Author Archives: richard wilson

Microchip’s latest 32-bit microcontroller, the PIC32MZ, is an early implementation of the MIPS M5150 CPU.

Dubbed the Warrior M-class processor by Imagination, the company behind it, this is thought to be the only microcontroller-class CPU to feature full hardware virtualisation.

This means it can be used to run multiple operating systems or applications on a single physical processor-based system.

A MIPS M5150 CPU can run up to seven guest operating systems in parallel, according to Imagination.

MIPS M5100

The Warrior M-class cores effectively compete with ARM’s Cortex-M series.

The cores are based on existing microAptive cores, with three added features: hardware virtualisation, a floating point unit, and anti-tamper.

According to MIPS business development manager Ian Anderton, performance is 1.57Dmips/MHz and 3.44CoreMark/MHz, emphasising that this is running compact code, not expanded code using ‘in-lining’ to boost benchmark performance.

Virtualisation allows a core to run multiple operating systems, time-sliced onto the core without them having any knowledge of each other. In this case, it is full hardware virtualisation, so operating systems run with “no software modification required”, said Anderton. Any mixture of up to seven ‘guests’ (operating systems, apps, kernels, schedulers or supervisors) can run.

“If one crashes, the others do not,” said Anderton, allowing a Linux user interface to run alongside control software without endangering the control function. Virtualisation also prevents the hacking of one application through another.

The Imagination blog gives an example application with the new 32-bit Microchip MCU used in a smart home hub:

“A MIPS M-class CPU inside a smart home hub can place door and window locks in separate virtualized containers to avoid compromised security throughout the home. Also a separate container can handle lighting control or the connectivity stack; any change in the operation of a container would not affect the others.”

You can see this demonstrated in a video with a MIPS-based development board when the Linux-based operating system running in one virtualized container restarts, the second container controlling the motor operation continues running.

Richard Wilson

Manchester researches 3D printed graphene ink batteries

September 16, 2015

richard wilson

Batteries could one day be 3D-printed on the desktop using graphene ink, say researchers in Manchester.

Manchester researches 3D printed graphene ink batteries

A government-funded project at Manchester Metropolitan University wants to use the city’s pioneering expertise in graphene technology to develop a desktop printer which will be used to create batteries and supercapacitors that could be used for energy storage in devices from solar power generators to smartphones.

Professor Craig Banks, associate dean for research and professor in electrochemical and nanotechnology, who is leading the research project, believes the use of graphene ink in 3D structures should increase the charge storage capacity of batteries.

“This project will be utilising the reported benefits of graphene, which is more conductive than metal, and applying these into energy storage systems,” said Banks.

But is it the combination of graphene with 3D-printed structures which is the interesting part of this project.

“The architecture of energy storage systems can be improved through the use of 3D structures, which have high surface areas, good electrical properties and hierarchical pore structures/porous channels,” said Banks.

“We’re trying to achieve a conductive ink that blends the fantastic properties of graphene with the ease of use of 3D printing to be manipulated into a structure that’s beneficial for batteries and supercapacitors.”

Researchers are analysing new techniques for rapid 3D printing with conductive graphene ink to create the batteries, funded by £500,000 from the EPSRC.

They want to improve on existing techniques which use ‘semi-graphene’ inks that contain graphene but also carbon black and graphite, which can reduce the material’s performance.

The process of 3D printing also needs to be refined as each layer that is printed has to be cured an hour before another layer can applied.

According to Banks, the research needs to figure out a way to cure it directly, possibly by shining a UV light on to it, as anything above a micron level takes a long time.

“Ideally, we could have the brilliant scenario where you just plug in and go – printing whatever structure you want out of graphene from a machine on your desk,” said Banks.

Graphene, which has exceptional electrical and thermal conduction properties, was discovered at the University of Manchester in 2004.

Richard Wilson

Elektra Awards 2015 – the finalists are named

September 16, 2015

richard wilson

Electronics Weekly presents the finalists for the Elektra European Electronics Industry Awards 2015. After reading a record number of entries this year, the panel of independent judges have filled out their score-cards. The assessment process mean that specialists judged specific categories.

Business Awards – The Elektra Awards promotes exceptional business practice.

Distributor of the Year (Sponsored by Panasonic)

This award category is open to companies that derive a majority of their revenues from the selling of components, systems or software products which are manufactured by their principals.

Digi-Key
Farnell element14
Mouser Electronics
Rapid Electronics
RS Components
Solid State Supplies
TTI

Manufacturer of the Year (Sponsored by Southern Manufacturing & Electronics)

The award will be given to the manufacturer which has demonstrated the most impressive level of commercial success and new business projects in global markets during the past 12 months.

Axiom Manufacturing Services
Asteelflash (Bedford)
AWS
Tenkay Electronics
TT Electronics Integrated Manufacturing Services

New Company of the Year

Venture fund or privately financed companies which have set up operations in Europe in the past five years can enter for this Award.

Ultrahaptics
UltraSoC

Design Team of the Year (Sponsored by Rohde & Schwarz UK)

This award category is open OEMs and design houses involved in product development projects.

AndersDX
ByteSnap Design
Escatec
Plessey
Peratech

Educational Support Award (Sponsored by Mentor Graphics)

This Award will be presented to a company which demonstrates a commitment to the education of engineers of the future by providing support to schools, colleges and universities.

Imagination Technologies
National Instruments
TDK-Lambda

Product Technologies – The Elektra Awards promotes exceptional technical innovation

Design Tools and Development Software Award (Sponsored by Swindon Silicon Systems)

This Award will be presented to the software design tool, application or software IP which demonstrates both outstanding technical capabilities and usability. Product types eligible for this category are EDA chip, design verification, emulators, PCB design tool suites and embedded development tools for microcontroller based systems.

Cadence Design Systems – Automotive functional safety verification
Future Facilities – 6SigmaET Release 9
Mentor Graphics – Calibre xACT platform
National Instruments – LabVIEW Communications System design suite
Silicon Labs – Simplicity Studio software suite
Xilinx – SDSoC development environment

Passive & Electromechanical Product of Year

Product types eligible are resistors, capacitors, inductors, sensors, switches, connectors or actuators which were introduced in the past 12 months

AVX – Hermetically sealed conductive polymer tantalum capacitors
Cliff Electronics – XLR feed-through
DelfMEMS – SP12T RF MEMS contact switch
Harwin – M300 hi-rel power connector series
Kemet – F862 film capacitor
Vishay Intertechnology – Enycap hybrid energy storage capacitor

Power System Product of the Year

Eligible product types are DC-DC, AC-DC power modules, open, closed and encapsulated power supplies, power ICs and discrete power components.

Analog Devices – ADM7154 low noise RF linear regulator
Freescale Semiconductor – RF power GaN transistor in plastic package
Linear Technology – LTM4623
Maxim Integrated – Himalaya power module
Power Integrations – InnoSwitch range of switcher ICs
TDK-Lambda – ZMS100 AC-DC power supply

Renewable Energy Design Award

Eligible products will include hardware/software systems or semiconductor products.

Heliatek – HeliaFilm
Zeta Specialist Lighting – Solar poster case kit

Semiconductor Product of the Year – Analogue (Sponsored by Mouser Electronics)

This award will be presented to an analogue or mixed-signal semiconductor product which demonstrates outstanding technical capabilities and usability.

AMS – TMG399x gesture sensor
Freescale Semiconductor – FXTH87 tyre pressure monitor
Intersil – TW9984 automotive safety four-channel video decoder
Novelda – X2M200 respiration sensor module
On Semiconductor – Medical sensor system-in-package
Peregrine Semiconductor – UltraCMOS monolithic phase & amplitude controller

Semiconductor Product of the Year – Digital (Sponsored by GCS Engineering)

This award will be presented to a digital semiconductor IC which demonstrates outstanding technical capabilities and usability.

Altera – Stratix 10 FPGAs and SoCs
Ambiq Micro – Apollo microcontroller
Cypress Semiconductor – PSoC 4 and PRoC Bluetooth LE
Linear Technology – LTC2983 digital output temperature sensor
Lattice Semiconductor – iCE40 UltraLite FPGA
Xilinx – Zynq UltraScale MPSoCs

LED Lighting Product of the Year (Sponsored by Anglia)

Eligible products are LEDs, lighting modules, luminaires and driver ICs.

Cambridge Nanotherm – Nanotherm DM
Khatod Optoelectronic – Gaia optical system
On Semiconductor – Ballast and LED driver for automotive front lights applications
Zeta Specialist Lighting – The SlamTube

Test Product of the Year

Eligible products include benchtop, handheld, modular, PXI-based, boundary scan and in-circuit production test equipment.

Anritsu – MT8821C radio communication analyser
Keysight Technologies – E5080A ENA network analyser
Labnation BVBA – SmartScope
National Instruments – PXIe-8880 eight-core PXI controller and chassis
Rohde & Schwarz – FSWP phase noise analyser and VCO tester
Tektronix – RSA306 handheld USB spectrum analyser

Internet-of-Things Product Innovation Award (Sponsored by Micron)

Eligible products must provide some element of the IoT – wireless communications, security, storage or user applications, and the product must have been introduced in the past 12 months.

Antenova – The Weii antenna
Arrow Electronics – SmartEverything development board
Imagination Technologies – Whisper radio processor
Lynx Software Technology – Persistent threat detection software
Panasonic Automation and Industrial – Grid-Eye infrared array sensor wireless board
Renesas Electronics – Synergy platform

The other awards include:

Consumer Product Innovation of the Year – Online vote (Sponsored by Avnet)

In this category visitors to the Electronics Weekly website are invited to select the Consumer Electronic Product Innovation which they feel makes the most inspirational use of technology. A shortlist of products will be selected by the Editor.

University Research Award – Online vote (Sponsored by RS Components)

In this category visitors to the Electronics Weekly website are invited to select the university research project which they feel will make the largest impact on the commercial market in the next five years. A shortlist of research projects will be selected by the Editor.

Four Awards will be presented for:

Excellence in Design in High-Reliability Systems (Sponsored by Vicor)
Excellence in Design in Medical
Excellence in Design in Industrial
Excellence in Design in Automotive

Judges:

Steve Furber ICL professor of computer engineering, School of Computer Science, University of Manchester
Professor Rahim Tafazolli, director of the 5GIC, University of Surrey
Paul Hide, director of operations, techUK
Claudio Zizzo, head of electronics at Dyson
Derek Boyd, CEO, NMI
Jon Howes, technology director, Beecham Research
Nick Flaherty, technology writer.
Mick Elliot, online editor
Adam Fletcher, chairman, Electronic Component Supply Network
Graham Prophet, technology editor
Richard Wilson, editor, Electronics Weekly
Steve Bush, technology editor, Electronics Weekly

The industry’s largest technology and business awards are in their 12th year of celebrating the best the electronics industry has achieved. The Elektra Awards, which are the industry’s largest and longest running awards, demonstrate the inherent strength of the industry and the ambition and vision of the individuals who work in it.

The awards will be presented at the industry’s biggest gala evening dinner on Tuesday 24 November at the Lancaster London Hotel. Book your table now »

Richard Wilson

5G project tests millimetre-wave network in Bristol

September 16, 2015

richard wilson

A group of European companies and universities are looking into the use of 5G networks which can reconfigure more quickly to meet the data demands of users.

A pan-European project involving Huawei, Telefonica, Blu Wireless Technology with the universities of Bristol, Dresden and Thessalias is investigating the building of adaptive networks which will meet the anticipated high capacity data traffic in airports and concert arenas.

Called 5G XHaul, the project is part of the 5G Infrastructure Public Private Partnership (5G-PPP).

It will consider the limitations of today’s mobile networks and specify requirements for the next generation of communications networks and services.

First field trials are already underway in Bristol as part of the “Bristol in Open” project, which is a joint venture between the council and university to provide three new fast networks in the centre of Bristol.

Dr. Eckhard Grass of the IHP, writes:

“5G XHaul proposes a converged optical and wireless network solution able to flexibly connect Small Cells to the core network. Exploiting user mobility, our solution allows the dynamic allocation of network resources to predicted and actual hotspots. Due to the dynamic allocation of network resources we can serve the needs of the users”.

As part of the Bristol is Open initiative, local firm Blu Wireless is deploying a millimetre-wave radio tnetwork to extend the fibre network.

5G XHaul is funded by the EU communication program Horizon 2020 at a estimated cost of 7.3 million euros. It will run for three years, until June 2018.

Partners in the project include: Huawei, Telefonica I+D, i2CAT, Blu Wireless Technology, ADVA Optical Networking, COSMOTE, Airrays, TES Electronic Solutions as well as University of Bristol, TU Dresden, University of Thessalias and IHP.

Richard Wilson

RFEL brings hardware-in-loop to military designs

September 16, 2015

richard wilson

The qu-IQ platform

RFEL has introduced a development system for signal processing designs which the company says will bring hardware-in-loop (HWIL) testing to security, military and industrial applications.

Launched at the DSEi show in London today, the qu-IQ platform brings the DSP performance of Xilinx Kintex 7 FPGA and a Xilinx Zynq 7045 System on Chip with a dual-core ARM A9 processor to military and security system designs.

There is 3Gbyte of DDR3 memory on a PCIe 2.0 host card and the additional of an FMC interface with LVDS and GTX data lanes means that data transfer rates of up to 180Gbit/s are possible.

The PCIe Gen2x8 interface will support DMA data transfers up to 24Gbit/s to and from the host PC.

This development board has 750k logic cells and nearly 2500 DSP48 slices. RFEL have also added an evaluation version of its ChannelCore Flex IP core. This allows the developer to program response frequency, bandwidth and channel response on each of 128 channels.

“We have drawn on all our years of expertise to design this open development platform for prototyping and algorithm development, which is also targeted at hardware-in-loop testing,” said Dr Alex Kuhrt, RFEL’s CEO.

The qu-IQ development board will be available in Q4 2015 .

Richard Wilson

5G mobile faces 60GHz spectrum allocation issue

September 15, 2015

richard wilson

Higher speed 5G mobile communications services using the millimetre wave frequency band look likely to be delayed due to issues over spectrum allocation in the 60GHz frequency band.

Research into 5G radio technology in Asia, the US and Europe, including the UK’s 5G Innovation Centre, may lobby their respective national frequency bodies to allocate the 60GHz spectrum.

But global frequency bands will be fixed in 2019, only a year before the proposed launch of the first 5G services.

The 5GIC, which officially opened at the University of Surrey this week, is pre-empting the millimetre-wave frequency issue by working with partner Huawei of China on a new radio architecture, called RCA, which will make more efficient use of the available spectrum in the 2.4-5.0GHz band.

It has already demonstrated 4k video streamed over a 20MHz radio channel.

According to Professor Rahim Tafazolli, head of the 5GIC, the £70m research facility is also working on millimetre-wave technologies.

“But we do not want to invest too much resource into one specific frequency band before it is allocated,” said Prof Tafazolli.

Work on millimetre-wave radio technology is developing rapidly in Asia. Samsung in Korea is developing 30GHz radio technology and as a partner in the 5GIC, it is bringing this millimetre-wave research to the UK facility.

“There are issues with frequency allocation for millimetre-wave. We are still a long way off identifying the frequency band, but this is not stopping research in this area and millimetre-wave is only one component of 5G,” said Howard Benn, head of standards and industrial affairs at Samsung Electronics Research Institute.

It is widely predicted that in order to support the wide radio channel bandwidth (500MHz and higher) needed for the higher 5G download speeds, networks will need to operate away from the crowded spectrum below 5GHz and in the 40-60GHz frequency band, which is known as millimetre-wave.

But these frequency bands are scheduled to be allocated by the ITU- World Radiocommunications Conference (WRC) on the global basis as late as 2019.

It seems likely that suppliers will not have time to build networks in the 60GHz band for a launch of 5G in 2020.

As a result the first 5G services could use the 5GHz band which may have a smaller channel bandwidth.

“First 5G services may not use milliwave-wave frequencies due to the lack of spectrum allocation, but some countries may go it alone,” said Benn.

Operators now expect there to be a two stage introduction of 5G services, similar to what has happened with 4G with LTE and LTE-Advanced technologies.

Richard Wilson

Freescale buys image recognition firm CogniVue

September 14, 2015

richard wilson

As chip firms concentrate on the opportunity of autonomous vehicles, Freescale Semiconductor has acquired an Ottawa-based image cognition IP developer, CogniVue.

Automotive continues to be a key market for Freescale, which says it has shipped more than 20 million units into ADAS applications to date, and has designs in 9 of the world’s top 10 automotive OEMs.

According to Bob Conrad, general manager of Freescale’s Automotive MCU group, said the image recognition IP would support its S32V234 vision processor.

“This acquisition places Freescale in a position to supply highly automated car applications with the requisite performance, safety, security and reliability those systems require,” said Conrad.

CogniVue vision processing IP has been available on the S32V processor since it was announced in March 2015, as well as other offerings.

Richard Wilson

Freescale buys image recognition firm CogniVue

September 14, 2015

richard wilson

As chip firms concentrate on the opportunity of autonomous vehicles, Freescale Semiconductor has acquired an Ottawa-based image cognition IP developer, CogniVue.

According to Bob Conrad, general manager of Freescale’s Automotive MCU group, said the image recognition IP would support its S32V234 vision processor.

“This acquisition places Freescale in a position to supply highly automated car applications with the requisite performance, safety, security and reliability those systems require,” said Conrad.

CogniVue vision processing IP has been available on the S32V processor since it was announced in March 2015, as well as other offerings.

Richard Wilson

US plan for 5G trials next year a good thing, says Bell Labs chief

September 14, 2015

richard wilson

Marcus Weldon, CTO Bell Labs, welcomes early 5G trials

The first field trials of a 5G mobile communications network could take place as early as 2016 in the US.

US operator Verizon is working with its hardware partners Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Ericsson, Nokia, Qualcomm and Samsung to start 5G field trials in 2016.

Marcus Weldon, chief technology officer of Alcatel-Lucent and president of Bell Labs believes the plan for 5G trials next year is a good thing because even if 4G LTE technology still has “so much headroom left”.

It is possible bringing forward the 5G trials is a response by the US operator which my feel the US is falling behind Europe and Asia in the pace of development of 5G technologies.

As Rima Qureshi, chief strategy officer for Ericsson pointed out:

“A lot of development and requirements for 5G networks have so far come from Asian operators. It’s exciting to see a US company accelerate the rate of innovation and introduce new partners.”

The problem is that with 5G standards for the radio access network unlikely to be finalised by next year, any trial either in the US or Europe will be seen as an exploratory step along the way to commercial services which are at least five years away.

No operator is yet committing to 5G services before 2020 at the earliest.

Roger Gurnani, executive vice president and chief information and technology architect for Verizon said there is “a sense of urgency to push forward on 5G and mobilize the ecosystem by collaborating with industry leaders and developers.”

The trials, which will take place at Verizon’s testbeds in Waltham, Mass., and San Francisco, will test the 5G network’s capability to accommodate both wideband data services and narrowband connections to IoT devices. This will be one of the big challenges of 5G.

Another challenge will be defining the radio access network. Researchers in in Europe and Asia are considering using the radio spectrum at 60GHz, the so-called millimetre-wave band. This will provide the capacity needed for the anticipated 500MHz radio channels 5G will need.

Research is indicating there will be a completely new radio technology for the 5G mobile communications standard expected to hit the market by 2020.

Research work in Europe and China into the next generation mobile phone standard is now focusing on the use of millimetre wave radio transmission at very high 30-300GHz frequencies.

Japanese mobile operator NTT Docomo is working with US giants Intel and Qualcomm as part of its development of 5G research into mobile communications technologies.

Europe has the MiWaveS project which is intended to demonstrate how low-cost or advanced millimetre wave technologies can provide multi-gigabits per second access to mobile users and contribute to sustain the traffic growth.

It believes the exploitation of the available millimetre wave spectrum will be a key element in building high-throughput and low latency infrastructures for next generation heterogeneous mobile networks.

The UK’s main 5G research centre, the 5GIC at the University of Surrey is to be part of the MiWave S project.

Other project members include: CEA-Leti, Orange, Nokia, Intel, National Instruments Dresden and STMicroelectronics.

If implemented, this will represent the biggest technology change for a mobile generation since the switch from analogue to digital GSM technology more than a decade ago.

The standards work for the radio access network (RAN) only started this month at a 3GPP standards meeting in Arizona.

So what can we learn from the timing of 4G LTE trials. Verizon began testing 4G LTE as early as 2008 with the creation of a 10-cell network sandbox around Boston. This was two years before the launch of first commercial services.

By 2015, 87% of Verizon wireless data traffic is carried over the 4G LTE network.