ICs & Semiconductors

Infineon presents hybrid Time of Flight technology for next-generation smart robots

Wed, Jan 31, 2024

In collaboration with device manufacturer OMS and pmdtechnologies, an expert in Time of Flight (ToF) technology, Infineon has developed a new high-resolution camera solution that enables enhanced depth sensing and 3D scene understanding for next-generation smart consumer robots. The new hybrid Time of Flight (hToF) solution combines two depth sensing concepts and helps significantly reduce maintenance effort and costs for smart robots.

Infineon’s REAL3 flexible ToF imager technology enables the combination of established high-resolution iToF flood illumination and dToF long-range spot illumination in a single hybrid Time of Flight camera. For many years now, this high-resolution technology has been used to see the smallest objects in the path of the robot and navigate around them. Adding precise long-range spot data now also allows creation of an accurate 3D map of the surrounding area for intelligent path planning experiences even in challenging light conditions of bright sunlight or darkness that empower the next-generation robot vacuum cleaner.

The new solution reduces the height of robot vacuum cleaners by 20-30 percent, fully replacing the top-mounted LDS (Laser Distance Scanner) making it possible to clean even under furniture with low clearance. Measuring only 31x16x8 mm, the hybrid ToF camera requires much less space for improved mapping and obstacle avoidance functionality. Making multiple sensors redundant, hybrid ToF reduces system costs as well as operation costs, since there are no moving parts that wear out over time.

The solution serves customers with a simplified and user-friendly approach to implementation. The compact hybrid ToF solution is versatile and robust and aligns well with the evolving needs of mobile consumer robot devices in various industries such as robot vacuum cleaners, commercial robots, air-purifiers and size measurement.

https://www.infineon.com

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Renesas brings industry-leading performance of RA8 series MCUs to motor control applications

Tue, Jan 30, 2024

Renesas has introduced the RA8T1 microcontroller (MCU) group based on the Arm® Cortex®-M85 processor. RA8T1 devices address real-time control of motors, power supplies and other products commonly used in industrial and building automation, as well as smart homes.

The RA8T1 group is the third in Renesas’ RA8 Series, all of which deliver breakthrough performance of 6.39 CoreMark/MHz1. All RA8 MCUs take advantage of the high performance of the Arm Cortex-M85 processor and Arm’s Helium technology that provides up to a 4X performance boost for digital signal processor (DSP) and machine learning (ML) implementations over the Cortex-M7 core. This added performance in RA8T1 devices can be used for AI functions that can predict maintenance requirements for motors, reducing costly downtime.

The new RA8T1 devices include advanced PWM timing features such as 3-phase complementary output, 0% and 100% duty output capability, a double-buffer compare match register, and five phase counting modes. Analog capabilities of the new MCUs include 12-bit ADCs, 12-bit DACs and high-speed comparators used in voltage and current measurement and over-current protection. RA8T1 MCUs also offer multiple communications functions, including SCI, SPI, I2C/I3C, CAN/CAN-FD, Ethernet, and USB-FS. The new group also provides port output shutdown capability when an anomaly is detected, an important safety feature in motor control. These capabilities combined with the advanced timers and Renesas’ power management expertise, enable customers to build comprehensive, low-power motor control solutions.

All RA8 devices also offer advanced security including Arm TrustZone® technology, Renesas Security IP (RSIP-E51A), Secure Boot with first stage bootloader in immutable storage, and Pointer Authentication and Branch Target Identification (PACBTI) security extension.

The new RA8T1 Group MCUs are supported by Renesas’ Flexible Software Package (FSP). The FSP enables faster application development by providing all the infrastructure software needed, including multiple RTOS, BSP, peripheral drivers, middleware, connectivity, networking, and security stacks as well as reference software to build complex AI, motor control and cloud solutions. It allows customers to integrate their own legacy code and choice of RTOS with FSP, thus providing full flexibility in application development. Using the FSP will ease migration of existing designs to the new RA8 Series devices.

The RA8T1 Group MCUs are available now, along with the FSP software. The new MCUs are supported in Renesas’ Flexible Motor Control development kit that enables easy evaluation of motor control using permanent magnet synchronous motors (brushless DC motors), and the Renesas Motor Workbench development tool. This development kit offers a common design platform with numerous Renesas motor control MCUs from the RA and RX families, enabling migration of IP across numerous devices.

https://www.renesas.com/RA8T1

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Renesas debuts its lowest power consumption, dual-core bluetooth low energy SoC with integrated flash

Fri, Jan 19, 2024

Renesas has introduced the DA14592 Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) System-on-Chip (SoC) representing Renesas’ lowest power consumption and smallest, multi-core (Cortex-M33, Cortex-M0+), Bluetooth LE device. By carefully balancing tradeoffs between on-chip memory (RAM/ROM/Flash) and SoC die size (for cost), the DA14592 is very well suited to a broad range of applications including connected medical, asset tracking, human interface devices, metering, PoS readers and ‘crowd-sourced location’ (CSL) tracking.

The DA14592 utilises a new low-power mode to offer 2.3mA radio transmit current at 0dBm and 1.2mA radio receive current. Additionally, it supports an ultra-low hibernation current of only 90nA, extending shelf-life for end-products shipped with ‘battery connected’, and ultra-low active current at 34µA/MHz for products requiring significant application processing.

Operating from only a system clock and its accurate on-chip RCX, this device removes the need for a sleep mode crystal in the majority of applications. Its reduced eBOM, coupled with the DA14592’s small package (offered in WLCSP: 3.32mm x 2.48mm and FCQFN: 5.1mm x 4.3mm) also presents designers with an small solution footprint. The DA14592 also includes a high-precision, sigma-delta ADC, up to 32 GPIOs and unlike other SoCs in its class, it offers a QSPI supporting external memory (Flash or RAM) expansion for applications requiring extra memory.

Renesas has integrated all external components required to implement a Bluetooth LE solution into the DA14592MOD module. It offers customers the fastest time-to-market and reduced overall project cost. Emphasis has been placed in the design of this module to ensure maximum design flexibility by comprehensively routing the DA14592’s functions to the outside of the module and using castellated pins for easy/low-cost module attachment during development.

“The DA14592 and DA14592MOD extend our leadership in Bluetooth LE SoCs with our trademark low power consumption and best-in-class eBOMs,” said Davin Lee, Sr. Vice President and General Manager of the Analog and Connectivity Product Group for Renesas. “In addition, we have listened to our customers and continue to expand our product support by offering reference designs for applications such as crowd-sourced locationing, helping our customers to more easily differentiate their products, delivering premium value while maintaining lowest costs.”

https://www.renesas.com/DA14592.

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Rohm announces industry’s first speech synthesis ICs dedicated for acoustic vehicle alerting systems in xEVs

Thu, Jan 18, 2024

The ROHM group company LAPIS Technology has developed the industry’s first speech synthesis ICs – the ML22120xx series (ML22120TB, ML22120GP) – designed for AVAS in xEVs (electric vehicles).

In order to achieve a carbon neutral (decarbonised) society, the number of hybrid and electric vehicles that silently operate on motor power continues to increase – prompting AVAS regulations to be enacted that require a warning sound to alert pedestrians of their approach. However, when generating a warning sound using an MCU, the pitch and volume must be smoothly controlled and characteristics adjusted to match the vehicle geometry. This increases MCU software development load requiring verification with other software processes inside the MCU. In response, LAPIS Technology released new products that contribute to reducing the burden of AVAS development by leveraging experience and technology with speech synthesis ICs. The aim: achieving a high-fidelity sound using a novel hardware-based configuration.

The ML22120TB and the ML22120GP integrate hardware functions that include a warning sound generator, fader, and equaliser. Unlike MCU-based designs, the hardware configuration eliminates the need for software validation – significantly reducing development time. At the same time, dedicated GUI software makes it easy to comply with regulations for volume and frequency characteristics required for AVAS.

The system of new ICs can be controlled by simple commands, allowing warning sound to be started in less than one-tenth the time of conventional MCU-generated systems. An included fault detection function detects both erroneous communication with the main controller and erroneous oscillation caused by external components – contributing to vehicle reliability.

An evaluation board along with a Sound Device Control Kit [SDCK3] that includes dedicated GUI software are available, enabling easy evaluation of everything from sound generation to correction and trial listening of alert sounds.

https://www.rohm.com/lapis-tech/product/speech/ml221

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