Embedded Vision Alliance awards REAL3 image sensor as “Product of the Year”

Smartphone cameras increasingly require 3D vision capabilities as differentiating factor. Hence, Infineon Technologies developed the REAL3™ IRS2381C, a premier 3D imager sensor solution especially designed for the mobile device market.

The Embedded Vision Alliance now awarded the 3D Time-of-Flight (ToF) single chip solution as “Product of the Year” in the category “Sensors”. The Award recognises the innovation and achievement of the industry’s leading technologies, services, and products from companies enabling next generation of practical applications for computer vision.

“Congratulations to Infineon for winning Best Sensor in our 2019 Vision Product of the Year awards,” said Jeff Bier, Founder of the Embedded Vision Alliance. “Innovative sensor designs, like Infineon’s 3D Image Sensor, are enabling new 3D vision experiences such as smartphone face recognition and augmented reality. Infineon has been a pioneer in creating 3D image sensors for visual AI applications. I applaud the company’s ongoing investment in innovation and quality in this rapidly changing and often confusing market. I’m proud that Infineon is a member of the Embedded Vision Alliance and delighted they have been recognised with this outstanding honour.”

“We would like to thank the Embedded Vision Alliance for having honoured us with the ‘Product of the Year’ Award, which recognises Infineon’s innovation and performance of our REAL3™ ToF-based 3D imager the category ‘Sensors’, said Philipp von Schierstaedt, Vice President, RF & Sensors, Infineon. “Building upon the combined expertise of Infineon and pmdtechnologies, the novel sensor delivers a new level of 3D camera capabilities in mobile device applications. Infineon’s REAL3TM ToF sensor enables a unique user’s experience in secure face-authentication, computational photography and seamless AR-applications”.

Time-of-Flight (ToF) is the most advanced image sensing technology powering 3D cameras in new generation mobile devices and is posed to fuel the dramatic growth of 3D image sensing application market expected for future years. “Time-of-flight” stands for the time the photons need to travel from the camera to the subject or object of desire and back to the REAL3 sensor. Behind this concept there is unparalleled innovation: it enables the next level of highly secure user smartphone interaction.

The awarded IRS2381C image sensor ensures a high-quality, real time and secure 3D vision experience with supreme performance at all light conditions including outdoor. Compared to other 3D technologies like structured light, Infineon’s 3D ToF technology reduces the number of key components from three to two. Moreover, as distance is measured directly, it requires the least computational resources on the application processor. All this makes the application much more reliable, reduces the size and leads to more competitive costs, while enormously cutting the power drain.

Availability

The new 3D image sensor chip was developed in Graz, Dresden and Siegen and combines the know-how of Infineon’s German and Austrian locations in a single solution. With proven high volume production and a fast, in-factory enabled and lifetime valid calibration process, IRS2381C is the 3D image sensor of choice for 3D camera manufacturing in mobile device applications. More information about Infineon’s 3D image sensor family is available at www.infineon.com/real3.

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Arrow Electronics extends IoT support with cellular comms

Distributor Arrow Electronics has signed a global agreement with Infineon and Arkessa to simplify secure and scalable cellular connectivity for IoT devices.

Security is a major concern for organisations using connected devices. Infineon provides the secured hardware controllers based on GSMA’s Embedded Subscriber Identity Module (eSIM) specification and Arkessa provides secured mobile data services with the ability to provision and manage IoT devices from the factory into the field.

OEMs, system integrators and enterprises can obtain all the technology and service elements required to provide consistent connectivity for IoT devices anywhere in the world, explains Arrow, optimising Infineon’s security features and Arkessa’s network access and provisioning. eSIMs provide greater security and reliability in multiple IoT applications, continues Arrow, and can be flexibly coupled with cellular, NB-IoT, and LTE-M services today from Arkessa.

Andrew Orrock, CEO Arkessa, said: “We are delighted to be working with Arrow and Infineon to deliver the secure global connectivity that allows customers to deploy their IoT applications easily, efficiently, and at scale, wherever their devices are in the world.”

For progress to be made in Industry 4.0 adoption, machine to machine (M2M) communication must be secure. Machines in smart factories are increasingly using cellular networks to exchange information that ensures smooth operation and improves efficiency. Infineon’s SLM family of security controllers are optimised for industrial applications, providing higher levels of endurance over an extended temperature range of -40 to +105 degrees C.

In addition to industrial use, this secure connectivity can be used across smart cities, retail, and asset tracking.

Arrow provides components, modules and software for the edge of the IoT right through to the cloud services and analytics that exploit the data generated and encompasses all the connectivity in between and the security to protect the integrity of the network and its data.

Aiden Mitchell, vice president IoT, Arrow Electronics, said: “This new agreement will enable organisations to take advantage of the latest technologies to execute connected device strategies, using secure cellular services at scale, while staying focused on their own strengths and differentiators to create better outcomes for their customers and without being dependent on their clients’ networks.”

https://www.fiveyearsout.com 

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Eight-port PoE switch supports IEEE 802.3bt for smart lighting

An eight-port Power over Ethernet (PoE) switch released by Microchip guarantees 60W per port for all eight ports simultaneously. The PDS-408G PoE switch can be used for digital ceiling installations to run noiseless, fanless lighting designs.

In enterprise connected lighting applications, the PDS-408G connects separate systems such as lighting, sensors, heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) and Wi-Fi access points over a single switch. Eight ports is deemed the optimal number for connected lighting and the PDS-408G can save energy and reduce operating costs, claims Microchip.

The PDS-408G complies with IEEE 802.3bt, the new PoE standard. It provides a total of 480W, including up to 90W for any individual port or 60W for eight ports simultaneously.

The PDS-408G is plenum rated and can be installed in any air handling space, and is fanless for noise-free operation in offices, hospitals and hotels. The PDS-408G also exploits PoE with safe power, simple installation, flexible deployment and remote power management features.

The PDS-408G PoE switch is available now.

Microchip offers an array of easy-to-use hardware and software tools to accelerate PoE designs, including the PIC18 PoE mainnboard, which features a PIC18 MCU, ATECC608A secure element and MIC28512 buck regulator.

https://www.microchip.com

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Software development kit streamlines SLAM in mobile devices

To develop simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM) –enabled mobile devices, augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR) headsets, robots, autonomous vehicles and drones, Ceva offers the SLAM software development kit for CEVA-XM intelligent vision DSPs and NeuPro AI processors

The kit incorporates hardware, software and interfaces that can “significantly lower the entry barrier” to integrate efficient SLAM implementations into low-power embedded systems, says Ceva.

According to Ilan Yona, vice president and general manager of the vision business unit at Ceva: “SLAM is the underlying technology that enables high-accuracy 3D mapping of a device’s surroundings”. He believes that the company’s expertise in designing vision DSPs and software algorithms will introduced customers to 3D machine vision design.

The Ceva-SLAM software development kit has a detailed interface from a CPU to offload the heavy lifting SLAM blocks to the Ceva-XM DSP. These building blocks use the DSP to support both fixed point and floating point math and extend the device’s battery life. They also include capabilities for image processing (including feature detection, feature descriptors, feature matching), linear algebra (including matrix manipulation, linear equation solving) and fast sparse equation solving for bundle adjustment. The software development kit can run a full SLAM tracking module on the Ceva-XM6 DSP at 60 frames per second consuming just 86mW (using a frame size of 1280 x 720, running on Ceva-XM6 using TSMC’s 16nm process).

The software development kit, deployed with a Ceva-XM DSP or a NeuPro AI processor, can be used for visual positioning, classical and neural network workloads for imaging and vision using SLAM.

The Ceva-SLAM software development kit is available for licensing now, exclusively in conjunction with the Ceva-XM intelligent vision DSPs and NeuPro AI processors.

Ceva will presenting the Ceva-SLAM software development kit at the Embedded Vision Summit in Santa Clara, California, USA (Wednesday 22 May).

Ceva licenses signal processing platforms and artificial intelligence processors.  It provides low power IP for vision, audio, communications and connectivity including   DSP-based platforms for LTE/LTE-A/5G baseband processing in handsets, infrastructure and cellular IoT (NB-IoT and Cat-M) enabled devices, imaging and computer vision for any camera-enabled device, audio/voice/speech and low power always-on/sensing applications for IoT markets.

http://www.ceva-dsp.com

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