ICs & Semiconductors Archives - Page 74 of 235

Energy harvesting PMIC contributes to low power IoT

Tue, Apr 11, 2023

Adding to its range of power ICs, Nexperia has introduced the NEH2000BY power management IC (PMIC) for low power embedded applications, including the IoT.

The NEH2000BY PMIC recharges a battery or storage capacitor using energy harvested from ambient sources, such as light (which can be harvested using a photovoltaic cell). The PMIC will enable the development of electronic devices that are self-powered, smaller, and environmentally friendly, said Nexperia and exploit energy harvesting to help mitigate the environmental impact of the billions of batteries produced and discarded each year.

The PMIC makes it much easier to design energy harvesting solutions which can be up to 20x smaller than other competing offerings and do not require manual optimization for individual applications, claimed the company. It is designed without inductors, which simplifies PCB design and “significantly” reduces BoM and board size. The assembly area is just 12mm².

To achieve the highest conversion efficiency, energy harvesting must be able to adapt as the ambient energy source fluctuates. To this end, the NEH2000BY performs maximum power point tracking (MPPT), an adaptive algorithm to optimise how it transfers harvested energy, achieving optimum average conversion efficiency by up to 80 per cent. The MPPT algorithm combines speed with accuracy, allows the PMIC to adapt to environmental changes in less than one second: significantly faster than any other currently available solution, said Nexperia. By maximising the amount of energy harvested over the course of a day, the PMIC can broaden the number of applicable use cases, while the self-optimisation functionality and the ability to operate autonomously without pre-programming make it simpler to design products using ambient energy.

Nexperia’s energy harvesting technology enables economical energy harvesting from various ambient sources in applications consuming up to several mW of power, including wireless IoT nodes, wearable smart tags and electronic shelf labels.

Dan Jensen, general manager business group analogue and logic ICs at Nexperia commented: “The NEH2000BY . . . will allow the adoption of energy harvesting in a larger range of use cases. By eliminating the requirement to change batteries in these applications, NEH2000BY will significantly reduce the amount of hazardous waste produced, with enormous environmental benefits.”

The NEH2000BY is available in a 16-lead, 3.0 x 3.0mm QFN package and operates between -40 and +85 degrees C.

http://www.nexperia.com

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Industrial RFID tagging increases sensitivity and memory to diversify

Mon, Apr 03, 2023

In comparison to the earlier memory ICs produced by NXP, the UCODE 9xm has three times the sensitivity. It also has customer-configurable memory options, enabling more diverse objects to be tagged. Use in industrial tagging, it delivers an accurate picture of the supply chain, said NXP.

The IC is designed to improve overall system reliability and accuracy, said NXP, and enables customers to use smaller tag antennas, allowing smaller objects to be individually tagged and incorporated into smart manufacturing processes, supply chain management and tracking applications. The tag can be used on a variety of object types, delivering a more complete view of the supply chain.

RAIN RFID tagging has become a crucial component for automated industrial processes but tags with the memory needed to support these processes often do not deliver the same read and write performance as lower memory devices, making it difficult to tag all necessary items, reducing system efficiency. UCODE 9xm combines flexible, high capacity memory options with advanced read and write performance to increase overall system performance.

From smart manufacturing to supply chain management, industrial environments require complex process flows and advanced automation, explained Ralf Kodritsch, senior director, UCODE, NXP. He said that the UCODE 9xm can streamline these processes by making it easier to individually track the products and tools involved.

UCODE 9xm has a read sensitivity of around -24dBm and a write sensitivity of about -22dBm makes tag encoding faster.

It also has a total of 880bits of memory space shared between the EPC and user memory banks, with three flexible memory configurations, selectable by the customer based on their use case, that offer up to 496 bits of EPC (electronic product code) memory and up to 752 bits of user memory, to store manufacturing data such as lot number, production date or process parameters. A single IC can also be used to fulfill a number of different use cases.

A memory safeguard protects data and ensure accuracy, including an error correction code (ECC) algorithm and parity checks. Integrated BlockPermalock protects sections of data from change, while still allowing other sections to be added, edited or deleted. Independent access and kill passwords provide additional data security, preventing unauthorised users from erroneous or malicious actions.

The UCODE 9xm is available now.

http://www.nxp.com

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RISC-V ASSP adds voice control

Fri, Mar 31, 2023

Developed in partnership with RISC-V ecosystem partners, the R9A06G150, 32bit ASSP is claimed to be the first RISC-V microcontroller designed for voice-controlled HMI (human-machine interface) systems.

It provides a cost-effective, production-ready voice control system that eliminates the need for RISC-V tools and upfront software investment.

The ASSP can be designed into devices used in residential and commercial building automation, home appliances, toys and healthcare devices. It supports multiple languages and user-defined keywords for voice recognition. The R9A06G150 is pre-programmed using specialised application code developed by independent design houses, added Renesas.

The R9A06G150 voice-control HMI ASSP is based on RISC-V processing IP from Andes Technology which incorporated its AndesCore D25F CPU core based on the AndeStar V5 architecture. “The 32-bit AndesCore D25F was engineered to deliver high per-MHz performance in a small silicon footprint,” explained Frankwell Lin, Andes’ chairman and CEO.

Renesas will deliver the first RISC-V voice-control ASSP pre-programmed with dedicated application code developed by Cyberon, an independent design house, specialising in voice-recognition technology, and Orbstar, a systems integrator specialising in embedded solutions Segger Microcontroller’s ecosystem, including Embedded Studio and J-Link will provide support for the voice-control ASSP.

The R9A06G150 voice control HMI ASSP features a 100MHz CPU with DSP instructions and floating-point extension. Low active current, reduced standby current, background operation, SRAM power-off choices, fast wakeup and low power timers contribute to low energy consumption. The ASSP is controlled by external host I/F via SCI/Uart, SPI, I3C or I2C.

It also features 256kbyte, 128kbyte RAM and 16kbyte data flash memory. There is also a QSPI (queued serial peripheral interface) for memory expansion.

The R9A06G150 32-bit MCU voice-control HMI ASSP is available now in a 24-, 32- or 48-lead HWQFN package.

Renesas also offers a reference kit for the ASSP, which includes hardware, software, tools, hardware/software datasheets, GUI manual and app notes.

http://www.renesas.com

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Infineon makes Secora Pay available in 28nm

Mon, Mar 27, 2023

Payment cards will have the capability to be offered in new, innovative designs, said Infineon, as it introduces its Secora Pay card payment technology is available on 28nm chip technology.

The Secora Pay platform allows manufacturers to efficiently produce robust dual interface cards for payment and multi-application use cases, explained Infineon Technologies.

The introduction of 28nm chip technology is believed to be the first 28nm technology card payment technology with embedded non-volatile memory. It is intended to side step the semiconductor shortages experienced in mature technology nodes.

The product family uses a security controller with certified software integrated into coil on module (CoM) chip modules. The devices use standardised inlays for easy and fast card production which are compatible with Secora Pay products on 65nm, 40nm and 28nm technology. One inlay sheet fits the existing and new Secora Pay products.

The CoM system offers maximum flexibility in card design, said Infineon. It uses inductive coupling technology with copper wired card antennas. It is therefore perfectly suited for future market trends such as environmentally friendly cards made of recycled and ocean-bound plastic or wood, as well as high-performance dual-interface metal or LED cards.

Secora Pay products support the highest throughput in card production with minimal resources for manufacturing highly robust dual-interface cards, said Infineon. New services based on Secora Pay’s NFC tag enable further use cases such as initial card activation as well as authentication for online banking and for loyalty programmes.

“In recent years, touchless payment experience with dual-interface payment cards has become a global standard, among others also driven by the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Tolgahan Yildiz, head of payment solutions at Infineon’s connected secure systems division.

The Secora Pay portfolio us engineered to enable manufacturing and issuance of high quality dual-interface payment cards for high transaction performance with reliable security for trusted seamless payments, he added.

The global dual-interface payment card market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of six percent from 2022 to 2027, starting from an estimated 2.6 billion units in 2022.

The 28nm technology products offer a simple onboarding process or migration path for card manufacturers, claimed Infineon. They are backwards-compatible with existing Secora Pay products in terms of card production, antenna design, personalisation and product certification for contactless and personalised performance, enabling contactless transactions within 155 milliseconds.

Product versions supporting the latest Visa and Mastercard applications are available now with extremely long approval life time. Certified applets for American Express, Discover and others will follow later this year, confirmed Infineon.

http://www.infineon.com

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Energy harvesting PMIC contributes to low power IoT

Industrial RFID tagging increases sensitivity and memory to diversify

RISC-V ASSP adds voice control

Infineon makes Secora Pay available in 28nm

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