IoT

Renesas introduces low quiescent current RF amplifier

Thu, Aug 06, 2020

The company says the F1490 RF amplifier has low quiescent current of just 75mA to save power in 4G/5G infrastructure systems. This is much lower than competitive amplifiers, says Renesas Electronics.

The F1490 is a second-generation high-gain, two-stage RF amplifier that covers the key sub-6GHz 5G frequency bands from 1.8 to 5.0GHz. It delivers high gain with selectable modes and low power consumption. It also maintains high OP1dB performance and 2.4dB noise figure, to meet the system-level requirements of a MIMO 5G pre-driver, said Naveen Yanduru, vice president of RF Communications, Industrial and Communications division at Renesas. “We are excited to continue driving LTE and 5G innovation with our RF amplifier solutions for active antenna systems (AAS), 4G/5G base stations, and other wireless communications equipment,” he added.

The amplifier is designed to operate within the 1.8 to 5.0GHz frequency range and has high gain, high linearity, and wide bandwidth. It is suitable for use with both frequency division duplex (FDD) and time division duplex (TDD) sub-6GHz 5G applications. The F1490 is pin-to-pin compatible with current devices which contributes to lower design cost, says Renesas.

The F1490 has two selectable gain modes – 39.5dB high gain or 35.5dB low gain. It has high performance OIP3 of 38dBm and OP1dB of 24dBm and an operating temperature of +115 degrees C.

Today’s higher data rates drive the need for better radio signal-to-noise ratios, explains Renesas. The company’s patented RF product portfolio addresses the evolving needs of a range of applications, including cellular 4G/5G base stations, communications systems, microwave (RF/IF), CATV, and test and measurement equipment. Renesas’ AAS range includes interface amplifiers, low noise amplifiers, switches and pre-drivers to address the high performance transmit and receive requirements of massive MIMO with the highest efficiencies in the smallest form factors, according to Renesas.

Samples of the F1490 are available now in a 3.0 x 3.0mm, 16-pin QFN package. Mass production will be available in September 2020.

http://www.renesas.com

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Binder unveils printing technique that gives sensors a new dimension

Thu, Aug 06, 2020

Functional electronic layers can be laid directly on a component, says binder. The binder Innovation & Technology Center has developed the direct printing technique.

As digitisation increases and smart systems proliferate, there is a need for a balance between more complex sensor networks with data processing and simpler, more user friendly operator support, says binder. The trend toward miniaturisation makes it difficult to equip parts due to a limited amount of space with conventional sensors. The binder method of direct printing is claimed to overcome all these challenges. Dr Stefan Ernst, one of the co-developers of the new printing technique, explains: “The printed electronics need less space. In addition, they are more flexible in application and more cost efficient,” he said.

Using a recently developed transfer printing technique, binder was able, for the first time, to apply planar functional electronic layers with a thickness of maximum precision to textured, three-dimensional surfaces in only one printing pass.

Circuit traces, sensors and displays, for example, can be printed without the need for foils or other substrate materials. A protective layer can be overprinted and specially developed nano pastes provide stable parameters for the printing process.

Intended uses in the industrial area range from flexible circuit traces and heating elements to sophisticated sensors. By printing capacitive sensor elements, for example, touch displays of almost any shape can be implemented on three-dimensional and/or textured surfaces. The same approach can also be used for an intuitive gesture control system. Temperature sensors or strain gauges can be implemented by measuring the change in the resistance values of the printed functional layers. The flexible printing technique allows the sensor to be quickly adapted to the application-specific task.

The newly created binder electronic solutions group provides custom-made solutions for connectors, contacts, circuit layout and automatic placement. Services range from design and prototype to series production.

http://www.binder-connector.de

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Surveillance camera reference design has auto-focus for object detection

Tue, Aug 04, 2020

Renesas Electronics and Novatek Microelectronics have collaborated on a surveillance camera reference design offering phase-detection auto-focus. It delivers fast and superior object detection and recognition for 4K video security and surveillance applications.

The ultra-high-definition (UHD) surveillance camera reference design addresses the high accuracy object detection and recognition needs of video security and surveillance systems. The reference design includes a camera image sensor (CIS) board with phase-detection auto focus (PDAF), and a high performance image signal processing (ISP) board and auto focus zoom lens software.

The surveillance camera reference design enables 4K resolution, excellent coluor imaging and better recognition accuracy of objects, including small objects in low-light conditions, claims Renesas. Its high speed auto focus operation can also be realized with low-priced lenses for a high performance 4K video security camera reference design and software that helps shorten the development time required in building a camera system with fast auto focus and enhanced imaging performance.

The reference design is built around Renesas’ high performance RAA462113FYL CMOS image sensor and Novatek’s dual core SoC image signal processor. The CIS board includes the RAA462113FYL, DC/DC buck converters, LDOs, motor driver and lens. The ISP board features the SoC and associated signal chain components.

The CMOS image sensor has high sensitivity, low noise, low power with high resolution 8M pixels. The sensor features HDR, PDAF functions and MIPI-CSI2 output, which support 30 frames per second at12-bit digital output.

The signal processor board includes an 800MHz dual core SoC image signal processor with sensor interface and interfaces for display, PHY, Wi-Fi module, GPS, and RS-485. There is also support for RTC, I2C, SPI, GPIO, audio IF, Flash/SD card, HDMI, Ethernet, SDIO, SCI, UART and an SDRAM controller.

Renesas developed the reference design in collaboration with Novatek Microelectronics and it was designed by, and is available from, Systemtec.

http://renesas.com

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32bit microcontroller brings sound to home, offices and industry

Mon, Aug 03, 2020

Microcontrollers from Epson can bring sounds to home appliances and other equipment in a variety of settings. The Arm Cortex-M0+ based S1C31D51 microcontroller has dedicated hardware which can play sound on either a speaker or buzzer.

The S1C31D51 is suitable for a variety of applications and environments. Epson says it can be used to integrate sound into home electronics, remote controllers for home appliances, industrial devices, health and fitness equipment with guidance systems, or alarms in office buildings, shopping complexes, and factories.

An Arm Cortex-M0+ processor integrated with a dedicated hardware processor provides two-channel sound on a single microcontroller chip. There is a variety of speech and audio playback functions, two-channel mixing sound (for playing background music and voice) and voice speed conversion, with a playback speed that is adjustable in five per cent increments between 75 and 125 per cent.

It is possible to output voice guidance sound like error and warning messages on a buzzer instead of a speaker. Epson says it has improved buzzer sound output performance, which can often be poor because of low volume and limited bandwidth, by using a combination of software and hardware support.

The hardware processor plays sound without requiring CPU resources, so these can be allocated to other processes even during sound playback. The use of a high data compression algorithm (16kbits per second at 15.625kHz) reduces the size of sound data memory, making it possible to provide a large amount of sound data and sound data in multiple languages.

Epson`s Voice Creation PC software tool will be provided free of charge to customers. It is a simple development environment for creating sound data for 12 languages without studio recording. Existing WAV data can also be used.

The S1C31D51 has a self- memory check function that can detect failures in built-in RAM, built-in flash, and external QSPI-flash memories without using CPU resources.

There is a variety of ways to play back sound: electromagnetic buzzer, piezoelectric buzzer and a speaker.

The S1C31D51 evaluation board includes the electromagnetic and piezoelectric buzzer by TDK that allows quick audio testing along with the pre-set demonstration.


http://www.epson-electronics.de

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