n the midst of a $21 billion NAND industry and $5 billion SSD industry, flash controller revenues crossed the $1 billion market for the first time in 2011. SSDs and embedded NAND are the hot spots, and in coming years, cache SSD will be another major driver of the controller market. Read more…
May
16
FTDI Signs Global Distribution Agreement with Arrow
Future Technology Devices International (FTDI) has signed a global distribution agreement with Arrow Electronics, Inc. Under the agreement, Arrow will distribute FTDI’s complete portfolio to customers in the Americas, EMEA and Asia Pacific regions.
“Arrow brings best-in-class engineering and support infrastructure, successful execution and global reach to the connectivity needs of the USB interface market,” said Fred Dart, founder and chief executive officer of FTDI. “Arrow’s strength in design demand support, global supply chain and value-added services will be appreciated by existing and new FTDI users.”
“USB is one of the more ubiquitous standards for data transfer, and FTDI helps simplify USB implementation,” said Jeff Eastman, senior vice president of global supplier marketing and asset management for Arrow Electronics. “The FTDI portfolio offers comprehensive USB solutions for existing and new applications, with full compatibility, support and leadership products. FTDI is a solid addition to our line card and we look forward to a productive relationship.”
May
11
Evatronix Launches Display Processor based on Latest ARM Security Technology
Silicon intellectual property (IP) provider Evatronix SA has announced the release of the first member of its PANTA high performance display controller core family. Developed using ARM technology the PANTA DP20 is targeted specifically at high-end mobile/portable products, like smartphones and tablet PCs, with ultra-low power consumption that does not sacrifice processing performance.
The PANTA DP20 off-loads the general purpose central processing units (CPUs) from power-consuming video processing tasks, like composition of up to 3 graphics or video layers, YUV to RGB conversion, alpha-blending and gamma correction. It supports a variety of display standards and features programmable resolutions of up to 8191×8191 pixels. The processor’s output pixel interface, with HSYNC, VSYNC and blanking signals, is compatible with HDMI (also 3D) and MIPI DPI interfaces. A plethora of RGB and YUV pixel formats are supported, as well as progressive/interlaced video input.
The processor features support the advanced AMBA® 4 AXI4 system bus protocol, which increases performance and lowers data transfer latency within the application. As the same bus is supported by the latest ARM Cortex™ processors and Mali™ graphics processing units (GPUs), the integration of the PANTA DP20 into the ARM environment is made straightforward.
The PANTA DP20 is the world’s only licensable display controller IP to currently support ARM TrustZone technology. Access to the PANTA DP20 can be controlled by secure signals exported from an ARM TrustZone enabled processor and are able to prevent unauthorized transformations or capture of secured images.
Ben Cade, Vice President & General Manager, secure services division, ARM commented: “We are pleased to be working with Evatronix to provide TrustZone capable IP that enables system-wide hardware security.” He continued, “When ARM security technology is integrated into innovative solutions, such as the Evatronix PANTA DP20, higher levels of protection are possible. This makes it easier for consumers to carry out mobile payments, share personal data and view premium content using their smart connected devices.”
May
11
ON Semiconductor Releases LED Lighting Solutions Brochure
ON Semiconductor (Nasdaq: ONNN), a premier supplier of high performance, energy efficient silicon solutions, has announced the release of the latest edition of its LED Lighting Solutions Brochure. This publication covers the portfolio of LED driving, LED control, power management, ballast, sensing and communication devices produced by the company to serve the increasingly important solid state illumination sector. Among the end applications these devices prove suitable for are architectural lighting, automotive lighting, digital signage, display backlighting and portable electronics.
The brochure provides basic details of LED driver products based on different topologies (linear, boost, buck, switching and charge pump), as well as details of constant current regulators, switching regulators, switching controllers, buck controllers, voltage references, PLC modems, KNX transceivers, proximity sensors, ambient light sensors and PIR detectors. A variety of useful reference designs are also described. In addition, contact information for the company’s sales offices and main distributors is included.
This brochure can be downloaded from
May
10
Fluke Expands Partnership with Livingston
Test equipment sourcing specialist Livingston has announced that new territories have been added to the company’s collaboration with leading industrial test equipment manufacturer Fluke. This will see rental support in the UK and Ireland complementing the support services Livingston already offers Fluke across Germany and Benelux. It will cover Fluke entire industrial portfolio, including power analysis, vibration testing and thermal imaging equipment.
Among the Fluke industrial products available from Livingston are:
- Fluke’s 810 vibration tester, with tri-axial accelerometer technology, for rapid identification of mechanical problems, such as imbalance, looseness, misalignment and bearing failures. With a 4 channel, 24 bit analogue-to-digital converter, it has a 2 Hz to 20 kHz bandwidth and a 100 dB signal to noise ratio. Offered in a compact 18.56 cm x 7.00 cm x 26.72 cm form factor, it weighs just 1.9 k. The 810 has an operating temperature of 0 °C to 50 °C, a 200 rpm to 12000 rpm machine rotational speed range and a 2 GByte memory capacity.
- Fluke’s 1735 power logger, for monitoring power demands over long periods of time to carry out analysis for improving power efficiency. With a 10.24 kHz sample rate, it is capable of recording power and associated parameters continuously for up to 45 days. Packaged in a 240 mm x 180 mm x 110 mm enclosure, with a weight of 1.7 kg, it has a 320 x 240 pixel resolution 1/4 VGA colour transmissive display, a 4 MByte Flash memory and a 0 °C to +40 °C operational temperature range.
- Fluke’s 435 logging power quality analyser for measuring dips, swells, interruptions and transients, has 4 voltage and current channels with a maximum sampling speed of 200 kSamples/s on each channel simultaneously. It has a ±6000 V transient capture measurement range, a 1000 Vrms (6 kV peak) maximum voltage and is fully compliant with the IEC 61000-4-30 Class A standard.
http://www.livingston-global.com/mc_fluke/electrical-industrial-test/
May
08
Handheld 3D imaging system for medical applications relies on Qt Commercial
Eykona Technologies save 6-9 months development time with Qt Commercial framework
An innovative handheld 3D imaging system for use in medical applications has been developed with the support of Digia, Qt Commercial. The Eykona® Wound Measurement System, created by Eykona Technologies, provides clinicians with an objective and repeatable measure of the volume of wounds, allowing comparison and monitoring of the healing process. Qt Commercial assisted Eykona in significantly reducing the project completion time.
Qt is an established user interface (UI) and cross-platform application framework used in the automotive, medical, aerospace and industrial automation industries, among many others. Digia, Qt Commercial is a pioneer in the commercial development, support, services and exclusive licensor of Qt for desktop and embedded development.
Eykona identified an unmet need for the accurate measurement and clinical characterisation of hard-to-heal wounds such as diabetic and pressure ulcers. Existing techniques estimated the volume of wounds – the change of which is an important indicator of the healing process – by multiplying an area estimate with a depth measurement obtained from a probe. This method is both inaccurate and difficult to replicate. Eykona used patented technology, based on research at the University of Oxford, to develop a handheld imaging system that produces a full colour 3D model of a wound that can be stored in the patient’s treatment record and shared to enable remote assessment.
Having evaluated a number of graphical UI and application frameworks, Eykona selected Qt Commercial due to its cross-platform support; widespread adoption, meaning that developers were readily available; and a highly positive experience during evaluation. The company chose to work with Qt Commercial, preferring the support and licensing benefits to the open source route. However, the developers still made extensive use of the online knowledge base of the wider Qt community.
Commenting on his team’s experience with Qt Commercial, Eykona CTO Dr. James Paterson said: “We found the Qt Commercial technology to be superior to other application development frameworks. It is more flexible and has better support.” He added, “Qt Commercial’s cross-platform support was especially valuable. It allowed us to develop our embedded Linux application before the hardware platform was available – we simply developed under Windows and then directly compiled for the Linux platform. Without Qt Commercial we would have had to add 6-9 months to our development time to initial release.”
A video describing Eykona’s use of the Qt Commercial application framework can be viewed at http://youtu.be/ObHtZ4mnN1I and also downloaded at http://bit.ly/KJDRvk.
Further information on Eykona Technologies and the Eykona Wound Measurement System can be found at www.3dwoundimaging.com
May
08
Advanced automotive motor drivers from Melexis bring LIN-ready single chip solution to BLDC motors & actuators
Melexis announces its next generation IC family for sensor-less and sensor based BLDC motor control in automotive applications. The new IC family consists of 4 base members; the MLX81205, MLX81207, MLX81210 and MLX81215. Each is available with a variety of memory configurations and in different package options. They all follow the very successful MLX81200 core integration concept – combining a voltage regulator, LIN transceiver, microcontroller unit (MCU), EEPROM, Flash, RAM, power FET pre-driver and several dedicated circuit blocks for highly efficient BLDC motor control from a single chip. Customers can realize a very small PCB design with a minimal bill of materials (BOM) to create simple or sophisticated actuators.
The IC family is 45 V load dump protected and will be qualified according AEC-Q100 grade 0 for high temperature automotive application support. As with the MLX81200, the drivers utilize Melexis’ patented TruSense sensor-less driving algorithms in hardware and software for starting and driving BLDC motors using different construction schemes in a reliable way under unknown load conditions. Different current wave form profiles (block, trapezoidal and sinusoidal) can be applied for optimal and energy efficient motor performance. This family also employs an innovative solution for slope control on power transistor switching, allowing customers to optimize in software the EMC behavior, as well as thermal dissipation of the power transistors during the switching process.
May
04
Ovum expects smartphone shipments to reach 1.7 billion in 2017 and Android to dominate as OS
Smartphones will outperform the overall market for mobile phones, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 24.9% for the period 2011–17 to reach 1.7 billion units, according to Ovum. Predictions show Android as the dominant operating system over the next five years as handset vendors rush to make it their primary smartphone platform. Read more…
Apr
26
Digia announces Qt Training for Embedded Applications
Registration now open for in-depth, hands-on training on cross-platform user interface and application development with Qt and QML
Digia, Qt Commercial, a pioneer in the commercial development, licensing, support and services of Qt for desktop and embedded development, is offering an in-depth training course on the use of Qt and the QML modelling language for embedded applications.
Qt is an established UI and application framework used in the automotive, medical, aerospace and industrial automation industries. The five-day course will include numerous hands-on programming exercises, a dedicated user experience session and updates for the Qt Commercial roadmap.
Developers that complete the course will receive an official certificate, a free voucher for the Qt certification test (worth €149) and the entire course training materials. Lunch and refreshments will be supplied on each day.
The course takes place from 7th to 11th May in London and places are available on a ‘first-come-first-served’ basis. Online reservations can be made at:
http://www.digia.com/en/Qt/About-us/Events/Open-Enrolment-Training-Course-London-7-11-May-2012/
Mar
30
Farnell element14 to stock new switches from Wurth Elektronik
Addition of over 100 new lines broadens choice for Emech design engineers
Farnell element14, the leading multi-channel electronics distributor, has today announced the addition of over 100 new switch products from Wurth Elektronik to its range. The high quality dual-inline packaged (DIP) and tactile switches will significantly broaden the options available to design engineers working in a wide range of applications.
Amongst the new additions are Wurth’s WS-RAT Rotary DIP switches that measure 7mm x 7mm and have an operating temperature range of -60 to +125° C, and the WS-TSW range of 12mm x 12mm tact switches suitable for use between -40 and +85°C. with a contact rating of up to 50 mA.
All Wurth Elektronik switches offered by Farnell element14 have a lead free construction, are RoHS compliant, and are available for same day shipping.
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