Displays & LED

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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LED driver sheds light on animation effects

Wed, Apr 10, 2019

Smooth animation effects in wearable electronics and appliances – where the light fades in and fades or dims in increments (known as colour chasing or deep breathing) – can be achieved using STMicroelectronics LED1202 12-channel LED driver. The programmable 12-channel RGB-LED driver is designed to enhance lighting effects and animation for smart devices around the home and wearable electronics.

The LED1202 can store eight programmable patterns and sequences and operate independently of the main controller. This enables the host system to save power while sophisticated lighting effects run continuously.  The driver’s 12-bit internal PWM dimming enables precision control of programmed sequences. The main controller can set 8-bit values for analogue dimming via the driver’s I2C interface. According to STMicroelectronics, minimal external components are required to complete the driver circuit.

The single LED1202’s 12 output channels enable it to drive four RGB LEDs at up to 20mA per channel. A synchronisation feature allows up to eight LED1202 drivers to be connected to control larger LED arrays. There is also low-current channel matching, within two per cent (typical) at 2.5mA, to enhance colour consistency. Phase shifting between channels minimises current ripple and prevents excessive peak demand, adds STMicroelectronics. There are also built-in safety features, such as open-LED detection, over-temperature protection, and a fault-flag pin.

The LED1202JR is available now in a 1.71 x 2.16mm WLCSP-20 flip-chip. The LED1202QTR is available in a 3.0 x 3.0mm VFQFPN-20.

There is also the STEVAL-LLL007V1 evaluation kit to support development of new products and lighting sequences.

http://www.st.com

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