ICs & Semiconductors Archives - Page 79 of 235

STMicroelectronics reveals scalable, automotive high-side drivers

Thu, Feb 09, 2023

STMicroelectronics has released single-, double- and four-channel automotive high-side gate drivers in a common PowerSSO-16 package style, with pin assignments that simplify scaling circuit designs to add more driver channels.

The gate drivers target applications throughout the vehicle, including safety, comfort and powertrain, body electronics, infotainment and driver assistance systems.

Meeting the automotive industry’s LV124 test schedule for deep cold cranking permits use with heavy loads such as engine starters and ensures reliable operation even in extreme winter conditions. With very low standby current, at just a few microamps, these drivers minimise the drain on the battery when the vehicle is turned off and not being used.

The drivers are manufactured using ST’s proprietary VIPower M0-9 technology , which permits extensive integration within a small die size in addition to high current capability and high efficiency. On-chip features include protection such as load-current limiting, load-dump protection up to 35V and limiting of fast thermal transients. Flexible reset management lets the designer configure the driver’s responses to faults and so best meet the needs of the application. The drivers provide reverse-battery protection through self-turn-on capability, which limits the power dissipation on the PCB to a survivable level.

In addition, diagnostic capabilities include proportional load-current sensing that permits detecting malfunctions in the load, such as disconnection of an LED string. There is also overload, short-to-ground, short-to-VCC and off-state open-load detection. All diagnostics are maintained whether the driver is turned on or off, permitting faults to be detected even when the load is not supplied.

The series comprises five single-channel drivers: VN9004AJ; VN9006AJ; VN9008AJ; VN9012AJ; and VN9016AJ. The dual-channel drivers are the VND9008AJ, VND9012AJ, VND9016AJ, and VND9025AJ. The VNQ9025AJ and VNQ9080AJ each have four channels. All are housed in the PowerSSO-16 package, which has a space-saving 6.00 x 4.9mm footprint, is only 1.7mm high and is pin-to-pin compatible. They are also compatible with the previous- generation M0-7 family.

https://www.st.com/

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STMicroelectronics reveals single-chip antenna-matching ICs for easier, faster design with Bluetooth LE SoCs and microcontrollers

Tue, Feb 07, 2023

STMicroelectronics has extended its range of single-chip antenna-matching ICs that simplify RF-circuit design with two new devices optimised for BlueNRG-LPS system-on-chip ICs (SoCs) and STM32WB1x and STM32WB5x wireless microcontrollers.

The MLPF-NRG-01D3 for BlueNRG-LPS and MLPF-WB-02D3 for STM32WB integrate the complete filtering and impedance-matching network needed for best RF output power and receiver sensitivity with an external antenna. Each has 50Ohm nominal impedance on the antenna side. The chip-scale package has a minuscule footprint, 0.4mm bump pitch and a profile of only 630micro after reflow soldering. Also featuring a 2.4GHz low-pass filter, ST’s antenna-matching ICs ease compliance with worldwide radio regulations, including FCC, ETSI, and ARIB specifications.

The circuit elements are fabricated on a glass substrate leveraging ST’s integrated passive device (IPD) technology, which, the company claimed, minimises insertion losses and outperforms circuits built with discrete components. Integration on the same die is said to ensure consistent component parameters for end-product quality. In addition, ST’s IPDs help accelerate time to market, reduce bill-of-materials costs and miniaturise circuit dimensions.

The BlueNRG-LP and Blue NRG-LPS SoCs and STM32WB1x and STM32WB5x contain ST’s energy-efficient 2.4GHz radio IP and come with royalty-free protocol stacks and dedicated software tools. They help developers quickly design state-of-the-art wireless products, even without having extensive RF-design skills. Both provide on-chip features such as memory, peripherals, communication interfaces, power regulation and advanced hardware security including encryption, memory protection and public key acceleration (PKA).

BlueNRG-LPx SoCs can be used in standalone or network processor applications and support Bluetooth Low Energy 5.3 features including point-to-point and mesh communications, advertising extensions and direction finding.

The MLPF-NRG-01D3 IPD is compatible with all variants, comprising the BLUENRG-3x5Vx, BLUENRG-3x5Ax and BLUENRG-332xx in UFQFPN and WLCSP packages.

The STM32WB5x and STM32WB1x MCUs are Bluetooth 5.3, Zigbee 3.0 and OpenThread certified and feature an Arm Cortex-M4 core for application processing with a Cortex-M0+ dedicated to managing the radio. They are available in WLCSP and UFBGA packages that connect directly to the MLPF-WB-02D3 IPD. A different IPD is available for other MCU variants in UQFN and VQFN packages.

The MLPF-NRG-01D3 and MLPF-WB-02D3 single-chip antenna-matching ICs are available from $0.14 for orders of 1,000 pieces.

https://www.st.com/

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Multi-channel LED driver addresses RGB and single colour solid state lighting

Fri, Feb 03, 2023

A linear current LED driver, the AL5887, offers a simple way of driving numerous LEDs to enable complex colour mixing and different lighting patterns, said Diodes. It integrates two interface options (I2C and SPI) for system design flexibility. It delivers a wide colour range and an extensive dynamic range of brightness levels, making it suitable for use in smart home appliances, electric vehicle charging stations, infotainment displays, IoT information indicators, and computing hardware.

The AL5887 has 36 independent programmable channels and can drive up to 12 RGB LED modules or 36 single-colour emitters. It features an internal 12-bit pulse-width modulation (PWM) for colour and 6-bit analogue brightness control, which can be accessed through either the SPI or I2C interface.

There are three programmable banks for software control of each colour for ease of programming and setting lighting module patterns. An independent colour-mixing and brightness register per channel enables better colour-mixing schemes, said Diodes. The dimming function relies on a PWM duty cycle from three to 100 per cent. Once the duty cycle goes below three per cent, internal circuitry converts the output to analogue dimming, maintaining linearity. By combining PWM and analogue dimming functions, a dimming ratio greater than 100K to 1 can be achieved.

The AL5887’s diagnostics with fault-reporting functions are combined with built-in protection capabilities, which include short-circuit and open-LED protection, as well as over-temperature shutdown. The pre-event over-temperature shutdown warning also results in earlier system protection.

Using the two external hardware address pins, up to four of these devices can be connected together in I2C mode. An internal 16MHz oscillator avoids the need for an external high-precision clock and therefore reduces the bill of materials (BoM) cost.

The AL5887 LED driver is supplied in a 52-pin wettable QFN package, with exposed pad for better heat dissipation.

http://www.diodes.com

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nRF7002 companion IC and development kit create low power Wi-Fi 6 IoT

Thu, Feb 02, 2023

The first IC in Nordic Semiconductor’s Wi-Fi product family is the nRF7002 Wi-Fi 6 companion IC. The low power Wi-Fi 6 companion IC provides seamless dual band (2.4 and 5.0GHz) connectivity. The nRF7002 IC can be used with Nordic Semiconductor’s nRF52 and nRF53 series multi-protocol SoCs and the nRF9160 cellular IoT (LTE-M / NB-IoT) system in package (SiP), but can be used in conjunction with non-Nordic host devices.

In IoT applications, Wi-Fi 6 has power efficiency gains for battery power Wi-Fi operation and management in smart home products, industrial sensors, asset trackers, and wearables. They also contribute to the management of large IoT networks comprising hundreds of devices, said Nordic Semiconductor.

According to Svein-Egil Nielsen, CTO and executive vice president of R&D and Strategy at Nordic: “This highly integrated and flexible solution will empower developers to create new, innovative Wi-Fi 6-enabled products. Supported with the nRF7002 DK and the award-winning nRF Connect [software development kit], combined with Nordic’s . . . technical support, I believe it has never been easier to develop great Wi-Fi products.”

“The nRF7002 is designed to work alongside Nordic’s nRF52 and nRF53 Series making it a perfect fit for Matter, a smart-home standard backed by Amazon, Apple, Google, Nordic, Samsung, and hundreds of other companies,” explained Finn Boetius, product marketing engineer with Nordic. “The introduction of the IC and the nRF7002 DK now makes it easy for developers to get started on Matter and any other Wi-Fi based applications.” Matter uses Thread and Wi-Fi for data transport, and Bluetooth LE for commissioning.

The nRF7002 brings low power and secure Wi-Fi to the IoT. The dual-band IC complies with Station (STA), Soft Access Point (AP), and Wi-Fi Direct operation, and meets the IEEE 802.11b, a, g, n (Wi-Fi 4), ac (Wi-Fi 5), and ax (Wi-Fi 6) standards. The product also offers co-existence with Bluetooth LE, Thread and Zigbee.

The nRF7002 supports target wake time (TWT) a key Wi-Fi 6 power saving feature. Interfacing with a host processor is done via serial peripheral interface (SPI) or quad SPI (QSPI). The IC offers a single spatial stream, 20MHz channel bandwidth, 64 QAM (MCS7), OFDMA, up to 86Mbits per second PHY throughput, and BSS (base service set) colouring.

In addition to general IoT applications and Matter, the nRF7002 implements low power SSID-based Wi-Fi location when used with Nordic’s nRF9160 SiP and the company’s nRF Cloud Location Services. SSID-based Wi-Fi location supplements GNSS- or cell-based location by providing accurate positioning indoors and in places with a high density of Wi-Fi access points.

The introduction of the nRF7002 is accompanied by the launch of the nRF7002 DK, a development kit for the Wi-Fi 6 companion IC. The DK includes an nRF7002 IC and features an nRF5340 multi-protocol SoC as a host processor for the nRF7002. The nRF5340 embeds a 128MHz Arm Cortex-M33 application processor and a 64MHz high efficiency network processor. The DK supports the development of low-power Wi-Fi applications and enables Wi-Fi 6 features like OFDMA (orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing), beamforming, and TWT (target wake time). The DK includes Arduino connectors; two programmable buttons; a Wi-Fi dual-band antenna and a Bluetooth LE antenna, and current measurement pins.

The nRF7002 companion IC and nRF7002 DK are available now from Nordic’s distribution partners.

http://www.nordicsemic.com

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STMicroelectronics reveals scalable, automotive high-side drivers

STMicroelectronics reveals single-chip antenna-matching ICs for easier, faster design with Bluetooth LE SoCs and microcontrollers

Multi-channel LED driver addresses RGB and single colour solid state lighting

nRF7002 companion IC and development kit create low power Wi-Fi 6 IoT

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