ST’ 65W GaN converter delivers space-saving power for cost-conscious applications

ST’ VIPerGaN65D flyback converter, with its SOIC16 outline, permits extremely small and economical power supplies, adapters, and USB-PD (Power Delivery) fast chargers up to 65W with universal input voltage.

The quasi-resonant offline converter integrates a 700V gallium nitride (GaN) transistor and optimised gate driver with typical protection features, making wide-bandgap technology easily accessible to elevate power density and efficiency. The GaN transistor operates at up to 240kHz, with minimal switching losses, permitting a small flyback transformer, small passive components, and a compact, low-cost circuit board.

While other members of the VIPerGaN family are packaged in 5mm x 6mm DFN, the VIPerGaN65D is packaged into a more traditional SO16n (narrow) outline.

The converter operates with zero-voltage switching and can adjust the valley-synchronisation delay to ensure the GaN transistor always turns on at the valley of the drain resonance. Also featuring dynamic blanking time to help maintain efficiency with increasing input voltage, the converter adapts to maximize overall efficiency at any line and load condition. In addition, feedforward compensation minimises the input peak power variation over the input voltage range.

The VIPerGaN65D current limit of 3.5A lets the converter deliver up to 65W when designed for the universal input voltage range from 85V to 265V. Designing for 185V-265V input allows a maximum power rating of 85W. The standby power is below 30mW, meeting requirements of the latest international energy efficiency standards.

The VIPerGaN65D enables tiny, low-cost fast chargers and adapters, and can power washing machines, dishwashers, coffee makers, televisions, set-top boxes, digital cameras, portable audio players, cordless shavers, and more. It is also used in auxiliary supplies for desktop PCs and servers, building and home automation equipment, energy meters, domestic and architectural lighting, and air conditioners.

Contributing to the minimal bill of materials, the VIPerGaN65D integrates a SENSEFET (current-sensing power MOSFET) that provides accurate current sensing needed to optimise efficiency and activate system protection. Built-in features include overcurrent protection, output overvoltage protection, input-voltage feed-forward compensation, brown-in/brown-out protection, input-overvoltage protection, output overload protection, output short-circuit protection, and thermal shutdown. All the protection features have auto-restart and the converter also implements frequency jitter for EMI suppression.

The EVLVIPGAN65DF reference design helps accelerate power-supply projects based on the VIPerGaN65D. Combining the converter with secondary synchronous rectification, controlled by ST’s SRK1001 adaptive controller, the EVLVIPGAN65DF presents a fully protected 24V, 65W power supply with peak efficiency greater than 93%.

https://www.st.com

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Infineon advances Edge AI computing on PSOC Edge with NVIDIA TAO toolkit integration

Microcontrollers (MCU) are at the heart of modern electronics, and integrating the latest AI development and deployment workflows at the edge poses a major challenge for developers. The combination of a high-performance MCU with NPU hardware acceleration and an advanced AI fine-tuning workflows will enable developers to accelerate the deployment of AI models in low-power MCUs: Infineon has today announced support for NVIDIA TAO models on the PSOC Edge MCU family.

Infineon’s PSOC Edge MCU family features Arm Cortex-M55 processors and Ethos-U55 microNPU and enhances energy-efficient machine learning capabilities at the edge. The combination of these versatile microcontrollers with the powerful NVIDIA TAO models and fine-tuning toolkit greatly simplifies the creation, customisation, optimisation, and deployment of high accuracy vision AI models.

“NVIDIA is a key player in the AI/ML space, so we and our lead customers engaged in vision, audio and voice applications are very excited about this effort,” said Steve Tateosian, Senior Vice President IoT Compute & Wireless at Infineon. “By integrating NVIDIA TAO in our PSOC Edge portfolio, we empower developers to create smarter and more efficient systems that work at the edge of the network and solve real-world challenges with speed and precision. This significantly speeds up time-to-market for ML enabled applications in industrial automation, medical, automotive, and smart IoT solutions.”

“NVIDIA TAO brings the latest advances in computer vision models and fine-tuning workflows to the far edge”, said Deepu Talla, Vice President of Robotics and Edge Computing at NVIDIA. “Infineon PSOC Edge’s integration of NVIDIA TAO greatly simplifies the development and deployment of customised AI across a range of devices.”

The integration of NVIDIA TAO features will become available for the entire PSOC Edge family along with a comprehensive development ecosystem, including tools, libraries, and documentation, to accelerate innovation and reduce time-to-market for AI-enabled applications.

https://www.infineon.com

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New module series from Panasonic equipped with Wi-Fi 6 from TI

Panasonic has announced their cost-effective Wi-Fi 6 & Bluetooth LE Combo module series PAN W602, based on the Texas Instruments (TI) SimpleLink WiFi CC3301 companion IC and CC3351 Companion IC.

The PAN W602 will be available in a single band (PAN W602-1) and dual-band variant (PAN W602-2) and will be equipped with an integrated antenna for easy hardware design and easy end-certification. Alternatively, Panasonic Industry also offers a variant with available bottom pad for applications that require an external antenna.
The module series is suitable for low-cost Wi-Fi 6 applications that require low data rates, for example inverters, medical devices, heat pumps, or EV chargers.

TI’s CC3301 and CC3351 devices stand out in particular with Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth LE 5.4 support at an affordable price. They feature robust security, including WPA3 and firmware authentication capabilities. The versatile architecture of these chipsets allows seamless integration with processors running Linux/Android or capable microcontrollers (MCU) running RTOS and networking stack, addressing a wide range of industrial and Internet of Things (IoT) applications that require affordable, secure and reliable wireless communication.

Tomislav Tipura, Product Manager at Panasonic Industry comments: “We are proud to continue our decade-long collaboration with Texas Instruments, and we are excited to introduce this new module series, built on their advanced CC3301 and CC3351 chipsets. This collaboration allows us to deliver high-performance solutions that meet the evolving needs of our customers at a competitive price point.”

“In today’s fast-paced IoT landscape, companies designing innovative Wi-Fi 6-enabled applications are focused on reducing time to market for new products while keeping costs low. The PAN W602 family of modules from Panasonic, based on our SimpleLink wireless products, are helping to meet this need, and expand the capabilities of Wi-Fi and cloud-based ecosystems. We look forward to seeing these modules further unlock the potential of our increasingly connected world.” adds Shmulik Elgavi, Product Line Manager, Wi-Fi Connectivity Solutions at Texas Instruments.

The PAN W602 Series Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth module will be certified for CE RED, FCC, ISED, MIC, and NZ/AUS. Samples are already available now and the start of mass production is scheduled for end of year 2025.

https://industry.panasonic.eu

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Taoglas expands TFM series of multi-band GNSS front-end modules

Taoglas has announced the expansion of its TFM series of multi-band GNSS front-end modules. Building upon the existing product range, the expanded series offers design engineers more options for simplifying and accelerating product development for high-precision GNSS applications.

TFM modules comprise a two-stage cascaded filter and low noise amplifier (LNA) topology encapsulated within a shielded, robust, compact, low-profile surface mount package. This design ensures streamlined integration with any multi-band antenna or GNSS receiver, acting as a bridge between the antenna and RF module to facilitate the addition of active electronics to GNSS designs.

The TFM series simplifies integration by combining impedance matching, filters, and low noise amplifiers (LNAs) into a single package. The integrated pre-filters attenuate out-of-band signals, while the LNAs ensure an optimal noise figure across the entire signal chain. Furthermore, high-gain architecture, featuring cascaded LNAs with pre-filters and optimised impedance matching, provides at least 25 dB gain to the GNSS receiver. The 1 dB compression points of the modules are -31 dBm or better, depending on the model and frequency. All TFM modules operate from a DC input voltage of 1.8 to 5.5 VDC, providing maximum design flexibility. The compact footprint and low-profile design, housed in a shielded, surface mount package measuring from 15 mm x 15 mm x 2.7 mm, conserves space without the need for external components.

“Using TFM modules typically saves designers at least six months of development time compared to designing active circuitry on the PCB themselves,” said Taoglas CEO, Dermot O’Shea. “It not only speeds things up and enables them to focus on the rest of their design, but because of our many years of experience designing such circuits for our own antennas, you know you are getting best in class and can be confident in the reliability and accuracy of your GNSS data.”

The expanded TFM series now includes:

TFM.100A – Multi-Band GNSS Front End Module covering L1+B1+G1/L2
TFM.100B – Multi-Band GNSS Front End Module covering L1+B1+G1/L5
TFM.110A – Multi-Band GNSS Front End Module covering L1/L2/L5
TFM.120A – Multi-Band GNSS Front End Module covering L1+B1+G1/L2/L5+L-band
TFM.112A – Multi-Band GNSS Front End Module covering L1+B1+G1/L2/L5+L-band
TFM.115A – Multi-Band GNSS Front End Module for Bands L1, B1, G1, L Band and L5

TFM modules are designed for high-precision, multi-band GNSS applications, including navigation, transportation, robotics, precision agriculture, and autonomous vehicles.

Evaluation boards for the TFM series are now available, allowing engineers to quickly integrate and test these high-performing GNSS modules in their product designs. https://www.taoglas.com/

 

 

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