ICs & Semiconductors Archives - Page 202 of 230

Power supply monitoring IC has self-diagnosis for functional safety

Wed, Jun 19, 2019

Designed for automotive application power supply systems the BD39040MUF-C, by Rohm Semiconductor, has built in self-test (BIST).

It supports functional safety and provides monitoring functions for the power supply systems of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) sensor modules. For functional safety, to meet the highest safety requirement level (ASIL) it is necessary to detect potential failures of the power supply monitoring function itself. In addition to voltage monitoring functions (power-good, reset) and a watchdog timer for monitoring the engine control unit, the BD39040MUF-C is the first to introduce a self-diagnostic function, claims Rohm. The IC makes it possible to detect a potential failure of the power supply IC itself without affecting existing systems. Both the reference voltage and oscillator circuits are multiplexed to enable continuous mutual monitoring between systems in order to improve safety during normal operation.

The BD39040MUF-C easily supports functional safety in existing systems without any changes of power supply sequences. Additionally, the watchdog timer for the ECU can be adjusted via external resistance and the effective monitoring timing arbitrarily set to on/off.

The BD39040MUF-C has an input range of 2.7 to 5.5V and is supplied in a compact, 3mm square package.

Applications include radars, cameras and sensors for ADAS/automated driving, ECUs, electric power steering, dashboard cluster, LCD panels, infotainment, lamps
and other power systems requiring functional safety measures beyond ASIL-B.

Rohm Semiconductor develops and manufactures low power microcontrollers, power management and standard ICs, SiC diodes, MOSFETs and modules, power transistors and diodes, LEDs and passives components such as resistors, tantalum capacitors and LED display units and thermal printheads in manufacturing plants in Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, China and Europe.

Rohm Semiconductor Europe has its head office near Dusseldorf, Germany serving the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region.

http://www.rohm.com

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Infineon claims Hall sensor is a first for ASIL D systems

Tue, Jun 18, 2019

Infineon Technologies believes that the Xensiv TLE499913 is the industry’s first monolithically integrated linear Hall sensor developed entirely according to the safety standard ISO26262 for automotive applications.

The single sensor enables the development of fault-tolerant systems that have to meet the highest level of functional safety (ASIL D), says Infineon, such as electric steering systems, electric throttle control systems, and pedal applications.

ISO26262 requires a system to keep functioning even if a single fault occurs, or a single components fails. The TLE4999I3 allows uninterrupted operation at system level. It consists of a monolithic design with two independent Hall elements. Their signal paths are separate from each other and internal control mechanisms carry out a plausibility check of the sensor data already within the chip. The linear Hall sensor also provides extensive status information to the system.

In addition to functional safety, the TLE4999I3 also offers very high magnetic sensitivity with an error tolerance of less than two per cent. The offset error drift, another important parameter for magnetic sensors as it determines the absolute position in a magnetic field, is maximum 100 microT, or half that of comparable products, claims Infineon. The values of these parameters apply across the entire temperature range and lifetime of the product.

The TLE4999I3 allows two magnetic ranges of ±12.5 and 25mT to be adjusted. These low values allow the use of relatively small and, consequently, inexpensive magnets.

A PSI5 communication interface is a current interface, requiring little wiring and offering “an excellent electromagnetic performance” according to Infineon. The TLE4999I3 is suitable for applications in which it is connected to the control unit over large distances as it supports cable lengths up to 12m.

The TLE4999I3 sensor is supplied in a PG-SSO-3 package and is qualified according to AECQ100, Grade 0 for use in applications with ambient temperatures of 150 degrees C during average operational conditions.

Infineon will be exhibiting this and other sensor solutions at the Sensor+Test 2019 trade fair (Nuremberg, 25 to 27 June 2019) Hall 1 – booth 429.

http://www.infineon.com

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Renesas announces memory technology for AI

Mon, Jun 17, 2019

Renesas Electronics has developed an AI accelerator that performs convolutional neural network (CNN) processing at high speeds and low power. A test chip with this accelerator has achieved the power efficiency of 8.8Tera operations per second per W (TOPS/W), which is the industry’s highest class of power efficiency, reports Renesas. The accelerator is based on the processing-in-memory (PIM) architecture, in which multiply-and-accumulate (MAC) operations are performed in the memory circuit as data is read out from that memory.

To create the new AI accelerator, Renesas developed three technologies. The first is a ternary-valued (-1, 0, 1) SRAM structure PIM technology that can perform large-scale CNN computations. The second is an SRAM circuit to be applied with comparators that can read out memory data at low power. The third is a technology that prevents calculation errors due to process variations in the manufacturing. Together, these technologies achieve a reduction in the memory access time in deep learning processing and a reduction in the power required for the MAC operations. As a result, the accelerator achieves the industry’s highest class of power efficiency while maintaining an accuracy ratio more than 99 per cent when evaluated in a handwritten character recognition test (MNIST), claims Renesas.

Before this development, the PIM architecture was unable to achieve an adequate accuracy level for large-scale CNN computations with single-bit calculations because the binary (0,1) SRAM structure was only able to handle data with values 0 or 1. Additionally, process variations in the manufacturing reduced the reliability of these calculations. The technologies developed by Renesas resolve these issues and can be applied to implement AI chips of the future and e-AI solutions for applications such as wearable equipment and robots that require both performance and power efficiency, says Renesas.

Since introducing the embedded AI (e-AI) concept in 2015, Renesas has defined classes based on the effectiveness of e-AI and applications that are implemented and has been developing e-AI solutions based on four classes: judging the correctness or abnormality of signal waveform data; judging correctness or abnormality using real-time image processing; performing recognition in real time and enabling incremental learning at an endpoint.

https://www.renesas.com

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Mixed-signal RF converter caters for 4G LTE and 5G mmWave radios

Thu, Jun 13, 2019

A mixed-signal front-end (MxFE) RF data converter from Analog Devices combines analogue and digital signal processing (DSP) for wireless equipment such as 4G LTE and 5G millimeter-wave (mmWave) radios. The AD9081/2 MxFE platform allows manufacturers to install multi-band radios in the same footprint as single-band radios, which can triple call capacity of today’s 4G LTE basestations. The 1.2GHz channel bandwidth RF data converter also enables wireless carriers that have additional antennae to cell towers to meet the higher radio density and data rate requirements of emerging mmWave 5G, adds Analog Devices.

The AD9081 and AD9082 provide software configurability to allow designers to customise radios as frequency translation and filtering moves to the digital domain.

The AD9081 and AD9082 MxFE converters integrate eight and six RF data converters, respectively, which are manufactured using 28nm CMOS process technology.

The MxFE platform processes more of the RF spectrum band and embeds DSP functions on-chip to enable the user to configure the programmable filters and digital up and down conversion blocks to meet specific radio signal bandwidth requirements. This results in a 10X power reduction compared to architectures that perform RF conversion and filtering on the FPGA, while freeing up valuable processor resources or allowing designers to use a more cost-effective FPGA.

Both MxFE options achieve the industry’s widest instantaneous signal bandwidth (up to 2.4 GHz), according to Analog Devices. This simplifies hardware design by reducing the number of frequency translation stages and relaxing filter requirements. This level of integration lowers chip count and yields a 60 per cent reduction in PCB area compared to alternative devices, adds the company.

The MxFE platform meets the needs of other wide-bandwidth applications in 5G test and measurement equipment, broadband cable video streaming, multi-antenna phased array radar systems and low-earth-orbit satellite networks, confirms Analog Devices.

The AD9081 will be available as either a quad 12-bit, 4Gsamples per second and quad 16-bit 12Gsamples per second ADC in 324-BGA thermally enhanced packages. Sampling will begin in September, with full production scheduled for March 2020.

The AD9082 will be available as a dual 12-bit, 4Gsamples per second and quad 16-bit 12Gsamples per second ADC in the same package. Sampling will begin in September with full production scheduled for December 2019.

https://www.analog.com

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Power supply monitoring IC has self-diagnosis for functional safety

Infineon claims Hall sensor is a first for ASIL D systems

Renesas announces memory technology for AI

Mixed-signal RF converter caters for 4G LTE and 5G mmWave radios

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