Author Archives: richard wilson

LED street lights need better lightning protection, says Osram

Lightning density in Europe differs significantly from region to region.

Lightning density in Europe differs significantly from region to region.

The introduction of LED street lighting has raised a new problem. How can the electronic drivers be protected from voltage peaks from lightning strikes.

The problem with LED lighting modules is that they operate at lower voltage levels and could be damaged from overvoltage.

According to LED supplier Osram, this danger has increased with the UN Climate Council identifying increasing levels of lightning worldwide in its fifth assessment report (IPCC14).

“Around 10% of the several million lightning strikes occurring each day impact on the ground, thereby causing voltage peaks. To effectively protect LED modules assembled in road luminaires, the Osram Optotronic 4DIM features overvoltage protection of 8 kilovolts as standard,” said Osram.

Levels of lightning density in Europe are high in summer, particularly in July and August, and with large regional differences – the UK Meteorological Office recorded between just 0.25 and over 20 strikes per square kilometre in 2014.

Osram believes that it is necessary for the electronic control units to have voltage protection of up to 8kV between mains supply and ground in protection classes I and II.

“This means that lightning can strike an area of up to 200 metres from a luminaire mast without the LED module being damaged,” said the supplier.

Osram has designed 8kV protection into its LED controllers with a so-called EQUI connection (equipotential) for protection class II applications, which it claims can reduce the occurrence of overvoltage on the LED module.

Overvoltage though does not automatically mean the immediate failure of an LED module, but can cause premature ageing and therefore shorter operating periods; this has consequences for the operator in terms of costs.

Graph shows 8kV overvoltage protection provided by the Optotronic 4 DIM from Osram.

Graph shows 8kV overvoltage protection provided by the Optotronic 4 DIM from Osram.

Normally, LED solutions have low failure rates and achieve up to 100,000 operating hours.

The LED control units also need to be protected from voltage peaks from two other hazardous sources: – those with up to 6kV due to load changes or switching commands in the power supply grid and from electrostatic discharge (ESD) occurring with for example maintenance work, if no ESD protective measures exist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Richard Wilson

Display makers see shakeout in ITO replacement market

plainheadshot139

Dr Khasha Ghaffarzadeh

The market transparent conductive film which is used in the production of displays, solar cells and touch screens, will reach $1.2bn in 2025 at the film level (ITO-on-glass, LCD and OLED displays are excluded), writes Dr Khasha Ghaffarzadeh, head of consulting, IDTechEx.

Displays and solar cells need light to enter at least one side of the device. At the same time, they have to close a circuit and therefore require a transparent conductive film (TCF).

The mainstay material is indium tin oxide (ITO) on glass, which has proven excellent but has several short comings. For example, for larger area touch screens, ITO becomes too resistive for desired rapid response touch sensing.

For the new wave of flexible displays, ITO also cracks under little strain. Additionally, indium supply is also heavily controlled. Therefore over 50 companies around the world, from small to large, have been pursuing replacing ITO, and over 10 types of solutions exist.

ITO on PET rather than glass will dominate, but ITO alternatives will reach a combined market value of $430m in 2025. This market will be very unevenly spread between different ITO alternative technologies with silver nanowires and metal mesh taking a lion’s share ($317m in 2025).

Touch-related applications currently dominate the sales of TCF films, although the end markets are beginning to change. Currently, the share of non-touch markets is <<5%, but IDTechEx Research expects it to reach a substantial 17% in 2025.

These emerging applications include smart windows, OLED lighting, emerging photovoltaics, reflective displays, and more. They, together with larger-sized or flexible touch screens, will shape the requirements landscape of this sector.

Challenging market conditions

Strong trends have long undermined the dominance of the incumbent, the ITO films. Most notable are trends towards lower sheet resistance, increased flexibility and reduced cost.

These trends continuously push ITO films towards or even beyond its performance limit, thus triggering the proliferation of ITO alternative (substitute) technologies and suppliers.

The incumbents have however responded using a two-pronged strategy: (1) doubling the production capacity worldwide and (2) slashing prices at the expense of profit margins.

The former strategy ensures that there no longer exists a tight supply-demand relationship, making this once again a strong buyers’ market. The latter strategy ensures that incumbents don’t lose a client solely on price. Indeed, they lower their prices piecemeal every time an alternative is to close a deal.

These are classic symptoms of a market characterized by a strong threat of substitutes. Here, the end customer is happy but the ITO alternative suppliers face make-or-break years, whilst ITO suppliers (incumbents) are now engaged in a low-margin game of share protection.

The market conditions were made more challenging because growth in emerging sectors in which ITO alternatives commanded a clear performance advantage undershot expectations.

We anticipate that these market forces will trigger a consolidation phase in the industry during which ITO alternative leaders will emerge, whilst many poorly-funded and poorly-differentiated suppliers will disappear.

At the same time, we believe that the value proposition for leading ITO alternative technologies remains compelling. They will become a market reality although their journey will be slow because ITO films remain good enough for most existing applications. Therefore, at least initially, their success is linked to the growth of new types of devices, such as larger area devices.

The performance bar has been raised

Silver nanowires and metal mesh offer a lower sheet resistance than both ITO and other alternatives without significantly compromising optical quality. Their pricing strategy continues to be based on undercutting ITO to maintain a more-for-less value proposition, although this is becoming increasingly challenging.

In fact, they have increased the performance bar so high that the likes of carbon nanotubes and graphene will be blocked out of the main markets and be pushed towards niche use cases.

This suggests that developers of these technologies need to be imaginative again and build on their stronger differentiators such as stretchability, thermoformability, etc. This change of focus is already underway but will come too late for some.

The battle between metal mesh suppliers will be fought on narrowing the linewidth and improving throughput and yield (biggest cost unknown/driver). Amongst silver nanowire suppliers, haze was a point of contention, but now attention is focused on innovation at the formulation level. Here, the first mover advantage will also matter whilst the IP landscape is now no longer white, which further prevents access to new comers.

The next phase of innovation will focus on more hybrid systems and disruptive ways of patterning.

IDTechEx Research has released a new research study titled “Transparent Conductive Films (TCF) 2015-2025: Forecasts, Markets, Technologies”.

 

Richard Wilson

Merged memory company adds to fast flash line

Cypress HyperFlash_MemoryCypress Semiconductor has seen early benefits of its $5bn merger with Spansion with a new 256Mbit memory device added to the Spansion NOR HyperFlash product line.

HyperFlash is a high speed memory architecture which can achieve double-data-rate (DDR) read bandwidths as high as 333Mbyte/s for 1.8V products.

It is intended to provide a migration path from Quad SPI to dual Quad SPI to HyperFlash memory, offers 3.0V and 1.8V versions and includes three densities: 128, 256 and 512Mbit.

Hiro Ino, senior director of the NOR Flash product family at Cypress, sees a  trend toward instant-on systems for automotive, industrial and communication applications, and chipset manufacturers looking for a high-bandwidth, low-pin-count flash memory interface.

The HyperBus interface was introduced by Spansion last year for high speed, low pin-count NOR flash memory.

Processors that have been publically announced to support the HyperBus interface include the Freescale MAC57D5xx Automotive DIS MCU, the Cypress FM4 S6E2DH general purpose MCU and the Cypress Traveo S6J324C and S6J326C automotive MCUs.

The efficient 12-pin HyperBus interface consists of an 8-pin address/data bus, a differential clock (2 signals), a chip select and a read data strobe for the controller—all of which help reduce the overall cost of the system through reduced pin count.

The new S26KL256S HyperFlash device is available in a 48-mm2 24-ball package, and has an extended temperature range of -40ºC to +125ºC.

 

Richard Wilson

Cambridge firm designs smallest wireless IoT module

Amiho AM090 module

Amiho AM090 module

Amiho Technology has designed one of the industry’s smallest wireless modules for connecting smart meters and internet of things (IoT) devices.

The module’s 15x15mm size means it can be placed very close to small sensors in meters and other IoT devices.

The AM090 module uses a Freescale Kinetis microcontroller running at 868MHz and it is fully compliant with the European standards (EN13757).

The Cambridge-based developer has also created an optimised smart metering software stack for the module, which can also be licensed as a stand-alone product for integration into other designs and is currently being used in smart metering trials in Europe.

The company has also secured a design for the module in a smart home gateway device being developed by Develco Products.

David Blumstein, managing director and co-founder of Amiho Technology, said,

“We are delighted that the Wireless M-Bus technology has also been integrated into Develco’s multiprotocol Squid.link gateway, a low-cost modular platform for flexible Smart Home networks. This demonstrates a further adoption of our new products into IoT applications.

As this market accelerates, we expect our range of ultra-compact communication modules to be used in many innovative solutions.”

Richard Wilson

Cambridge firm designs smallest wireless IoT module

Amiho AM090 module

Amiho AM090 module

Amiho Technology has designed one of the industry’s smallest wireless modules for connecting smart meters and internet of things (IoT) devices.

The module’s 15x15mm size means it can be placed very close to small sensors in meters and other IoT devices.

The AM090 module uses a Freescale Kinetis microcontroller running at 868MHz and it is fully compliant with the European standards (EN13757).

The Cambridge-based developer has also created an optimised smart metering software stack for the module, which can also be licensed as a stand-alone product for integration into other designs and is currently being used in smart metering trials in Europe.

The company has also secured a design for the module in a smart home gateway device being developed by Develco Products.

David Blumstein, managing director and co-founder of Amiho Technology, said,

“We are delighted that the Wireless M-Bus technology has also been integrated into Develco’s multiprotocol Squid.link gateway, a low-cost modular platform for flexible Smart Home networks. This demonstrates a further adoption of our new products into IoT applications.

As this market accelerates, we expect our range of ultra-compact communication modules to be used in many innovative solutions.”

Richard Wilson

IET calls for new “mobile data-centric” 999 service

Professor Will Stewart

Professor Will Stewart

The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) is calling for an “urgent” reform of the 999 emergency call service in the UK.

The change is needed, said the IET, because of users increasingly moving away from landline phones to smartphones and to devices they enable like wearables, and from voice to data.

The IET is also calling on the government to ensure that reform of the service is not allowed to drift.

Professor Will Stewart from the IET said:

“Smartphones have become the hub of our daily lives and are now in the pockets of two thirds of UK adults, and the vast majority of young people own one. Even half of 55- to 64-year-olds now own a smartphone.

“The data from Ofcom highlights the urgent need for radical changes to be made to the 999 emergency service so that those in need can text as well as call.”

According to Stewart, a data-based emergency service would allow people to text alerts via any appropriate app on a chosen easy-to-remember special number, such as 999 – and these alerts would then be passed to the human emergency operator.

The main engineering challenge would be to set up priority routing of alerts to this special number in order to avoid delays at busy times.

“Much of the technology we need to update our emergency service is available today. But we urgently need to make progress now,” said Stewart.

Richard Wilson

IET calls for new “mobile data-centric” 999 service

Professor Will Stewart

Professor Will Stewart

The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) is calling for an “urgent” reform of the 999 emergency call service in the UK.

The change is needed, said the IET, because of users increasingly moving away from landline phones to smartphones and to devices they enable like wearables, and from voice to data.

The IET is also calling on the government to ensure that reform of the service is not allowed to drift.

Professor Will Stewart from the IET said:

“Smartphones have become the hub of our daily lives and are now in the pockets of two thirds of UK adults, and the vast majority of young people own one. Even half of 55- to 64-year-olds now own a smartphone.

“The data from Ofcom highlights the urgent need for radical changes to be made to the 999 emergency service so that those in need can text as well as call.”

According to Stewart, a data-based emergency service would allow people to text alerts via any appropriate app on a chosen easy-to-remember special number, such as 999 – and these alerts would then be passed to the human emergency operator.

The main engineering challenge would be to set up priority routing of alerts to this special number in order to avoid delays at busy times.

“Much of the technology we need to update our emergency service is available today. But we urgently need to make progress now,” said Stewart.

Richard Wilson

NIWeek: Big data challenge gets Intel quad-core processing

01061511_22062_bdrNI is addressing the big data management challenge with its latest 4- and 8-slot CompactDAQ controllers announced at NIWeek in Austin, Texas this week.

NI has significantly increased the processing capability in the data acquisition hardware with quad-core processors. There is also a new 14-slot USB 3.0 CompactDAQ Chassis,

It is all about more effectively processing data at the point of acquisition. Software-based measuremtn systems need to be smarter, says NI.

The 4- and 8-slot CompactDAQ controllers feature Intel Atom quad-core 1.91 GHz E3845 processors. There are more than 60 sensor-specific I/O modules with integrated signal conditioning, and two USB and Gigabit Ethernet ports.

The controllers can run either Windows Embedded 7 or NI Linux Real-Time, and include 32 GB of nonvolatile storage and removable SD storage to create smarter data logging and embedded monitoring applications.

The USB 3.0 CompactDAQ Chassis provides both increased data bandwidth with a 250Mbyte/s data transfer rate for data acquisition and 14-slot expansion capacity.

For managing this increased level of data acquisition, NI is releasing its DIAdem 2015 data analysis tool as 64-bit software. This is supported by DataFinder Server Edition 2015 which can find and manage data in the cloud.

 

Richard Wilson

NIWeek: Big data challenge gets Intel quad-core processing

01061511_22062_bdrNI is addressing the big data management challenge with its latest 4- and 8-slot CompactDAQ controllers announced at NIWeek in Austin, Texas this week.

NI has significantly increased the processing capability in the data acquisition hardware with quad-core processors. There is also a new 14-slot USB 3.0 CompactDAQ Chassis,

It is all about more effectively processing data at the point of acquisition. Software-based measuremtn systems need to be smarter, says NI.

The 4- and 8-slot CompactDAQ controllers feature Intel Atom quad-core 1.91 GHz E3845 processors. There are more than 60 sensor-specific I/O modules with integrated signal conditioning, and two USB and Gigabit Ethernet ports.

The controllers can run either Windows Embedded 7 or NI Linux Real-Time, and include 32 GB of nonvolatile storage and removable SD storage to create smarter data logging and embedded monitoring applications.

The USB 3.0 CompactDAQ Chassis provides both increased data bandwidth with a 250Mbyte/s data transfer rate for data acquisition and 14-slot expansion capacity.

For managing this increased level of data acquisition, NI is releasing its DIAdem 2015 data analysis tool as 64-bit software. This is supported by DataFinder Server Edition 2015 which can find and manage data in the cloud.

 

Richard Wilson

Optical transistor will be faster than CMOS devices

This rendering depicts a new "plasmonic oxide material" that could make possible devices for optical communications that are at least 10 times faster than conventional technologies. (Purdue University image/Nathaniel Kinsey)

This rendering depicts a new “plasmonic oxide material” that could make possible devices for optical communications that are at least 10 times faster than conventional technologies. (Purdue University image/Nathaniel Kinsey)

Researchers in the US have demonstrated what is in effect an ‘optical transistor’ which can modulate light, as in optical fibre communications, at terahertz frequencies.

The team at Purdue University claim that the so-called “plasmonic oxide material” could make possible devices for optical communications that are at least 10 times faster than conventional technologies.

The optical material made of aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) which can modulate a light signal by 40%, has been shown to work in the near-infrared range of the spectrum, which is used in optical communications.

Significantly, the fabrication process is compatible with a CMOS manufacturing process, which opens the way to commercial devices.

The researchers have proposed creating an “all optical plasmonic modulator using CMOS-compatible materials,” or an optical transistor.

The switching speed of transistors is limited by how fast it takes conventional semiconductors such as silicon to complete this cycle of light to be absorbed, excite electrons, produce holes and then recombine.

“So what we would like to do is drastically speed this up,” said doctoral student Nathaniel Kinsey.

This cycle takes about 350 femtoseconds to complete in the new AZO films, which is roughly 5,000 times faster than crystalline silicon and so fleeting that light travels only about 100 microns, or roughly the thickness of a sheet of paper, in that time.

“We were surprised that it was this fast,” said Kinsey.

The increase in speed could translate into devices at least 10 times faster than conventional silicon-based electronics.

The AZO films are said to be “Epsilon-near-zero,” meaning the refractive index is near zero, a quality found normally in metals and new “metamaterials,” which contain features, patterns or elements that enable unprecedented control of light by harnessing clouds of electrons called surface plasmons.

The pulsing laser light changes the AZO’s index of refraction, which, in turn, modulates the amount of reflection and could make higher performance possible.

“If you are operating in the range where your refractive index is low then you can have an enhanced effect, so enhanced reflection change and enhanced transmission change,” he said.

The ongoing research is based at Purdue’s Birck Nanotechnology Center and is funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, a Marie Curie Outgoing International Fellowship, the National Science Foundation, and the Office of Naval Research.

Findings were detailed in a research paper appearing in July in the journal Optica, published by the Optical Society of America.

Richard Wilson