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Charger IC is wireless power transfer-compatible

Tue, May 31, 2022

A multi-functional, compact charging IC for lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries, the XC6810, supports wireless power transfer.

Available from Torex Semiconductor, the XC6810 series of charging ICs for Li-ion batteries are suitable for wearables, hearables or IoT devices. Functions include charge and discharge control as well as wireless power supply support. 

Charging current is 1.0 to approximately 25mA, making it suitable for small Li-ion batteries. The ICs can provide a wide charging range of 3.8 to 4.4V.The XC6810 series are equipped with shutdown function to suppress battery discharge when stored or not in use as well as a wake-up function, activated using an external push button, to extend the life of batteries and devices. 

In addition to the conventional LED-driven display, a terminal indicates the charging status, showing charging level by frequency. It also supports charging monitoring using a microcontroller. 

The XC6810 is equipped with a battery voltage monitoring function, which can directly monitor the battery voltage through a microcontroller, or a low battery voltage notification function. 

The wide input voltage range of 3.5 to 28V supports wireless power and energy harvester charging, confirmed Torex. For contact-type charging using a cradle, for example, one version has a terminal which modulates the power supply line for the charging status to be notified by two-wire communication. The charging status and charging control can be displayed through the cradle. 

Torex Semiconductor provides CMOS power management ICs for battery powered and energy efficient applications. The company specialises in CMOS analogue technology, with LDO voltage regulators, voltage detectors and DC/DC converters in its product portfolio.

http://www.torexsemi.com

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MPL bases compact computer on Intel Elkhart Lake processor

Tue, May 31, 2022

A compact computer measuring just 62 x 162 x 118mm developed by MPL is based on the 10nm Intel Atom x6000 (Elkhart Lake) processor. 

The CEC20 is a low power, highly integrated, flexible and rugged computer, said Swiss manufacturer, MPL, with long term availability of at least 10 years. It is claimed to have the lowest power consumption in the industry and operates across the extended temperature (-40 to +85 degrees C). The fanless PC has passive cooling and is designed for internal expansion with standard connectors for easy connection or lockable headers, depending on chassis choice. 

The CEC20 family can be used for any x86 application, including industry, railways, maritime and defence. 

The CEC2x comes with onboard NVMe mass storage and includes an onboard m.2 Key-B slot for multiple expansion options. The board is equipped with a high density expansion connector with PCIe, USB and I2C interfaces, allowing expansion using the company’s standard I/O board or semi-custom designed I/O board according to requirements. The CEC2x supports standard SO-DIMM DDR4 and has the possibility to support IBECC (In Band ECC).

In addition to a DDR4 RAM up to 32Gbyte to support IBECC, the CE20 is equipped with 1.0 and 2.5Gbit Ethernet ports. Power consumption is just 4.5 to 12W. It can withstand reverse polarity voltage, over-voltage, surge and burst voltages, as well as electromagnetic discharges targeting the MIL-STD-461E, IEC60945 and EN50155 standards.

MPL has also developed a specific expansion board to accompany the release. The CEC2x expansion board (FIME) offers two PCIe, two HSIC, two UART, SATA, SDIO, LPC and I2C ports. This maximises customisation, said MPL, for any I/O boards and extending the system with additional interfaces, such as general purpose I/Os, additional serial ports, Gigabit Fiber, CAN, miniPCIe slots and a PCI/104-Express port.

The CEC20 family is available with a DIN-Rail or flange mount compact aluminium housing, a MIL housing with 38999 connectors according to customer requirements, and as a 19-inch rack, or an open frame. An OEM version is also available. 

http://www.mpl.ch 

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Embedded computer is test environment for SOSA / CMOSS iniatives

Tue, May 31, 2022

A 12-slot, 3U development computer from Elma Electronic features high-speed RF and optical I/O connectivity on a number of key SOSA profiles. It supports both IO-intensive and compute-intensive processor slots, two switch slots and one PNT (position navigation and timing) slot. 

“Now that SOSA 1.0 has been released, streamlining development time of SOSA aligned systems is critical, so that we can speed time to market and shorten deployment of these open standards-based systems,” said Ken Grob, director of embedded computing at Elma Electronic. “The 12-slot development platform provides a complete test environment to support application development for both SOSA and CMOSS initiatives,” he said.

An Elma Type 39 84HP-wide E-Frame chassis provides open access for testing and troubleshooting. The design also includes dual high wattage VITA 62 3U VPX pluggable power supply modules, a network timing card with radial support for IEEE 1588 precision timing and synchronisation and a 4590a 1/10/40GigE Ethernet switch with copper and fibre ports from Interface Concept.

There are also conduction-cooled slot inserts, front and rear fan trays with 12V DC fans and AC operation using a power cord. For control functions, the embedded computer includes a front panel on/off switch, reset switch, voltage LEDs and test points for easy operation and status acknowledgements via visual confirmations.

Elma Electronic manufactures commercial, industrial and rugged electronic products for embedded systems and application-ready platforms – from components, embedded boards, backplanes, chassis and enclosures, power supplies, to fully integrated subsystems. 

It offers standard and custom cabinets and enclosures as well as precision components such as rotary switches/encoders, LEDs, front panels and small cases.

Elma leverages proven technology based on VITA, PICMG, and other standards-based architectures (i.e. OpenVPX, SOSA, VME, CompactPCI Serial, COM Express and PCIe/104) and is actively engaged in designing for applications requiring smaller footprints. 

Elma Electronic manages entire projects from initial system architecture to specification, design, manufacturing and test through production facilities and sales offices around the world. The company serves the mil/aero, industrial, research, telecom, medical and commercial markets and is certified to ISO 9001 and AS 9100.

http://www.elma.com

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Infineon combines Airoc Wi-Fi / Bluetooth in Nvidia Jetson for edge AI

Mon, May 30, 2022

Airoc Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity provides Wi-Fi 6 / 6E and low power wi-Fi 5 connectivity to Nvidia’s Jetson system on modules (SoMs) for developers to accelerate artificial intelligence (AI) -enabled edge devices.

AI at the edge devices require reliable and instant Wi-Fi cloud connectivity for lifecycle management functions like deploying AI models through over the air (OTA) updates.

“In congested network environments, AI devices often encounter disconnections or low-data throughput, leading to poor user experience, explained Infineon. The Airoc Wi-Fi family delivers low latency, robust connectivity and high data throughput streaming, said Sivaram Trikutam, vice president, Wi-Fi product line at Infineon. 

The Wi-Fi will be used for AI applications which require real time blending effects from live action to computer-generated images or videos, such as gaming and AR / VR (augmented reality / virtual reality) in industry applications. In these applications, high-throughput and low-latency wireless transmissions are critical and require simultaneous processing and streaming of data. Infineon said its Wi-Fi 6E solution, operating in the 6.0 to 7.0GHz band, minimises latency and prevents interruptions due to congested wireless networks. This is combined with the fast processing power of the Nvidia Jetson platform for AI-enabled devices in, for example, robotics, smart cities, healthcare, industrial, retail, energy and agriculture where processing in the cloud is blended with edge processing.

The Airoc CYW4373, CYW5459x and CYW5557x are available to design now. The Nvidia Jetson compute platform is claimed to be the leading AI at the edge compute platform with over one million developers. With pre-trained AI models, developer software development kits and support for cloud-native technologies across the full Jetson line up, intelligent machine manufacturers and AI developers can build and deploy software defined features on embedded and edge devices.

http://www.infineon.com

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