26/10/2016
Many consumer electronics devices are following two seemingly opposing trends – while they are offering more functionality, that functionality is being squeezed into smaller volumes. And, according to Eelco Bergman, senior director of business management with ASE Group, this is forcing designers to move quickly towards heterogeneous integration.
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13/09/2016
Efforts to produce an efficient way of linking those programming in C with the ability to create hardware have been under way for many years. One of the first tools generated to support this was created in the early 1990s in Oxford University’s Computing Laboratory, where Ian Page developed Handel-C as means of bridging between C and silicon.
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13/09/2016
The challenge of combining high temperature operation and CMOS technology has been something that few companies have managed to address successfully over the years. Yet there are applications where designers would like local processing – even though temperatures may be pushing towards 200°C.
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09/08/2016
The aerospace sector is driven by a four letter acronym – SWaP; written in long hand, it translates to size, weight and power. That’s no real surprise; if you can make aircraft that are lighter, they will be – at least, in theory – more fuel efficient. And if you can make the electronics content smaller and less power hungry, that will also contribute to the overall savings.
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24/05/2016
There are many reasons why the ARM Cortex-M series of processor cores has come to dominate the market for 32bit microcontrollers. Across the many varieties of Cortex-M cores, design engineers can choose from an array of performance, power consumption and communications capabilities, allowing them to find an ARM based MCU which will be suitable for almost any application. And, by standardising on the Cortex-M family, OEMs not only benefit from a common instruction set, but also from an ecosystem of libraries, tools and firmware with which thousands of embedded engineers are already familiar.
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26/04/2016
Over the years, ARM has developed a broad portfolio of processor cores, each with the ability to be customised to meet the needs of particular users. On that basis, you could be excused for thinking that there is a core for every application; but that’s not the case and is something which was highlighted recently with the introduction of the Cortex-A32 core.
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26/01/2016
When it launched the Cortex-M range in 2004, ARM brought 32bit processing to what had, essentially, been an 8bit world. The first core – the Cortex-M3 – was adopted enthusiastically by a range of companies. ARM has since added the M0, M0+, M4 and, most recently, the M7.
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08/12/2015
Engineers can select from a range of technologies which might be appropriate for their next design. Options include ASICs, FPGAs and embedded CPUs. But there is a suspicion that, rather than selecting the platform which will be best for the job, engineers fall back on something with which they’re familiar.
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24/11/2015
As the market for the Internet of Things starts to take shape, the role of wireless sensor networks in enabling a range of new applications has started to take centre stage, with demand growing for extremely low-power solutions.
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13/10/2015
Imagine you’re driving down the highway with the music blaring, enjoying the open road. Now imagine that the sound from your rear speaker system is delayed by a split second from the front; your enjoyment of the fancy in-car infotainment system comes to a screeching halt.
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08/09/2015
Motors are everywhere; from the huge devices driving industrial processes to the ones driving the compressor in your fridge. It’s no surprise to discover that electric motors consume something like half of all the electricity generated globally.
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10/06/2015
The phrase microelectromechanical systems – or MEMS – was coined in 1986, when the University of Utah made a submission to US defence research funding agency DARPA. Even so, devices were in production before than that could be broadly considered to be MEMS in nature.
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22/04/2015
Industrial automation is still a key driver for efficiency and savings. To better understand why this is so, a few trends need to be discussed and reviewed. First up is sustainability.
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05/03/2015
With designers increasingly turning to ARM processors for safety-related applications spanning medical, transportation, avionics and industrial segments, the software that runs upon these processors has come under ever-tighter scrutiny as even the slightest error can have disastrous consequences.
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24/02/2015
European research organisations and companies are busy targeting microservers as a potential very large revenue stream for the medium term. At least four groups, funded to a large extent by the EU's 7th Framework Programme, are looking at a variety of often overlapping processor, system and software architecture projects, all scheduled to finish in September 2016.
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28/01/2015
We are entering a new era of motor technology, with many of the 10billion electric motors sold each year in line for an upgrade. Innovation in motor control algorithms and the lowering cost of embedded microcontrollers are prompting a new generation of brushless DC (BLDM) and permanent magnet synchronous (PMSM) motors. At the heart of these new motors is an integrated motor controller integrated circuit, containing a 32bit processor core, as well as revamped configurable analogue and power management circuitry. Sophisticated motor control algorithms – such as field oriented control (FOC) – running on the processor core remove the need for external sensors, thereby reducing overall system component count.
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09/12/2014
It's been a busy few months for Steve Whalley. Having retired from Intel after 28 years, where his last post was director of sensing, Whalley is now chief strategy officer for the MEMS Industry Group (MIG), where he is leading efforts to prepare the MEMS and sensors ecosystem for what is anticipated to be a decade of explosive growth.
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04/12/2014
An 8 or 16 bit CPU may be ideal for your application at present. However, to stay competitive, you need to differentiate your product with continuous enhancements, including new features, faster speeds, improved product specifications and reduced cost.
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09/09/2014
Having embraced the industrial market with its Sitara AM335x range of processors – a range that included the 1GHz, 2000MIPS AM3358, which is at the heart of the BeagleBone Black development platform – Texas Instruments (TI) has tailored its latest family, the Sitara AM437x, to further suit industrial demands.
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22/04/2014
MIPS Technologies has a long history of developing microprocessor cores for the embedded systems sector. A pioneer of 32bit and, more recently, 64bit cores, the company changed its business model some time ago from being a hardware provider to developing and selling IP.
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28/01/2014
It's not too long ago since the 'go to' microcontroller for electronics designers was a humble 8bit device, often featuring the 8051 core. But times are changing, as 32bit MCUs become the device of choice and 8bit parts begin to be phased out.
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28/01/2014
Nextivity, which makes cellular repeaters to boost indoor signal coverage, has already developed two generations of chips for its Cel-Fi signal booster products. Its latest device, the Cel-Fi RS3xx, supports the Long Term Evolution (LTE) wireless standard.
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10/12/2013
Like the carbon nanotubes featured in this issue's Cover Story, MEMS is often regarded as a technology of the future.
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10/09/2013
Although many connected devices are already available, there is some way to go to unlock the potential of the internet of things (IoT).
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11/06/2013
Today's applications for MEMS are hugely varied. They range from accelerometers in automotive airbag deployment systems, detecting the rapid negative acceleration of the vehicle, to inkjet printer heads, reacting to patterns of heat from electric current by dispensing tiny droplets of ink at precise locations to form the image on the paper. They are also seen in smartphones, measuring the rotation of the device to create an intuitive user interface.
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