ICs & Semiconductors

Taiwan Semi’s new ESD protection devices are optimised for high-density electronics

Thu, Aug 15, 2024

Taiwan Semiconductor has introduced a new series of new ultra-small ESD protection devices optimised for wearables and other high-density electronic products. All DFN0603-packaged models in the 3.3V and 5.0V TESDx Series exceed the 8kV IEC61000-4-2 20kV contact discharge standard as well as IEC6100-4-5 4A peak pulse current, with margin. TESDx Series devices utilise Taiwan Semiconductor’s proprietary clamping cells to prevent overvoltage damage from ESD and lightning on control, power and data lines. Additionally, their industry’s lowest capacitance allows for full USB 3.0 data rates without compromise.

Applications for the new 3.3V/5.0V ESD protection series include wearable products, portable medical and test and measurement instrumentation and IoT and IIOT devices. Other applications include consumer electronics, computing, networking, peripherals, USB3.X ports and any application where ESD protection is needed — and where size is a top-of-mind concern.
The TESDx Series offers three models to choose from:
• TESDH3V3B03P1Q0 3.3V/40W 0.2pF
• TESDL3V3B23P1Q0 3.3V/70W 17pF
• TESDH5V0B03P1Q0 5.0/100W 0.2pF
“For wearables and other high-density electronic products, the devices used for ESD protection should be as small and thin as possible, so our new DFN0603-packaged devices are an ideal choice,” said Sam Wang, vice president, TSC Products. “The 3.3- and 5.0-volt models in the series provide full-compliance electrostatic discharge and electronic fast-transient protection, with margin. When protecting high-speed data signals, they also offer extremely low capacitance to ensure that the signal integrity in the application remains within spec and uncompromised.”

https://www.taiwansemi.com/en/

 

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Infineon expands its Bluetooth portfolio with eight new parts

Wed, Aug 14, 2024

Infineon has announced the expansion of its Bluetooth portfolio by eight new products in the AIROC CYW20829 Bluetooth Low Energy 5.4 microcontroller (MCU) family, featuring Systems-on-Chip (SoCs) and modules optimised for industrial, consumer, and automotive use cases. The high integration of the CYW20829 product family allows designers to reduce bill-of-material (BOM) cost and device footprint in a wide variety of applications, including PC accessories, low-energy audio, wearables, solar micro inverters, asset trackers, health and lifestyle, home automation and others. Product designers also benefit from Infineon’s development infrastructure and commitment to robust security, with support for secure boot and execution environments and cryptography acceleration to safeguard sensitive data.

The latest automotive part in the product family, the AIROC CYW89829 Bluetooth Low-Energy MCU, is ideal for car access and wireless battery management systems (wBMS) applications, due to its robust RF performance, long range and latest Bluetooth 5.4 features including PAwR (Periodic Advertising with Responses). The dual ARM Cortex core design of the chip family features separate application and Bluetooth Low Energy subsystems that deliver full featured support for Bluetooth 5.4, low-power, 10 dBm output power without a PA, integrated flash, CAN FD, crypto accelerators, high security including Root of Trust (RoT), and is PSA level 1 ready.

https://www.infineon.com

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Sondrel’s SFA 100 is ideal for AI at the Edge

Thu, Aug 01, 2024

Sondrel has optimised its SFA 100 to make it ideal for battery-powered, AI at the Edge applications. The SFA 100 is one of the five architectural platforms in the company’s Architecting the Future chip design platform which provides a ready-made design baseline that the company uses to build a bespoke solution for every customer.

The SFA 100 uses an Arm subsystem with a choice of Arm cores and the option of a security subsystem. Its low power requirement makes it the ideal platform for battery-powered edge AI applications such as smart home, smart factory, and sensor fusion devices. The device provides the ability to integrate a machine-learning engine supporting a variety of inference based ‘smarts’ such as voice activation, image classification, gesture recognition, filtering, etc. A radio subsystem such as a Bluetooth IP block or WiFi can also be added if required. Customer’s IP and any third-party IP can be included as Sondrel has the ability to wrap IP blocks so that they have all the necessary interfaces to just drop onto the chassis. More powerful solutions can be created by using the SFA 200 or SFA 300 as starting points.

The Edge AI market is predicted to expand at a CAGR of 33.5% to reach $76 billion by 2031 according to a report by Transparency Market Research. The key is the drive to process data locally and thus eliminate the latency from transmitting the data to a centralised cloud server for processing. Applications range from industry 4.0, where it is used to provide real-time decision making, to devices such as drones, smartphones, cars, etc.

https://www.sondrel.com/

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Microchip introduces a new core in the dsPIC digital signal controller family

Wed, Jul 31, 2024

Microchip has launched its dsPIC33A Core family of Digital Signal Controllers (DSCs). The ability for engineers to create sophisticated, computationally intensive embedded control algorithms is crucial for achieving superior operational efficiency in motor control, power supply, charging and sensing systems. Built around a 32-bit Central Processing Unit (CPU) architecture with a 200 MHz operating speed, the dsPIC33A family’s advanced core includes a Double-Precision Floating-Point Unit (DP FPU) and DSP instructions for numerically intensive tasks in many closed-loop control algorithms. The dsPIC33A architecture offers high-performance and precise real-time control coupled with a comprehensive development tool ecosystem to streamline and accelerate the design process.

The dsPIC33A DSCs are enhanced with improved maths and data processing, higher code efficiency, faster context switching and reduced latency. This lower latency allows for a faster response time to transient and safety-critical events. New and upgraded peripherals—such as high-resolution PWMs specifically engineered for motor control and digital power conversion—are designed to support progressive technology development in various markets including automotive, industrial, consumer, E-Mobility, data centre and sustainable solutions segments. The dsPIC33A family features integrated analog peripherals, including 12-bit ADCs capable of conversion rates up to 40 Msps, high-speed comparators and operational amplifiers. These analog peripherals, in conjunction with Core Independent Peripherals (CIPs), allow for sophisticated sensing and high-performance control. In addition, the CIPs enable interaction among the peripherals without the need for CPU involvement, enhancing the efficiency of a single controller to manage multiple tasks.
The result is more robust real-time control while reserving the CPU bandwidth for software stacks, functional safety diagnostics and security functions.

The dsPIC33A device families are outfitted with Flash security capabilities, including an Immutable Root of Trust, secure debugging and restricted memory access. The DSCs’ Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) enables the adoption of software code generated by model-based designs to simplify code generation. The combined features make dsPIC33A DSCs well suited for applications that require efficient motor control for fans, pumps and compressors; they also manage digital power conversion for applications like AI servers and on-board chargers in electric vehicles and enable sensor interfacing for industrial and automotive applications.

The first family of dsPIC33AK128MC1xx DSCs includes 128 KB Flash and an extensive peripheral set, offered in various packages, including SSOP, VQFN and TQFP options ranging from 28 to 64 pins, with package dimensions as small as at 4 × 4 mm. Future dsPIC33A families with additional memory, peripherals and larger pin counts will complete the portfolio.

The dsPIC33A family is supported by the MPLAB XC-DSC Compiler, MPLAB Code Configurator (MCC) and the dsPIC33A Curiosity Development Board (EV74H48A). The dsPIC33A Curiosity Development Board supports feature expansion by providing mikroBUS and Xplained Pro interfaces that enable connection to Built-in Self Text Xplained Pro (BIST XPRO) extension kits, sensors and various Click boards. Separate dual In-line modules are available to support development for motor control, digital power conversion and general-purpose embedded applications. For a complete list of dsPIC33A development tools.

https://www.microchip.com

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