Displays & LED

Farnell extends semiconductor range with Osram Opto family

Fri, May 24, 2019

LEDs, infra red emitters, photodiodes and optical sensors from Osram Opto Semiconductor have been added to the semiconductor portfolio by Farnell.

The Osram range extends Farnell’s line card to provide customers with products to support applications in markets such as automotive, mobile, smart grid, metering, industrial, office and building automation, energy management and network infrastructure.

The distributor now ships the Olson Black family of infra red LEDs. Now with dedicated automotive versions that include the 850nm version for exterior applications such as night vision, pedestrian protection, pre-field recognition and lane detection. The 940nm version is targeted at interior automotive applications such as driver monitoring, seat occupancy detection and gesture recognition. The LEDs have different wavelengths and lenses and can be operated at up to 5A in pulse mode.

There is also the SFH 2200 family of photodiodes. The package allows them to be soldered without any damage for up to one year after initial contact with air, compared to only three days for typical standard products, reports Farnell. The package is approved up to an operating temperature of 125 degrees C. The SFH 2200 devices meet the requirements for AEC-Q101-C qualification and are particularly suitable for use in rain sensors.

The TOPLED E1608 family of low-power LEDs is also in a smaller package and are particularly suited to automotive applications such as displays, ambient lighting and backlighting of switches and instruments.

Other LEDs are the SFH 4776 broadband infra red LED range. They are suitable for near-infra red spectroscopy techniques for measuring parameters such as the water, fat, sugar and protein content of food and pharmaceutical products.

The SYNIOS P2720 platform consists of 15 LED products with different chip sizes, power ratings and colours which can be configured within a single footprint. The LEDs have high thermal reliability and high brightness and the devices can be scaled for cost-effective automotive and light design.

http://www.element14.com

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Fujitsu adds gentle resistive touch panels

Thu, Apr 25, 2019

Customisable, flush-surface, resistive touch panels from Fujitsu Components America, have less than half the input force of conventional resistive panels, and are nearly identical to that of projected capacitive panels, says the company.

The FID series offers OEMs a cost-efficient alternative to projected capacitive touch (PCT) panels, with the reliable input and choice of input sources, of resistive technology. Target applications include industrial automation and human-machine interface (HMI) machine control, medical equipment, and vehicle navigation systems.

There are two options, the FID-1300 (four-wire) and FID-1520 (five-wire) series touch panels. Both support a minimum input force of 0.02N (0.45 typical) while maintaining reliable user input and smooth sliding and flicking operations. To activate touch input, the user can use bare skin, gloved fingers, wet fingers, pens, or stylus pens. The FID-1300 is available with two-point input, enlarge/shrink and rotation operations using a dual-touch control board.

The panels consist of a film-glass sensor layer with a flush-surface film overlay, making them dustproof, waterproof, and easy to clean. They feature 80 per cent (typical) transparency and have an input life of one million (FID-1300) and 10 million taps (FID-1520) at 1.96N input force. Standard operating temperature range is -5 to +60 degrees C.

The touch panels can be specified with custom colours, decorative patterns or multi-colour graphics for specific brand, industry or application needs. Customers can submit specific frame colours, logos, icons, and legends, and also request embossed key switches, custom panel shapes, aperture, finishes, coatings, and other customisations.

The panels are available immediately. The FID-1300 four-wire panels are available in sizes up to 19 inches, and the FID-1520 five-wire panels are available in sizes up to 15 inches.

Fujitsu Components America markets and distributes relays, connectors, input and pointing devices, touch panels, thermal printers, and wireless modules throughout North and South America.

http://www.fujitsu.com

 

 

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Sub-miniature tact switch targets IoT in the home

Thu, Apr 18, 2019

Electromechanical switch manufacturer, C&K, has introduced a sub-miniature PTS815 tact switch aimed at design engineers developing home automation and IoT electronic devices.

It has a footprint of just 4.2 x 3.2mm and is 2.5mm thick to save space in designs with limited space and frees up board space for other components to be added.

With a large actuation surface for easier integration, the switch is suited to applications such as home automation, IoT devices and e-cigarettes, as well as control systems for items such as drones, e-bikes and robot vacuum cleaners.

The PTS815 is manufactured in surface-mount technology (SMT) format and uses a hard actuator, ensuring that it can be fully integrated into standard processes, with no need for an additional interface button, reducing time and costs for the end equipment manufacturer.

It is available in the versions most commonly used by the market to meet the needs of many commercial applications, while retaining rigid quality control. The PTS815 retains high reliability at over 100,000 cycles, reports C&K.

According to the company, the PTS815 offers easier integration due to its variable range of force before the actuator is tripped, audible click from the hard actuator and large actuation surface.

Three operating-force levels are available: 180gf, 250gf and 400gf. The PTS815 switch is rated at 50mA, has a bounce time of less than 10ms and an operating temperature range of -20 to +70 degrees C.

The PTS815 is now available to OEMs.

Founded in 1928, C&K produces electromechanical switches and has custom design capabilities. C&K offers more than 55,000 standard products and 8.5 million switch combinations to companies that design, manufacture and distribute electronics products. Used in automotive, industrial, IoT, wearables, medical, telecomms, consumer products, aerospace and point of sale terminals, C&K products include tactile, pushbutton, snap-acting, toggle, rocker, detect, DIP, keyswitch, navigation, rotary, slide, switch lock, thumbwheel, smart card readers, high-rel connectors and custom assemblies.

http://www.ckswitches.com 

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FPGA claims world-leading CNN performance

Wed, Apr 17, 2019

Optimised for the Intel Arria 10 GX architecture, the Omnitek deep learning processing unit achieves 135Goperations per second per Watt at full 32-bit floating point accuracy when running the VGG-16 convolutional neural network (CNN) in an Arria 10 GX 1150.  This, says Omnitek, is a world-leading performance for a mid-range SoC FPGA.

Omnitek has designed the deep learning processing unit around a mathematical framework combining low-precision fixed point maths with floating point maths to achieve the high compute density with zero loss of accuracy.

Scalable across a wide range of Arria 10 GX and Stratix 10 GX devices, the processing unit can be tuned for low cost or high performance in either embedded or data centre applications.

It is software programmable in C/C++ or Python using standard frameworks such as TensorFlow, enabling it to be configured for a range of standard CNN models including GoogLeNet, ResNet-50 and VGG-16 and also for custom models.  No FPGA design expertise is required to do this, adds Omnitek.

Omnitek’s deep learning processing unit can be configured to provide optimal compute performance for CNNs, RNNs, MLPs and other neural network topologies and for as-yet unknown algorithms and optimisation techniques.

Omnitek was formed in 1998 to design intelligent video and vision systems based on programmable FPGAs and SoCs. Its technology enables customsed vision and artificial intelligence (AI) inferencing capabilities on FPGAs for customers across a range of end markets. Omnitek’s IP addresses demanding application requirements in areas such as video conferencing, projection and display and medical vision systems.

Today, it was announced that Intel had acquired Omnitek. “Omnitek’s technology is a great complement to our FPGA business,” said Dan McNamara, Intel senior vice president and general manager of the Programmable Solutions Group. “Their deep, system-level FPGA expertise and high performance video and vision related technology have made them a trusted partner for many of our most important customers. Together, we will deliver leading FPGA solutions for video, vision and AI inferencing applications on Intel FPGAs and speed time-to-market for our existing customers while winning new ones.”

http://www.omnitek.tv

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