Sony have released a new Audiophile / Audiophool “Low Noise” SDXC memery card. It’s only 5 times the price of a regular card!
The SR-64HXA will really make your music sound superlative!
And even better again on Sony’s new $1100 ZX2 Audiophile grade Walkman!
Forum HERE
How It Works: Sony SR-64HXA Low Noise SDXC Memory Card
A robot plays spot-the-ball at Embedded World, processed by ARM and Nvidia Kepler on a GE single-board computer
Low power consumption means ARM processors are making headway into the single-board industrial computer market, even as Intel, AMD and Via make lower power x86 chips. Cost, performance, and virtualisation are other parameters affecting adoption.
GE Intelligent Platforms (formerly Radstone) makes both Intel and ARM-based single board computers (SBCs), and is selling them into vision-based object identification and tracking, where heavy number-crunching is done on Nvidia Kepler graphics cores.
“You can have a discrete Nvidia GPU with 384 Kepler cores and an Intel Core i7 for 100W, and you can get an Nvidia Tegra K1 with quad ARM Cortex-A15s and 192 Kepler GPU cores for 10W: less performance but more Gflop/W, so better for mobile,” GE product manager Simon Collins told Electronics Weekly. “For a lot of customers, they can’t tell the difference between Intel or ARM solutions as they are [GPU] source code compatible, so ARM is a deliberate choice because it enables low power.”
SBC-maker Congatec sees x86 boards as the only choice at the high-performance end of the market, and ARM as the only choice at the lowest power end.
“There is performance overlap, the low end of Atom overlaps the high end of ARM” said Congatec marketing director Christian Eder. Infuture, the overlap will grow. “Quark will take Intel to lower power, and Cortex-A53 and A57 will take ARM higher in performance,” he said.
Swapping from Intel to ARM, warns Congatec sales manager Neil Wood, requires a specific kind of engineer as there is less support around for ARM – fewer downloadable drivers, for example, and boot-loaders that need tweeking compared with x86 BIOSs which have everything from scratch.
“From sales point of view, ARM has power and cost advantages. But a buyer has to have ARM-knowledgeable engineers,” said Wood. “Customers with x86 expertise go to ARM to reduce cost, and then there is a learning curve, and some go back to x86 because of the cost of engineering.”
A disappearing barrier to ARM use in SBCs is lack of proper hardware virtualisation, which is increasingly needed in embedded applications, according to Robert Day, v-p marketing at real-time operating system (RTOS) company Lynx, which has just ported its LynxOS hard RTOS and LynxSecure kernel hypervisor to ARM.
“The embedded world has been slow in embracing virtualisation as it didn’t need to support multiple operating systems. The most comprehensive virtualisation support was on Intel. Cortex-A15 was the first ARM to have proper virtualisation, followed by 64bit Cortex-A5x. Now the latest ARM and Intel have similar degree of vistualisation,” said Day, adding that PowerPC QorIQ bought vistualisation to embedded SBCs five or six years ago.
Day also councils the use of multiple cores to ease the use of more than one operating system. “A hypervisor needs virtualisation and multiple cores. Running a hypervisor on single core is possible, but it is kind of hard work,” he said.
2014 Sydney Maker Faire
Power House Museum 17/8/2014
Trends in Hardware Innovation Fireside Chat
with David L. Jones from the EEVblog
and Sebastien Eckersley-Maslin from Blue Chilli
How to get venture capital funding for your startup, crowd funding advice, and the state of the Australian electronics industry among many thing discussed.
Microchip has included a new power building block in a microcontroller aimed at LED lighting.
Called the PIC16(L)F1769, the family has the first PICs to offer two independent closed-loop channels.
The firm has steadily been introducing power control peripheral blocks over the last three years – so-called ‘core independent peripherals (CIPs), including for example its ‘complementary waveform generator’ (COG) which produces non-overlapping waveforms to control synchronous power mosfets.
Its aim is to include peripherals which cut processing load in power applications, to allow its 8bit MCUs to compete with fast 32bit MCUs that implement everything in code, particularly for power engineers used to using hardware.
The latest block, bringing the total to nine including the COG, is called the ‘programmable ramp generator’ (PRG) and automates slope and ramp compensation for multiple independent power channels.
“In a boost converter, for example, when duty cycle gets above 60%, the duty cycle can start to oscillate. Slope compensation stabilises this,” Microchip business development manger Lucio Di Jasio told Electronics Weekly at Embedded World.
There are now so many of these peripherals that it is possible to design similar power converters with more than one topology using PIC MCUs.
In F1769, the firm has included: op amps, a 10bit ADC, 5bit DACs, 10bit DACs, 10bit PWMs, 16bit PWMs, high-speed comparators, two 100mA I/O pins, and these CIPs: two COGs, a PRG, a CLC (configurable logic cell), a DSM (data signal modulator) and a ZCD (zero crossing detector).
“There was a lot of input from the automotive lighting team which had a very specific set of requirements,” said Di Jasio.
A unique, claims the firm, hardware-based LED dimming control function can be created by connecting up the DSM, an op amp and the 16bit PWM. (see block diagram) DSM is a simple block that combines a PWM dimming waveform with a fast mosfet gate switching PWM waveform without truncating any gate switching pules.
Infineon is sampling a family of robust 650V IGBTs that can deliver highest efficiency in fast switching automotive applications. Volume production is scheduled for March.
The AEC-Q-qualified TRENCHSTOP5 AUTO IGBTs will reduce power losses and improve reliability in electric vehicle (EV) and hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) applications such as on-board charging, power factor correction (PFC), DC/DC and DC/AC conversion.
The new IGBTs have a blocking voltage 50V higher than previous automotive IGBTs and achieve their ‘best-in-class’ efficiency ratings due to Infineon’s TRENCHSTOP 5 thin wafer technology.
Compared with existing ‘state-of-the-art’ technologies, this technology reduces saturation voltage (V CE(sat)) by 200mV, halves switching losses, and lowers gate charge by a factor of 2.5. Improved switching and conduction losses also support lower junction and case temperatures than alternative technologies, leading to enhanced device reliability and minimizing the need for cooling.
By using TRENCHSTOP 5 AUTO IGBTs, designers of electric vehicles will realize efficiency gains that enable extended cruising ranges or smaller battery sizes. In the case of HEVs, the efficiency improvements can be used to reduce overall fuel consumption and drive down CO 2 emissions. In addition, the performance of the TRENCHSTOP 5 AUTO devices allows also entering MOSFET dominated applications and offering designers a wider spectrum of suitable semiconductor base technologies.
Featuring current ratings of 40A or 50A, TRENCHSTOP 5 AUTO IGBTs are available as single discrete IGBT device or co-packaged with an Infineon ultra-fast “Rapid” silicon diode. In each case the two variants H5 HighSpeed and F5 HighSpeed FAST can be supplied depending on whether optimized switching speed or highest possible efficiency is the overriding design criteria.
For a typical PFC used in on-board chargers the replacement of current ‘state-of-the-art’ technologies by TRENCHSTOP 5 AUTO IGBTs has been shown to deliver an efficiency increase from 97.5% to 97.9%. In the case of a 3.3kW charger this equates to a power loss reduction of 13W. Assuming a charging time of five hours, this would be equivalent to reducing CO 2 emissions by 30g in a single charging cycle.
Infineon is sampling a family of robust 650V IGBTs that can deliver highest efficiency in fast switching automotive applications. Volume production is scheduled for March.
The AEC-Q-qualified TRENCHSTOP5 AUTO IGBTs will reduce power losses and improve reliability in electric vehicle (EV) and hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) applications such as on-board charging, power factor correction (PFC), DC/DC and DC/AC conversion.
The new IGBTs have a blocking voltage 50V higher than previous automotive IGBTs and achieve their ‘best-in-class’ efficiency ratings due to Infineon’s TRENCHSTOP 5 thin wafer technology.
Compared with existing ‘state-of-the-art’ technologies, this technology reduces saturation voltage (V CE(sat)) by 200mV, halves switching losses, and lowers gate charge by a factor of 2.5. Improved switching and conduction losses also support lower junction and case temperatures than alternative technologies, leading to enhanced device reliability and minimizing the need for cooling.
By using TRENCHSTOP 5 AUTO IGBTs, designers of electric vehicles will realize efficiency gains that enable extended cruising ranges or smaller battery sizes. In the case of HEVs, the efficiency improvements can be used to reduce overall fuel consumption and drive down CO 2 emissions. In addition, the performance of the TRENCHSTOP 5 AUTO devices allows also entering MOSFET dominated applications and offering designers a wider spectrum of suitable semiconductor base technologies.
Featuring current ratings of 40A or 50A, TRENCHSTOP 5 AUTO IGBTs are available as single discrete IGBT device or co-packaged with an Infineon ultra-fast “Rapid” silicon diode. In each case the two variants H5 HighSpeed and F5 HighSpeed FAST can be supplied depending on whether optimized switching speed or highest possible efficiency is the overriding design criteria.
For a typical PFC used in on-board chargers the replacement of current ‘state-of-the-art’ technologies by TRENCHSTOP 5 AUTO IGBTs has been shown to deliver an efficiency increase from 97.5% to 97.9%. In the case of a 3.3kW charger this equates to a power loss reduction of 13W. Assuming a charging time of five hours, this would be equivalent to reducing CO 2 emissions by 30g in a single charging cycle.
What’s inside the Keithley 2400 Source Measure Unit?
Forum: http://ift.tt/1FupJn4
Service Manual: http://ift.tt/1BdQtJu
Datasheets:
http://ift.tt/1FupJn6
AD847 opamp: http://ift.tt/1BdQrRT
Photomos Relay: http://ift.tt/1FupGYi
Max7000 PLD http://ift.tt/1BdQrRV
LT1097 http://ift.tt/1FupJnc
LT1007 http://ift.tt/1BdQrRZ
Differential Amp AMP03 http://ift.tt/1FupJDs
AD712 http://ift.tt/1BdQrS1
High Res teardown photo:
There is a new start-up in the FPGA market – Flex Logix.
Headed up by ex-Rambus CEO Geoff Tate, with three employees and low single digit millions of funding, the company provides FPGA cores to be integrated as hard macros into other chips.
Flex Logix’s core is called EFLX and is made on TSMC’s 28nm HPM process. Earlier this month it got its first prototypes back from TSMC.
The first EFLX core has 2,500 look -up tables which can be tiled to deliver up to 125,000 LUTs.
“We provide all the associated design files and a full high-performance tool set. Available now,” says the Flex Logix website, “want DSP or Block RAM? Want smaller or larger arrays? Different process nodes? We can deliver in 1-3 months.”
Flex Logix uses a different hardware design to conventional FPGA. Instead of an interconnected grid it uses a central bus which connects to the blocks.
This architecture accelerates execution while reducing power, says Flex Logix.
Arrow Electronics has introduced a development board with sensor options, communication interfaces and connection to the Cloud for IoT designs.
Based on the Arduino form factor with an Atmel ARM Cortex-M0+ based CPU.
Called the SmartEverything board, it includes a Telit SIGFOX M2M module and service. There is GPS with embedded antenna for localisation.
SIGFOX uses a UNB (Ultra Narrow Band) based radio to connect devices to the network. UNB requires very low energy usage and UNB devices operate within globally available ISM bands (license free frequency bands).
Features of the development board include STMicroelectronics proximity, humidity, temperature and acceleration sensors. Acceleration limits are selectable in stages of ±2/4/8/16g.
The board has a TDK Bluetooth Low Energy interface for short-range connectivity that allows setting and control from a smartphone; and an NXP NFC tag with I2C serial interface for authentication.
Atmel-based crypto authentication enables implementation of a full security SHA-256 hash algorithm with message authentication code (MAC). Dynaflex 868MHz antenna and Linear Technology power management devices are also incorporated.
Spansion has brought out its HyperBus interface which increases read performance while reducing pins.
With the interface, Spansion has also launched a family of products based on HyperBus – HyperFlash NOR Memory devices with read throughput of up to 333 megabytes per second which are 5x faster than ordinary Quad SPI flash currently available with one-third the number of pins of parallel NOR flash.
The HyperBus Interface enables applications such as automotive instrument clusters, infotainment / navigation systems, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), hand-held displays, digital cameras, projectors, factory automation, medical diagnostic equipment, and home automation appliances.
The 12-pin Spansion HyperBus Interface consists of an 8-pin address/data bus, a differential clock (2 signals), one Chip Select and a Read Data Strobe for the controller, reducing the overall cost of the system.
Silicon Labs has introduced Blue Gecko which combines Its EFM32 Gecko MCU technology with a Bluetooth Smart transceiver on one die combined with the Bluegiga Bluetooth Smart software stack which can transmit +10 dBm or higher output power with its integrated power amplifier and balun.
Blue Gecko SoCs are based on the ARM Cortex-M3 and M4 cores and offer 128 to 256 kB flash sizes and 16 to 32 kB RAM sizes.
Bluegiga modules based on Blue Gecko SoCs provide a pre-certified, plug-and-play RF design.
Bluegiga Bluetooth Smart modules incorporate all features of Blue Gecko SoCs and are certified for use in all key markets including North America, Europe, Japan and South Korea.
Bluegiga modules include the Bluegiga Bluetooth Smart software stack and profile toolkit and come with 256 kB flash and 32 kB RAM.
Bluegiga Bluetooth Smart modules enable wireless system designs to be powered from a standard 3 V coin cell battery or two AAA batteries.
To simplify wireless development, Silicon Labs offers the complete Bluegiga Bluetooth Smart software stack for Blue Gecko modules and wireless SoCs. The stack implements the Bluetooth Smart protocol layers including the Attribute Protocol (ATT), the Generic Attribute Profile (GATT), the Generic Access Protocol (GAP), a security manager and connection management.
The Blue Gecko portfolio includes a wireless SDK for developing Bluetooth Smart applications using either a host or fully standalone applications through the easy-to-use Bluegiga BGScript scripting language.
BGScript enables developers to create applications quickly without using external MCUs to run the application logic, enabling them to reduce cost, simplify their designs and get to market faster. Bluetooth Smart application profiles and examples are also available to help streamline development.
Pricing for Blue Gecko-based Bluegiga modules begins at $4.99 in 10,000-unit quantities.
Blue Gecko SoC pricing begins at $0.99 in 100,000-unit quantities.
The Bluegiga SDK and Bluetooth Smart software stack will be available to Silicon Labs’ customers at no charge.
Avnet Abacus has extended its drop shipment service on Samtec’s interconnect components, which will enable customers in the UK and Ireland to take delivery of goods ordered from Avnet Abacus direct from the manufacturer.
First launched in Continental Europe in April 2013, this programme on the Samtec line has now been extended, enabling Avnet Abacus customers across the region to benefit from faster delivery times on parts shipped directly from the manufacturer’s production facilities. It also takes advantage of Samtec’s ‘Sudden Service’ capability.
The Samtec range features a broad line of electronic interconnects, including high-speed, micro pitch and rugged/power connectors used in board-to-board, cable-to-board, and panel and I/O applications.
“Through our existing drop ship arrangement with Avnet Abacus, we have evidence that customers in Europe are gaining advantage from this service, which significantly improves the speed and efficiency of the entire purchasing process,” says Samtec’s Alan McLean.
“Time-to-market is a critical factor for our customers,” says Avnet Abacus vp Alan Jermyn, “phasing in drop shipments to the UK and Ireland on Samtec orders, we are now employing a proven supply chain method that will guarantee a fast, efficient service for customers across the wider European landscape.”
UK processor firm ARM has built a digital storage oscilloscope on a chip, and a programmable load, to investigate voltage rail behaviour amongst multiple processor cores.
The transients are nanoseconds in duration, millivolts in height, and when they occur is dependent on the instantaneous interaction of application software, operating system, multiple cores and memory – so it is helpful to have a scope on the spot.
Alongside the scope and programmable load are dual Cortex-A57s, quad Cortex-A53s, and a T624 graphics processor – all in 28nm CMOS.
The scope is all-digital and monitors the supply to the dual A57s and their cache.
Its sensor is a 31 stage ring oscillator powered by the supply rail whose phase measured digitally. The scope digitally differentiates phase to derive frequency in number form, which is linear with respect to the VCO supply voltage to first order, according to ARM.
Phase measurement is actually in three parts: two measurements of the phase of the whole rotations around the ring oscillator, and one of individual stages, which are separately differentiated and then combined.
Scope like facilities include threshold and gradient triggers that can initiate waveform capture of up to 2k points into an internal SRAM trace buffer, and a decimator which allows bandwidth/sample-rate trade-off to measure low-frequency transients.
The logic needed for trigger, waveform capture, data logging, and correlating all the information is powered separately from the measured rail.
Calibration loading comes from 512 parallel nine-stage ring-oscillators which are enabled by a local controller to produce load waveforms including square wave, step and impulse.
Automatic calibration is provided by the local controller, which can also set-up the off-chip dc-dc converters that supply the cores.
At 800Msample/s, resolution is 3.3mV, and INLmax is -0.9/+0.7 LSB (after correction) over the 400mV input voltage range.
Up to 2.24Gsample/s is available with 10.8mV resolution, and 1.6mV resolution can be had at 400Msample/s.
ARM’s work on the scope is covered by ISSCC 2015 paper 14.6.
An 8-bit microcontroller can now operate a 800×600 colour LCD graphics screen, and video is possible, thanks to a higher resolution faster version of the Eve graphics processor from Glasgow chip firm FTDI.
Hardware acceleration means jpeg image decode 500-1,000x faster than on the original 512×512 Eve, and a single ‘rotate’ instruction automates portrait-landscape switching for the host processor.
Eve chips directly connect to a microcontroller at one end, and to a 18-bit or 24-bit colour LCD at the other end.
Breaking with graphics tradition, there is no frame buffer RAM or need for a high-end microcontroller.
Instead, a simple host microcontroller loads a list of primitive objects (‘draw a line’ or ‘draw a circle’, for example) into Eve’s execution list and the chip does the rest, rendering line-by-line on-the-fly at 1/16th pixel resolution, rather than pixel-by-pixel.
There are also what FTDI engineering support manager Gordon Lunn describes as widgets – for example, a single widget object draws a clock at a specified location, rather than the host separately defining 13 circles and three lines. Primitives and widgets are all four bytes.
Images, overlays, fonts and templates are also treated as objects, as are beep and chirp instructions to the sound output.
For interaction, there is a touch screen interface with resistive or five-point capacitive options.
Diaplays can be sophisticated – the earlier FT800 Eve chip is used in Gameduino, a graphics add-on for Arduino that enables it to play vintage video games.
For 800×600 variants, object list RAM is up to 1Mbyte from 256kbyte, data transfer is speeded by a quad-SPI option, pixel are drawn at 16/clock rather than four, and algorithm enhancements mean smooth video playback.
Multiple palettes are supported, covering 16bit and 32bit colours with transparency. Extra-large ROM fonts have been added so that there is greater scope when it comes to using different text options.
Firmware memory operations – such as copy, fill and CRC – are two to four times faster through improvements to inner processing loops, while the display snapshot command is hundreds of times faster.
As well as sound out, there is an analogue input pin for interfacing to external audio, a temperature sensor, or light sensor.
Part options are: FT810Q to FT813Q, covering 18bit (7x7mm 48pin VQFN) or 24bit (56pin) RGB interfacing, and the choice of resistive or capacitive touch.
Today, ARM launched the ARM mbed IoT Starter Kit – Ethernet Edition to channel data from internet-connected devices directly into IBM’s Bluemix cloud platform.
ARM states that the combination of a secure sensor environmentwith cloud-based analytics, mobile and application resources from IBM will allow fast prototyping of new smart products and unique value-added services. The first products developed using the kit are expected to enter the market in 2015.
“Securely embedding intelligence and connectivity into devices from the outset will create cloud-connected products that are far more capable than today,” says Krisztian Flautner, general manager for IoT business at ARM. “Smart cities, businesses and homes capable of sharing rich information about their surroundings will be critical in unlocking the potential of IoT. The ARM IoT Starter Kit will accelerate the availability of connected devices by making product and service prototyping faster and easier.”
The kit consists of an ARM mbed-enabled development board from Freescale, powered by an ARM Cortex-M4 based processor, together with a sensor IO application shield.
Future versions of the kit will run the new ARM mbed OS and use ARM mbed Device Server software to deliver a range of efficient security, communication and device management features.
ARM and IBM will continue to work together on interoperable, open, secure and scalable connectivity between devices and the cloud.
“The internet of things is about bringing the physical and digital worlds closer together, to allow businesses to better understand and interact with what is happening around them,” says Meg Divitto, vice-president for IoT, IBM. “In order to make this work for businesses, it needs to be simple to connect physical devices into the cloud, and to build applications and insights around them. IBM Bluemix and the new ARM mbed starter kit are designed to substantially enhance that effort.”
Dave explains what Vacuum Fluorescent Displays (VFD’s) are, how they work, and then hacks an interface and reverse engineers a surplus display from an industrial machine to make it work with an Arduino.
Forum HERE
TI TL4810 VFD Driver chip
GizmoSphere, a non-profit open-source development board community, is shipping the Gizmo 2 embedded computing platform to distributors.
Gizmo 2 is a second-generation, 64-bit x86-based single board computer (SBC) aimed at embedded programmers and the more advanced hobbyists. It offers a single platform for Linux- and Windows-based development projects.
The platform includes:
The Gizmo 2 SBC can be bought for $199 through element14 and Symmetry Electronics.
It can be seen on the AMD booth 138, Hall 1 and element14 booth 221, Hall 5 at Embedded World in Nuremberg, Germany 24-26 February
Digi-Key will be demonstrating its design tools and other online engineering resources at Embedded World exhibition in Nuremberg, Germany this week (24-26 February).
According to David Sandys, director of technical and strategic marketing at Digi-Key, the distributor’s plan to supply customers from prototype to production phase of projects means it will offer “a full spectrum of EDA tools along with deep and broad resources to support all the needs of the design engineer.”
It will demonstrate (Hall 4A, Stand 631) website features including the BOM manager, online catalog, article, video and reference design libraries, an overview of their EDA tools, and the eewiki.net technical site.
Digi-Key partner, Aspen Labs, will participate in the company’s booth and run the second kiosk to answer questions and share the latest versions of Scheme-It, PartSim and PCB Web. Scheme-it, the popular schematic and block diagramming tool is also now available in local language for the German audience.
Digi-Key’s director of applications engineering, Randall Restle will be presenting a paper entitled: “Coupling real-time elements in the IoT. A requirement to reach Industry 4.0”, and will review problems coupling real-time embedded elements together and further extend to issues of coupling them over the Internet.
Somnium-DRT
Somnium Technologies has introduced a development tool suite for Freescale Kinetis MCUs which is compatible with the Eclipse IDE and GNU tools.
The software tool is based on a patented device-aware resequencing technology (DRT) which is claimed to optimise code without manual intervention or rewriting of software.
A feature of the DRT tool is that it take into account the coupling of the processor and its memory system, automatically applying a new series of device-specific optimisations, said Somnium.
It is compatible with other GNU based tools, including Freescale CodeWarrior and Kinetis Design Studio (KDS) integrated development environment (IDE), and requires no source code changes.
Somnium is supporting the introduction of Freescale’s Kinetis Design Studio IDE.
According to Michael Norman, Freescale’s Microcontroller Software and Tools Product Manager: “Somnium was selected to develop the Kinetis Design Studio IDE because of their deep understanding of Eclipse and GNU tools.”
Somnium was involved in enhancing GNU and Eclipse functionality to satisfy the needs of embedded software developers. This also includes third party software and drivers enabling market leading debug solutions, in addition to popular open source debugging tools.
Dave Edwards, Somnium’s CEO/CTO said: “Our partnership with Freescale is extremely important to our progression as a company, we look forward to continued collaboration on both Kinetis Design Studio IDE and our own ‘optimized for Freescale’ SOMNIUM DRT products.”
Embedded World Exhibition takes place in Nuremberg, Germany 24-26 February.
Imec, Tokyo Electron and Merck have developed a Directed Self-Assembly (DSA) process for a via patterning process compatible with the 7nm technology node and have significantly improved DSA defectivity to 24 defects/cm2.
Imec has also developed a new chemo-epitaxy flow for 30nm and 45nm pitch hexagonal holes patterning using a single 193nm immersion exposure, envisioning DSA patterning for the storage-node for DRAM applications.
“Over the past few years, we have realized a reduction of DSA defectivity by a factor 10 every six months,” says Imec’s An Steegen, “together, with Merck and Tokyo Electron, providing state-of-the-art DSA materials and processing equipment, we are looking ahead at two different promising DSA processes that will further improve defectivity values in the coming months. Our processes show the potential to achieve single-digit defectivity values in the near future without any technical roadblocks lying ahead.”
Imec, Merck and Tokyo Electron also achieved breakthroughs in two other barriers in the development of DSA patterning solutions. First, decomposition of an N7 compatible via layer was achieved. This required a novel templated DSA process with polystyrene (PS)-wetting sidewalls of the template pre-pattern. This process allows to significantly reduce the critical dimension (CD) of the template, in comparison to using the conventional a polymethylmetacrylate (PMMA)-wetting scheme. Second, an etch process has been developed to transfer the small vias (~15nm CD) into the underlying hard mask with excellent open hole rate.
Furthermore, imec has developed a new chemo-epitaxy flow for patterning of highly dense 45nm pitch hexagonal hole arrays. The process paves the way to single patterning 193nm immersion lithography in DRAM applications. Cost is crucial in standalone memory, and DRAM scaling will heavily rely on advanced patterning techniques enabling ≤ 45nm storage node pitch with a minimal number of steps for D14 and beyond.
“In today’s consolidating semiconductor landscape, equipment and material suppliers are playing a key role in tackling the scaling challenges and accelerating technology advancements. Our progress on DSA process development is a testament to this, and the result of a deeply concentrated collaboration with Tokyo Electron and Merck, providing the advanced process tooling and materials knowledge paramount to achieve these breakthroughs.” adds Steegen. “As an answer to the evolutions in the industry, we are setting up a supplier hub, aiming to offer a neutral, open innovation R&D platform that closely involves suppliers at an early process step and module development stage and allows for efficient cost sharing, minimized risk and optimized return on investment for all in the semiconductor ecosystem. Following recent announcements concerning imec’s equipment supplier hub, which has already resulted in research acceleration, we are now increasing our efforts to build a material supplier hub, which will be a focus in 2015.”
On October 26-27, 2015, Imec will organise, in collaboration with SEMATECH, EIDEC and CEA-Leti, the 1st International Symposium on DSA. The aim of the symposium is to identify key remaining challenges for insertion of DSA into semiconductor manufacturing and to identify potential solutions.
NXP and China state-owned investment company JianGuang Asset Management Co. Ltd (JAC Capital) have signed an agreement with the intention to establish a joint venture (JV) in China.
The JV is intended to combine NXP’s bipolar power technology with JAC Capital’s connections in the Chinese manufacturing network and distribution channels to lower manufacturing costs and boost profit margins of high end electronic products in China.
The JV will seek to capture the opportunities arising from China’s growing demand for electronic products in the consumer, automotive, smart manufacturing and medical equipment sectors. Current Chinese government policies provide great incentives to the high tech sector, including semiconductors, which will accelerate the growth of the industry in the next few years.
The JV represents another step in NXP’s strategy in China to strengthen ties with policy makers, customers and partners to better align with local guidelines and best business practice over the long term.
JAC Capital’s relationships with the Chinese government and finance industry will ensure successive injection of capital investment to support research and development for new products and market expansion in China and globally. Following regulatory approvals, the agreement will see JAC Capital owning a 51% stake in the JV and NXP taking the remaining 49% share.
“The Chinese electronics market has a great deal of potential and offers outstanding opportunities for NXP to further accelerate our business growth. We are seeing an increasing demand for high performance and high value added products and with this joint venture we will be in an even stronger position to address those needs,” says NXP’s Frans Scheper, “We will greatly benefit from JAC Capital’s government and industry network in China, and we will be able to gain further market reach as a genuine Chinese business, allowing us to provide the best possible customer support to our global customer base and offer the greatest competitive advantages.”
Infineon has added to its lighting control ICs, with a chip addressing lighting systems in the range of 40W to 300W.
The high-voltage resonant controller IC ICL5101, is for indoor and outdoor LED lighting, high-bay and low-bay lighting, street lighting, parking garage and canopy lighting, office lighting, retail and shop lighting. Since the total cost of ownership is an important aspect for industrial lighting, customers prefer to use resonant topologies supported by the new ICL5101 due to its high efficiency up to 95%.
The ICL5101 allows for advanced LED driver designs with approximately 25% less components compared to similar solutions which require separate PFC and resonant ICs.
The ICL5101 integrates the half-bridge and the PFC gate drivers. All operation parameters of the IC are adjustable by simple resistors, enabling cost effective but reliable and stable parameter-settings.The chip supports outdoor use by an extended junction temperature ranging from -40°C to +125°C.
The LED controller ICL5101 is designed to control resonant converter topologies such as LLC. The integrated digital PFC stage operates both in critical conduction mode (CrCM) and discontinuous conduction mode (DCM), which allows an extremely stable regulation in low load conditions, occurring for e.g. when the device is dimmed. The LED lighting can be dimmed down over an extremely wide range from 100% to 0.1% of its nominal load. State of the art dimming today typically ranges from 100% to 5%. In addition, the ICL5101 enables an ultra-fast time to light – under any conditions – with less than 200ms.
The adjustable PFC stage of the ICL5101 delivers high power quality, providing a low total harmonic distortion (THD) of less than 10% and a high power factor of more than 0.99 over wide line input voltage range. This enables lighting manufacturers to comply with energy efficiency standards.
The output of the ICL5101 is claimed to be ‘extremely stable’ over line voltage variations. A comprehensive set of protection features including external over temperature protection and capacitive load protection ensure the detection of fault conditions and increase system safety.
In March, Toshiba starts sampling an ARM Cortex-M0-based microcontroller for printers called TMPM036FWFG.
Printer microcontrollers need to communicate with the main control unit and on-board peripherals units. They also need to have a timer function that can output pulses to control stepping motors and DC motors. As the first step to developing more fully featured MFPs and printers an increased number of communication channels is required.
The chip’s ARM Cortex-M0 core operates at a maximum frequency of 20 MHz across a voltage range of 2.3 to 3.6V. System development cost-efficiency is improved by allowing use of the same development environment system as for the current ARM Cortex-M-based TX03/TX04 series.
The chip incorporates an 8-channel communication interface (6-channel SIO/UART; 2-channel I2C), two channels more than the predecessor IC, and a 14-channel 16-bit timer, compared to the 10 channels in the TMPM037FWUG. Developers can select their optimum microcontroller according to the system scale or usage from these two products.
The SEMI book-to-bill was 1:03, the highest monthly ratio since August and up from the o.99 ratio of December.
The bookings figure is $1.31 billion 4.9% lower than the final December 2014 level of $1.38 billion, and is 2.6% higher than the January 2014 order level of $1.28 billion.
The billings figure was $1.28 billion. The billings figure is 8.6% lower than the final December 2014 level of $1.40 billion, and is 3.5% higher than the January 2014 billings level of $1.23 billion.
“2014 was a strong growth year for the semiconductor equipment industry, and both bookings and billings at the start of this year are comparable to the early 2014 figures,” says SEMI CEO Denny McGuirk. “Given the positive outlook for the semiconductor industry in 2015 and based on current capex announcements, we expect the equipment market to continue to grow this year.”
