aerco
High Power 3 Watts using RoHS compliant SAC solder. The HT
SMOX test points have an additional nickel www.aerco.co.uk
Ultra Miniature Size

0.55" x 0.75" x 0.4" EMA and Cadence extend channel partner contract
100-1000 VDC Output to sell complete line of PCB design tools
Hi-Efficiency/Excellent Load Regulation
EMA Design Automation, a full-service pro- “Cadence PCB products, along with EMA’s
Single Output with Center Tap
vider of mechanical and electrical CAD tools, products and services, give our customers a
announced the extension of its Channel Part- wide array of solutions to meet their needs.
ner Contract with Cadence Design Systems, With the scalability provided by the OrCAD
Shown which allows EMA to sell and support the full and Allegro product lines, we can provide
Actual Size Cadence Allegro and OrCAD product lines. increasingly more capable solutions as our
“Our customers’ needs vary greatly, from customers’ needs grow in complexity.”
Input Over Voltage/Over simple schematic capture requirements to EMA Design Automation
Temperature Protection complex front to back PCB design needs,” said
Manny Marcano, president and CEO of EMA. www.ema-eda.com
Remote Shutdown
• 100 to 1,000 VDC Outputs

• Input Voltage, 5V, 12V, 24V, Mouser’s online electronic components database
28V DC Standard integrated with AltiumLive design software
• Isolated - Input to Output
Mouser Electronics has announced a new to help design engineers better manage data
• Ultra Miniature - 0.55"x 0.75"x 0.4" partnership with Altium which and deliver new content to speed
• Excellent Load Regulation sees live links connecting Altium product development. Using
• Hi Reliability/Custom Models Designer and Mouser’s extensive AltiumLive, designers are freed to
• Military Upgrades/Environmental part information, placing it right create and innovate, untangling
Screening Available onto the engineer’s desktop. The the design data knot and stream-
new links are now part of Altium- lining the design process.
Live, Altium’s new ecosystem for Mouser Electronics
www.picoelectronics.com electronics designers.
For Full Product Specifications www.mouser.com
AltiumLive and the Altium Designer combine
MILITARY • COTS • INDUSTRIAL
DC-DC CONVERTERS & POWER SUPPLIES
TRANSFORMERS & INDUCTORS ACAL BFi and Silicon Sensing sign for Europe
to distribute Silicon Sensing’s gyroscope and inertial systems
PICO Electronics,Inc.
143 Sparks Ave, Pelham, NY 10803-1837
ACAL BFi will provide specialist technical sup-
port on Silicon Sensing’s full range of products
satellite TV, light aircraft and agricultural
equipment, as well as in industrial and con-
including their new class of PinPoint precision sumer applications. Silicon Sensing’s products
E-Mail: info@picoelectronics.com
MEMS navigation and pointing gyroscopes. will expand ACAL BFi’s existing range of tri-
Pico Representatives
Germany The Silicon Sensing product range covers sili- axial accelerometers and magnetic, pressure,
ELBV/Electronische Bauelemente Vertrieb con MEMS single-axis gyroscopes, off-the-shelf force, thermal, rotary and optical sensors, as
E mail: info@elbv.de
Phone: 0049 (0)89 4602852 and custom multi-sensor systems including well as complete compass and dead-reckoning
Fax: 0049 (0)89 46205442 multi-axis inertial sensor assemblies, inertial modules.
England
Ginsbury Electronics Ltd. measurement units and integrated naviga- ACAL BFi
E-mail: rbennett@ginsbury.co.uk
Phone: 0044 1634 298900
tion INS/GPS products. The products are used
Fax: 0044 1634 290904 extensively in navigation systems for mobile www.acaltechnology.com

DESIGN &PRODUCTS
Win one of 5 Snowball SDKs Rea
de
Offe r
r
for open source smart phone and
tablet designs
8-bit USB flash microcontroller
This month, STEricsson is dual-core application proces-
giving away five Snowball de- sor, with a 3D gyroscope, an
built-in DC-DC converter with selectable outputs
veloper board kits (part number accelerometer, a magnetometer, Sanyo Semiconductor launched power supply to peripheral de-
DK9500SNO10-STA) worth USD a barometer, a GPS and connec- an 8-bit flash microcontroller vices. With the addition of a Uni-
200 each, for EETimes Europe’s tivity features. Calao Systems with USB 2.0 Full-Speed interface versal Asynchronous Receiver
readers to designed function and a built- Transmitter (UART),
win. the board, in DC-DC converter the IC cards interface
The feature- while Linaro (step-up/step-down is fully compliant with
rich devel- developed the circuit) with select- ISO7816-3 standards.
oper board board’s low- able output voltages. In addition to a wide
together with level software, The LC87F1864A variety of USB card
the Igloo open which is opti- device provides a reader products, the
source com- mized for the solution that supports stable USB feature enables various
munity launched by the com- Nova A9500’s ARM dual Cortex power supply, space efficient types of data held on the IC card
pany earlier this year is aimed at A9-based architecture. The kit and cost effective designs in USB to be transmitted via USB to
driving innovation of software comes fitted with a 4/8GByte e- card reader products, such as IC personal computers. The chip
for Android, Ubuntu and MMC, a 1GByte LP-DDR2 chip, cards. The step-up circuit (charge comes housed in a SQFP48 pack-
MeeGo embedded devices based one Micro-SD card and IEEE pump) and step-down circuits age measuring 7x7mm. It has
on ST-Ericsson’s platforms. The 802.11 b/g/n WLAN as well as (series regulator) incorporated an on-chip debugger function, a
production-grade small-sized Bluetooth 2.1+EDR wireless in the LC87F1864A drive output 16-bit timer / counter, 64KB ROM
Snowball developer board com- capabilities (antenna excluded). voltage values of 5.0, 3.0 and and 2KB of RAM.
bines ST-Ericsson’s Nova A9500 ST-Ericsson 1.8V, or the alteration of output Sanyo Semiconductor
voltage settings via an external
Check the reader offer online at www.electronics-eetimes.com semicon.sanyo.com/en
www.stericsson.com resistor, thus enabling stable
Get a New Picture of PCB-Prototyping

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LPKF Laser & Electronics AG Phone +49 (0) 5131-7095-0

LAST WORD
Engineering software updates

to the future
By Martin Harris
The engineering software industry Now musicians and bands are tending to ways of thinking about and solving problems
really is behind the times when it comes to release songs online as soon as they are written when using it, and these would involve an
software release cycles. While other areas of and recorded. The commercial mechanism update to the platform (or base version) on
software have moved on to a more dynamic re- actually supports this. It’s easy to create and which all the other capabilities (let’s call them
lease model, engineering software is seemingly keep market momentum this way, as a band plug-ins) sit. However, the plug-ins that add
wedded to traditional release cycles. that releases singles fairly regularly is going the extra features and functions, as well as bug
Presumably for reasons of traceability, to stay more in the forefront of the minds of fixes, are in a continuous software engineering
validation, verification, and marketing, most their fans. There is still a place of course for cycle.
software packages are built to a defined level complete albums, and most musicians do still
of completeness and then released, with much “release an album”. But the market no longer Assuming that application software
fanfare. Vendors apply a version number to consumes them the same way. engineering produces continuous develop-
the software so users and observers can attach ment and improvement, and the delivery
some notion of age and features to it. And of mechanism of the software supports continu-
course, along with each version come tuition, ous updates, then there’s no good reason to
documentation, and a massive learning curve hold back on delivering the upgrades as they
over the preceding version. Another practical are developed. Also, with prolific high-speed,
reason for releasing software in major versions essentially unlimited internet access, there is
has been the limitations of delivery mecha- no longer a barrier in the delivery mechanism
nisms – high-speed, unlimited Internet access for installed applications.
is, after all, a relatively recent thing.
PC-based applications can be updated regu-
When you look at it this way it seems quite larly or even continuously. While there may
archaic, lagging behind many other IP-based be larger changes to the underlying platform
industries. Yet when you have a physical prod- of the software, that is, at the software base
uct to sell – such as a car – it makes sense that level, these would constitute a new revision of
you have a version (or in that case, year model). the platform. Previously this would have been
But think about music for example, one of the called a “service pack”. There is no practical or
more mature IP-based industries. In the earlier technical reason why users should not be able
years of the recording industry, there were to have it downloaded in the background, and
similar practical reasons for a band recording transparently installed by the software itself
a whole album of ten or so tracks, namely the (with the user’s permission of course).
vinyl and cassette delivery mechanisms of the
time. “By separating the Likewise, other additional (new) plug-ins,
With the development of high quality per-

software platform such as support packages for a specific FPGA
device family or a manufacturer’s component
ceptual compression (i.e. MP3, FLAC etc.) and from extra plug-ins library, should be available for download the
affordable high speed Internet, the natural step
for the music business was to allow listeners
and design content, moment they are made ready. Users should
not have to wait for a major release to reap the
to cherry-pick the songs they like, download engineering software benefit.
them and listen directly using the device that By separating the software platform from
also stores the songs. This iTunes / Rhapsody / can move to a dynamic extra plug-ins and design content, engineer-
CD-Baby phenomenon is now mature, which
highlights the fact the electronics design soft-
update process” ing software can move to a dynamic update
process where a continuous supply of new
ware industry (which incidentally, provides In the same way, it’s about time software technology, features and content is ready to be
this very system of acquiring and using a prod- vendors were able to break free of the need to used as soon as it’s released.
uct in a streamlined way), has hardly caught withhold features, functions and fixes in their
up to this concept itself. products while waiting for a large enough As a wise man once said, “Do not withhold
bundle of them to be gathered to call it a “new good from those who deserve it, when it is in
Martin Harris is CEO EMEA of Altium Europe – release”. There may be larger, more profound your power to do so.” And so it should be in
www.altium.com changes in the software that encompass new software development. n
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such as VRMs, BGAs and ASICs.      
        
     

        
       
       
         
       
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    
     
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May 2011

Mobile DRAM Special Focus

Accounting design + products and LED technology

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