Renesas debuts its lowest power consumption, dual-core bluetooth low energy SoC with integrated flash

Renesas has introduced the DA14592 Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) System-on-Chip (SoC) representing Renesas’ lowest power consumption and smallest, multi-core (Cortex-M33, Cortex-M0+), Bluetooth LE device. By carefully balancing tradeoffs between on-chip memory (RAM/ROM/Flash) and SoC die size (for cost), the DA14592 is very well suited to a broad range of applications including connected medical, asset tracking, human interface devices, metering, PoS readers and ‘crowd-sourced location’ (CSL) tracking.

The DA14592 utilises a new low-power mode to offer 2.3mA radio transmit current at 0dBm and 1.2mA radio receive current. Additionally, it supports an ultra-low hibernation current of only 90nA, extending shelf-life for end-products shipped with ‘battery connected’, and ultra-low active current at 34µA/MHz for products requiring significant application processing.

Operating from only a system clock and its accurate on-chip RCX, this device removes the need for a sleep mode crystal in the majority of applications. Its reduced eBOM, coupled with the DA14592’s small package (offered in WLCSP: 3.32mm x 2.48mm and FCQFN: 5.1mm x 4.3mm) also presents designers with an small solution footprint. The DA14592 also includes a high-precision, sigma-delta ADC, up to 32 GPIOs and unlike other SoCs in its class, it offers a QSPI supporting external memory (Flash or RAM) expansion for applications requiring extra memory.

Renesas has integrated all external components required to implement a Bluetooth LE solution into the DA14592MOD module. It offers customers the fastest time-to-market and reduced overall project cost. Emphasis has been placed in the design of this module to ensure maximum design flexibility by comprehensively routing the DA14592’s functions to the outside of the module and using castellated pins for easy/low-cost module attachment during development.

“The DA14592 and DA14592MOD extend our leadership in Bluetooth LE SoCs with our trademark low power consumption and best-in-class eBOMs,” said Davin Lee, Sr. Vice President and General Manager of the Analog and Connectivity Product Group for Renesas. “In addition, we have listened to our customers and continue to expand our product support by offering reference designs for applications such as crowd-sourced locationing, helping our customers to more easily differentiate their products, delivering premium value while maintaining lowest costs.”

https://www.renesas.com/DA14592.

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Rohm announces industry’s first speech synthesis ICs dedicated for acoustic vehicle alerting systems in xEVs

The ROHM group company LAPIS Technology has developed the industry’s first speech synthesis ICs – the ML22120xx series (ML22120TB, ML22120GP) – designed for AVAS in xEVs (electric vehicles).

In order to achieve a carbon neutral (decarbonised) society, the number of hybrid and electric vehicles that silently operate on motor power continues to increase – prompting AVAS regulations to be enacted that require a warning sound to alert pedestrians of their approach. However, when generating a warning sound using an MCU, the pitch and volume must be smoothly controlled and characteristics adjusted to match the vehicle geometry. This increases MCU software development load requiring verification with other software processes inside the MCU. In response, LAPIS Technology released new products that contribute to reducing the burden of AVAS development by leveraging experience and technology with speech synthesis ICs. The aim: achieving a high-fidelity sound using a novel hardware-based configuration.

The ML22120TB and the ML22120GP integrate hardware functions that include a warning sound generator, fader, and equaliser. Unlike MCU-based designs, the hardware configuration eliminates the need for software validation – significantly reducing development time. At the same time, dedicated GUI software makes it easy to comply with regulations for volume and frequency characteristics required for AVAS.

The system of new ICs can be controlled by simple commands, allowing warning sound to be started in less than one-tenth the time of conventional MCU-generated systems. An included fault detection function detects both erroneous communication with the main controller and erroneous oscillation caused by external components – contributing to vehicle reliability.

An evaluation board along with a Sound Device Control Kit [SDCK3] that includes dedicated GUI software are available, enabling easy evaluation of everything from sound generation to correction and trial listening of alert sounds.

https://www.rohm.com/lapis-tech/product/speech/ml221

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Novosense announces quad-channel digital isolators for industrial and automotive applications

Novosense Microelectronics has expanded its family of digital isolators with quad-channel devices that provide the performance and protection demanded by the latest industrial and automotive applications. The new NSI824xWx high-reliability digital isolators provide compact and efficient protection and level shifting in applications ranging from solar inverters and energy storage to industrial automation and electric vehicles.

UL1577-qualified for safety, the ultra-wide body NSI824xWx industrial and automotive grade isolators combine robust EMC performance with high levels of protection against system-level electrostatic discharge (ESD), electrical fast transients (EFTs) and voltage surges. Each device offers an insulation voltage up to 8kVrms, chip-level ESD HBM protection to ±8kV and common-mode transient immunity (CMTI) up to 200kV/μs.

The isolators are available with options for four forward channels, three forward and one reverse channel or two forward and two reverse channels. Default output state on power loss can be set to low or high. Channel speeds up to 150Mbps are supported, while a wide input voltage range of 2.5V to 5.5V simplifies level shift operations by ensuring compatibility with a wide variety of digital interfaces. A low power consumption of 1.5mA per channel (at speeds of 1Mbps) helps designers to meet system efficiency targets.

As with all members of the range, the latest NSI824x devices employ an adapted capacitive isolator technology in which the digital signal undergoes modulation by an RF carrier generated on the transmitter side and is then demodulated on the receiver side. Subsequently, the signal is transmitted via a capacitive isolator and demodulated on the receiver side. Use of Novosense’s proprietary Adaptive OOK modulation technology is key to robust performance, which includes high noise resistance and low EMI.

The devices are supplied in an SOWW16 package, can support 15mm creepage distance and operate across a wide temperature range of -55℃ to 125℃, and are fully compliant with all relevant UL, CQC, CSA and VDE safety standards. In industrial automation systems, they can be used for industrial control, industrial motor drive applications, industrial transportation, instrumentation, industrial field instruments, isolated SPI, RS232, and RS485 applications, universal multi-channel isolators, and motor control. Automotive targets will include automobile sensors, electric drives and power supplies and battery management systems.
 https://www.novosns.com/en

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Next-Gen ethernet switches from Microchip feature time sensitive networking and scalable port bandwidths

The growth of the industrial automation market encompasses innovative technologies like Machine Learning (ML) and robotic systems. Embedded solutions with deterministic communication are essential for industrial automation applications to control, monitor and process data. To provide designers with a reliable and robust network solution with deterministic communication, Microchip has announced its next-generation of LAN969x Ethernet switches with Time Sensitive Networking (TSN), scalable bandwidths from 46 Gbps to 102 Gbps and a powerful 1 GHz single-core Arm® Cortex®-A53 CPU.

For applications that require greater redundancy, the LAN969x Ethernet switches can be configured with High-availability Seamless Redundancy (HSR) and Parallel Redundancy Protocol (PRP). HSR and PRP are hardware protocols that provide zero-loss redundancy in Ethernet networks. The LAN969x Ethernet switches support multiple HSR and PRP Redundancy Box (RedBox) instances that can operate in parallel and in series, as well as at Ethernet port speeds from 10 Mbps to 10 Gbps.

The LAN969x can implement a QuadBox, which is a function that connects two HSR networks to each other. This feature is particularly useful in applications where high reliability and zero downtime are critical. Alternative solutions that implement a QuadBox typically require multiple different components that can drive up design complexity and system costs.

“Prior to the introduction of Microchip’s LAN969x Ethernet switches, customers who wanted to implement TSN and HSR/PRP features required multiple ICs. Microchip’s new LAN969x solution is a single chip that can reduce the number of components and system level costs,” said Charles Forni, vice president of Microchip’s USB and networking business unit. “These devices are also supported with our VSC6817SDK IStaX Linux® application software package that can enable designers to quickly bring products to market.”

The LAN969x Ethernet switches are highly configurable with options of up to 30 ports. The Ethernet ports support multiple interfaces including RGMII, SGMII, QSGMII, USGMII, and USXGMII. The LAN969x family targets secure and safety-critical applications where high- port-count 10M/100M/1G/2.5G/10G switching links are required.

The LAN969x family is available with security add-ons such as secure boot and secure firmware execution based on the customer’s root-of-trust manufacturing process. Security is provided through Ternary Content Addressable Memory (TCAM)-based frame processing using a Versatile Content Aware Processor (VCAP), Arm Trusted Firmware methodology for fast secure boot, crypto libraries and hardware security accelerators for boot and code encryption, and one-time programmable immutable key storage.

The new family of LAN969x mid-range Ethernet switches rounds out Microchip’s portfolio of TSN switches. The SparX-5i family supports up to 64-ports and 200 Gbps of switching bandwidth, while the LAN9662 and LAN9668 support from 4 to 8 ports and 4 to 11 Gbps of switch bandwidth.

The LAN969x family of Ethernet switches is supported by the EV23X71A Evaluation Board. Other resources include the IStaX VSC6817SDK Linux Application Software Package to support TSN standards and HSR/PRP redundancy.

https://www.microchip.com.

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