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ZF’s energy harvesting technology has a handle on smart homes

Thu, Nov 07, 2019

Smart home devices add security and energy efficiency as well as convenience. German door and window handle manufacturer, Hoppe, has developed the eHandle ConnectHome and uses energy harvesting technology from ZF.

The window handle joins the product range as an entry-level model to detect whether a window is open or closed. With ZF’s energy harvesting generator, the RF window handle does not need batteries and can therefore be retro-fitted. Rotating the handle to open or close the window generates enough energy to send an RF signal. The position of the window handle will then be transmitted wirelessly to a central control unit which can be programmed, for example, to automatically regulate the heating to turn down if the windows are open.

The eHandle ConnectHome uses a module consisting of monostable generator and RF board, produced by ZF. The generator is based on an inductive principle meaning that the required RF energy is only generated by the mechanical actuation of the handle incorporating the switch. The data transfer is made wirelessly using the EnOcean RF protocol.

Energy harvesting switches are suitable for various control solutions within different environments and a range of applications, advises ZF.

Founded in 1915, ZF has evolved from a supplier specializing in aviation technology to a global technology company.

It supplies systems for passenger cars, commercial vehicles and industrial technology. It offers integrated solutions for established vehicle manufacturers, mobility providers and start-up companies in the fields of transportation and mobility.

ZF operates in approximately 230 locations in 40 countries.

https://switches-sensors.zf.com/

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Renesas and Altair bring best-in-class solutions to the cellular IoT market

Wed, Nov 06, 2019

Renesas Electronics, and Altair Semiconductor, jointly announced a partnership aimed at bringing ultra-small and ultra-low-power cellular IoT solutions to the global IoT market. Cellular IoT device makers will be able to use this combination of best-in-class solutions to create highly differentiated IoT products and services that offer much greater efficiencies and faster time to market. These integrated solutions will be delivered through Renesas’ sales channels, enabling cellular connectivity to all of its markets.

“We are delighted to collaborate with Altair to deliver the industry’s best cellular IoT solutions to the booming IoT market,” said Sailesh Chittipeddi, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Renesas’ IoT and Infrastructure Business Unit. “Our combined technical excellence and differentiated IP will allow us to design the smallest and lowest power multi-protocol cellular chip-to-cloud solution for Industrial IoT applications desired by our customers for their next-generation products.”

With billions of devices expected to be deployed by 2024, the IoT market demands products that operate seamlessly out of the box. Sensors, cameras, metering, tracking, and smart devices all rely on ultra-low power consumption, offering the potential for a sensor to operate in the field for 10 to 20 years without requiring any hardware maintenance.

“This collaboration makes Altair’s technology accessible to the full breadth of Renesas customers and partners ecosystem,” said Oded Melamed, CEO of Altair Semiconductor. “The Integration of Altair’s differentiated cellular IoT technology with Renesas’ industry-leading MCUs will make this great technology immediately accessible to the mass market of IoT devices and service providers.”

As a first step of this collaboration, Renesas and Altair plan to develop cellular IoT solutions with CAT-M and NB-IoT dual mode chipsets and technologies. They will also design a variety of development tools and software to further streamline the adoption of cellular IoT solutions for industrial and consumer applications. This partnership aims to achieve technical leadership in size reduction, power consumption, and IoT security.

Altair Semiconductor

Altair Semiconductor, a Sony Group Company, is a leading provider of Cellular IoT chipsets. The company’s flagship ALT1250 is the smallest and most highly integrated LTE CAT-M and NB-IoT chipset, featuring ultra-low power consumption, hardware-based security, and a carrier-grade integrated SIM (iUICC), all 5G ready.

Altair partners with leading global vendors, including G+D (Giesecke+Devrient), HERE Technologies, Murata, Sierra Wireless and WNC, to provide low-power and cost-efficient modules for a range of industrial and consumer IoT applications such as trackers, smart meters, wearables, and vehicle telematics. Altair’s chipsets have been commercially deployed on the world’s most advanced LTE networks, including AT&T, China Mobile, KDDI, SoftBank Corp., Verizon, and Vodafone.

For more information, visit www.altair-semi.com. Follow Altair on Twitter: @AltairSemi and LinkedIn: Altair Semiconductor

Renesas Electronics Corporation

Renesas Electronics Corporation (TSE: 6723) delivers trusted embedded design innovation with complete semiconductor solutions that enable billions of connected, intelligent devices to enhance the way people work and live. A global leader in microcontrollers, analog, power, and SoC products, Renesas provides comprehensive solutions for a broad range of automotive, industrial, home electronics, office automation, and information communication technology applications that help shape a limitless future. Learn more at renesas.com.

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PCIe packet switches are automotive-qualified for telematics and ADAS

Wed, Nov 06, 2019

The PI7C9X2G304EVQ and PI7C9X2G404EVQ PCIe 2.0 packet switches packet switches are automotive-compliant for use in telematics/ADAS, navigation systems, in-vehicle wireless routers, and emerging applications such as V2V and V2X communications. They offer three-ports/four-lanes and four-ports/four-lanes, respectively.

The switches are designed to increase the fan-out of PCIe ports on SoCs, ASSPs, microprocessors and FPGAs to support these advanced features in the automotive industry. Both the PI7C9X2G304EVQ and PI7C9X2G404EVQ are qualified to AEC-Q100 Grade 2, and have an operating temperature range of -40 to +105 degrees C. They are manufactured in IATF 16949-certified facilities.

Interoperability at the system level is guaranteed, confirms Diodes, through compliance with the PCI-SIG PCIe Rev 2.1 standard.

Advanced features include an integrated clock buffer and support for peer-to-peer traffic, delivering greater system performance. The low-power operation is complemented by link power management, including active-state power management L0 and L1, device-state power management D0, D3Hot and D3Cold. Power dissipation in L0 is 300mW (typical), dropping to 35mW in PCI-PM L1.1 D3Hot PM sub-state mode.

Latency for a packet running through the switch without blocking is 150nanoseconds, and latency tolerance reporting improves platform power management. While the default mode is cut-through, store and forward modes are also supported. Peer-to-peer traffic is enabled through access control service support.

Diodes manufactures and supplies application specific standard products within the broad discrete, logic, analogue and mixed-signal semiconductor markets. Diodes serves the consumer electronics, computing, communications, industrial, and automotive markets, supplying diodes, rectifiers, transistors, MOSFETs, protection devices, function-specific arrays, single gate logic, amplifiers and comparators, Hall-effect and temperature sensors, power management devices, including LED drivers, AC/DC converters and controllers, DC/DC switching and linear voltage regulators, and voltage references along with special function devices, such as USB power switches, load switches, voltage supervisors, and motor controllers. Diodes also has timing, connectivity, switching, and signal integrity solutions for high-speed signals.

http://www.diodes.com

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Audio ADC quadruples far-field voice capture distance

Wed, Nov 06, 2019

Engineers can now achieve a 120dB dynamic range for clear, high-fidelity audio in smart home applications, says Texas Instruments (TI) as it introduces the TLV320ADC5140audio ADC. It can capture clear audio up to four times farther away than competing devices, claims TI. The TLV320ADC5140 is the industry’s smallest quad-channel audio ADC with this level of performance, says the company. It is part of a family of three TI Burr-Brown audio ADCs that enable low-distortion audio recordings in loud environments and far-field, high-fidelity recordings in any environment.

In smart home systems, a limited number of microphones and restricted signal processing capability make it difficult to capture and understand voice commands in loud environments. To meet this challenge, the TLV320ADC5140 enables engineers to improve audio capture from across rooms and boost recognition of soft-spoken commands in applications such as high-end smart speakers, sound bars, wireless speakers, high definition TVs, IP network cameras, tele-conferencing systems and smart appliances.

The TLV320ADC5140 provides clear audio capture in any environment in beamforming systems, says TI. It has a built-in 120dB dynamic range enhancer (DRE). At a system level, the DRE scheme boosts low-volume audio signals while maintaining low-distortion recordings, even at close proximity to the speaker output. The DRE also improves far-field, high-fidelity recordings in all environments.

The TLV320ADC5140 is believed to be the first ADC that fully supports the latest high signal-to-noise-ratio microphones with greater than 106dB dynamic range.

Up to four analogue or eight digital microphones can be converted and programmable features such as gain and phase calibration can equalise microphone-array mismatches. Other features include a programmable gain amplifier, high-pass filters, channel mixing, and linear phase or ultra-low-latency decimation filters.

The TLV320ADC5140 enables engineers to offload digital signal processing tasks, to shrink the size of designs while maintaining system reliability and minimising power consumption to only 9.5mW per channel at 48kHz.

The TLV320ADC5140 is available in a 4.0 x 4.0mm, 24-pin wafer quad flatpack no-lead (WQFN) packaging. The TLV320ADC5140 quad-channel 768-kHz TI Burr-Brown audio ADC evaluation module, the ADC5140EVM-PDK, is also available.

http://www.ti.com

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ZF’s energy harvesting technology has a handle on smart homes

Renesas and Altair bring best-in-class solutions to the cellular IoT market

PCIe packet switches are automotive-qualified for telematics and ADAS

Audio ADC quadruples far-field voice capture distance

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