IQD OCXO in 9.7×7.5mm package

IQD Frequency Products has launched a series of oven controlled crystal oscillators (OCXOs), the IQOV-71 series, housed in a four-pad plastic package with a fibreglass base measuring 9.7×7.5mm.

According to the company the devices offer frequency stabilities down to ±10ppb over an operating temperature range of -20°C to 70°C or ±20ppb over -40°C to 85°C.

Standard frequencies available are 10MHz, 12.8MHz, 19.2MHz, 20MHz, 24.576MHz, 25MHz, 30.72MHz, 38.88MHz, 40MHz, 49.152MHz and 50MHz.

Other frequencies in the range 5MHz to 50MHz can be developed for commercially viable quantities.

Power consumption is typically less than 1W during warm-up which takes about three minutes and less than 0.4W once the device has reached steady state, claims IQD. Frequency ageing is less than 2ppb per day and a maximum of 3ppm over a 10-year period.

The IQOV-71 offers either a standard HCMOS or clipped sinewave output, with operating voltages specified at either 3.3V or 5.0V.

Low phase noise performance is assured with figures of -152dBC/Hz at 10kHz offset and only -153dBc/Hz at 100kHz from the carrier. Unusually for this type of device, the G-sensitivity is also good at <2ppb/G making the design suitable for applications such as military radios and airborne applications.

There is an option to specify external frequency adjustment by the application of a variable control voltage that allows for crystal ageing as well as changes in the circuit conditions. This variation is also extremely linear being <1% as against a more typical 5%.

This part is intended for applications including picocells for wireless applications, satellite communication, broadcasting, microwave and instrumentation such as frequency counters and analysers.

david manners

Macom selling TIA for GPON ONU

August 26, 2015

david manners

M02027 – Macom is in volume production of a transimpedance amplifier for GPON ONU equipment.

Macom is in volume production of a transimpedance amplifier for GPON ONU equipment.

Macom’s M02027 enables GPON receivers to use lower cost PIN photodiodes while offering performance margin in the GPON BOSA-on-board environment, the company says.

The device is claimed to deliver ultra high sensitivity with PIN photodiodes and wide dynamic operating range while offering a ‘best-in-class’ power dissipation.

The M02027 is targeted toward GPON ONU, SONET, CPRI basestation and SFF/SFP module applications. It supports data rates between 100Mbps and 3.125Gbps with wire bonding flexibility and a single supply of 3.3V.

It has an output data polarity invert function and output average photodiode current for photo-alignment and receiver signal strength indicator (RSSI) average power monitoring.

“The new GPON ONU TIA offers superior optical sensitivity and overload performance with low cost PIN photodiode at best in class power dissipation,” said Angus Lai, Director of Product Marketing, High-Performance Analog at Macom.

“We believe the M02027 offers a competitive cost-performance ratio and enables our customers to tackle fast growing GPON deployments.”

david manners

Skeleton and Adgero recover kinetic energy in lorries

August 26, 2015

david manners

Skeleton and Adgero recover kinetic energy in lorries

Skeleton Technologies and Adgero have developed a kinetic energy recovery system (KERS) for road freight vehicles.

The hybrid system is designed to reduce fuel consumption and associated emissions by up to 25%, and is optimised for intermodal road transport solutions, says the company.

The Adgero Hybrid System consists of a bank of high-power ultracapacitors working alongside an electrically-driven axle, which is mounted under the trailer. The technology is controlled by an intelligent management system that tracks driver input to automatically control the regenerative braking and acceleration boost.

The technology is projected to reduce fuel consumption and associated CO2 emissions by 15-25%, depending on terrain and traffic profile. It will also pay for itself in as little as three years through reduced consumption alone, the company claims, and where subsidies are available the payback can be quicker. The product has also been designed to exceed the typical 10-year lifetime of the trailer itself.

“Road haulage accounts for over a fifth of the EU’s total CO2 emissions, so fuelefficient solutions are crucial. We are beginning to see regenerative braking systems in automotive applications but the market clearly needs a similar solution for articulated lorries,” explains Mack Murray, CEO of Adgero SARL.

“By partnering with Skeleton Technologies, we are putting the world’s most advanced ultracapacitors at the heart of our system. This will give us a powerful competitive edge in a demanding industry where energy density is a key metric.”

Skeleton Technologies ultracapacitors use a patented graphene material that allows for better conductivity and higher surface area. This material has allowed the company to deliver what it claimes to be twice the energy density and five times the power density of competitors’ products.

Over the past year, Skeleton Technologies has worked with Adgero to adapt an 800V ultracapacitor power module that is already successful in motorsport to meet the needs of road freight vehicles. The module consists of five 160V units made up of Skeleton Technologies’ cylindrical cells. With monitoring for each individual cell, the module is able to actively self-balance.

Skeleton Technologies’ chief technology officer Volker Dudek said: “To enable this solution for Adgero, we developed intelligent power modules with a proprietary management system that allows for smart monitoring and control of the energy/power profile according to customer requirements.”

Adgero’s system will be fully compatible with existing infrastructure and staff training programmes, and has been optimised for intermodal solutions. Any truck equipped with an Adgero monitor becomes a parallel electric hybrid when paired with an equipped trailer. If a truck without a monitor picks up a retrofitted trailer, the hybrid system will simply stay in standby mode.

In recent months the system has been through rigorous testing procedures including vibration, shock and immersion testing. Road testing will begin in 2016 with Altrans, a French logistics company that is part of a trade organisation that represents 11,000 vehicles across Europe. Adgero and Skeleton Technologies then plan to ramp up production, with the objective of producing 8000–10,000 units annually by 2020.

david manners

Full-size e-bike unveiled in Germany

August 25, 2015

richard wilson

Full-size Mando Footloose e-bike

A prototype e-bike with full-sized 26-inch wheels has been unveiled at EuroBike 2015 in Germany by Mando.

Maybe you ask what is an e-bike?

The electronic element comes from a control unit that monitors the bike’s acceleration and even pedal resistance.

There is a “smartphone-style”control module that mounts on the handle bars. From this the rider can get feedback on power and speed and even health/fitness information.

It even tells the rider when they are cycling up or down hills.

Once the module is detached, the bike is rendered unusable.

The e-bike is powered by a 504Wh lithium-ion battery which the designer says gives it a travel distance of up to 56 miles on a single charge.

The bike’s body is constructed of carbon as well, and weighs 22 kilograms. It has a top speed of 25 Km/hour.

South Korean manufacturer Mando said the full-sized Footloose e-bike will be available in summer 2016.

Mando’s existing e-bikes include a smaller bike with 20-inch wheels and a folding model.

“With the successful launch of our smaller sized, portable models, we now see a big market opportunity for a full sized bike, particularly in Europe city locations,” said TS Lee, executive director at Mando.

Richard Wilson

Military builds on open standards and SDR

August 25, 2015

richard wilson

Military hardware has adopted the practices of the commercial market to enjoy the benefits of open standards, modular system architectures and software-defined radio, write Nigel Forrester and Paul Moakes

Military builds on open standards and SDR – CommAtility’s conduction-cooled board

In the embedded industry, there is over 30 years’ experience of using open standards based building blocks in defence applications. Suppliers accept that it takes a lot of trust for a defence equipment manufacturer to choose COTS (commercial-off-the-shelf) components. Longevity of supply, high quality manufacture and testing, and the ability to support equipment in the field are critical attributes that suppliers must demonstrate.

Once trust is established, the benefits of modular building blocks based on open standards can be realised. For military deployment, while there still needs to be system-level qualification, each block that can be sourced off‑the‑shelf saves time to deployment, reducing development cost and risk.

Off-the-shelf with open standards

The ability to intercept, monitor and decode communications must keep pace with constantly evolving threats. While COTS technologies are not always available, they provide a valuable choice with shorter design cycles.

Armed forces need the most capable software defined radio/electronic warfare (SDR/EW) equipment. COTS parts make it easier to update standards-based equipment, provided the standards in question are widely supported. There has been a proliferation of open standards, as more industries and markets have become aware of the advantages. They can broadly be split into three categories:

those applicable for low cost, single processor systems
multiprocessor architectures driven by a small group of manufacturers
multiprocessor architectures driven by a wide group of suppliers and end users.

EW/SDR equipment needs multiple, connected processing elements, so naturally falls into the last category. Several open standards could be considered suitable, including CompactPCI Serial and Rugged MicroTCA from the PICMG standards body, plus VITA’s VME and VPX standards.

Embedded benefits

CompactPCI boards and AdvancedMC modules (used in MicroTCA systems) do not yet have sufficient momentum in the defence community and so are not seen as the best choice, despite having some technical merits.

Many VME boards have been deployed in military and aerospace, and this could still be a valid option for updating an existing system. However, the obvious choice for a new design is the VPX portfolio of standards.

VPX was originally introduced as VITA 46 and then augmented with the OpenVPX VITA 65 initiative. VITA 46 offers great flexibility in pinout choices, negating some of the advantages of COTS hardware by allowing vendors to create unique solutions.

VITA 65 was driven by customers’ need to standardise on defined profiles for interoperability, and has stimulated a wave of VPX deployments, where it is now the de-facto choice, allowing ‘best-in-class’ modules to be selected from alternate vendors.

Backplane mapping within a VPX solution is important. Although governed by a set of predetermined slot profiles in the specification, a choice of backplane architectures is available for implementation. The VITA 65 specification defines profiles in an exact way.

Electronic warfare

A configuration suitable for EW includes a single Intel control processor mated with several DSP/FPGA cards via a PCIe and Ethernet switch. An example for command and control is the TR B1x/msd board from Concurrent Technologies, which is based on a fourth generation Intel Core processor.

The board has two x4 PCIe data plane “fat pipe” connections, compliant with the VITA 65 MOD3-PAY-2F2U-16.2.3-3 profile. In the profile “2F2U” refers to having two fat pipes (four lanes) for data plane use plus a pair of ultra-thin (one lane) pipes for control use. The end digits identify the two fat pipes as PCIe Gen 2 compliant, and the two ultra-thin pipes as 1,000Base-BX control plane interfaces.

Figure 1: VPX-D16A4-PCIE block diagram showing rear I/O

Four CommAgility VPX-D16A4-PCIE DSP/FPGA boards (Figure 1) are used for signal processing, and also have PCIe connectivity. The two DSPs on each board have their own x2 PCIe connections out to the backplane, and so the TR B1x/msd control board is configured with an x4 data plane bifurcated into two x2 pipes. This allows data to be sent between individual DSPs and the command and control board.

Smaller, lower cost VPX configurations can be created without the switch module, by using a backplane that has specific connectivity, for example with a single Intel‑based control processor having an x4 PCIe connection to two DSP/FPGA boards in the slots either side of the CPU.

Rugged kit

Many EW/SDR deployments must work in a conduction-cooled, rather than air-cooled environment, tolerate high levels of shock and vibration and have a coating to protect against factors like moisture and pollution.

The VPX-REDI specifications (VITA 48.0) assure ruggedisation in COTS-based military systems and focus on aspects that allow favourable size, weight, and power (SWaP) metrics.

Nigel Forrester is technical marketing manager at Concurrent Technologies and Paul Moakes is technical director at CommAgility

Richard Wilson

IDT kits commoditise wireless charging

August 25, 2015

david manners

IDT kit enables wireless charging

IDT has launched transmitter and receiver reference kits that add wireless charging to products for a BOM cost of $30 and $40.

The Qi-compliant kits, P9038-R-EVK and P9025-R-EVK, “enable engineers to incorporate wireless charging capabilities into their designs in a matter of hours”, says IDT.

The 5W, 5V kits can be used for PC peripherals, furniture, medical devices, and other portable devices, the company says.

IDT has sold wireless charging products to tier one customers like Samsung, LG and IKEA, says marketing senior vice-president at IDT Graham Robertson.

“Any fool can make wireless power work, but making it work at a reasonable cost with reasonable performance takes considerable engineering skills,” Robertson told Electronics Weekly.

IDT says its kits make it possible for customers to design a wireless power solution with little to no engineering support required.

Robertson reckons that wireless charging will be particularly valuable in wet environments where waterproofing is vital, such as boats, kitchens and rugged environments in general.

Robertson also believes consumers will appreciate a charging ‘tray’ on which you can drop anything that needs charging without having to plug it in.

There is, he says, pent-up demand for charging surfaces in restaurants, aircraft, cafés, coffee shops, libraries, waiting rooms, offices and other places where people hang around that will help to allay what he calls “battery anxiety”‘.

IDT’s transmitter and receiver reference kits include reference boards and design support materials including instructional videos, user manuals, foreign object detection (FOD) tuning guides, layout guides, layout instantiation modules, schematics, bill-of-materials (BOM), Gerber files, and more.

The kits can be used for immediate prototyping. An associated layout module enables direct instantiation on to a system board, while an optimised and fully tested BOM takes the guess-work out of component selection. Foreign object detection (FOD) tuning is supported via selectable pre-programmed curve settings and extensive collateral documenting FOD tuning for these devices.

Both reference kits offer two-layer board layout files, providing maximum flexibility for most applications. The boards are Qi-compliant for use as-is.

The current kits contain about 30-35 devices on each board and it is anticipated that much of this will be integrated in future versions.

At Digi-Key, which is handling distribution of the kits, vice-president David Stein says: “With next-day delivery, engineers can go from concept to prototype in fewer than 24 hours. In addition, the full bill-of-materials and pre-production samples can be ordered with just a few clicks, making it easy to place production orders when the time is right.”

david manners

UK firm brings disposable fuel cells to smartphones

August 25, 2015

richard wilson

UK firm brings disposable fuel cells to smartphones

Intelligent Energy has started to make use of the portable fuel cell and disposable fuel cartridge assets it acquired from Société Bic of France earlier this year.

The Loughborough-based portable energy firm is reported to be working on a fuel cell which can keep a smartphone running for a week.

Intelligent Energy says the disposable fuel cartridge technology it has acquired for $15m from Société Bic will allow it to make a significant forward step towards the mass-market availability of embedded hydrogen fuel cell technology to power smartphones and wearable devices.

Dr Henri Winand, CEO, Intelligent Energy, writes:

“The acquisition is an important step in realising this vision, and accelerating our roadmap to bring our world class hydrogen fuel cell technology to portable electronic devices everywhere.”

BIC’s embedded fuel cell technology provides the company with the capability for volume production of embedded fuel cells.

Winand added:

“As people continue to embrace ubiquitous wireless technology, and as our data consumption increases, we are rapidly approaching a point where we need to remove our dependence on the plug socket and make it simple for people to stay connected everywhere.”

Richard Wilson

Toshiba cuts ARM microcontroller power with 65nm flash

August 25, 2015

richard wilson

Toshiba cuts ARM microcontroller power with 65nm flash

Toshiba says it has dramatically reduced the power consumption of its ARM Cortex-based microcontrollers by integrating a newly developed embedded flash memory process based on a 65nm logic process.

Toshiba said it expects the devices to achieve power consumption of less than 100µA/MHz. This will represent a 60% reduction in power consumption compared to its current microcontrollers.

The first product group will be the TMPM3H, that will be based on ARM Cortex-M3 core. It will be a small package device with 32-100 pins and flash memory capacities of 32-128kbyte.

Sample shipments will start in the second quarter of 2016.

The company plans to follow this with MCUs based on the ARM Cortex-M4F core.

As part of its microcontroller plans Toshiba will embedded non-volatile memory (NVM) that adopts single-poly multi-time programmable cells on its 130nm logic process technology.

Sample shipments will start in the fourth quarter of 2015.

Richard Wilson

Qualcomm gives Snapdragon a boost with DSP

August 25, 2015

richard wilson

Qualcomm – DSP is used to brighten areas of both video and photos

Qualcomm says it is more power efficient to run some operations in a mobile phone using a dedicated digital signal processor (DSP) rather than the CPU.

As a result it has added a larger DSP element to its Snapdragon 820 mobile processor.

DSP elements and CPUs with DSP extensions are traditionally used to provide more power efficient processing is specific applications such as video, imaging and audio.

But to date the use of DSP in mobile phones has been limited to specific functions such as the data modem. Texas Instruments integrated DSP elements into some of its OMAP mobile processors.

Qualcomm has now added a self-contained DSP element called Hexagon 680 for sensor processing in the phone.

The CPU also has access to DSP extensions for processing intensive operations such as imaging, with the firm’s new Spectra camera image signal processor in low-light environments.

The Snapdragon 820 will use DSP to adaptively brighten areas of both video and photos that would otherwise appear too dark.

Also according to Qualcomm, using the DSP element can double MP3 playback battery life.