Latest News

Magnachip launches 5G-ready smartphone DDICs

Thu, Jul 16, 2020

MagnaChip has expanded its high frame rate (HFR) display driver integrated circuit (DDIC) range for organic light emitting diode (OLED) smartphone displays.

HFR technology improves the image quality of any screen by increasing the number of frames (images) used per second. For 5G smartphones, it is vital, argues Magnachip, as it means a vivid and smooth visual experience for users.

The company has been producing HFR OLED smartphone DDICs since 2018, when it introduced a 120Hz HFR DDIC for FHD+ (full high definition+) OLED smartphone displays. All of MagnaChip’s HFR OLED products support 144Hz for FHD+ displays and 120Hz for QHD+ (quad high definition+) displays.

MagnaChip Semiconductor designs and manufactures analogue and mixed-signal semiconductors for communications, IoT, consumer, industrial and automotive applications. The company provides a broad range of standard products and manufacturing services to customers worldwide.

With more than 40 years’ of operating history, MagnaChip owns a portfolio of approximately 2,950 registered patents and pending applications, and has extensive engineering, design and manufacturing process expertise.

http://www.magnachip.com

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Multi-sensor module is for developers with the IoT bug

Thu, Jul 16, 2020

SmartBug is an intelligent multi-sensor IoT module by TDK. The InvenSense module combines TDK’s MEMS sensors and precision algorithms in a simple, wireless unit.

It is designed as a dedicated source of smart sensor data for a range of IoT applications from smart homes and appliances to wellness monitoring.

The module enables quick and easy access to reliable and smart sensor data without the need for programming, soldering or extra modifications, says TDK. The SmartBug integrates TDK’s six-axis IMU (gyroscope and accelerometer) with magnetometer, pressure, temperature, humidity and ultrasonic sensors and high-precision algorithms. These algorithms include sensor fusion, HVAC filter monitoring, asset monitoring, gesture detection, activity classification, air mouse monitoring and smart door open/close detection.

The SmartBug module enables accurate and remote monitoring via both Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and Wi-Fi and provides autonomous SD card data logging capability for IoT applications with large data volumes.

The SmartBug is small with a flat base and is designed to be placed almost anywhere, from a simple door to an industrial robot for remote data collection. The module can be used by product developers across consumer and commercial IoT applications, advises InvenSense, a TDK Group company.

InvenSense partners Nordic Semiconductor, AKM, Sensirion, and Espressif Systems provide an ecosystem set of components that enable multiple key features within the SmartBug module.

Nordic Semiconductor’s low power microcontroller with BLE 5.2 acquires multi-sensor data from the SmartBug and runs all supported algorithms. It enables streaming of smart sensor data via both USB and BLE, and provides over the air (OTA) firmware upgrades and support for add-on cards with SD card logging and ultrasonic sensors.

The WiFi chip from Espressif Systems expands the wireless data streaming and logging capabilities of SmartBug to higher throughput (up to 2KHz) and long ranges.

AKM’s magnetometer enables multiple features including compass data collection, nine-axis sensor fusion for accurate orientation heading and magnetic anomaly detection for asset monitoring applications in SmartBug.

SmartBug also leverages the humidity and temperature sensor from Sensirion for data streaming and logging, humidity and temperature-based events for asset monitoring applications.

The SmartBug sensor module is currently stocked at TDK’s distribution partners including Arrow, Avnet, DigiKey, Mouser, Symmetry and Components Distributors.

http://invense.tdk.com

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Myrtle.ai claims ML accelerator can result in significant data centre savings

Thu, Jul 16, 2020

Claimed to be the industry’s most efficient accelerator for recommendation models, SEAL could save hyperscale and tier one data centre companies hundreds of millions of dollars every year, says Mrytle.ai.

Deep learning-based recommendation models are one of the most common data centre workloads, typically used for search, news feeds, adverts and personalised content. Recommendation models contain a mix of dense and sparse features, which leads to complex memory access challenges for the majority of the time (up to 80 per cent), says the machine learning specialist. Throughput is constrained by memory bandwidth in a typical compute infrastructure, which means that expensive compute resources are highly under-utilised, says Mrytle.ai.

It has announced SEAL which accelerates the memory-bound inference operations in recommendation models. This delivers large gains in latency-bounded throughput within existing infrastructure, enabling data centre companies to scale rapidly and halve the infrastructure cost of their peak traffic capability.

Energy consumption, which is a significant challenge, can be reduced by more than half, adds Mrytle.

Peter Baldwin, CEO at Myrtle.ai, explains: “SEAL works seamlessly from within the deep learning framework PyTorch, fully preserves existing model accuracy and supports model co-location and sharding. It’s also complementary to existing compute accelerators and scalable, so adoption is as straightforward as possible.”

SEAL is available initially in the Open Compute Project M.2 accelerator module form factor, intended for use in Glacier Point carrier cards. In this format, it delivers up to 384Gbyte of DDR4 memory per carrier.

First customer evaluations are anticipated in Q3 2020.

SEAL represents the lowest power, smallest form factor, easiest-to-deploy method of adding memory bandwidth to existing infrastructure used for recommendation models, claims Mrytle.

The company has revealed that it is also reviewing alternative form factors.

Myrtle.ai optimises inference workloads such as recommendation models, recurrent neural networks and other deep neural networks with sparse features. The company’s recommendation models enable businesses to rapidly scale and improve their services while reducing capital costs and energy consumption.

Myrtle.ai is a founding member of MLCommons, the benchmarking organisation driving machine learning innovation.

http://www.myrtle.ai

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Embedded reader module is smallest yet, says HID Global

Wed, Jul 15, 2020

To allow developers to embed RFID into devices for use in constrained space, HID Global has added the Omnikey 5127CK Reader Core to its Omnikey family.

The reader core uses standard interfaces so that it can be embedding into limited spaces and battery-powered devices.  It enables handheld devices, tablets, PCs and notebooks to keyboards, displays, monitors, and kiosks to be used across a range of applications, says HID Global.

The company also offers a software development kit to support development and integration of the readers. The reader core accelerates time-to-market with streamlined configuration and flexible connectivity.  It includes modular approval certification for wireless devices, efficient power management (USB suspend/resume and remote wake up modes) and external off-board high frequency / low frequency and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) antennae. There is also the option to design custom antennae to meet specific embedded requirements.

The Omnikey 5127CK Reader Core supports multiple low and high frequency credential technologies within a single device and includes Apple’s Enhanced Contactless Polling (ECP) to support credentials in Apple Wallet.  It also supports mobile access via NFC or BLE, as well as iCLASS Seos, iCLASS SE, HID Prox, MIFARE Classic and MIFARE DESFire EV1/EV2 credential technologies.

HID Global makes it possible for people to transact safely, work productively and travel freely. Its trusted identity solutions give people convenient access to physical and digital places and connect things that can be identified, verified and tracked digitally.

Millions of people around the world use HID products and services to navigate their everyday lives, and over two billion things are connected through HID technology. The company works with governments, educational institutions, hospitals, financial institutions, industrial businesses and some of the most innovative companies on the planet.

The company is headquartered in Austin, Texas, USA and operates international offices that support customers in more than 100 countries.

http://www.hidglobal.com

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