Nordic Semiconductor PMIC for embedded BLE is available from Rutronik

The nPM1300 power management IC (PMIC) from Nordic Semiconductor is now available at Rutronik. The IC integrates essential functions required for embedded Bluetooth Low Energy designs with hard reset functions for one or two buttons, accurate battery indication, a system level watchdog, power failure warning, and recovery from a failed startup in a single device. The level of integration and compact package reduces the number of components required and simplifies system design, said Rutronik.

It is designed to provide efficient power control for Nordic’s nRF52 and nRF53 series SoCs and ensures support for wireless networks such as Bluetooth LE, Thread, Zigbee or Low Energy Audio. 

The nPM1300 is also power efficient and includes accurate measurement functions for monitoring charge level and estimating battery life. It can be used with USB-C compatible chargers for lithium-ion, lithium polymer, and lithium iron phosphate batteries up to 1000mAh. The nPM1300 has four individually controllable power rails including two high performance buck regulators with a 200mA current limit and two 100mA load switches or 50mA LDOs. The PMIC has an operating temperature range of -40 degrees C to +85 degrees C.

The battery charger complies with JEITA and has a termination range of 3.5 to 4.45V and charge current from 32 to 800mA. The input regulator has an input range of 4.0 to 5.5V and output from 4.0 to 5.5V unregulated. USB current limit is 1500mA and the design includes overvoltage protection at 22V transient. 

Other features include an input regulator with USB support, an 800mA charger, ship- and hibernate modes and five general purpose I/Os and three LED drivers.

The nPM1300 PMIC can be used in a choice of applications for wearable devices, handheld entertainment devices, personal health and medical devices and rechargeable smart home sensors.

Rutronik Elektronische Bauelemente was founded in 1973 and is an independent family-owned company based in Ispringen, Germany. It has over 80 offices worldwide and logistics centres in Austin (Texas), Shanghai, Singapore, and Hong Kong, for comprehensive customer support in Europe, Asia and North America. 

The company focuses on high-growth future markets, identified as advanced materials, advanced measurement, processing and analytics, advanced robotics, automation, biotechnology, energy and power, future mobility, IIoT and internet of everything, industry 4.0, medical and healthcare, and transportation, logistics and supply chain.

To serve customers in these future markets, the Rutronik Automotive, Embedded, Power, Smart and System Solutions groups bundle expertise, specific product portfolios, and consultancy support. The services range from competent technical support in product development and design-ins, through the diverse product portfolio of leading manufacturers, to the company’s software and hardware solutions with partly patented Rutronik IP.

http://www.rutronik.com

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Alliance Memory combines NAND flash and eMMC controller in FPGA package

Compliant With JEDEC eMMC v5.1, the ASFC16G31M-51BIN integrates NAND flash memory with an eMMC controller and flash transition layer (FTL) management software in a single 11.5 mm by 13 mm 153-ball FBGA package. The 16Gbyte industrial grade device is available from Alliance Memory.

The device for solid-state storage in consumer, industrial, and networking applications features boot operation, replay protected memory block (RPMB), device health report, field firmware updates, power-off notification, enhanced strobe features for faster and more reliable operation, write levelling, high-priority interrupt (HPI), secure trim / erase and high-speed HS200 and HS400 modes. The ASFC16G31M-51BIN is also backwards-compatible with eMMC v4.5 and v5.0. 

The eMMC can be used in smart watches, tablets, digital TVs, set-top boxes, VR and AR headsets, digital cameras, CCTV, surveillance, automation, PoS systems and emerging embedded applications. According to Alliance Memory, the ASFC16G31M-51BIN simplifies designs for fast and easy system integration in these products, speeding up product development and time to market. It also saves valuable space by eliminating the need for an external controller. The FTL software provides high reliability and stable performance with wear levelling and bad block management, the company added. 

The ASFC16G31M-51BIN operates over an industrial temperature range of -40 to +85 degrees C and offers programmable bus widths of x1, x4, and x8. The device’s NAND memory with internal LDO can be powered with a single 3V supply voltage, while the controller can be powered by 1.8 or 3V dual supply voltages. 

Samples of the eMMC are available now. Production quantities are available with lead times of 8 to 10 weeks. 

David Bagby, Alliance Memory’s president and CEO confirmed that eMMCs are a new focus product for the company. “We are making a significant investment in this product portfolio, and with further, higher-density additions we’ll be launching in Q3 2023, Alliance Memory is set to become one of the leading providers of eMMC technology,” he predicted. 

http://www.alliancememory.com 

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Imagination says IMG CXM is the smallest GPU to support HDR user interfaces

Seamless visual experiences for cost-sensitive consumer devices are assured with the IMG CXM GPU of RISC-V compatible cores, said Imagination Technologies. The range includes what is claimed to be the smallest GPU to support HDR user interfaces natively. 

The IMG CXM cores can lower the cost of DTV and other consumer devices in smart homes, for example, said Imagination. Another driver is content providers seeking to integrate 4K and HDR features to enrich content, continued the company.

There are three new configurations which extend the range of performance options already available in Imagination’s GPU family of products for the consumer space. Imagination has released the CXM-2-64, claimed to be the smallest GPU to support native HDR applications. It is suitable for wearable devices, SmartHubs or mainstream set-top boxes.

The CXM-4-64 is suitable for integrating into SmartHubs, set-top boxes or mainstream DTVs and the CXM-4-128 is a performance dense option for premium DTVs, advised Imagination.

The company has boosted the performance density of the IMG BXE and BXM range of GPUs for the CXM GPUs and added native support for HDR. 

The CXM GPUs support 10bits RGBA / YUV to deliver a HDR graphical user interface with images with less visible banding. To smooth the outline of texts and images, they employ 4xMSAA (Microsoft Active Accessibility, an application programming interface (API) for user interface accessibility).  

TFBCv2, the new generation of Imagination’s Tiny Frame Buffer Compression, delivers higher quality lossy / lossless compression and an additional compression level (37.5%) for improved design flexibility.

The IMG CXM GPU range boasts nearly a 50 per cent uplift in performance density compared to the IMG BXM range.

The IMG CXM is supported by software that supports APIs, including Vulkan 1.3, and has been optimised for leading CPU architectures including Arm and RISC-V application processors.

Dr. Charlie Su, CTO and president of Andes Technology said: “The RISC-V ecosystem is growing rapidly. To continue its growth and showcase the many possible ways it can be deployed, we partnered with Imagination to provide a quick and easy path to validated GPU and CPU IP blocks that can reduce SoC design time, risk, and cost for our customers. With Imagination’s flexibly designed GPU, and our AndesCore high performance, low power RISC-V CPU, we are able to satisfy the requirements for display-oriented SoC in a short time and generate the optimum configuration.”

James Chapman, chief product officer, Imagination Technologies commented the CXM GPUs will “transform user experiences” and he expects to see the GPUs deployed in a diverse range of applications from wearables to premium 8K DTVs.

Imagination will be demonstrating TFBCv2 at the 2023 RISC-V Con Shanghai and 2023 RISC-V Con Beijing events, hosted by Andes Technology.

https://www.imaginationtech.com/

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Chipset for 5G mobile devices is latest member of Semtech PerSe family

Semtech has expanded its PerSe product portfolio with the PerSe Connect SX9376 IC which is purpose built for 5G mobile devices. 

Semtech’s PerSe technology senses human proximity and enables end devices such as smartphones to implement radio frequency (RF) control. The PerSe Connect SX9376 enables designers to optimise RF performance, enhance connectivity and support elevated compliance with global specific absorption rate (SAR) standards for 5G-enabled consumer devices.

Semtech’s PerSe intelligent sensors are used in the connected device market. They enable automatic adjustment of system level RF emissions in connected devices such as smartphones, tablets, hotspots and laptops for them to operate at peak performance while maintaining compliance, explained Semtech. 

By 2030, the global 5G market is expected to grow at a 47.6 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) with a market valuation of $198.44 billion. To bring these 5G-enabled products to market, OEMs must add more RF antennas into the design to address the frequency increase. The additional antennas can make it challenging for OEMs to address global SAR compliance and accurately manage the device’s RF power, explained Semtech. The SX9376 has a maximum of eight sensor inputs to support multiple antennas and simplify the sensor design without compromising performance and regulation. The chipset is also compatible with various antenna designs, making it easy to integrate into the latest 5G mobile devices, explained Semtech. 

Semtech PerSe Connect 9376’s sensing performance is enabled by a high-resolution analogue front end (AFE) down to 0.74aF. It can support antenna designs with up to 600pF capacitance and is robust with advanced temperature correction to minimise false triggers caused by noise and temperature. 

http://www.Semtech.com 

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