Weartech-ICs & Semiconductors Archives - Page 20 of 41

NFC reader ICs sharpen digital wave shaping for faster transmission

Tue, Nov 29, 2022

Adding to its portfolio of NFC reader ICs, Panthronics announced the PTX105R reader for IoT and consumer electronics devices. It is compatible with NFC Forum specifications and offers accurate digital wave shaping to guarantee interoperability with all NFC-compliant cards, tags and NFC devices in wearable form factors.

The RF output is 1.0W at the antenna and the reader has high receive sensitivity of – 80dBc for reliable connectivity in general electronics systems. The RF performance enables designers to implement designs based on an antenna which is smaller than that required by competing NFC readers, said Panthronics.

The company also announced the PTX130R reader which is an upgraded version of the PTX100R reader IC for point of sale terminals.

It is the first Panthronics reader IC to feature native support for the Android operating environment and provides a way for designers to add NFC communications capability to embedded computing systems built around a touchscreen display.

It is suitable for static and mobile point of sale terminals and can also provide NFC connectivity in embedded computing devices. Typical examples include scanners, automated service points such as self-check-in terminals at hotels and secure access control and home and building automation equipment which has a display-enabled HMI (human machine interface).

RF output is more than 2W at the antenna enabling the PTX103R to comply with the strict requirements of the EMVCo standard for payment card transactions even when operating via an antenna which is placed close to or behind a noisy display, explained Panthronics.

The PTX105R and PTX130R NFC readers, like the PTX100R versions, use the company’s sine wave silicon architecture to offer higher sensitivity, more accurate wave-shaping, higher output power and a simpler hardware implementation than conventional NFC reader ICs based on a square wave architecture, said Panthronics.

For mobile phone and point of sale terminal users, this means operations are completed faster and with easier validation of conformance with standards such as EMVCo 3.1. Panthronics readers also typically offer a read range 40 per cent higher than that provided by conventional readers based on a square wave architecture, Panthronics reported.

Evaluation kits for the PTX105R and PTX130R are available directly from Panthronics. They provide an operating environment including the antenna, to enable design engineers to evaluate NFC performance. Panthronics also supplies an NFC connectivity board based on the PTX105R for the Renesas Quick-Connect IoT rapid system prototyping platform.

http://www.panthronics.com.

> Read More

Sine wave architecture enhances NFC reader performance

Wed, Nov 23, 2022

Austrian, fabless semiconductor company, Panthronics has extended its portfolio of NFC reader ICs with the PTX105R and the PTX130R reader. The pair give OEMs new options to design NFC capability into IoT devices, embedded and mobile computing systems, said the company.

The PTX105R reader for IoT and consumer electronics devices is compatible with NFC Forum specifications. It offers accurate digital wave shaping to guarantee interoperability with all NFC-compliant cards, tags and NFC devices in wearable form factors, said Panthronics.

The PTX105R produces RF output power of 1W at the antenna and high receive sensitivity of -80dBc for reliable connectivity in general electronics systems, said Panthronics. The PTX105R’s RF performance enables the implementation of designs based on a smaller antenna than that which is required by competing NFC readers, said the company.

The second introduction is the PTX130R reader. This is an upgraded version of the PTX100R reader IC for point of sale (PoS) terminals. The PTX130R is the first reader IC by the company to feature native support for the Android operating environment. It provides a way to add NFC communications capability to embedded computing systems built around a touchscreen display. Suitable applications are PoS and mobile PoS terminals and can also provide NFC connectivity in embedded computing devices, such as scanners, automated service points such as self-check-in terminals at hotels, and secure access control and home and building automation equipment with a display-enabled human machine interface (HMI).

The PTX130R features very high RF output power of more than 2W at the antenna, enabling OEMs to achieve compliance with the strict requirements of the EMVCo standard for payment card transactions even when operating via an antenna which is placed close to or behind a noisy display.

The company’s sine wave silicon architecture is designed from the ground up for NFC systems and offers higher sensitivity, more accurate wave-shaping, higher output power and a simpler hardware implementation than conventional NFC reader ICs based on a square wave architecture, reported Panthronics.

Panthronics readers also typically offer a read range 40 per cent higher than that provided by conventional readers based on a square wave architecture, added the company.

Evaluation kits for the PTX105R and PTX130R are available directly from Panthronics. They provide a ready-made operating environment including the antenna, to enable design engineers to evaluate NFC performance out of the box.

Panthronics also supplies an NFC connectivity board based on the PTX105R for the Renesas Quick-Connect IoT rapid system prototyping platform. The Panthronics NFC board provides a fast and easy way to build NFC connectivity into IoT systems based on the general purpose microcontrollers which support the modular Quick-Connect IoT format. The board feaures a Pmod connector and can be linked to the Renesas Quick-Connect microcontroller evaluation kits.

http://www.panthronics.com

> Read More

RISC brings data density to wearable devices

Thu, Nov 03, 2022

Two RISC-V processors from SiFive bring flexibility and balance of performance and efficiency for wearables and smart consumer devices, said SiFive. The Performance P670 and P470 RISC-V processors address the need for high performance and efficiency in a small size in high volume applications like wearables, smart home, industrial automation, AR/VR, and other consumer devices, said the company.

The SiFive Performance P670 and P470 RISC-V processors are specifically designed for, and capable of handling the most demanding workloads for wearables and other advanced consumer applications, said SiFive. They “offer powerful performance and compute density for companies looking to upgrade from legacy ISAs,” said Chris Jones, vice president of product at SiFive. “We have optimised these new RISC-V Vector enabled products to deliver the performance and efficiency improvements the industry has long been asking for, and we are in evaluations with a number of top-tier customers,” he said.

Qualcomm is looking into the possibilities of integrating SiFive’s latest products into Snapdragon platforms,” revealed Ziad Asghar, vice president, product management at Snapdragon Technologies and Roadmap at Qualcomm.

Samsung’s System LSI Business is also looking to evaluate how the latest RISC-V innovations from SiFive can enhance its offerings, confirmed Jinpyo Park, vice president of the Innovative AP development team, at Samsung Electronics System LSI Business.

The SiFive Performance P470 and P670 products offer a combination of compute-density, power efficiency and robust feature sets. They offer support for virtualisation, including a separate IOMMU for accelerating virtualised device IO. It has full, out-of-order, RISC-V vector implementation, based on the ratified RISC-V Vector v1.0 specification.

It has enhanced scalability with fully coherent multi-core, multi-cluster, with support for up to 16 cores.

The P670 is suitable for applications such as premium wearables, networking, robotics, and mobile, said SiFive. The P650, which excludes the vector unit, is already shipping to lead customers and is being used in applications where space is constrained.

The P670 achieves a maximum frequency exceeding 3.4GHz in 5nm, and has performance of greater than 12 SpecINT2k6/GHz, offering optimised performance in a constrained area and power envelope. It also offers higher single threaded performance and twice the compute density compared to legacy solutions, claimed SiFive.

The SiFive Performance P470 is SiFive’s first efficiency-focused out-of-order, area optimised, vector processor, for wearables, consumer and smart home devices. Expanding on the P500-series, the P470 is significantly smaller than competing devices, claimed SiFive and optimised to what is claimed to have best-in-class performance efficiency and area density. The P470 was designed to also serve as a companion to the P670 processor for demanding applications that require a sharing of compute resources while optimising power consumption.

The P470 offers an upgrade to legacy efficiency cores, achieving a maximum frequency exceeding 3.4GHz in 5nm, and greater than 8 SpecINT2k6/GHz, within a minimal area and power envelope.

It also has a 4x compute density in comparison to the leading competitor, said SiFive and includes a 128-bit RISC-V Vector ALU compliant with the ratified RISC-V Vector v1.0 specification.

SiFive will also release the P450 – an area-optimized version of the P470 that excludes the vector unit.

http://www.SiFive.com

> Read More

GLF Integrated Power offers two versions of AEC-Q100 grade load switch ICs

Fri, Oct 07, 2022

Two versions of the I_QSmart IC load switches are offered by GLF Integrated Power. The AEC-Q100 qualified ICs have a wide temperature range, with one version featuring true reverse current blocking.

The GLF1111Q and GLF1200Q low power load switches are rated for a wide temperature range (-40 to +125 degrees C). The GLF1111Q provides industry-leading, battery-saving leakage current of 2nA, typical, said GLF.

The GLF1200Q features a true reverse-current blocking, which prevents a backup power source from being discharged when an input node is shorted. The GLF1200Q, therefore, works all of the time regardless of on or off state.

Applications for the GLF1111Q and GLF1200Q include infotainment and cluster display systems, diagnostic systems, passive entry / start systems, customer premise equipment (CPE), face recognition systems and intelligent cockpit and autonomous driving applications.

Both the GLF1111Q and GLF1200Q I_QSmart devices are packaged in a SOT-23-5L and offer easy visual inspection of solder joints. Both ICs also feature integrated slew rate control that limits inrush upon turn on, therefore minimising the effects of voltage droop.

Each load switch IC supports a wide input voltage range of 1.5 to 5.5V. A single device can therefore be used in a variety of voltage rail applications, helping to simplify inventory management, said GLF. Both ICs are also offered with an optional output discharge switch.

“The GLF1111Q and GLF1200Q address the ever-expanding, evolving range of automotive electronic systems that require a high-performance load switch with a wide-ambient operating temperature range to assure reliable, long-term operations,” explained Eileen Sun, president and CEO at GLF Integrated Power.

GLF integrated Power is a fabless semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, USA. It was founded in 2013 in response to the IoT, portable and wearable ‘revolution’. The company supplies efficient, small, silicon power control and protection ICs and has developed IP that enables cost-effective, efficient and differentiated power management solutions.

http://www.glfipower.com

> Read More

NFC reader ICs sharpen digital wave shaping for faster transmission

Sine wave architecture enhances NFC reader performance

RISC brings data density to wearable devices

GLF Integrated Power offers two versions of AEC-Q100 grade load switch ICs

About Smart Cities