Maths predicts earthquakesRESEARCH SHOWS WE CAN CONTROL THE DIRECTION AND SPEED OF ELASTIC WAVES – READ AN ENGINEER IN WONDERLAND BLOG PAGE 6

Silicon oscillator matches quartz in mobilesUK FIRM HOPES TO PERSUADE PHONE MAKERS TO SWITCH TO SILICON OSCILLATORS PAGE 12

Changing shape of military connectorsINTEGRATED MODULES ARE CHANGING THE WAY CONNECTOR SYSTEMS ARE USED PAGE 20

21-27 March 2012 | No. 2500 | ElectronicsWeekly.com

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Intel plans TV serviceIntel is reported to be developing its own set-top box for the US market which it will use to offer a pay-IPTV service to viewers. The company is said to be talking to content providers and intends to offer the service by the end of the year.www.intel.com

Xilinx, Micron in RLDRAM 3 linkXilinx and Micron Technology have demonstrated an FPGA interfac-ing with RLDRAM 3 memory, an emerging memory standard for high-end networking applications such as packet buffering and inspec-tion, linked lists, and lookup tables. RLDRAM 3 memory enables 40G and 100G networking systems that require higher speed, higher density, lower power and lower latency.www.xilinx.com

Digi-Key stocks Ramtron F-RAMDigi-Key is to sell Ramtron’s non-volatile ferroelectric random access memory (F-RAM) products. F-RAM is designed to combine the non-volatile benefits of PROM with the faster access speeds of RAM in a single device.www.digikey.com/worldwide

OLED lighting development kitFarnell element14 has introduced an organic light emitting diode (OLED) development kit from supplier Verba-tim. It will be used to evaluate OLED lighting design parameters such as tunable colour (RGB) light, viewing angles, colour reproduction and con-trast levels.http://uk.farnell.com

Free LED lighting technology dayA free technology day for LED light-ing and design is being held by Fortronic UK at the Williams F1 Con-ference centre near Oxford on March 27th. Companies presenting include Renesas, Universal Science, Integrat-ed System Technologies, Bridgelux. CREE and Texas Instruments. www.fortronicuk.com

GaN power chip market driversDesign of power supplies, PV invert-ers and industrial motor drives will drive the market for gallium nitride (GaN) power semiconductors from almost zero in 2011 to over $1bn in 2021, according to a new report from IMS Research. Like Silicon Carbide (SiC), GaN is a wide bandgap mate-rial but at potentially lower cost.http://imsresearch.com

Codeplay takes OpenCL to Japan Codeplay Software, the Edinburgh-based specialist in compiler optimi-sation for graphics and multi-core processing, has teamed with Tokyo-based Fixstars to provide software development services for the Open-CL parallel computing framework for multi-core processors. Codeplay, which works with Qualcomm, has optimised C/C++ compiler technol-ogy used in GPUs. www.codeplay.com

Avnet Memec signs NFC dealAvnet Memec has signed a pan- European distribution agreement with Adeunis RF which brings modules for near field communica-tions for the distributor. Interesting markets will be RFID and contactless payment markets.www.adeunis-rf.com

China to grow chip research skillsChina is looking to grow its semicon-ductor research skills. Local foundry SMIC and chip firm Brite Semicon-ductor have joined with Zheijiang University in a programme to devel-op a more qualified semiconductor industry workforce. www.smic.com

Boundary scan for ARMGoepel electronic has joined the ARM ecosystem of low power processor-based products and services. The boundary scan test system supplier’s emulation technology VarioTAP supports a range of ARM cores. www.arm.com/community

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news

FPGA-based design kit for multiple protocols to free up wireless design

ElectronicsWeekly.com4 | EW 21-27 MARCH 2012

Android device benchmarksMOBILE

WIRELESS

Belgium research centre Imec has introduced a ‘via-middle through-Si-via’ approach to

3D stacking. This is a new technique which

uses a silicon etch process to reveal TSV [through-silicon via] contacts

In the technique, copper-filled TSV contacts are buried in the wafer dur-ing front-side processing.

Once the wafer is finished, it is thinned from the back, revealing the flush ends of the TSV contact.

Great care has to be taken not to damage the devices during this initial thinning to 50μm and a key step is

Lime Microsystems has devel-oped what it calls a universal wireless communications toolkit which it claims al-

lows developers to create wireless protocols of different complexities.

The toolkit comprises Lime’s con-figurable transceiver board linked to an Altera FPGA design kit via a high speed mezzanine connection (HSMC) interface board.

“We believe, this will lead to the development of novel wireless net-

works at fraction of the cost and time to market,” said Ebrahim Bushehri CEO of Lime.

The intention is to support the de-velopment of wireless applications ranging from consumer and enter-prise broadband equipment through to bespoke white space, military and GNU Radio applications.

“Leveraging Lime’s universal wire-less communications toolkit along with our family of tailored 28nm FPGAs allows designers to rapidly

create communications systems opti-mised for their specific require-ments,” said Mike Fitton, senior ar-chitect in Altera’s communications business unit.

Lime’s LMS6002D is a fully inte-grated multi-band, multi-standard single-chip RF transceiver for 3GPP (WCDMA/HSPA and LTE), 3GPP2 (CDMA2000) and WiMAX applica-tions.

It can be digitally configured to op-erate in 16 user-selectable band-

widths up to 28MHz. In addition to small cell base sta-

tions, Lime’s customers are using the IC to create machine to machine (M2M), GNU radio and white space radio applications.

The Lime HSMC interface and transceiver boards are available via Lime Microsystems with FPGA de-sign kits available from Altera.

www.limemicro.comwww.altera.com

SEMICONDUCTORS

Imec shows what is possible with silicon viasbonding the device wafer to a carrier wafer prior to thinning, by using a temporary adhesive.

A wet or dry etch now removes sufficient silicon to make the bottom ends of the vias stick up out of the back surface (see photos).

The process ends with a Si3N4 backside passivation layer that blocks copper diffusion into the thin Si wafer, and with the liner layers on the TSV being selectively opened using a maskless, self-aligned dry etch-process.

According to Imec, the process has been demonstrated in a 300mm

diameter wafer with active high-k/metal gate CMOS circuits.

Imecwww.imec.be

A standardised, industry-ap-proved method of evaluating Android-enabled devices is

available for download on Android Market, now part of Google Play, and soon at the Amazon Appstore for An-droid, writes Richard Wilson.

Dubbed AndEBench, the perform-ance benchmark from EEMBC (Em-bedded Microprocessor Benchmark Consortium) will comprise of per-formance tests for mobile devices, but its initial focus is on the CPU and Dalvik interpreter performance.

“Other Android benchmarks avail-

able on the market are ‘mom-and-pop’ benchmarks in which the moti-vation of the benchmark developer is unknown and results can vary signif-icantly,” said Markus Levy, EEMBC’s president.

AndEBench 1.0 compares the An-droid platform’s native and Java per-formance. This will give users a quantified measure of the Java inter-preters’ efficiency on a given plat-form and help them understand what performance gains are feasible.

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news

ARM changes make 32-bit look and feel like 8-bit

“It is around 20% flash access power

improvement, depending on the

customer implementation”

ElectronicsWeekly.com6 | EW 21-27 MARCH 2012

MICROPROCESSORS

Clever maths can predict earthquakes

AN ENGINEER IN WONDERLAND

ARM has made two changes to its Cortex-M0 32-bit mi-croprocessor to make it more attractive for 8-bit and

16-bit designs. It has simplified the design and

given it an injection of speed in the Cortex-M0+ version.

“Both the M0 and M0+ share the same instruction set. The aim with the M0+ is to be much more compati-ble with 8-bit and 16-bit processors,” ARM project manager Thomas Enser-gueix told Electronics Weekly.

One of the changes is that big-banging, beloved of 8-bit program-mers, is now possible as the output state of IO pins can be changed in one cycle.

However, the biggest change is within the pipeline: where the three-stage M0 design has been swapped for a two-stage design.

“We did not start with the M0 RTL, we started purely with the instruc-tion set and a clean sheet of paper,” said Ensergueix.

“It partially decodes the instruc-tion in the first stage and finishes de-coding it in second stage. Final de-code is cheaper, so you can execute in the second stage as well,” explained Geoff Lees, v-p of micro-controllers at Freescale.

Freescale has already licensed the core and has been testing first silicon for a month.

Compared with the M0, based on simulations the power consumption of the M0+ is down 30% to 42μA/MHz and efficiency per cycle is up 10% to a CoreMark/MHz of 1.77 (M0 is 1.62). ARM is claiming an overall processing/W increase of up to 50%.

The core size stays the same, at 12,000 gates minimum, as the flip-flops and gates saves in the pipeline have been used to add more clock-gating to the core, and add a debug trace scheme which temporarily allo-cates part of the on-die RAM to store branches.

Invisibility cloaks keep getting into the news.And normally it means that some-

one has made an array of little reso-nant structures that have a negative refractive index at microwave fre-quencies.

This is clever, it shows the theory works, and points the way to nega-tive refractive index optical materials in the future.

It turns out that the same maths predict a way to protect buildings from certain earthquakes.

According to the University of Manchester: “By cloaking compo-nents of structures with pressurised rubber, powerful waves such as those produced by an earthquake would not see the building – they would simply pass around the structure and thus prevent serious damage or de-struction, or important components within it could theoretically be cloaked.”

Dr William Parnell, a Manchester mathematician, has written a paper

on the subject in the Proceedings of the Royal Society.

Dr Parnell was looking at elastic waves rather than light waves.

“The real problem with elastic waves is that it is normally impossi-ble to use naturally available materi-als as cloaks,” he says.

“We showed theoretically that pre-stressing naturally rubber leads to a cloaking effect from a specific type of elastic wave.”

He adds: “This research has shown that we really do have the potential to control the direction and speed of elastic waves.”

This has important implications for electronics. “We want to guide such waves in many contexts, espe-cially in nano-applications such as in electronics for example,” says Dr Par-nell.

It seems not all the clever folk waste their time in finance.www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/engineer-in-wonderland

“They have replaced a lot of things that we would have to have added around the core, like debug, trace, memory protection,” said Freescale’s Lees.

The interface to on-die flash has also been modified to save power, with ARM estimating 100μA/MHz total to supply memory and system.

“It is around 20% flash access power improvement, depending on the customer implementation,” said ARM’s Ensergueix.

Claimed code density metric is 4.896kbyte for CodeMark code.

The M0 will retain its three stage pipeline, making the M0+ attractive in clean-sheet designs unless the custom-er is particularly wedded to the M0.

Freescale will introduce M0+ in a microcontroller family called KL0x.

A huge part of Freescale’s business is with 8-bit core microcontrollers.

To encourage migration from these, 16- to 48-pin KL0x microcontrollers

will come in packages compatible with the last three ranges of Free-scale’s 8-bit S08 controller family.

“There are tools, app notes, and a whole bunch of infrastructure that helps designers move from the S08,” said Lees.

Source-level C can be re-compiled, except peripheral handling.

For this, Freescale’s Processor Expert tool can create code templates for peripherals.

“If you have a timer and want a tick of a certain period. Processor Expert can produce the code,” said Lees. “I think this is the core that we needed to convert the rest of the 8- and 16-bit customers.”

Alpha customers should see Frees-cale M0x microcontroller silicon in April, with general sampling sched-uled for the end of Q2, and full vol-ume by the end of September.

There will also be chips for specif-ic applications – such as metering, sub-GHz wireless, and 2.4GHz wire-less.

Applications are expected in motor control, power conversion, instru-ments, medical, white goods and smart lighting.

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news

More sound from mobile phone speakers without melting them

ElectronicsWeekly.com8 | EW 21-27 MARCH 2012

Block diagram of Class D amp sub-system

TI to design robots

DSP

UK looks set to get LTE services this year thanks to French and German operators

WIRELESS

ANALOGUE

ST-Ericsson has found a way to get more sound from phone loudspeakers without melting them.

These speakers tend to be tiny – in this case 11x15mm.

It turns out that as power is in-creased, overheating and over-excur-sion occurs first at the resonant fre-quency of the loudspeaker.

If the phone’s audio processor can put a notch in the frequency spec-trum presented to the speaker, more power can be fed in.

“The sound alteration is very small,” said ST-Ericsson.

However, this resonant frequency changes with temperature, so the firm monitors the speaker’s current

waveform through a 1bit ADC, and feeds the digitised current waveform back into the audio processor.

The processor analyses the cur-rent spectrum to locate the reso-nance, then shifts the notch appro-priately. Doing this allows the speaker to be driven from a 2.5W audio amplifier.

The scheme has been implement-ed on a Class-D audio amplifier chip dubbed AV2001.

This includes the 1bit ADC, a bridge of mosfets to drive the speak-er, and a spread-spectrum PWM, but off-loads spectrum analysis and fil-tering to a DSP else where in the phone.

Rated output is achieved with 1%THD into 8Ω with 104dB(A) dy-namic range.

Adding a boost converted to gener-ate a gate drive for high-side n-mos-fets in the bridge, halved power tran-sistor real estate compared with using less space efficient p-mosfets.

The Class-D amplifier design was presented at ISSCC 2012

ST-Ericssonwww.stericsson.com

Texas Instruments has formed a partnership with robotic-tech-nology firm iRobot to develop

robotic technologies based on its multicore OMAP silicon platform.

The companies said the intention is to create “intelligent and practical robots capable of enhancing people’s lives”.

iRobot has 20 years experience in robotic technology, especially remote presence and automated home main-tenance systems. It has sold more than 7.5 million home robots.

TI will now address robot design with its applications processors. The company believes that applying mul-ti-core processor technology will make important power savings in robot design.www.ti.com

The UK may get LTE this year, bringing us into line with other developed countries, thanks to

a ruling by Ofcom that the mobile op-erator Everything Everywhere (the joint France Telecom – Deutsche Tel-ekom network) can use its existing 2G spectrum to launch 4G services, writes David Manners.

Everything Everywhere would use its 1800MHz spectrum license to pro-vide the 4G service.

This would put Everything Every-where ahead of the other operators in launching 4G services, and could happen before the proposed spec-trum auction of the 800MHz and 2.6GHz bands for 4G services which has been held up because of squab-bling among the existing mobile op-erators, but which is still expected

before the end of this year.“The mobile phone operator Eve-

rything Everywhere has submitted an application to Ofcom to use its exist-ing spectrum to deliver 4G services,” said Ofcom,

“Allowing Everything Everywhere to re-use its spectrum in this way is likely to bring material benefits to consumers, including faster mobile broadband speeds and – depending on how Everything Everywhere uses the spectrum – potentially wider mobile broadband coverage in rural areas,” said Ofcom

Ofcom has decided that to use this spectrum in this way would not dis-tort competition in the mobile mar-ket.

Vodafone, as might be expected, is unhappy, complaining that: “The

regulator is now considering giving the largest player in the market permission to use its existing spectrum for 4G services before the rules for the auction have even been concluded, or it has divested spectrum, as required by the European Commission.

“We seriously doubt that consum-ers’ best interests will be served by giving one company a significant head start before any of its competi-tors have a clear path to 4G,” said Vo-dafone.

However, Ofcom’s move could give consumers 4G services this year whereas, under the previous sched-ule, they wouldn’t get 4G services until 2013 or 2014.everythingeverywhere.comwww.vodafone.co.uk

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news

ARM-based design kit puts Android on the network

ElectronicsWeekly.com10 | EW 21-27 MARCH 2012

Radio power may be non- standard

POWEREMBEDDED

Embedded Artists has intro-duced an Android Open Accessory Application (AOAA) development kit

which offers industrial networking options for the mobile operating system.

With two ARM Cortex-M series microcontrollers from NXP, the Em-bedded Artists AOAA kit includes Ethernet, CAN and IEEE 802.15.4 in-terfaces as well as a remote CAN node, which means it can be used for home, building and industrial auto-mation applications.

“By taking advantage of one of the many connectivity options, the An-droid accessory is no longer simply an isolated system. Instead, it can serve as a gateway to a networked system for use in a wide range of very power-ful applications,” said Maria Hall, managing director, Embedded Artists.

The on-chip full-speed USB trans-ceiver of the LPC1769, a 120MHz Cortex-M3 based microcontroller, provides the interface to the Android mobile device.

The LPC1769 also supports USB device mode, which looks forwards to the time when Android devices will typically support USB host mode in the future.

Other features of the LPC1769 in-clude 512kbyte flash and 64kbyte on-chip SRAM; Ethernet MAC; a CAN 2.0B controller; an 8-channel, 12-bit ADC; a 10-bit DAC; digital connec-tions including UART/SPI /I2C, as choice of timers and pulse width modulators (PWMs).

The LPC11C24 microcontroller, based on the Cortex-M0 processor, provides remote CAN node capabili-

ties to the AOAA kit and is connect-ed to the LPC1769 via an on-board CAN network. The MCU can be used to develop industrial control applica-tions using CAN, by taking advantage of control functionality for tempera-ture, light and other sensors, which are built directly on the AOAA kit.

The Sweden-based embedded de-

Integrated Device Technology claims its proprietary wireless power protocol can be better than

the Qi standard.The chip firm has introduced a sin-

gle-chip wireless power transmitter and single-chip receiver chipset which will support the Qi standard as well as proprietary formats.

The IDTP9030 and IDTP9020 com-prise a wireless power transmitter and receiver designed to meet the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC) Qi standard, which ensures interop-erability with any other device meet-ing the WPC Qi standard.

Both transmitter and receiver are capable of “multi-mode” operation, supporting both the Qi standard as well as proprietary formats. There is protocol detection for dynamic switching between Qi and proprie-tary modes.

“Our proprietary multi-mode capa-bility offers benefits beyond the lim-its of the Qi standard by enhancing foreign object detection for improved safety and increasing output power for faster charging time,” said Arman Naghavi, v-p and general manager of the analog and power division at IDT.

In Qi mode, the IDTP9020 wireless power receiver, delivers up to 5W to the system. Wireless charging sys-tems use inductive coupling over a short distances, and are typically im-plemented as a pad on which suita-bly-enabled portable products are placed.

It is thought that wireless phone chargers have the potential to match the best wired chargers and achieve ‘zero’ (<5mW) standby power.www.idt.com

velopment kit firm specialises in NXP based boards,

For example, Embedded Artists has jointly developed with NXP, a target board for the chip firm’s LPCXpresso development toolchain for its ARM-based LPC microcontrollers and in-cludes a free Eclipse-based IDE. www.embeddedartists.com

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analysis

Foundry model looks busted: will Apple fab?Is the foundry model finally busted and will Apple ever fab its own chips? asks David Manners

ElectronicsWeekly.com 21-27 MARCH 2012 EW | 11

The problems at the 28nm semiconductor process node, replicating the prob-lems at 40nm, go to show

that the semiconductor industry needs a new model.

It seems only Intel and Samsung, out of all the non-DRAM integrated device manufacturers (IDMs), made the right call on manufacturing.

Everyone else is at the mercy of foundries which may deliver proc-esses in a timely fashion, or may not. But sure as eggs are eggs everyone else has little control over the timing of their process transitions.

I have learnt that Intel first started to market 32nm product in February 2010.

Assuming 28nm is the same proc-ess as Intel’s 32nm, that means the rest of the industry is still struggling to get onto the same technology with the time-lag growing for every month that 28nm is unobtainable from a foundry.

After 40nm and 28nm, will the problems get easier at 20nm?

So much for all that nonsense about advanced digital CMOS becoming a widely available com-modity which didn’t add value.

Well Intel didn’t fall for that non-sense and now enjoys this huge proc-ess lead. Perhaps 32nm was easier for them as they moved to high-k proc-ess technology a node earlier.

The next generation, 20nm planar at the foundries/22nm finfet at Intel, may extend that lead, depending on when Intel moves into for-the-market production on it. July seems to be the current expected date.

So it seems AMD sold its fabs at the very moment process engineering became so difficult that it is now a key competitive differentiator.

While it seems that fabless chip supplier Qualcomm has no hope of going up against Intel unless it starts fabbing its own chips. It has held such discussions internally for many years.

Moreover, with $100bn cash, sev-eral years of process R&D behind it, strained relations with Samsung and, now, impeded access to 28nm, will Apple bite the bullet and start to fab? It seems a logical step in its increas-ing verticalisation.

Apple could go it alone, but Qual-comm would probably have to enter a consortium of companies. The ob-vious partners would, of course, be Xilinx, Altera, Nvidia and, of course, AMD.

But aren’t AMD contracted to Glo-balfoundries?

No, not actually, they recently paid the foundry $420m to get out of their contractual relationships.

Well, I wonder why.www.electronicsweekly.com/mannerisms

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wireless

All-silicon oscillator matches quartz in phones and saves a lot of spaceSteve Bush talks to a UK chip firm aiming to persuade phone makers to switch from quartz to all-silicon oscillators

ElectronicsWeekly.com

All-silicon oscillators can bet-ter 100ppm over tempera-ture, at microamp con-sumption levels, according

to Cheshire-based eoSemi. The firm was speaking at the

launch of its first product, a 1.5x1.5mm 32kHz timing reference chip for phones, already delivered as engineering samples and due for commercial production in Q3.

Manufactured using a standard CMOS process, it draws 8μA and de-livers accuracy down to ±30ppm.

“This combination of specifica-tions, along with an operating tem-perature range of -40 to 85°C, means that the timing reference will comply with the system design requirements of major 3G handset manufacturers,” claimed the firm.

Many chip makers have tried to produce silicon frequency references and failed, or have produced devices with excessive current consumption.

“If you are trying to access accuracy, the last thing you would pick is silicon,” said eoSemi CEO Ian Macbeth.

However, an all-silicon oscillator that can equal quartz in both accura-

phone SoCs, so no change in base-band chip is required, claims eoSemi.

Trying to deal with the big mobile phone makers when you are a small young company based in Congleton was never going to be easy.

But phone makers are interested in the product, and they want it, accord-ing to Macbeth.

“One phone company told us it has had a silicon oscillator require-ment specification for seven years, and ours was the first than met it: μA consumption and under 100ppm error over temperature,” he said.

The oscillator is being made at TSMC on 0.18μm CMOS.

Although they will not deal with small companies, the phone firms trust TSMC, and so “the mobile phone guys have pushed it back onto their tier-one suppliers”, said Macbeth.

The result is that SMC will make the chips and “more than one” tier-one chip maker will badge the eoSemi 32kHz reference as its own and supply it into the phone industry.

According to Macbeth: “You will start seeing it appearing in phones in

Q2 next year.” eoSemi will also supply the same

chip with its own branding. After manufacture, calibration

codes are blown into non-volatile memory. This only has to be done once.

At power-up, the codes are shifted from NVM to SRAM for operation and the NVM is shut down to save power. Some corrections are done continuously (black), and others are done periodically (red).

This period is currently around 4s but, said Macbeth, could be actively varied from 0.25 to 30s to save power should future SoCs be able to provide temperature data from elsewhere within the phone to warn of incom-ing temperature gradients.

While the compensation tech-niques are covered in the company’s patents, details of the one-time facto-ry calibration technique remain under wraps.

“Without the calibration algorithm, it will not deliver the performance,” said Macbeth.

eoSemiwww.eosemi.com

12 | EW 21-27 MARCH 2012

cy and power would have many ad-vantages – not least of which is that it would save a lot of space.

Dubbed ATOC (accurate timing os-cillator circuit), eoSemi’s technology is all about error compensation rather than squeezing every last error out of the oscillator itself.

“We have a technique for tuning oscillators, it could be any oscillator: RC or LC,” said Macbeth. “All the smarts are in the compensation, not the oscillator itself.”

In the 32kHz case, it is a simple RC oscillator – with all its inherent inaccuracy – corrected for temperature and stress in the chip, including hysteresis in both cases (see diagram above).

“If you don’t attend to stress, you don’t have a solution,” said Macbeth.

An added advantage of his solu-tion, said Macbeth, is that it does not have quartz’ parabolic temperature coefficient (see diagram), so the ther-mistor needed in phones for digital 32kHz compensation can be deleted from the BOM along with the crystal and its two capacitors.

The chip is designed to drive the existing crystal connection pin of

ppm error plotted against temperature. eoSemi claims its 32kHz reference sits within the blue zone.

can come up in any order and allows different start-up techniques, includ-ing working without an auxiliary VEE2 supply, instead getting power through the JFET.

“A low-side driver in a buck con-verter can get its supply current from the high-side supply, or in a more ad-vanced system such as a 3-phase bridge, one supply can be used to power all drivers,” said Infineon. “This kind of operation was until now only possible for a normally-off switch, but with this design a nor-mally-on JFET can be used safely in the same way.”

According to Infineon, with a well-driven SiC JFET, 99% efficiency is at-tainable when converting 200V to 150V at 5A. And 400V can be con-verted to 200V at 5A at 98.5%.

Details were revealed at ISSCC 2012 last month in San Francisco.

Infineon Technologieswww.infineon.com

power

PMOS simplifies isolated driver chipAre depletion-mode JFETs the perfect power switching device? asks Steve Bush

Block diagram of the driver and external components.

As silicon carbide technology develops, depletion-mode (normally-on) JFETs in-creasingly appear to be the

optimum power switching device. As these need both positive and

negative gate drive voltages, design-ers are turning to cascode switching using a cheap low-voltage n-channel silicon mosfet under the JFET to con-trol it, so more conventional mosfet drive techniques can be employed.

With its solution, Infineon Tech-nologies uses a p-mosfet, and drives both its gate and the gate of the JFET.

“Instead of an NMOS [cascode mosfet], a PMOS is used which makes the system simpler because the two transistors have a common source connection [VCC2] that ena-bles the use for a single supply for the gate drivers,” said the firm.

VCC2 is the positive supply of the output chip (0V), and VEE2 is nomi-nally -25V.

In the driver, Vreg (-19V) is actually

the substrate connection, unusually biased between the chip’s rails.

“There are start-up and power fail scenarios where VEE2 might be high-

er than VREG,” said Infineon. “Hence it has been decided to deliberately operate devices below the substrate.”

The complex scheme means rails

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interview

Europe needs financial stabilityDr. Ted Tewksbury, president and CEO at Integrated Device Technology talks to Electronics Weekly about the Europe and 4G/LTE, analogue and digital design teams and moving from fab-lite to fabless

ElectronicsWeekly.com

What does Europe need to do to ensure it retains a leading position in the global market? The world increasingly depends on the mobile internet to connect its populations and this is driving an explosion of wireless data between the “cloud” and consumer mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. All of this data traffic needs the “fatter pipes” and greater band-width provided by 4G/LTE wireless infrastructure.

As home of several of the world’s most innovative telecom compa-nies, Europe is instrumental in de-veloping and rolling out this tech-nology. By enabling greater data speeds and capacities, 4G/LTE pro-vides the foundation for the growth of numerous other applications, such as cloud computing, mobility

and social networking. In order to realise this potential

and maintain its leadership, it is imperative that Europe’s political leaders and central banking system collaborate to solve the sovereign debt crisis that has cast the Euro-zone into turmoil and uncertainty.

Without stability in the banking and financial systems, Europes’ busi-nesses and manufacturers will not have the confidence to make new investments in these technologies and consumer demand will continue to deteriorate.

A strong Eurozone economy and continued technology innovation are the keys to extending Europe’s lead-ership throughout the 21st century.

You have changed the business from being a digital IC supplier to being a mixed-signal company. Pairing analogue and digital engineers can be a difficult task, so what practices have you employed to create effective design teams? Every mixed-signal project team in-cludes three key functions in addi-tion to analogue and digital designers – a system architect, a product defin-er and a program manager. These may or may not be the same individ-ual, depending on the complexity of the project.

The system architect has a deep understanding of the customer’s ap-plication and can make the right

trade-offs between analogue, digital and software. The product definer specifies block-level features and per-formance parameters.

The programme manager is fluent in the languages and techniques of both analogue and digital designers, and manages schedules, deliverables and interfaces. These individuals are the glue that holds the team together, translating between analogue and digital dialects.

Weekly project meetings include all of the above functions to drive execution, address technical issues and facilitate collaboration. We have instituted formal and in-formal technical forums in which analogue and digital engineers can share ideas, tools, techniques and best practices, and educate each other in their respective domains. Variable pay is tied to the success of the overall project. Everyone succeeds or fails together.

In 2009, the company started the move from fab-lite to fabless. What benefits have you seen from the move, and do you see this trend continuing? We made the move from fab-lite to fabless for four reasons.

First, our system solutions strategy required a variety of process technol-ogies – fine-line CMOS, SiGe and BCDMOS – that would have been prohibitive to develop in-house.

Second, foundry economies of scale enabled us to achieve lower wafer costs.

Third, we were able to focus our limited research and development (R&D) on what we do best – product innovation – and leave wafer manu-facturing to the industry experts.

Fourth, outsourcing wafer fabrica-tion emancipated us from quarterly swings in fab utilisation, which im-pacted our financials.

I’m a firm believer in using the lowest-cost technology that can get the job done in any particular appli-cation.

The fabless model removes the constraint of having to keep our fab filled and enables us to make the right technology decisions for the business.

Integrated Device Technologywww.idt.com

14 | EW 21-27 MARCH 2012

Richard Wilson keeps up with news and views from the electronics supply chain

> Farnell element14 goes exclusive with OLED design kitFarnell element14 carried out what it called “an exclusive launch” of Verbatim’s Velve organic light emitting diode (OLED) development kit on its stand at this year’s Arc Show held in London last month.

> Future adds Qualcomm and EnOcean in RF pushFuture Electronics has created a specialist sales division to focus on its RF chips and modules.

> EBV adds more ARM Cortex cores to buyers guideEBV Elektronik recently released a product guide for the ARM Cortex microcontroller and processors it carries on its linecard.

> Avnet recognised for 30% line growth in 2011Molex has named Avnet Electronics Marketing as its global distributor of the year for 2011. The distributor grew POS revenue by more than 30% from the previous year.

electronicsweekly.com/distributionworld

> UK electronics share index, March 2012: +2.4%Back in February the

Electro Ramblings blog took a snapshot of industry market capitali-sation, for our Electronics Weekly Index (see The market capitalisation of the UK electronics industry)...

So, how stands the Index for March 2012?

Well, a snapshot on 5 March saw market capitalisation recorded as £862.4bn, a 2.4% increase on Feb, so the first monthly measuring of the index sees a positive result!

The first month was easy, measur-ing March against February, but from now on, should we measure each month against its immediate prede-cessor, or against the original base level (always February 2012’s total)?

Given that the ‘index’ is not weighted it seems more honest to have a rolling month-on-month comparison.

What are your thoughts? Leave a comment at:electronicsweekly.com/electroramblings

the week onlineHighlights from

Raspberry Pi shipping end of March

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AMD dumps SOI

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Hurrah for Raspberry Pi

electronicsweekly.com/mannerisms

Ed draws up the black list

electronicsweekly.com/mannerisms

Self-balancing unicycle – the one true way

electronicsweekly.com/gadget-freak

Qualcomm, Intel miss the boat on tablet apps ...

electronicsweekly.com/news

BMW’s 170hp electric car

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Infinite No of wireless channels possible in a fixed bandwidth

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design

Two-pronged approach to chip testFor testing complex chip designs it makes sense to combine the two most common test methodologies - logic built-in self-test (LBIST) and automatic test pattern generation (ATPG), writes Amer Guettaf

ElectronicsWeekly.com16 | EW 21-27 MARCH 2012

With the larger, more complex ICs at ad-vanced nodes, testing your design is more im-

portant than ever and it makes sense to find techniques within the existing IC test toolbox. To address the ever-increasing pressure to reduce the cost of manufacturing test, efficiently use test equipment, and increase yield, one approach is to combine the two most common test methodologies.

A hybrid solution of logic built-in self-test (LBIST) and automatic test pattern generation (ATPG) compres-sion optimises defect coverage vs test time, reduces test pattern volume and test pattern generation time, and pro-vides key optimisations between par-allel and serial test applications.

LBIST technology inserts embed-ded logic into the design, for a fully integrated and automated test solu-tion that can be used at any test step or level of integration with a simple interface. LBIST reduces test time be-cause shift is not limited by external data; patterns are generated on-chip and results are compressed into a simple signature.

ATPG offers high pattern efficiency due to use of deterministic patterns, low-power support, high stuck-at coverage, and support for various fault models. Using embedded test compression speeds up test, allows more patterns to target other fault models, and reduces the test interface to just a few pins.

When designing for test engineers feel compelled to exclusively adopt one methodology over the other. However, the two methods are com-plementary and can result in the shortest test-time and very high test coverage. For example, shift speed of at-speed deterministic ATPG is limit-ed by the shift path length and the

Test pattern configurations

Figure 1: Structure of the LBIST–ATPG hybrid test.Figure 2: Top-level integration, each core has dedicated scan I/Os.

speed of the pad I/O used. At-speed LBIST can significantly increase the speed of the shift clock. ATPG also makes up for the low-power limita-tion of LBIST by enabling low-power shift, which will lower the switching activity during test by controlling the data shifted into the chains.

In terms of chip size, a hybrid LBIST-ATPG test structure has mini-mal area impact because the most common logic of these two test meth-odologies merges. The only logic that is not merged at this time is the PRPG/MISR used for LBIST and the EDT logic used for deterministic

ATPG. Figure 1 is an illustration of hybrid test methodology structure.

The hybrid test methodology is based on the concept of core isola-tion, which allows having two over-lapping modes - external and inter-nal. In external mode, only the block interface/peripheral registers are con-nected to dedicated chains. The re-maining registers, which are the core registers of the block, are not part of these external chains.

The internal mode includes all scannable registers of the blocks in-side multiple chains, including the peripheral registers. To fully isolate

the block from external logic, the input interface registers are kept in shift-only mode so they do not cap-ture unknown values from the upper level.

Each core employing this hybrid test methodology flow has a 1500 IEEE interface also referred to as WTAP (wrapper test access port). This interface connects to the top-level TAP once the core is integrated in a chip. You choose the core mode by loading the WTAP with the appro-priate operation code.

Multiple core BISTs can be started in parallel. If all cores have dedicated ATPG scan I/Os on the chip level it is possible to run all of them in parallel too. When the cores are integrated in the top level, a tool reads the patterns previously generated at the core level and retargets them from the top level without requiring any new fault-sim-ulation or DRC check. This process is referred to as pattern reuse. Amer Guettaf is a senior field application

engineer at Mentor Graphics.

Mentor Graphicswww.mentor.com

viewpoint

Traceability tightens up the electronics supply chain

ElectronicsWeekly.com 21-27 MARCH 2012 EW | 17

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Flexible LCD display maker brings plastic to market

The supply chain is being tightened for component suppliers in military and aerospace markets, writes

Debbie Rowland, sales manager at Charcroft Electronics

The growth of contract manufacturing within the defence and aerospace industries means that OEMs of all sizes are stipulating rigorous control over component traceability.

The paper trail that defines the traceability of components starts with the original component manufacturer and ends as the product rolls off the contract electronic manufacturer’s production line.

Along the way, the trail can pass through franchised or authorised distributors, independent brokers, grey market suppliers and even the excess inventory of other OEMs.

While OEMs are not imposing a

limit to the number of links in the supply chain, they are demanding that each link be identifiable and traceable.

Simply supplying a copy of the original component manufacturer’s paperwork is not enough to guarantee that the products are genuine and that they have been stored and handled correctly throughout their lifetime.

Component manufacturers do not automatically include a certificate of conformity when components are shipped. If the certificate is not ordered at the time of purchase, then the distributor and contract electronic manufacturer can find that it is virtually impossible to recover the audit trail.

Component manufacturers are often unable or unwilling to issue a certificate of conformity for components which have already left their premises.

Asking for a back-issue of a certificate effectively means asking the component manufacturer to guarantee a component which has left their area of control and responsibility.

Repeat this scenario for every company within the supply chain and the complexity of providing full traceability becomes apparent.

Rigorous ordering systems, a solid understanding of the specialist procurement procedures for hi-rel parts and good relationships between supply chain partners are also useful.

These make it less likely for errors to occur and make it easier to resolve anomalies in the paper trail which must accompany every component throughout its journey along the supply chain.

Charcroft Electronicswww.charcroft.com

Audio firm Knowles has intro-duced a phone loudspeaker claimed to have improved

bass response. Loudspeakers in phones can be built like conventional sealed loudspeakers – a drive unit backed by a sealed volume of air. The bigger the air volume, the more the driver can overcome the sealed air ‘spring’ effect.

Dubbed N’Bass, Knowles’ design approach to making the rear volume bigger virtually, without increasing it physically, is to fill the sealed cavity or cavities with beads of a specially-developed material similar to a sponge, which adsorbs the air in the speaker box. “In this way, it virtually increases the available back volume for the loudspeaker. In addition, the material is non-conductive and has no negative influence on antenna performance,” said the firm.

Ohio-based flexible LCD maker Kent Displays is installing a second roll-to-roll produc-

tion line, tripling its capacity, writes Steve Bush.

For almost two decades, the firm has stood behind cholesteric LCD technology, which offers reflective bistable operation and, unlike most LCD types, tolerance of cell thickness allowing plastic construction.

However, it does not match the contrast of the E Ink electrophoretic displays used in e-readers, and is sensitive to pressure on the screen.

Turning this last attribute into an advantage, the firm introduced sim-ple writing slates where the pressure of the stylus changes the state (col-our) of the LCD allowing lines to be drawn.

Initial models of the product, called ‘Boogie Board eWriter’, had no save function and where therefore lit-tle more than portable white boards.

This changed with the Boogie

Board Rip last year, which allows handwriting and sketches to be saved, and sent via a USB port.

You can write and draw on Boogie Board Rip, then store and transmit the content. A cholesteric LCD is the key technology.

“Following the installation of our first roll-to-roll line, Kent Displays experienced a remarkably quick tran-sition from a company focused pri-marily on research and development to a consumer products company,” said Kent Displays chief financial of-ficer, Joel Domino.

“Our original line, the first of its kind in the world, streamlined pro-duction of Boogie Board eWriters. We recently shipped the one millionth Boogie Board eWriter since the origi-nal model launched in 2010.”

Boogie Boards are sold through Kent subsidiary Improv Electronics.

Kent Displayswww.kentdisplays.com

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military/aerospace

Military design gains from modelsMark Walker discusses the evolution of the DO-178 standard and the emergence of model-based design

ElectronicsWeekly.com18 | EW 21-27 MARCH 2012

Figure 2:

Amodern commercial air-craft relies on many mil-lions of lines of embedded source code to fly. Funda-

mental systems depend on software to function. In developing this “high integrity” software, rigorous design, inspection and test procedures must be used: the development process for high integrity software. The FAA and RCTA developed the DO-178 standard to define the objectives that high-integrity software development processes must meet.

When DO-178 was introduced al-most 30 years ago the avionics indus-try was undergoing a major shift from analogue to digital systems. Today, the standard required by the FAA and EASA is DO-178B (Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification). It pro-vides guidelines for the production of aerospace systems, and specifies 66 software development process objec-tives across various stages in the de-velopment lifecycle.

When the B revision of the stand-ard was developed in 1992, the nor-mal development approach was to

create specification and design docu-ments and then write code from the design by hand. The documents and source code would be reviewed and the source and object code tested.

Over the past 20 years, tool ad-vances have enabled engineers to specify the software behaviour in an executable form, such as a model, wich can be reviewed, analysed and simulated. This helps engineers de-termine whether their design is cor-rect before committing effort to im-plementation, review and test in software. Additionally the software source code can be directly generated from the model, as opposed to hand-writing the code.

Finally, the model can support testing and review by acting as a defi-nition for expected software function. This overall approach, model-based design, emerged after the publication of DO-178B.

The DO-178 committee has re-sponded to this and other advances by updating the standard and in Jan-uary 2012, DO-178C and new accom-panying supplements were pub-lished. These create a framework that

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ElectronicsWeekly.com 21-27 MARCH 2012 EW | 19

reflects the capabilities of modern software tools.

DO-178 requires an applicant to demonstrate that appropriate stages of design development, inspection and verification have been met. A project defines the process up-front, in a planning document – Plan for the Software Aspects of Certification (PASC) – which will be agreed with the authorities in advance.

Figure 1 (right) shows a typical process for a project using model-based design. Each of the boxes in the diagram represents a stage in the de-velopment process. Stages might be completed in succession or worked on simultaneously, but once com-plete, they must be signed off in se-quence since a downstream stage de-pends on definitions from the previous one.

The solid arrows between process boxes represent the design work, such as modelling or coding. The dotted arrows represent the processes used to show that a stage has been developed correctly, in other words the verification activities.

Projects using model-based design can also benefit by maximising auto-mation in the verification process. It

is possible to automate many of these stages. Wherever a tool replaces a manual verification process, such as an inspection, DO-178 requires the project to assess the impact of the tool use in the software life cycle and then qualify the tool at an appropri-ate level. Increasingly, tool suppliers offer qualification kits to assist and the DO-330 supplement provides guidance on how projects should carry out qualification.

The introduction of the Formal Methods Supplement (DO-333) rep-resents a significant evolution be-tween the B and C revisions of DO-178. Formal methods complement established verification techniques and can be applied from the highest levels of requirement definition to the most specific aspects of implementation.

For example, consider the reverse thrust capability of a jet engine: it is used when landing to rapidly slow down the aircraft, but to be safe the software must not allow the thrust re-verser to engage in the air. If you want to make sure something can’t hap-pen, testing every possible input combination is one way to do it, but as noted in DO-178, the number of

test cases you need to cover will grow unreasonably large very quickly for all but the simplest of routines.

By contrast, formal methods tools can apply solvers to examine all pos-sible inputs: where a combination ex-ists that violates the property speci-fied a test case will be generated showing how it can happen, or the tool will tell you the property is valid.

Software used in high-integrity

aerospace environments has always had to go through a rigorous develop-ment process. DO-178C clarifies how techniques, such as model-based de-sign and formal methods, can be ap-plied in this process. Mark Walker is a senior engineer at

MathWorks

MathWorkswww.MathWorks.co.uk

Figure 1: DO-178 workflow

TTI, Inc., the global distributor of passive, interconnect, relay & switch and discrete components, has announced that its new European connector assembly facility can deliver a range of different services including:◊ QPL-approved assembly of Amphenol and Souriau MIL-DTL-38999 connectors. Series III, Series I and SJT Aluminium shells with plating options: Electroless Nickel, Olive Drab Cadmium, Green Zinc Cobalt and the new Black Zinc Nickel which complies with RoHS directives;◊ TTI also now stocks Composite and Stainless 38999 connector shells;◊ Amphenol Socapex PT Series/451 MIL-DTL-26482 Series 1 connector assembly;◊ TTI has a wide selection of Backshells from Glenair and Connector Accessories such as adapters, heatshrink boots, and mouldings from TE Connectivity.

As detailed in a new microsite, http://www.ttieurope.com/connector-assembly, the company offers fast delivery on low volume and prototype order quantities,

and is also able to satisfy scheduled volume business. TTI’s European facility near Munich, Germany – recently certified to EN9100 manufacturing status – mirrors its well-established US facility, which performs over 30,000 circular connectors assembly operations

per day with a defect rate of less then 25ppm. By investing in modern tooling TTI has been

able to reduce assembly time, and operators have been trained by personnel from Amphenol Socapex and Souriau as well as TTI’s own experienced North American team so quality is guaranteed to be of the highest level.

TTI’s broad and deep stocking policy enables the company to offer numerous shell types and layouts for MIL-DTL-38999’s and MIL-DTL-26482 connectors providing over 800,000 different circular connectors. TTI also offers all required connector accessories including backshells/adapters, boots, contacts, terminals, and heat shrink tubing.

TTI’s microsite, http://www.ttieurope.com/connector-assembly, details full capabilities and product offerings and has a comprehensive

part number search engine to help designers find the parts they need and access on-line data-sheets. The company also has a specialist, dedicated mil/aero team, including an office in Basildon, UK, which offers design-in support to all hi-rel market sectors.

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military/aerospace

Integrated modules are changing the shape of military connectorsIntegrated modules are changing the way connector systems are being used in military and aerospace systems designs, writes Roberta Rebora

ElectronicsWeekly.com20 | EW 21-27 MARCH 2012

For manufacturers of inter-connection products, meet-ing design requirements in aerospace and defence mar-

kets can be one of the most demand-ing technology areas to contend with.

One of the critical challenges a connector company has to face is the development of products that are not only suitable for today’s platforms, but which can also interface with fu-ture technology currently being de-signed by aerospace and defence cus-tomers. The ability to solve this problem should increase the return on engineering investment made by connector manufacturers, provide a longer product lifecycle and decrease the risk of obsolescence for the cus-tomer.

These objectives, of course, have to be achieved while meeting the array of requirements specific to these mar-kets – namely the highest levels of built-in reliability, the ability to in-corporate ever-growing data rates with dense packaging options and light-weight products that must with-stand the most rugged environments.

To meet the prerequisites of com-mercial aviation with customers like Airbus, Boeing and Dassault, inter-connect solutions need to provide full system integration with engine control systems, radar facilities, power distribution networks, in-flight entertainment, wing and en-gine ice protection mechanisms as well as landing gear and braking con-trol systems.

In this context, weight, space and

cost are core considerations when de-signing avionic boxes but additional new technology drivers such as high signal speed, modular PCBs and in-creased power requirements are also changing the approach to traditional LRU rack and panel design.

There is a growing need for the use of EMI shielded and ruggedised PCBs that are slotted into avionic racks. Av-ionic card technology has progressed considerably with the trends in min-

iaturisation and ruggedisation of electronics.

Avionic boxes that were produced over 10 years ago, for example, fea-tured up to 16 card files whereas now only six to eight are used, a reduction of 50% in cards and space. Box com-plexity is also increasing and, by using modular programmable cards, two boxes can now be consolidated into one.

The solution is to move towards re-placement of more traditional LRU casings with ruggedised shielded cas-settes or modular programmable cards, thus saving valuable space, re-ducing weight and minimising cost.

However, these cassettes still need EMI/RFI protection and possibly transient protection depending on where they are situated within the aircraft. One approach is to have an integrated interconnect design which involves machining the connector and the EMI shielded cassette box lid together as one piece and integrating the filter and suppression compo-nents.

Every major platform and specific

avionics LRU (line replaceable unit) has different input/output require-ments, such as signal, power, high-speed differential transmission pairs, optical and RF. This wide variation, both in quantity and types, explains why most connector companies tend to have a high-mix low-volume man-ufacturing policy, because it can be difficult to cater for each design’s spe-cific requirements.

One approach is to use modular in-serts that cater for present and future requirements such as; high density PCB signal inserts to and even below a 1mm pitch combined with imped-ance matching for high speed differ-ential transmission lines, co-ax con-tact inserts up to 20GHz, twin-ax and quadrax contacts up to 3.5Gbit/s and power contacts up to 1000A.

Evolution in PCB circuit design and manufacturing has seen a move from the more traditional through-hole solder and press-fit termination technology to surface mount and spring probe technology. Modularity in the design phase can be critical to designing PCB connectors that not only have the ability to have multiple contacts fitted but also offer a choice of termination style.

The modularity in PCB connector design means tooling up a design is undertaken only once and, with the possibility of modular injection-mould tooling, it allows custom vari-ants to be produced with little or no additional tooling investment. Roberta Rebora is marketing manager at

Hypertac Europe

Hypertac Europewww.Hypertac.com

Rebora: weight and cost are important

Debbie RowlandPassives specialist, mountain bike racer

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embedded

Audio streaming development board has ARM Cortex-M4 microcontroller

ElectronicsWeekly.com22 | EW 21-27 MARCH 2012

PRODUCT FOCUS

An audio streaming development board from Future Electronics features an ARM Cortex-M4 microcontroller with audio file decompression software, DACs, a codec, and digital and analogue microphones.

The distributor has created a PC-based graphical user interface which connects to the board via USB, and it claims developers can start recording and playing back audio files in minutes. The board also provides a hardware environment in which to develop code and evaluate the performance of ARM Cortex-M4 application software.

“We believe the ARM Cortex-M4 is going to be a massive hit with our industrial and embedded customers, and this board is a brilliant starting point for anyone thinking of developing on a Kinetis micro,” said Colin Weaving, technical director of Future Electronics.

The Audio Streamer Micro-Blox kit is built around the MK60N512VMD100 microcontroller from Freescale. With the free MQX real-time operating system and a free USB stack pre-loaded on the microcontroller, the board provides a highly capable general platform for ARM Cortex-M4

development work. For system-level prototyping, it can be interfaced to the distributor’s LongBow Future-Blox motherboard.

The board’s software uses the ARM DSP CMSIS library, which has been optimised for the DSP co-processor available on the ARM Cortex-M4 core, which can be used for motor control. Audio file decoding software embedded in the microcontroller can handle MP3, FLAC, WAV and Ogg Vorbis file types. FLAC, a ‘lossless’ file format, is becoming popular in hi-fi equipment. Ogg Vorbis is an open-source, royalty-free file format that achieves tighter compression than MP3.

The microcontroller also runs other software for decoding files such as ALAC, WMA, AIFF and AAC. An Ethernet connection for file downloading is provided via Micrel’s KSZ8031RNL transceiver.

Audio playback of the decoded files is via one of two Wolfson Microelectronics DACs. The Audio Streamer Micro-Blox board is available free to qualifying customers of Future Electronics. www.my-boardclub.com

1.5V-36V on-off automatic push-button controllerLinear Technology has introduced a pushbutton on-off controller that manages 1.5V to 36V system power via a pushbutton interface or the presence of a supply.

The device differs from other pushbutton controllers in that it automatically turns on a system when power is applied from a primary or secondary supply, such as a wall adapter or car battery.

When powered up, the LTC2955 can power down a system via pushbutton and optionally can use interrupt logic to request a system power-down in menu-driven applications (“soft” shutdown), or automatically power-down a system if the supply is removed.

No code is required to configure the device, said the supplier.

The pushbutton input handles

wide voltage swings of up to ±36V and ESD strikes up to ±25kV, and is designed to operate in noisy environments.

A mode select pin enables users to select automatic turn-on and turn-off combinations, and battery run time is maximized thanks to a low 1.2μA quiescent current.

It is available in both positive (LTC2955-1) and negative (LTC2955-2) enable polarities, and in a 10-pin 3mm x 2mm DFN or eight-lead ThinSOT package. www.linear.com/pushbutton

Distributor introduces N4L test equipment to the UKCaltest Instruments has been appointed as the exclusive UK distributor for test and measurement instruments from Newtons4th (N4L).

The supplier’s products include power analysers, selective level meters and frequency response

Low dropout voltage regulators equipped to detect shorted loadsON Semiconductor has two low dropout (LDO) voltage regulators that feature an output diagnostic pin CSO that can be used to detect open and shorted loads.

Using a resistor connected to the CSO provides an adjustable output current level between 10mA and 350mA with ±10% accuracy.

Tying the ADJ pin to ground configures the NCV47700 and NCV47701 to be a current limited high-side switch.

High peak input voltage tolerance and reverse input voltage protection, as well as overcurrent and overtemperature protection functions are all included to safeguard against

analysers that can be used with a range of impedance analysis interfaces.

From entry-level product PPA1500 to the high-end PPA5500, all N4L power analysers are designed for high speed sampling and no gap between measurement windows.

Accuracy is specified at 0.02% for basic VA readings and bandwidth up to 2MHz.

Instruments also feature application specific modes that make them ideally suited for tasks like low standby power test (no gaps between measurement windows).

The torque and speed inputs of the PPA5500 model also allow the testing of electrical to mechanical efficiency in motor drives.

The PPA1500 range is available as single, dual or three phase models, whilst two PPA5500 models can be connected to create a measurement system with up to six phases.

Dual control software can be used to link any combination of PPA 1500 and PPA 5500 instruments to maximise lexibility of available configurations.www.caltest.co.uk

Caltest to distribute Newtons4th

Electronics Weekly. Quadrant House, The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5AS www.electronicsweekly.com Editorial 020-8652 8642: Fax: 020-8652 8979 electronics.weekly@rbi.co.uk Publishing director David Wilson, david.wilson@rbi.co.uk 020 7611 1285 Editor Richard Wilson richard.wilson@rbi.co.uk 020 8652 3650 Components editor David Manners david.manners@rbi.co.uk 020 8652 3643 Technology editor Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk 020 8652 3640 Web editor Alun Williams alun.williams@rbi.co.uk 020 8652 8313 Production editor Sue Proud sue.proud@rbi.co.uk 020 8652 4689 Editorial secretary Alison Noble alison.noble@rbi.co.uk 020 8652 8642 Circulation Customer service advisor 01444 475611 Subscriptions One year UK £102, Europe £133. Rest of the world £165 USA £140 and Canada £152. Please forward your remittance with subscription order. Electronics Weekly Subscriptions Dept, PO Box 302, Haywards Heath, West Sussex, RH16 3YY, UK. Tel: 01444 445566 Fax: 01444 445447 | To apply for a free copy of the magazine in print or digital versions go to: rbisubscribe.com/cc/ewe

Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper. SSN 0013-5224. Electronics Weekly is published by Reed Business Information Limited, Quadrant House, The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5AS ® 2011

Reed Business Information Limited. A member of BPA. Electronics Weekly is a trademark of Reed Business Information Limited.

ADVERTISING: Display Group sales manager Lee De La Rue Browne lee.delaruebrowne@rbi.co.uk 020 8652 3262 Account managers Teo Tansiri teo.tansiri@rbi.co.uk 020 8652 8209: Julie West julie.west@rbi.co.uk 020 8652 3112 Classified Sales executive Paul Roberts 020 8652 8410 paul.roberts@rbi.co.uk Recruitment recruitment.services@rbi.co.uk 020 8652 3400 Direct copy line Pre-press co-ordinator Dan Long daniel.long@rbi.co.uk 020 8652 3127

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ElectronicsWeekly.com 21-27 MARCH 2012 EW | 23

the effects of the harsh operating conditions such as in automotive applications.

Adjustable output voltage versions of the devices are available; these cover the 5 volt (V) to 20 V range, with ± 6% accuracy for the NCV47700 and ± 3% accuracy for the NCV47701.

Both regulators have a junction operating temperature range of -40 to +150°C.

The NCV47700 is offered in a SOIC−8 package and the NCV47701 is offered in SOIC−8 package.www.onsemi.com

Small step-down/step-up converter supports 3AMurata has added to its LXDC series of small-size DC-DC converters the LXDC55B step-down and LXDC44A step-up models.

The LXDC55B measures 5.7x5.0x2.1mm and can support output currents up to 3.0A.

Input voltage is within the range 2.7 to 5.5Vdc across the series and single output models provide the nominal output of 1.2Vdc, 1.8Vdc, 2.5Vdc, 3.0Vdc or 3.3Vdc.

Operating as an output boost converter, the LXDC44A measuring 4x4x2mm can deliver up to 0.7A output at 5Vdc from an input of 2.7Vdc to 4.5Vdc.

Constructed on a

ferrite substrate with an embedded inductor, multi-layer construction and integrating the power IC and I/O capacitors the design is intended to offer good EMI suppression and reduced harmonic noise characteristics.www.murata.eu

Debug tools for DSP/micro-processor-based systemsJTAG Technologies has introduced a series of debug tools for DSP and microprocessor based systems.

The intention is to target microprocessors and DSPs with deficient or even non-existent JTAG (IEEE Std. 1149.1) boundary-scan test registers.

The debug routines dubbed JTAGLive CoreCommander can be used to activate the on-chip debug (OCD) modes of a range of popular cores to affect ‘kernel-centric’ testing.

The routines can be used for

diagnosing faults on ‘dead-kernel’ boards in either design debug or repair, since no on-board code is required to set memory reads and writes.

Boundary-scan deficient parts can also be better utilised during production test, as CoreCommander-driven functions increase fault coverage.

“Since CoreCommander is Python-based it complements perfectly the JTAGLive Script product, allowing access to mixed-signal parts such as ADCs and DACs and also synchronised testing to full boundary-scan devices,” said the company.

Interactive mode allows the user to select a supported device within a design and ‘manually’ select register access commands or full memory reads and memory writes from the interactive window and via a supported controller to the target

design. Sequences of commands can be exported from the interactive window and replayed as part of a Python script.

Python-embedded mode uses a similar structure to that featured in the JTAGLive Script product, allowing CoreCommander functions to be embedded into Python code to create re-usable test modules for specific tests. www.jtaglive.com

Adlink Technology is offering the aTCA-6200, AdvancedTCA (ATCA) processor blade, which has two 1.8GHz eight-core Intel Xeon processors E5-2648L and the Intel C604 chipset.

There is DDR3-1600 memory up to 128Gbyte and a PICMG mid-size AMC bay.

On-card connectivity includes dual 10GBASE-KX4 fabric interfaces, dual GbE base interfaces, dual front panel GbE egress ports, CFast socket and quad SAS channels.

The mid-size AMC bay supports AMC.1 PCI Express and advanced switching, AMC.2 Gigabit Ethernet and AMC.3 SATA/SAS storage expansion.

I/O features of the aTCA-6200 include base interface channels, fabric interface channels and front/rear egress ports.

Front panel I/O includes two RJ-45 GbE ports, three USB 2.0 ports, an RJ-45 to DB-9 standard serial port and a DB-15 connector for analogue graphics output. www.adlinktech.com/AdvancedTCA/

3A step-down/step-up DC-DC converters

24 EW21-27 MARCH 2012 ElectronicsWeekly.com

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Field Applications Engineers (x3) for MicrochipTo help realise our ambitious growth plans for our highly successful semiconductor business, we are expanding our Microchip semiconductor support team. We currently have three vacancies in locations across the UK mainland

for Field Applications Engineers. In these field based roles, you will visit our customers to promote and offer support and guidance in the evaluation, selection and design-in of products from this world class manufacturer.

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O Identify and support customers’ new design project needs through in-depth, hands-on technical expertise

O Liaise with and support our field sales team whilst managing your own design project tracker

O Identify new customers and develop design-in opportunities, taking ownership of the activity and participating in reviews

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www.anglia.comSandall Rd, Wisbech, Cambs, PE13 2PS

The UK’s leading independent authorised distributor of electronic components

26 EW21-27 MARCH 2012 ElectronicsWeekly.com

Microchip has a position for a District Sales Manager for the North of England

If you are an experienced Sales Management professional with a history of achievement in the Semiconductor Industry and are looking to join amarket leading and highly successful semiconductor manufacturer, please contact us without delay!

We are also interested in hearing from individuals keen to pursue a pure field sales role.

The CompanyMicrochip Technology Inc. is a leading provider of microcontroller and analog semiconductors, providing low-risk product development,lower total system cost and faster time to market for thousands of diverse customer applications worldwide. The company has a turnover ofover $1.4 billion and employs over 7500. For more information, visit the Microchip website at www.microchip.com.

LocationApplicants should ideally reside in the North of England

Job Summaries/Key AttributesThe ideal candidates will:

• Be a highly motivated and results focussed individual.• Be fully conversant with the UK market for semiconductors.• Have significant experience of relevant industry selling and/or Marketing experience.• Ideally have some man management experience (for the DSM position).

Microchip is an equal opportunity employer, and successful candidates for the DSM role can expect:

A competitive salary package, including quarterly Company performance related bonus schemes, a company car or generous car allowance, a newhire share grant plus an on-going performance related share programme, discounted Microchip share purchase scheme, private medical insurance,21 days paid holiday per year and a contributory Pension Scheme.

To applyPlease send your CV and letter of application to europe.humanresources@microchip.comor apply via our website at www.microchip.com/careersNo Agencies

H.R. Microchip Ltd, Microchip House, 720 Wharfedale Road, IQ Winnersh, Wokingham, Berkshire, UK, RG41 5TP

District Sales Manager – North of England

www.microchip.com

The Microchip name and logo are registered trademarks of Microchip Technology Incorporated in the USA and other countries. ©2012 Microchip Technology Inc. All rights reserved. REC141UK/02.12

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ElectronicsWeekly.com/jobs 21-27 MARCH 2012 EW 27

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