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High inrush capability relay protects smart lighting controls

Wed, Nov 10, 2021

Smart building automation systems require a high inrush performance, which has prompted the design of the G5RL-EL latching relay by Omron Electronic Components Europe.

The low profile power relay controls capacitive loads and is suitable for controlling fluorescent and LED lamps. Its single contact structure makes it a competitive product proposition, says the company.

The 16A G5RL-K-EL latching type relay is approved to IEC60669-1 and has a high inrush current capability up to 255A. This equips it for demanding switching environments where loads vary enormously. The device is also compatible with the International Safety Standard for Electrical / Electronic Household Appliances (IEC60335-1). The latching design saves energy as there is no hold current to keep the relay open.

The device expands Omron’s G5RL relay family. Andries de Bruin, senior European product marketing manager at Omron, observed: “Smart building systems can reduce the need to touch shared surfaces – an important safety measure as we return to working life after COVID-19. So, facilities managers are increasingly turning to automated lighting to increase safety as well as save energy”. He adds that the highly variable loads typical of these systems demand specialist components and that the G5RL-K-EL “is a smart solution to this growing challenge”.

Omron Electronic Components Europe specialises in electromechanical PCB relays, and supplies components such as micro switches, MOSFET relays, DIP switches, photo-microsensors and connectors. It has a portfolio of innovative technologies including MEMS based pressure, flow and thermal measurement sensors, human face and gesture recognition modules, vibration and tilt sensors.

Omron Electronic Components Europe supports its customers in Western and Eastern Europe, Russia and the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) through eight regional offices, a network of local offices and partnerships with specialist, local, regional and global distributors.

Omron Electronic Components Europe is a subsidiary of Omron, operating in the field of automation. Omron’s business fields cover a broad spectrum, ranging from industrial automation and electronic components to social infrastructure systems, healthcare, and environmental solutions.

Established in 1933, Omron operates in around 120 countries and regions. In the field of industrial automation and supports manufacturing innovation by providing advanced automation technologies and products, as well as extensive customer support.

http://components.omron.eu

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Cross-domain automotive control microcontrollers enhance ECU integration

Wed, Nov 10, 2021

Microcontrollers designed to address the growing need to integrate multiple applications into a single chip and unify the electronic control unit (ECU) in vehicles, make up the RH850/U2B series.

Renesas says the cross-domain microcontrollers are built for the rigorous workloads required by vehicle motion in hybrid ICE and xEV traction inverter, high-end zone control, connected gateway and domain control applications.

They join the company’s RH850/U2A microcontrollers for body and chassis control systems. Customers can also combine the microcontrollers with Renesas’ R-Car S4 SoC devices for automotive central gateway systems for scalable electronic / electrical architectures that are deemed the architectures for future vehicle generations.

Naoki Yoshida, vice president, automotive digital products marketing division at Renesas, said: “The RH850/U2B microcontrollers . . . performance, memory integration and hardware-based support for new zone- and domain-control applications, particularly for powertrain and HEV/EV, while maintaining the stringent cost, safety, and security parameters required for these automotive systems”.

Designed for zone and domain applications, the 28nm RH850/U2B microcontrollers build on key functions from Renesas’ RH850/E2x series for powertrain and RH850/C1M-Ax series for HEV/EV motor control. At the same time they add enhancements including an accelerator IP, higher performance levels and increased security. This feature set enables users to integrate multiple ECU functions into a single ECU while adhering to stringent automotive-grade safety, security and real-time operation requirements.

The integrated hypervisor hardware-based virtualisation assist function allows multiple software systems with up to ISO26262 ASIL D functional safety levels to operate independently, without interference. It also reduces the virtualisation overhead to maintain real-time execution. Quality-of-service (QoS) provides a latency monitor and regulation function for all bus masters to ensure minimum bandwidth is always available. The RH850/U2B microcontrollers support safe and rapid full no-wait over the air (OTA) software updates with dual-bank embedded flash that allows the ECU to update and save images while the microcontrollers are in active mode and enables the ECU to operate from the original code if a failure occurs. Integrated motor control accelerator IP (EMU3S) works in conjunction with multiple dedicated motor control timer structures like GTM v4.1 and TSG3 to reduce CPU processing loads while achieving high-speed rotation. Dedicated data flow processor (DFP) accelerator IP enables the CPU to offload compute-heavy operations for complex control.

The microcontrollers have up to eight 400MHz performance cores with four of them in lockstep architecture, with built-in flash targeting ASIL-D and ASIL-B applications. Integrated security functions support the Evita Full standard, including elliptic curve cryptography. There are multiple instances of AES128 lock-step modules for conflict-free, deterministic safe and secure communication.

The dedicated resolver / digital converter accelerator IP (RDC3X) processes analogue signals from a motor rotational angle sensor (resolver) or an inductive position sensor.

The DR1000C is a RISC-V-based parallel co-processor IP with vector extension (DFP), licensed from NSITEXE, which supports the fast execution of complex mathematical algorithms.

Communication interfaces include Gigabit Ethernet TSN with switch support.

The RH850/U2B microcontrollers will be sampling from April 2022.

http://www.renesas.com

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RGBC sensor has always-on capability and low power modes for AI

Wed, Nov 10, 2021

Equipped with low power modes to enable AI-based, always-on user experiences, the OV32C sensor is OmniVision’s first RGBC (colour sense) sensor. The

32Mpixel image sensor is in a compact 1/3.2-inch optical format which is suitable for front-facing mobile phones’ selfie cameras. The colour sense technology is claimed to provide the highest quality images in challenging lighting conditions. The OV32C’s low power modes can help enable always-on user experiences by facilitating AI processing to automate many of the common tasks of the camera, such as face detection and QR code scans.

The OV32C is built on OmniVision’s 0.7 micron PureCel Plus-S pixel technology to squeeze 32Mpixels into a 1/3.2-inch OF. RGBC technology uses a four-cell colour filter pattern with clear pixels and on-chip RGBC-to-Bayer fusion. It supports CPHY and DPHY interfaces and can output 15 frame rates per second (fps) at 32Mpixel, or 30 frames per second at 8Mpixels with on-chip fusion. The OV32C also offers dual DOVDD support at 1.8 and 1.2V.

“Image sensors for front facing (selfie) cameras are expected to grow 4.7 per cent CAGR over the next five years, with smartphone front camera image sensor revenues reaching US$4.4 billion by 2026,” says Pierre Cambou, principal analyst, Imaging at Yole Développement. “Stacking technology is giving more degree of freedom to image sensor designers to embed advanced pre-ISP algorithms . . . . solving the difficulties of their non-Bayer arrangement. Adding ‘always-on’ smart capabilities to phone cameras will bring a new level of ergonomics and performance to the phone’s user interface,” he said.

The OV32C addresses the limited space challenge of a front facing camera module by providing 1/2.8-inch pixel size performance in the 1/3.2-inch OF. Arun Jayaseelan, staff marketing manager at OmniVision, comments: “The OV32C is our first sensor for the mobile phone market to feature RGBC―providing a 50 per cent boost in overall sensitivity to enhance low-light image quality”. The company has also reduced design complexity for OEMs with an on-chip RGBC-to-Bayer fusion algorithm, so that a separate RGBC processing unit is not required.

OmniVision says that the OV32C offers fast access to camera functionality at all times. The low power modes help enable always-on features optimising the phone’s back-end AI applications, minimising power and data rate usage.

Samples of the OV32C are available now.

http://www.ovt.com

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GaN-based inverter enhances motor drive for e-mobility, drones and robots

Wed, Nov 10, 2021

Claiming to match premium motor drives’ performance, the EPCD9145 GaN-baed inverter is designed for e-bikes, e-motion, drones and robots, says Efficient Power Conversion (EPC).

The EPC9145 GaN-based inverter enhances the performance of the motor for range, precision, torque, says the company. Additionally, it eliminates the requirement for electrolytic capacitors, resulting in lower overall system cost and higher reliability. The small size allows the inverters to be integrated into the motor housing for the lowest EMI, highest density, and lowest weight.

The EPC9145 demonstration board is a 1kW, three-phase brushless DC (BLDC) motor drive inverter which uses the EPC2206 eGaN FET.

The demonstration board features the 2.2 mOhm maximum RDS(on), 80V maximum device voltage EPC2206 eGaN FET. The board is tailored to e-bikes, e-motion, drones and robot motor applications. Its 48V bus voltage can deliver 15A RMS steady state at 50 degrees C temperature rise in natural air convection and can reach 20A RMS (28A peak) with a heatsink attached. The EPC9145 has been tested up to 100kHz, 60V input, and 50A peak.

The EPC9145 contains all the necessary critical function circuits to support a complete motor drive inverter, assures EPC. Board dimensions are only 130 x 100mm (including the connector). The EPC9145 also features the ST Microelectronics, STDriveG600, smart motor drive GaN half-bridge driver.

GaN FETs switch fast with zero reverse recovery, says EPC. This enables higher switching frequency in the 100kHz range to eliminate the need for electrolytic capacitors and to reduce the motor losses. Deadtime can also be reduced to approximately 20ns to allow higher torque per A. Overall, GaN devices improve inverter and motor system efficiency and reduce size and weight by integrating the inverter inside the motor.

The demonstration board highlights benefits of a GaN motor drive, such as lower distortion for lower acoustic noise, lower current ripple for reduced magnetic loss, lower torque ripple for improved precision, lower filtering for lower cost. The board’s low weight and size enables the driver to be incorporated into the motor housing. It also supports low inductance, higher power density motors, says EPC.

The company provides full demonstration kits, which include interface boards that connect this inverter board to the controller board development tool. Compatible controller interface and controller boards to the EPC9145 are EPC9147A for Microchip, EPC9147B for Texas Instruments, EPC9147C for ST Microelectronics, and EPC9147E as a generic interface board.

“Everyone wants a motor that is smaller, lighter, is less noisy, has more torque, more range, and greater precision,” said Alex Lidow, CEO of EPC. He says that eGaN devices, a cost-effective motor with a GaN inverter offer the same performance as an expensive motor with a silicon MOSFET-based inverter.

The EPC9145 demonstration board is available for immediate delivery from distributor, Digi-Key.

http://www.epc-co.com

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High inrush capability relay protects smart lighting controls

Cross-domain automotive control microcontrollers enhance ECU integration

RGBC sensor has always-on capability and low power modes for AI

GaN-based inverter enhances motor drive for e-mobility, drones and robots

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