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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

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Slim IP67 Wirepas Mesh tag can track in high density networks

Thu, Nov 10, 2022

Asset tracking in hospitals, offices, warehouses and factories can be achieved using a mesh unit, or tag, with built-in Wirepas Mesh 2.4GHz network connectivity by Fujitsu Components America. When used with Fujitsu’s IoT connectivity anchors, sensor nodes, or USB dongle products, the FWM8BLZ14T mesh tag enables the creation of large, high density networks which operate autonomous rerouting in the event of device failure or changes in the network environment.

The IP67-rated tag is water resistant, so stains, particles, and liquids (such as chemicals, medications, and blood) may be washed off without risk of damage. The battery housing (patent-pending) is designed to facilitate easy battery replacement by end-users. It also contributes to environmentally friendly, sustainable use, said Fujitsu Components.

The tag is only 5.8mm thick, so it can be placed between stacked equipment. Two screw holes allow for three mounting options. The tag can be directly mounted, or mounted using an optional bracket to securely attach the tag to the desired location, or the hole in the tag can be used to attach the tag with a strap or lanyard. If screws are not used, the screw holes may be sealed with fitted white or coloured plugs for identification purposes.

The FWM8BLZ14T also includes an embedded pattern antenna, a carrier frequency of 2,400 to 2,483.5MHz, a modulation/symbol rate of GFSK / 1Mbits per second and the ability to operate at temperature and humidity levels of -30 to +70 degrees C and 20 per cent RH to 80 per cent, respectively.

A push switch functionality allows the unit to be used to convey crisis messages, trigger alarms, or locate individuals in an emergency. The tag operates on 40 channels, with spacing of 2MHz and runs on a coin cell CR3032 lithium battery (not included). The tag measures 52.8 x 35.9 x 5.8mm.

Samples are available in December 2022, and orders will be accepted in January 2023.

Fujitsu Components America distributes electronic and system components and sub-systems throughout North and South America. Its product portfolio includes relays, touch panels, thermal printers, wireless modules and input and pointing devices.

The company is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, USA.

https://www.fcl.fujitsu.com/en/fcai-products/

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Temperature and humidity sensors lead the industry in accuracy, says ScioSense

Mon, Nov 07, 2022

Claimed to have industry-leading accuracies in temperature and humidity sensing, the ENS21x family of digital temperature and humidity sensors has been launched by ScioSense.

In addition to “industry leading accuracies”, they are claimed to have rapid response times. The sensors have low power operation with 40nA standby current and are automotive-qualified.

The family of digital humidity and temperature sensors are accurate down to 0.1 degrees C and 0.8 per cent relative humidity.

The ENS21x family is suitable for use in home appliances, building and automotive HVAC, cold chain management, personal health and wellness monitoring, industrial automation and instrumentation.

ScioSense’s in-house support can help integrate and customise sensors to accelerate time to market.

Product samples are available on request from ScioSense and authorised distributors.

ScioSense is headquartered in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. The company specialises in the manufacture of semiconductor-based environmental and flow sensors. Its product portfolio consists of humidity, gas / air quality, temperature, pressure and flow sensors for building automation, home appliances, IoT/wearables/mobiles, automotive and industrial applications.

https://www.sciosense.com

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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

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Sine wave architecture enhances NFC reader performance

Slim IP67 Wirepas Mesh tag can track in high density networks

Temperature and humidity sensors lead the industry in accuracy, says ScioSense

RISC brings data density to wearable devices

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