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.

 

CadSoft launches v7 of Eagle PCB

CadSoft Eagle v7

CadSoft Eagle v7

CadSoft has rolled its Eagle PCB layout tool to version 7, improving the auto-router and allowing large designs to be split across a team.

The auto-router can simultaneously generate multiple routing variants on multi-core processors (one per core) and requires fewer manual interventions.

Large schematic designs to be organised into a hierarchy of small functional blocks which can thn be assigned to different team members, while “giving large organisations a global view of the functional blocks of the project to make it easier to locate and change aspects of the schematic or layout”, said CadSoft.

There have been changes to licencing. Users now need to specify the identity number (HostID) of the computer they are running Eagle on when they buy it. Multi-user licensees will manage seats from a license server. Single-user licensees can install their software on up to two devices.

There is also a tool (one of CadSoft’s .ulp ‘user language programs’) to export .idf (intermediate data format) files representing the maximum rectangular dimension of components (see image). These place-holders can be used for preliminary mechanical checking before exact 3d models are available.

“A comprehensive 3D model can be created with Simplified Solution’s ‘IDF-to-3d’ tool,” said the firm, which will be offering IDF-to-3D in its web shop later in the summer.

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.

 

News 2014-07-15 09:02:10

LG 18inch rollable displayLG Display has developed an 18inch flexible OLED display, and another one that is flat, but transparent.

The flexible display has 1,200×810 resolution and can be rolled around a 60mm cylinder while working – made possible in part by using a polyimide film substrate and organic thin-film transistors.

“This proves that LG Display can bring rollable TVs of more than 50inch to the market in the future,” said the firm.

LG transparent displayThe transparent 18inch OLED has 30% transmittance and LG has “lowered the haze of the panel to a level of 2%,” it said. “Considering that the transmittance of existing transparent LCD panels is around 10%, this panel offers significantly improved transmittance.”

By 2017 the firm believes it will have an “Ultra HD” flexible and transparent OLED panel of over 60inch with more than 40% transmittance and a minimum curve diameter of 200mm.

Boron buckyballs roll out from Brown University

Boron Ball - Brown University

Boron Ball – Brown University

Score one for boron. For the first time, a version of the famous football-shaped buckyball has been created from boron.

Discovered in 1985, buckyballs are made from 60 carbon atoms linked together to form hollow spheres. The molecular cages are very stable and can withstand high temperatures and pressures, so researchers have suggested they might store hydrogen at high densities, perhaps making it a viable fuel source. At normal pressures, too much of the lightweight gas can escape from ordinary canisters, and compressing it requires bulky storage tanks.

Boron sits next to carbon in the periodic table, so a boron ball may also display useful properties. But it wasn’t clear whether boron could form such structures.

Now Lai-Sheng Wang at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and his colleagues have made a cage-like molecule with 40 boron atoms by vaporising a chunk of boron with a laser then freezing it with helium, creating boron clusters. The team analysed the energy spectra of these clusters and compared them with computer models of 10,000 possible arrangements of boron atoms. The matching configuration revealed they had created the boron ball.

Unlike carbon buckyballs, in which the faces are made of hexagons and pentagons, the boron buckyball is made from triangles, hexagons and heptagons. As a result, it is less spherical but still an enclosed structure. Wang has dubbed the molecule “borospherene”. The team is now hunting for a boron analogue of graphene – a strong sheet of carbon just one atom thick that is often touted as a “wonder” material because of its unique electrical properties.

Mark Fox at Durham University, UK likes the name – and is excited at the prospect of finding a boron version of graphene. Buckyballs led to the discovery of graphene, he says, and history may repeat itself with boron.

Journal reference: Nature Chemistry, DOI: 10.1038/nchem.1999

Syndicated content: Jacob Aron, New Scientist

Image: Wang lab/Brown University

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.”

 

More on: Raspberry Pi Model B+

Raspberry Pi Model B+The Raspberry Pi Foundation has up-graded the Raspberry Pi Model B but, for industrial users, “we’ll be keeping Model B in production for as long as there’s demand for it”, said the Foundation’s Eben Upton.

The new board is the Model B+, which should not be thought of as a Raspberry Pi 2, added Upton.

What is different?

  • GPIO header extended to 40 pins. First 26 pins exactly the same as 26 pin header on original.
  • Two extra USB ports bringing total to four.
  • SD Card socket is now a Micro SD Card socket.
  • On-board regulators are now switchers, saving from 0.5 to 1W.
  • Lower power consumption. By replacing linear regulators with switching ones we’ve reduced power consumption by between 0.5W and 1W.More USB. We now have 4 USB 2.0 ports, compared to 2 on the Model B, and .
  • Composite video now emerges from a fourth pin on the 3.5mm audio jack.
  • The connectors have bene moved to put them along two sides of the Pi, not all four.
  • There are now four mounting holes, and the board corners have been rounded.

Raspberry Pi Model B+ pinout

What is the same?

  • The SoC remains the Broadcom BCM2835 (ARM11 v6 archtecture).
  • RAM is 512Mbyte
  • Model B software runs on the B+
  • element 14 and RS are suppliers
  • Camera (CSI) and display (DSI) connectors stay

The power supply clean-up extends to “better hotplug and overcurrent behaviour” on the USB, said Upton, and “the audio circuit incorporates a dedicated low-noise power supply”.

Extensions to the IO include ID-SC and ID-SD which form an I2C bus for external EEPROM so boards plugged into the 40pin header can identify themselves to allow the IO to be configured by the ARM processor.

Touch display feels like the real thing

NLT NLT Technologies has developed a tactile touch screen technology, which it says uses electric vibrations to reproduce skin sensations as if they are tracing actual objects on the display.

“The display provides texture via skin sensation when the user traces the surface of the display where the image is shown. If multiple fingers touch the display at the same time, the digits on the area where the image is shown can feel the appropriate texture, but the digits on the area without the image will not feel the texture.”

The NLT tactile touch technology provides regional stimulation, which is provided by electrostatic force. The electrostatic force is generated by the beat phenomenon in a region where excited X electrodes cross excited Y electrodes, which presents tactile sensation to the users. The tactile touch technology applied to the panel provides multi-finger interaction.

The display arranges multiple electrodes horizontally (X) and vertically (Y) on the glass panel and applies voltage with different frequencies to each X and Y electrode located on the image area. Electrostatic force corresponding to the difference in the frequencies occurs at the electrodes’ cross point.

When user traces on the surface, friction variation, modulated by the electrostatic force, occurs. The display uses this friction variation to provide the tactile sensation. The friction variation does not occur at the areas without images, so it is possible to localize the region to be stimulated and achieve the multi-finger function. This tactile technology with the matrix electrodes arrangement consists of a relatively small number of electrodes, enabling the display to be higher in density and larger in size.

NLT Technologies will sell the tactile LCDs through its sales and marketing channel in Europe, Renesas Electronics.