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Single-stage flyback controllers from Infineon shape up smart LED lighting

Thu, Jul 22, 2021

Three single-stage flyback LED controllers for constant output voltages have been introduced by Infineon, in anticipation of increased demand for dimmable and intelligent LED systems.

The ICL8800, ICL8810 and ICL8820 single-stage flyback LED controllers meet performance requirements for LED lighting applications, such as LED drivers and luminaires up to 125W, smart lighting and emergency luminaires. The ICs can also be used in adapters and chargers, flat TVs as well as PCs and monitors up to 125W.

The three IC versions offer benchmarking performance for power factor correction and total harmonic distortion at full load and low load conditions, says Infineon. They are optimised as secondary side regulated (SSR) constant voltage (CV) output flyback controllers and are also suitable for primary side regulation (PSR). Critical conduction mode (CCM) and quasi-resonant mode (QRM) with smart valley hopping ensure low EMI without compromising light quality, says the company.

ICL8800 is the basic model, ICL8810 has an integrated burst mode that allows a very low standby power consumption of less than 100mW and flicker-free deep dimming down to 0.1 per cent. This makes the ICL8810 suitable for smart lighting applications in connection with microcontrollers. The ICL8820 is additionally equipped with an integrated DC-input jitter function to improve EMI performance and supports the fulfilment of EMI requirements in DC operation. The ICL8820 model is claimed to ease EMI certification in the design of emergency lighting LED driver applications without additional circuitry.

The ICL88xx family offers an external start-up circuit control signal with a set of protection features, including a power limitation and secondary side over-voltage protection. The ICs require a minimum number of external components, claims Infineon.

The gate driver current enables designs up to 125W with MOSFETs. System performance and efficiency can be further optimised using Infineon’s CoolMOS P7 power MOSFETs.

All three single-stage flyback LED controller variants are available in PG-DSO-8 packages and are available for order now.

http://www.infineon.com

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Direct Insight creates QNX 7 BSP for Toradex Colibri iMX8X SoC modules

Thu, Jul 22, 2021

Systems integrator and system on module (SoM) reseller, Direct Insight, has created a QNX 7 board support package (BSP) for Toradex’s Colibri iMX8X embedded computing modules. They feature-rich QNX OS with real-time capability combined with the i.MX 8X processors can be used for mission critical applications such as medical devices, navigation, industrial automation, HMIs, avionics, POS, data acquisition and robotics.

Toradex Colibri iMX8X modules feature the NXP i.MX 8X family of embedded SoCs, including the i.MX 8QuadXPlus (i.MX 8QXP) which has four Cortex-A35 cores as the main processor cluster. The SoCs provide full 64-bit Arm v8-A support while maintaining seamless backward compatibility with 32-bit Armv7-A software. The main cores run at up to 1.2GHz.

According to David Pashley, Direct Insight’s managing director: “QNX is perfect for real time, safety critical applications,” he added that the BSP created by Direct Insight provides a great starting point for high availability industrial designs.

The QNX 7 BSP for Toradex’s Colibri iMX8X contains all the basic features required to run the OS on the board, such as drivers for various interfaces including Ethernet, Watchdog timer, I2C, SPI, USB, SD card and UART. A display driver is also planned.

The BSP is free to download as a demo system, and the source code can be licensed on a per-project basis for an affordable fee. Direct Insight also offers enhancements to the BSP, including additional drivers and production-hardening and testing.

Daniel Lang, chief medical officer at Toradex, added: “We design products for applications that demand high reliability, safety and security, such as medical devices. The QNX offering from Direct Insight further strengthens this positioning and allows our customers to use QNX while lowering the project risk and shortening the time-to-market.”

Founded in 1992, UK-based technical systems integrator and reseller of system on module (SoM) and other embedded systems, Direct Insight helps development teams to upgrade to the latest SoC, FPGA and OS technology by choosing the right off-the-shelf hardware, software and tools. It also provides support and services to fill the gaps, allowing customer development teams to focus on differentiating core skills.

Key partners include QNX, Ka-Ro Electronics, the German designer and manufacturer of embedded modules; and Taiwanese single board computer maker, DFI.

http://www.directinsight.co.uk

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Hand-held camera cube reference design brings AI to the edge

Wed, Jul 21, 2021

Artificial intelligence (AI) which was previously limited to expensive machines with large power budgets can now be embedded in space-constrained, power-powered edge devices. Maxim Integrated says its MAXREFDES178# camera cube executes low latency AI vision and hearing inferences on a coin cell power budget with reduced cost and size.

The MAXREFDES178# enables low power IoT devices to implement hearing and vision. It is based on the MAX78000 low power microcontroller with neural network accelerator for audio and video inferences. The system also contains the MAX32666 low power Bluetooth microcontroller and two MAX9867 audio codecs. The system is delivered in a compact form factor to show how AI applications, such as facial identification and keyword recognition, can be embedded in low power, cost sensitive applications such as wearables and IoT devices.

AI applications require intensive computations, which is usually performed in the cloud or in expensive, power-hungry processors: self driving cars is an example. Maxim says that its MAXREFDES178# camera cube demonstrates how AI can operate on a low power budget, enabling applications that are time- and safety-critical to run on even the smallest of batteries. The MAX78000’s AI accelerator slashes the power of AI inferences up to 1,000x for vision and hearing applications, compared to other embedded solutions, reports Maxim. The AI inferences running on the MAXREFDES178# also show dramatic latency improvements, running more than 100x faster than on an embedded microcontroller.

The compact form factor of the camera cube (1.6 x 1.7 x 1.5inch of 41 x 44 x 39mm) allows AI to be implemented in wearables and other space-constrained IoT applications. The MAX78000 is up to 50 per cent smaller than the next-smallest GPU-based processor, says Maxim, and does not require other components like memories or complex power supplies to implement cost-effective AI inferences.

The MAXREFDES178# and the MAX78000 is available now, together with the MAX32666GWPBT+T RF microcontroller and the MAX9867EWV+T stereo codec at Maxim Integrated’s website and authorised distributors.

http://www.maximintegrated.com

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R-Car Gen3e SoCs have up to 20 per cent higher CPU speed, says Renesas

Wed, Jul 21, 2021

Six SoCs have been added to the R-Car series by Renesas Electronics. The R-Car Gen3e series is a scalable series of devices for entry- to mid-range automotive applications that require high-quality graphics rendering. They can be used in integrated cockpit domain controllers, in-vehicle infotainment (IVI), digital instrument cluster, driver monitoring systems, and LED matrix lighting.

They have increased CPU performance up to 50k DMIPS and 2GHz speeds. to help vehicle manufacturers navigate demands for continuous user experience, security, and safety improvements.

As applications such as augmented reality navigation and artificial intelligence (AI) -based digital automotive assistants grows, OEMs and Tier 1s need to balance the demand for larger, higher resolution displays and high performance chips with rising bill of material (BoM) costs and longer development times, explained Naoki Yoshida, vice president automotive digital products marketing at Renesas. The R-Car Gen3e devices provide a migration path and full compatibility with Renesas’ current R-Car Gen3 SoCs.

The six models that have been added to the R-Car Gen3e SoCs series are the R-Car D3e, R-Car E3e, R-Car M3Ne, R-Car M3e, R-Car H3Ne, and R-Car H3e.

All have increased CPU, with the R-Car M3Ne, R-Car M3e, and R-Car H3e operating up to 2GHz.

An on-chip real-time Arm Cortex R7 CPU eliminates the need for an external vehicle controller combined with a Renesas PMIC, which reduces BoM costs. Development times are also reduced with reference designs for fast boot, human machine interface (HMI) and functional safety.

Renesas offers board support packages updated with the latest versions of the Linux and Android operating systems.

Pre-integrated software enables higher application integration, for example for 2D/3D cluster HMI, welcome animation, rear-view camera, and surround view applications, explains Renesas.

VirtIO technology allows developers to easily add the reference solutions to existing applications without changing the existing Linux or Android application

The SoCs also supports ASIL-B system safety requirements for applications such as telltale monitoring and camera freeze detection, as well as for true hardware separation in non-hypervisor cockpits

The R-Car Consortium (RCC) partner ecosystem includes system integrators, middleware/application developers, and operating system and tools vendors, providing innovative solutions for the connected car, ADAS, and gateway markets that enable customers to reduce development time and accelerate time to market for new products.

The R-Car Gen3e SoCs are sampling now.

https://www.renesas.com

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Single-stage flyback controllers from Infineon shape up smart LED lighting

Direct Insight creates QNX 7 BSP for Toradex Colibri iMX8X SoC modules

Hand-held camera cube reference design brings AI to the edge

R-Car Gen3e SoCs have up to 20 per cent higher CPU speed, says Renesas

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