ELY, UK—British systems integrator GB Innomech has built an automated assembly system that uses vision-guided robots to produce spools of film ribbons for security and identity cards.
Vision-Guided Robots Assemble Spools of Film
ELY, UK—British systems integrator GB Innomech has built an automated assembly system that uses vision-guided robots to produce spools of film ribbons for security and identity cards.
Boeing to Double Workforce at Pennsylvania Assembly Plant
SMITHFIELD, PA—Boeing will expand its factory here, where the company makes complex electronic assemblies. Boeing expects to add 168 new jobs over the next three years, doubling the facility’s workforce.
Boeing to Double Workforce at Pennsylvania Assembly Plant
SMITHFIELD, PA—Boeing will expand its factory here, where the company makes complex electronic assemblies. Boeing expects to add 168 new jobs over the next three years, doubling the facility’s workforce.
IKEA invests in Scotland-based printable LED light firm
IKEA is investing in Design LED Products, the Scotland-based printable LED lighting firm.
IKEA will switch its entire lighting range to the technology by September 2015.
The investment by IKEA GreenTech is intended to support Design LED’s development of products that can be used in lighting designs for the home.
Based in Livingston near Edinburgh, Design LED creates “light tiles” which are LEDs embedded into clear resins and films. The tiles are designed to be thin, flexible and low cost.
“This technology opens up fantastic possibilities for innovative designs using energy efficient LEDs. The partnership is a clear strategic fit for IKEA and our goal to make living sustainably affordable and attractive for millions of people,”says Christian Ehrenborg, managing director, IKEA GreenTech AB.
LED lights use 85% less energy than incandescent bulbs and last 20 times longer.
“This strategic investment allows Design LED to significantly accelerate plans to deliver highly differentiated products to an international market desperate to conserve energy, and hungry for exciting new form factors in LED lighting” says Stuart Bain, CEO, Design LED Products.
Design LED Products has also recently expanded its management team with the appointment of Wolfgang Andorfer chief sales and marketing officer.
Existing Design LED Products shareholders also invested alongside IKEA GreenTech, including most significantly Scottish Enterprise, via its investment arm the Scottish Investment Bank.
Plessey in LED deal with 8point3
Plessey has entered a long-term commercial agreement with 8point3, a Dartford-based LED luminaire manufacturing company. Plessey will be supplying its GaN-on-Silicon MaGICTM LEDs for use in 8point3′s new Sabre Architectural range of LED linear lighting products.
“Our focus has always been to create market leading LED solutions for a wide range of applications. Our agreement with Plessey, the only UK LED Silicon manufacturer, ensures we continue to do this,” says 8point3 md Ashley Bateup.
Recent performance improvements in Plessey’s MaGIC LEDs combined with 8point3′s Sabre Architectural range, should beat other linear lighting solutions, reckons Plessey.
Sabre Architectural combines the benefits of remote phosphor with a unique delivery system, a wide range of colour temperatures, and a uniform and diffuse luminance and appearance, ensuring no reflections or pixilation, even when dimming. It offers designers a flexible solution for high lumen areas and decorative lighting systems.
“Plessey will design bespoke LED solutions in the UK to complement 8point3′s ongoing lighting projects,” says Plessey’s Mark Pinnock.
Power supply OR’ing controller rated for 40V
Diodes has introduced a 40V-rated active OR’ing controller for the design of uninterruptible power supplies.
The ZXGD3108N8 is designed to drive low RDS(ON) power mosfets replacing lossy Schottky blocking diodes.
According to the supplier, by driving s in this way the controller also improves the overall system efficiency of standard 12V and 24V common rail systems. It also has a low turn-off threshold voltage.
At less than -3mV, and with a tight tolerance of ±2mV, system stability and efficiency is improved under light load conditions.
Additionally, the controller is able to sink a current of 5A, ensuring the fastest possible discharge of the paralleled OR’ing mosfets.
At just 600ns, turn-off is fast to avoid reverse-current flow and prevent voltage dropping on the common rail. In a typical 12V configuration, device quiescent current is specified as sub 400µA and standby power consumption less than 5mW.
Imec’s post-silicon NFC tags
Imec subsidiary Holst Centre with the Dutch research institute TNO, and games manufacturer Cartamundi are co-developing ultra-thin flexible NFC tags using metal-oxide (IGZO) thin-film transistor (TFT) technology on plastic film. The flexible chips will be integrated into game cards as a part of Cartamundi’s larger strategy of developing game cards for the connected generation
Holst Centre, imec and Cartamundi engineers will look into NFC circuit design and TFT processing options, and will investigate routes for up-scaling of the production. By realizing the NFC tags using chips based on IGZO TFT technology on plastic film, the manufacturing cost can be kept low. Moreover, the ultra-thin and flexible form factor required for paper-embedded NFC applications can be realized.
Currently, Cartamundi embeds silicon-based NFC chips in their game cards, connecting traditional game play with electronic devices such as smartphones and tablets. The advanced IGZO TFT technology that will be used addresses the game card industry call for much thinner, more flexible and virtually unbreakable NFC chips. Such chips are essential to improve and broaden the applicability of interactive technology for game cards, compared to the currently-used silicon based NFC chips. Next to technical specifications, this next-generation of NFC tags will better balance manufacturing cost and additional functionalities.
“Not only will Cartamundi be working on the NFC chip of the future, but it will also reinvent the industry’s standards in assembly process and the conversion into game cards,” says Cartamundi’s Steven Nietvelt.
“Imec and Holst Centre aim to shape the future and our collaboration with Cartamundi will do so for the future of gaming technology and connected devices,” says Imec’s Paul Heremans, “chip technology has penetrated society’s daily life right down to game cards.”
USB scopes work with BeagleBone Black and Raspberry Pi
Pico Technology has released beta drivers for its oscilloscope and data logging devices to run on the ARM-based BeagleBone Black and Raspberry Pi development boards.
The USB oscilloscopes and data loggers include high-speed oscilloscopes with bandwidths up to 500MHz, high-resolution 12-bit and 16-bit oscilloscopes, and deep-memory oscilloscopes with buffer sizes up to 512Msamples.
The data logger range includes multichannel voltage loggers, 8-channel thermocouple loggers and the educational DrDAQ multifunction logger.
Separate driver packages and snippets of C code are available for Raspbian and Debian systems. Similar code could be developed in C-compatible programming languages such as C++, Java and JavaScript.
As beta products, these drivers are explained and supported.
Beta drivers for Mac OS X and Linux, drivers for Microsoft Windows and a free SDK can also be downloaded free of charge.
Distributors build design software download momentum
Designspark PCB
Online distributors want engineers to get their design software from them. All of it will be downloadable from the distributors’ websites and some of it, not all, will be free.
It was called the great design tool giveaway, which is not strictly true, at the Electronica exhibition in Munich last week.
Many of the design tools are integrated into the distributors’ own websites with the aim of combining the specification and purchasing of components in one step.
“The aim is that the engineer does not have to leave the design tool to find the parts they need, it is all one environment,” Dave Doherty vice-president operations Digi-Key told Electronics Weekly.
Farnell element1 4 will be selling its software and tools, including CadSoft Eagle, via a new web portal in 2015.
“It is an extension of what we have offered in the past. It will help designers match the OS and firmware with specific MCUs and vice-versa,” said Mike Powell Technical Development Manager at Farnell element14.
“There is a lot more for us than being just a one-stop-shop for components,” said Graham Maggs, European marketing director at Mouser.
Building a software business is not a simple task for the distributors. Today they are selling PCB design tools, the OS and assorted firmware. The ultimate goal is the application software, which will allow them to see complete reference designs ‘off-the-shelf’.
“We see it as supporting the engineer in different ways, but it won’t come overnight,” said Maggs. “Software download is a challenge for distributors, but it is a necessary capability.”
The distributors demonstrated their latest software and downloadable tools at the exhibition last week.
Mouser Electronics has launched a community website for design engineers with the MultiSIM BLUE free PCB design tool, developed by National Instruments, at its heart.
The NI MultiSim Component Evaluator Mouser edition uses the Berkeley SPICE simulation engine and includes a preloaded component library from the distributor’s linecard.
Farnell element14 plans to start selling next year on is software design centre Altium’s PCB design tool called CircuitStudio, which includes management and a 3D design capability.
Distributors are also offering basic grade free tools as a download, as well as selling professional level tool.
Mouser has a free PCB design tool as does RS which was first into the free tool market with DesignSpark PCB.
Digi-Key, which has free tools created by Aspen Labs, called Scheme-It, PartSim and PCBWeb, also sells tools created by Mentor Graphics.
The Designer Schematic and Designer Layout tools are new tools, based on its PADS enterprise-level PCB design tool, but with price tags to attract hobbyists and small-budget design teams.
Designer Schematic and Designer Layout come with free access to Mentor Graphics’ PartQuest, a fully integrated website that merges Digi-Key part numbers into symbols and footprints.