ICs & Semiconductors Archives - Page 68 of 230

Chipset for 5G mobile devices is latest member of Semtech PerSe family

Fri, Apr 14, 2023

Semtech has expanded its PerSe product portfolio with the PerSe Connect SX9376 IC which is purpose built for 5G mobile devices.

Semtech’s PerSe technology senses human proximity and enables end devices such as smartphones to implement radio frequency (RF) control. The PerSe Connect SX9376 enables designers to optimise RF performance, enhance connectivity and support elevated compliance with global specific absorption rate (SAR) standards for 5G-enabled consumer devices.

Semtech’s PerSe intelligent sensors are used in the connected device market. They enable automatic adjustment of system level RF emissions in connected devices such as smartphones, tablets, hotspots and laptops for them to operate at peak performance while maintaining compliance, explained Semtech.

By 2030, the global 5G market is expected to grow at a 47.6 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) with a market valuation of $198.44 billion. To bring these 5G-enabled products to market, OEMs must add more RF antennas into the design to address the frequency increase. The additional antennas can make it challenging for OEMs to address global SAR compliance and accurately manage the device’s RF power, explained Semtech. The SX9376 has a maximum of eight sensor inputs to support multiple antennas and simplify the sensor design without compromising performance and regulation. The chipset is also compatible with various antenna designs, making it easy to integrate into the latest 5G mobile devices, explained Semtech.

Semtech PerSe Connect 9376’s sensing performance is enabled by a high-resolution analogue front end (AFE) down to 0.74aF. It can support antenna designs with up to 600pF capacitance and is robust with advanced temperature correction to minimise false triggers caused by noise and temperature.

http://www.Semtech.com

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Rutronik offers Wi-Fi 6 seamless connectivity with Nordic’s nRF7002

Fri, Apr 14, 2023

Nordic Semiconductor’s nRF7002 is a companion IC for integrating seamless Wi-Fi 6 connectivity into a range of applications. It is a cost-effective and power-saving option, said Rutronik, with high speed, improved range and the reliability of the latest Wi-Fi standard.

The IC operates on both the 2.4 GHz and 5.0GHz Wi-Fi bands, offering a range of options for connecting to networks. The nRF7002 equips products with the latest Wi-Fi 6 technologies, making it suitable for use in medical or inventory tracking applications. Its low power consumption makes it particularly interesting for use in battery-powered wireless products, added Rutronik.

The nRF7002 is designed to be used in conjunction with the nRF Connect software development kit (SDK). The platform has a number of tools and libraries for developing applications for which the nRF7002 is the optimal choice.

The nRF7002 complies with 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax- and has a 20MHz channel bandwidth with 64 QAM (MCS7) and 86Mbits per second PHY throughput.

The companion IC is currently unique in this form in the Nordic portfolio and can be combined with the company’s ultra low power technologies. It is also compatible with Nordic’s existing nRF52 and nRF53 series Bluetooth SoCs and nRF91 series cellular IoT systems in package (SiPs). As a result, Nordic’s Wi-Fi 6 companion IC nRF7002 is suitable for a wide range of applications, for example in smart cities, smart agriculture, smart home, wearables and medical devices.

The nRF7002 from Nordic Semiconductor is available from the distributor, Rutronik.

Rutronik Elektronische Bauelemente was founded in 1973 and is an independent family-owned company based in Ispringen, Germany. It claims to be one of the world’s leading broadline distributors. It has more than 80 offices worldwide and logistics centres in Austin (Texas), Shanghai, Singapore, and Hong Kong to offer comprehensive customer support in Europe, Asia, and North America.

The company focuses on advanced materials, advanced measurement, processing and analytics, advanced robotics, automation, biotechnology, energy and power, future mobility, IIoT and internet of everything, industry 4.0, medical and healthcare, and transportation, logistics and supply chain.

The company also offers customised logistics systems, reliable supply chain management, and logistics centres worldwide to ensure on-time delivery. The Rutronik24 e-commerce platform completes Rutronik’s range of services.

http://www.rutronik.com

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Nordic Semiconductor disrupts IoT with low power wireless SoCs

Thu, Apr 13, 2023

A fourth generation, low power wireless SoC has been introduced by Nordic Semiconductor. The first SoC in the nRF54 series is the nRF54H20 and suitable for disruptive IoT applications demanding high processing power, excellent energy efficiency and security, said Nordic Semiconductor.

The nRF54 series of Bluetooth Low Energy (Bluetooth LE) SoCs add to Nordic’s portfolio of the nRF51, nRF52, and nRF53 series. At the same time it introduces a new hardware architecture fabricated on the GlobalFoundries 22FDX process node.

Capable of supporting Bluetooth 5.4 and future Bluetooth specifications, plus LE Audio, Bluetooth mesh and Thread, Matter, the nRF54H20 will be the foundation for a new wave of revolutionary IoT end products, promised Nordic Semiconductor. Its combination of advanced features will enable complex end products that have previously been unfeasible, claimed the company.

The nRF54H20 comprises multiple Arm Cortex-M33 processors and multiple RISC-V coprocessors. The processors are clocked at up to 320MHz and each processor is optimised for a specific type of workload.

The dedicated application processor features double the processing power (2x CoreMark) of the application processor in the nRF5340 SoC. The nRF54H20’s computing resources are supported by integrated memory comprising 2Mbyte non-volatile memory and 1Mbyte of RAM. The SoC’s level of integration will enable developers to shrink designs by replacing multiple components, such as application microcontroller, external memory and wireless SoC, with a single, compact device. In addition to advanced wearables, smart home, medical and LE Audio applications, the nRF54H20 SoC can be used for applications demanding complex machine learning (ML) and support for sensor fusion at the edge.

The nRF54H20 features several new digital and analogue interfaces, including a high performance external memory interface (400Mbytes per second), high speed USB (480bits per second), two I3C peripherals, a CAN FD controller and a 14-bit ADC. These interfaces are in addition to analogue and digital interfaces integrated on the nRF54H20.

The multi-protocol 2.4GHz radio ensures the nRF54H20 SoC is the first in the world to offer -100dBm RX sensitivity when receiving a 1Mbit per second Bluetooth LE signal, according to Nordic Semiconductor. Combined with up to 10dBm TX power, the nRF54H20 offers an ample link budget for enhanced robustness and longer range. The radio RX current consumption is just half that of the nRF5340, said Nordic. For applications that are mainly receivers, such as earbuds and wearables, the low energy consumption allows for more compact batteries or extended battery life, explained Nordic Semiconductor.

The nRF54H20 is a secure low power, multi-protocol SoC and is designed for PSA Certified Level 3, the highest level in the Platform Security Architecture (PSA) Certified IoT security standard. The SoC supports security services such as secure boot, secure firmware update and secure storage. It has cryptographic accelerators that are hardened against side-channel attacks and tamper sensors that detect an attack in progress and take appropriate action.

The nRF54H20 SoC is available for sampling now to selected customers.

http://www.nordicsemic.com

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Video processing architecture by AMD is basis for 5nm ASIC-MAC

Wed, Apr 12, 2023

The Alveo MA35D media accelerator card (MAC) by AMD, has two 5nm, ASIC-based video processing units to support the AV1 compression standard. According to the company, it is purpose-built to power a new era of live interactive streaming services at scale.

AMD reported that more than 70 per cent of the global video market is dominated by live content and that a new class of low latency, high volume interactive streaming applications are emerging. These include watch parties, live shopping, online auctions and social streaming.

The Alveo MA35D media accelerator delivers high channel density, with up to 32x 1080p60 streams per card. It is also power efficient with low latency performance which are critical to reduce rising infrastructure costs required for scaling such compute intensive content delivery. Compared to the previous generation Alveo U30 media accelerator, the Alveo MA35D delivers up to four times higher channel density and lower latency by a factor of four and 1.8 times greater compression efficiency, to achieve the same VMAF score as a video quality metric.

Dan Gibbons, general manager of AECG data centre group, AMD, commented: “We developed the Alveo MA35D with an ASIC architecture tailored to meet the bespoke needs of these providers to reduce both capital and operating expenses for delivering immersive experiences to their users and content creators at scale.”

The Alveo MA35D uses a purpose-built VPU to accelerate the video pipeline. By performing all video processing functions on the VPU, data movement between the CPU and accelerator is minimised, reducing overall latency and maximising channel density with up to 32x 1080p60, 8x 4Kp60, or 4x 8Kp30 streams per card. It provides low latency support for the mainstream H.264 and H.265 codecs and features next-generation AV1 transcoder engines delivering up to a 52 per cent reduction in bit rate for bandwidth savings versus a comparable software implementation.

The accelerator features an integrated AI processor and dedicated video quality engines designed to improve the quality of experience at reduced bandwidth. The AI processor evaluates content, frame-by-frame, and dynamically adjusts encoder settings to improve perceived visual quality while minimising bit rate. Optimisation techniques include region-of-interest (ROI) encoding for text and face resolution, artifact detection to correct scenes with high levels of motion and complexity, and content-aware encoding for predictive insights for bit rate optimisation.

Scaling high-volume streaming services requires maximizing the number of channels per server while minimizing power and bandwidth-per-stream. By delivering up to 32x 1080p60 streams per card at 1W per stream, a 1U rack server equipped with eight cards delivers up to 256 channels to maximis the number of streams per server, rack or data centre.

The Alveo MA35D MAC is accessible with the AMD Media Acceleration software development kit, supporting the FFmpeg and Gstreamer video frameworks for ease of development.

Alveo MA35D media accelerators are sampling now with production shipments expected in Q3. To accelerate development, an Early Access Program is available to qualified customers with comprehensive documentation and software tools for architectural exploration.

https://www.amd.com/

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Chipset for 5G mobile devices is latest member of Semtech PerSe family

Rutronik offers Wi-Fi 6 seamless connectivity with Nordic’s nRF7002

Nordic Semiconductor disrupts IoT with low power wireless SoCs

Video processing architecture by AMD is basis for 5nm ASIC-MAC

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