Author Archives: richard wilson

DC-link film capacitor is self-healing

1210_MLCAVX has a range of medium power DC-link film capacitors, which have self-healing properties.

FRC series capacitors are comprised of dry, wound, metalized polypropylene film dielectric encased in a size A, self-extinguishing, cylindrical plastic case sealed with thermosetting resin and featuring four snap-in terminals that facilitate easy mounting to PCBs.

They are designed for use in DC filter circuits, power supplies, industrial inverters, UPS systems, motor drives, power converters, and solar inverters,

FRC series capacitors are available in nine voltages spanning 400V-1500V, two tolerances (±5% and ±10%), two lead lengths (4mm and 8mm), and with capacitance values spanning 4.7µF to 35µF.

Housed in size A cylindrical cases measuring 54mm (L) x 36mm (OD) x 5.1mm (P1), the RoHS-compliant series is rated for operating temperatures spanning -40°C to +105°C and exhibits long lifetime performance of 100,000 hours at rated voltage and 70°C.

Aeroflex shows multi-radio tester

aeroflexAeroflex has introduced a radio test system for analogue AM and FM and Digital P25, DMR, dPMR, NXDN, and ARIB T98 technologies.

Designated the 8800, the rugged test set has 2.5 hour internal battery required for field testing. With a measurement range of -140 dBm to 500 W, the 8800 is a breakthrough in radio test technology.

The instrument is designed for radio tests and alignments; including a typical RF power meter accuracy of 6% and FM deviation meter accuracy of 3%.

Digital analysis capabilities include multiple meters, such as FSK Error and Symbol Deviation, along with advanced distribution, constellation, and eye diagram plots for digital modulation analysis. For DMR radios, the 8800 features an exclusive TDMA power burst profile mask to ensure that the TDMA bursts are within ETSI profile specifications.

The 8800 also provides digital audio quality analysis, regardless of the vocoder technology within the radio, using a unique record and playback function.

There is an optional tracking generator for swept measurements for VSWR, return loss, insertion loss, distance to fault, as well as tuning duplexers.

Results are displayed both graphically and numerically. Additionally, the 8800 features an optional “internal” in-line power meter rated at 500 W with 4% accuracy, providing an invaluable tool for site maintenance.

“With the rapid emergence of high performance, lower cost digital radios, such a DMR, dPMR, and NXDN, RF professionals want an affordable radio test solution with the necessary features and accuracy for bench-level radio tests and alignments. In addition, test professionals want a portable, rugged test solution for maintaining remote sites and optimizing antenna and cable networks,” said Rob Barden, Director of Product Marketing for Radio Test Systems at Aeroflex.

 

 

IoT competition targets Cambridge and London

TSBGovernment-backed Technology Strategy Board is working with Tech City UK and Cambridge Wireless  on a competitive funding initiative which will see up to £1m invested in R&D projects for the internet of things (IoT).

Called Launchpad 2, the competition will support research projects centred on both Cambridge and London SME clusters and early stage companies.

The hope is this will draw investment and entrepreneurs into this area and to encourage networking and collaboration to strengthen the clusters.

Successful companies could secure up to 60% of eligible costs for individual grants of up to £150k and estimated project sizes ranging between £50k and £250k.

Applications for projects larger than £250k will be considered, but the grant funding will be capped at £150k.

The deadline for entries is 3rd September 2014.

The Launchpad Competition is looking for projects that may be too risky to take forward without any support, or focus on new innovative areas, and where the majority of project activities are carried out in Cambridge or London areas. Projects can last up to 12 months and should be led by micro, small or medium-sized companies or from a collaboration of SMEs in early stages of their development.

This business support programme is supported by John Lewis, EE, Unilever, Seedcamp and Redgate. 

 

Making music with Arduino and the Raspberry Pis

Raspberry Pi B+

Raspberry Pi B+

RS Components is organising a design competition which gives Arduino or Raspberry Pi computer modules a musical flavour.

This is part of the distributor’s sponsorship of the Music Tech Fest London, taking place from 5-7 September at the London Symphony Orchestra’s own venue, the LSO St Lukes.

The challenge will be to complete the project, dubbed hack challenge, in 24 hours. It will then give a showcase performance of each hack challenge on the main festival stage. A live YouTube stream will highlight the results and the winning hackers will be presented with a prize donated by RS.

RS is also sponsoring a collaboration between pro hacker Adam John Williams and solo artist Jason Singh, who uses his voice and samplers to engage people in musical creation.

Guy Magrath, global head of eCommerce at RS Components said: “As a business that has helped engineers to innovate for over 75 years, we are embracing the digital age by supporting futuristic projects and events like Music Tech Fest that bring the application of components to life. For us, the three-day event is the perfect platform to leverage the expertise of engineers and hackers, and bring their knowledge to life by demonstrating the use of components in various ways. We are delighted to be involved with Music Tech Fest and the opportunity it presents in developing new applications of components in music.”

 

 

News 2014-07-22 08:45:00

st-rad-hardSTMicroelectronics has added to its range of Defense Logistics Agency-qualified JANSR bipolar transistors with additional up-screening.

Designed for aerospace systems, including satellites, as well as nuclear physics and medical applications, the radiation hardened transistors were announced at the recent Nuclear and Space Radiation Effects Conference (NSREC) in Paris.

Called JANSR+, the high-dose-rate bipolar transistors have an additional 100krad low-dose-rate (100 mrad/s) test performed on each wafer.

ST also said it will complete its JANSR+ offer with test data from very-low-dose-rate (10 mrad/s) tests, demonstrating the robustness to radiation effect of its technology.

“ST has been providing rad-hard bipolar transistors to the European aerospace industry for over 35 years and our products have accumulated hundreds of millions of flying hours,” said Mario Aleo, group v-p and general manager, power transistor division, STMicroelectronics.

All parts are housed in advanced hermetic UB packages and are available in sample and volume quantities.

Current-voltage monitor has 16-bit precision

Digital-Power-MonitorIntersil has introduced a family of digital power monitors capable of supporting a wide common mode input voltage range of 0 to 60V.

The ISL2802x range of devices have a 16-bit native resolution sigma-delta ADC (gain error = +/- 0.05% Typ.) for measurement precision and are available as bi-directional, high-side and low-side digital current sense and voltage monitors with a serial interface.

The devices can be used to replace op amps and current sense amplifiers traditionally used for voltage and current measurement.

The three devices in the family are:

  • The ISL28023 PMBus compatible digital power monitor that integrates the analog comparators, a voltage regulator, a DAC and a low voltage auxiliary channel in a single chip.
  • The ISL28025 is a high precision digital power monitor with integrated analog comparators and an integrated voltage regulator.
  • The ISL28022 is a highly efficient digital power monitor ideal for cost constrained applications.

Operating temperature range is from -40ºC to 125ºC.

“We’ve taken the best of our current sense amplifier technology and augmented it with digital power monitoring to deliver a robust and highly accurate, but simple to use family of digital power monitors,” said Philip Chesley, vice president of Precision Products for Intersil.

 

Arduino-compatible Spark board available at CPC

spark-coreThe Spark Core Wi-Fi enabled, Arduino-compatible development platform is now being stocked by consumer distributor CPC.

The Spart Core board, which attracted more than $500,000 in pledges on Kickstarter last year, is open source but also code-compatible with Arduino.

CPC already distributes the entire Arduino range of products, as well as the recently launched Raspberry Pi model B+ board.

According to senior product manager at CPC, Kevin Howson: “I am delighted to add the Spark range of products to our portfolio. The boards are easy to use and are a fantastic building block for anyone wanting to connect their Maker project to the Internet.”

According to Spark’s CEO Zach Supalla, teh baorad already has a community in the UK, “so it was crucial that we selected a major distributor who was up to the task of guaranteeing them easy access to Spark products.”

Comment: IoT could be killed by too many standards

internet OTWill the internet of things (IoT) be killed by standards?

If you are in the electronics business then you must know about the IoT. That is the mantra.

But the reality is that the IoT is valueless if it is not connected, and this relies on standard interfaces.

The problem is the IoT currently looks like a standards soup.

The current list of IoT-related wireless standards includes Bluetooth Smart and Wi-FI 802.11ah, along with the 3G and 4G LTE mobile phone standards (which bring with them 20 or more global frequency bands).

In addition, there are the various proprietary and standard short-range in-building standards. The two most commonly used are ZigBee and Z-Wave, but there are others.

These wireless standards pre-date IoT and each has significant market penetration already.

Then there are the new standards which will come into being, because of IoT. One of these is the white space radio standard known as Weightless.

History tells me, that if the IoT market is to fulfil commercial expectations then the standards landscape must become a lot simpler.

I give it five years. Then we will have one IoT standard, this is what will be needed to connect 50 billion devices by 2020.

And the search for the super standard has begun.

A group of companies including Broadcom, Dell, Intel, Samsung are proposing a common wireless communications protocol based on open source code.

But as I understand this will use existing wireless interface standards.

Outside this group is Qualcomm which has thrown its weight behind the Linux AllSeenAlliance (ASA).

The battle for the internet of things has only just begun.

 

LTE mezzanine card supports 20Gbit/s per port

CommAgility-AMC-V7LTE wireless front-end system design is the target for an interface and processing card from CommAgility based around a Xilinx Virtex-7 FPGA.

The Advanced Mezzanine Card (AMC) can be used for LTE wireless front-ends requiring multiple 10G CPRI links at up to rate option 8, said the supplier.

I/O  capabilities incorporate a Serial RapidIO (SRIO) Gen 2 switch supporting SRIO V2.1 at up to 20Gbit/s per port.

The board also includes three front panel SFP+ optical interfaces that provide flexible high-speed links, and are configurable as CPRI, OBSAI, GigE, SRIO or other standards. There is also an option for a SRIO mini-SAS connector.

Timing and synchronisation is achieved via the front panel or backplane clock I/O, or optionally via GPS. No additional timing equipment is required, which significantly reduces system complexity.

The Virtex-7 FPGA has with it two banks of DDR3 SDRAM, and a bank of flash memory for storing FPGA configurations and additional software. Separate glue logic allows control, FPGA configuration and flash reprogramming over SRIO.

According to Edward Young, managing director at CommAgility, said, “The new AMC-V7 provides an optimised combination of FPGA processing power and high-end I/O, making it well-suited to wireless radio head interface applications.”

Available software includes a full Xilinx ISE/EDK example project, and MicroBlaze BSL including flash update, with much of it provided as source code.

 

Anglia improves website with faster product search

Steve Rawlins

Steve Rawlins

Anglia has upgraded its online sales website with a faster search engine which it claims will ”half” product search times.

The Anglia Live website also now has forward and back ordering facilities, volume contract pricing and the facility to search suppliers’ full database of parts including parts not currently stocked by Anglia.

According Steve Rawlins, CEO of Anglia: “We are the only UK distributor offering our customers the opportunity to search across all active part numbers from our suppliers. Place an order and you’ll see the stock level change before your eyes.”

The website lists all active supplier part numbers, including lines not held in stock, and cross-references over 2 million industry standard part numbers which can be searched.

Manufacturers’ data sheets are supplied for all parts listed. For non-stocked lines, the listing includes typical supplier lead times and minimum order quantities.

The website shows current and projected stock levels and any product change or termination notifications (PCN / PTN) issued by the supplier. Historic PCN and PTN information is also available.

Anglia Live 2.0 also supports back and forward ordering, and allows customers to place orders on-line at their negotiated contract price. Customers can place forward orders up to one year in advance.

Customers can also place back orders on standard parts when current stock levels aren’t sufficient to meet their requirements. For back orders, customers can also specify a delivery date allowing for the supplier lead time, and can opt to receive partial quantities where the full requested quantity is not available.

Rawlins added: “Design engineers and buyers use Anglia Live to research component availability as well as to place orders. They will now be able to find the information they need faster, and have much more flexibility to order the parts they need for delivery when they need them.”