Interactive Development Environment for the Internet of Things 

Thingsquare has announced Thingsquare Code, which is designed to help connect products such as light bulbs, thermostats, and smart city systems to smartphone apps. Touted as the world's first online interactive development environment for the Internet of Things (IoT), the new tool works with a number of chips aimed at the emerging Internet of Things market recently launched by Texas Instruments and STMicroelectronics.   The IDE allows developers of IoT products to program their...

Lasso Currents with Miniature Rogowski Coils 

The latest generation of Rogowski coils for non-contact current sensing from Power Electronic Measurements is specifically designed for monitoring state-of the-art power systems and semiconductor devices. The new CWT Ultra-mini probes featuring higher maximum frequency and increased stability over a wider operating temperature range includes several versions suitable for measurements from as low as 1 A to a maximum full-scale current of 6,000 A. The new family also has enhanced transient...

High-Capacitance C0G Capacitors 

TDK Corporation has expanded its portfolio of automotive-grade multi-layer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs) with new mid-voltage types featuring C0G temperature characteristics and rated voltages from 100 V to 630 V. The new components in the CGA series offer capacitance values that are very high for C0G components. In particular, the new 100 nF / 630 V device with dimensions of 5.7 mm x 5.0 mm (package size conform to IEC 5750 or...

CMOS-Based Isolated Gate Drivers Provide Drop-in Replacements for Opto-Drivers 

Failure-prone opto-drivers are a weak link in motor controls and other industrial power systems that require long-term reliability, extended warranties and fail-safe operation for up to 20 years. Opto-drivers are inherently limited by their inferior LED-based technology, which is subject to large output variations over input current, temperature and age. These variations are eliminated when using the new digital CMOS-based  Si826x isolated gate drivers from Silicon Labs that support up...

OpenCL on FPGAs 

To make it easier for programmers who work with high-level languages to take advantage of the capabilities of programmable logic devices, Altera has launched a Software Development Kit (SDK) for the Open Computing Language (OpenCL) and supported third-party production boards. This ties in with Altera

Low-cost Development Kit Marries ARM and FPGA 

Altera has launched its Cyclone V System-on-Chip (SoC) development kit. Developed in collaboration with ARM, the kit features the recently announced ARM Development Studio 5 (DS-5) Altera Edition Toolkit software, which boasts FPGA-adaptive debugging software that enables designers to view the processor and FPGA portions of the device simultaneously.   The Cyclone V SoC Development Kit is built around the Cyclone V SX SoC with an 800 MHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9...

8-bit PIC Integrates Analog Circuitry 

Microchip announces two new 8-bit PIC microcontrollers (MCUs), the PIC16F527 and PIC16F570, which combine a PIC MCU with a dual Op Amp module, an 8-bit ADC and two comparators. The new MCUs add several features to support ease of use and system robustness. The all-new hardware interrupt capability gives designers the freedom to implement more complex functions without adding software overhead, while an integrated Brown-Out Reset (BOR) can detect faults in system power and safely reset the MCU...

Antenna-to-Audio Chips Support HD and DAB Radio 

Silicon Labs has released what it claims to be the first single-die antenna-to-audio digital radio receiver devices for the global portable and consumer electronics markets. Using software-defined radio technology, the new Si468x receiver ICs bring FM, HD Radio and DAB/DAB+ broadcast capabilities to a wide range of audio applications. The new receivers support auto-calibrated digital tuning and FM seek functions based on a combination of signal quality and band parameters, and they provide...

Free ARM SDE Supports Linux and Android 

Linux use is growing rapidly in the embedded domain, fueled by the availability of low-cost, low-power, high-performance ARM-based MPUs with working Linux ports and communication stacks. Unfortunately, getting started with Embedded Linux can be a daunting experience due to fragmented open-source development tools with command line interfaces and a lack of interoperability. Just getting a Linux cross-development environment up and running may take hours for a Linux expert or days for an...

Free Elektor Academy/element14 Webinar: RFID Trickery 

Elektor Academy and Element14 are excited to bring you the sixteenth installment of our free webinars based around another hugely popular project from Elektor Magazine! In this webinar, long-time Elektor Magazine reader and contributor Martin Ossmann will be outlining some of the basics surrounding Radio Frequency Identification Devices (RFID), before moving on to a 125 kHz RFID reader which requires no special modules and can be made from home!   Ossmann will also be displaying...

Cable Drop Compensation without Sense Wires 

Linear Technology announces the LT6110 cable drop compensator, a new device that improves voltage regulation at remote loads without the need for Kelvin sense wires. The new device has been architected for use with most types of voltage regulators and can provide several volts of load regulation compensation. It will compensate for the voltage drop due to resistance in a wire, circuit board trace or cable and can improve regulation at the load by a factor of 10. It operates with supply...

Control 1024 RGB LEDs With Only 3 Wires 

The Chinese semi-conductor manufacturer Worldsemi has developed an RGB-LED that includes a driver chip with a serial interface that allows controlling strings of 1024 of these LEDs using only three wires. The color of each LED can be adjusted individually with a resolution of 24 bits.   The new LED WS2812 includes a WS2811 driver chip in a six-pin SMD5050 package. Three of the pins allow for the connection of the 5 V power supply for the LED and its driver, two other pins are...

Tiny Injectable LEDs Help Neuroscientists Study the Brain 

Optogenetics is the process by which genetically-programmed neurons or other cells can be activated by subjecting them to light. Among other things, the technology helps scientists understand how the brain works, which could in turn lead to new treatments for brain disorders. Presently, fiber optic cables must be wired into the brains of test animals in order to deliver light to the desired regions. That may be about to change, however, as scientists have created tiny LEDs that can be...

Turn Your Oscilloscope into a Configurable Manchester and NRZ Decoder 

Teledyne LeCroy has released what the company says is the industry's first configurable decoders for Manchester and non-return-to-zero (NRZ) bitstreams for a wide range of oscilloscope platforms. The decoders enable users to specify a broad range of physical layer characteristics for Manchester or NRZ signals. The decoders define the grouping of bits into words and words into frames, which reduces analysis effort for custom and/or proprietary protocols based on those generic encoding...

Redesigned Germanium Better Than Silicon 

The same material that formed the first primitive transistors more than 60 years ago can be modified in a new way to advance future electronics, according to a new study. Chemists at The Ohio State University have developed the technology for making a one-atom-thick sheet of germanium, and found that it conducts electrons more than ten times faster than silicon and five times faster than conventional germanium.   The material

Direct Current Resonance Allows Wireless Power Transmission 

Direct current resonance is a new technology that converts direct current electric energy into electromagnetic field energy and uses a newly discovered physical phenomenon called an electromagnetic resonance field to transmit power. The technology can enhance energy conversion efficiency because a resonance field is formed directly from the direct current power source. It can also reduce the number of times power is converted in the power transmission system and achieve greater simplicity and...

Receive Chinese TV With Just One Chip 

Silicon Labs has introduced a new generation of their analog-tuned, analog/digital-display (ATxD) multiband radio IC family. The new Si4825/27/36 AM/FM/SW receivers provide an "all-in-one" single-chip receiver solution for consumer products containing wheel-tuned radios. The new receivers use a single band to cover a wider frequency range for FM and SW bands, and they also support TV audio carrier reception for China. Additionally, the devices provide advanced audio conditioning for...

Analog Devices & Mathworks Team up to Educate Engineering Students 

Analog Devices has introduced a low-cost hardware/software product for the engineering education market, with the focus on analog circuit testing. It integrates MatLab software and Analog Discovery Design kits, enabling students to experiment with advanced technologies and build, test, analyze and document real-world, functional analog circuits anytime and anywhere for the price of a textbook.   MatLab and the Data Acquisition Toolbox Support Package for the Analog Discovery...

Li-S Batteries Progress Well 

Due to its high theoretical power density, lithium-sulfur technology is regarded as a promising candidate for electric vehicle batteries. As an active cathode material, sulfur has a theoretical specific capacity of 1,672 mAh/g and an average discharge potential of 2.2 V. The energy density of Li-S batteries could be as high as 600 Wh/kg, compared to a maximum of 200 Wh/kg for lithium-ion batteries with intercalation cathodes. Additional benefits of sulfur include higher safety and lower cost...

NFC Tags Are Ambidextrous 

Inside Secure has released dual-interface near field communication (NFC) tags designed to enhance interactions between NFC capable devices. In addition to a conventional NFC contactless interface, the dual-interface NFC Forum Type 4 tags provide a unique one-wire interface that allows them to act as a low-cost wireless communication bridge between two devices.   For example, a single tap of an NFC phone on a Bluetooth wireless headset containing one of these tags can initiate pairing....

Free Webinar: Getting Started With the LPC800 ARM Cortex-M0 

For years and years most microcontrollers (MCUs) have been designed around an 8-bit core. They have become so widespread that many MCU system designers have become trapped in a kind of 8-bit syndrome with all their tools and knowledge based on 8-bit systems. Have a problem? Grab an 8-bit MCU. This paradigm may soon be obsolete if we can believe the 32-bit MCU manufacturers. They do have a case as some of their products are extremely low-cost and can probably outperform any 8-bit MCU in any...

Novel LEDs Boast High Brightness and Efficiency 

Verbatim is showing a broad spectrum of OLED and LED innovations at the Euroluce trade fair in April, including their latest OLED modules and new GaN-based LEDs featuring very high energy efficiency and brightness. This is the first public exhibition of the GaN-based LEDs, which are based on materials developed by Verbatim

U.S. Navy Recrutes Robotic Jellyfish 

Virginia Tech College of Engineering researchers have unveiled a life-like, autonomous robotic jellyfish the size and weight of a grown man, 5 foot 7 inches in length and weighing 170 pounds. The prototype robot, nicknamed Cyro, is a larger model of a robotic jellyfish the same team unveiled in 2012. The earlier robot, dubbed RoboJelly, is roughly the size of a man's hand, and typical of jellyfish found along beaches.   Both robots are part of a multi-university project funded by...

Amplifier Has Noise Figure of 0.045 dB 

A fundamental property for the first microwave amplifier in a radio receiver is its noise figure. This is normally given in decibel (dB). A typical noise figure for low-noise amplifiers in mobile communication systems is tenths of a decibel. Last year, Chalmers reported a world record for a low-noise amplifier that exhibited a minimum noise figure of 0.018 dB across a bandwidth of 4-8 GHz. However, since the low-noise amplifier was designed in a hybrid solution, scaling up to larger...

Elektor April 2013 Edition Published 

Hot of the press and now on publication worldwide, the April 2013 edition of Elektor magazine contains an interesting project inspired by the smartphone: the pattern lock. This is a lock where you slide your finger over the screen following a specific pattern to unlock the phone. Our pattern lock is implemented without a touch screen and without fancy graphics programming. We build one from blue LEDs, a tiny microcontroller and the odd bit of capacitive touch technology. Check it...

Ultra-Compact Spectrometer Sensor Targets Visible Light 

The C10988MA-01 sensor from Hamamatsu Photonics is an ultra-compact spectrometer built with Micro-Opto-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MOEMS) technology. Measuring only 27.6 x 13 x 16.8 mm and weighing just 9 grams, the device is intended to be used in portable and hand-held devices where a standard mini-spectrometer would be too large and consume too much power.   The new device features an aberration-corrected concave grating with a very short focal length and...

Redox Flow Battery Delivers 25 kW 

When electricity is generated from intermittent sources of energy, energy storage devices are necessary to buffer electrical power fluctuations. One option is redox flow batteries, which store electrical energy in liquid electrolytes that flow through the battery into holding tanks. These electrolytes can later be circulated back through the battery to generate electricity.   Redox flow batteries offer several advantages: they are cost-effective, robust, durable, and can be customized....

USB 3.0 SDR Platform 

The Nuand bladeRF is a software defined radio (SDR) platform designed to enable a community of hobbyists and professionals to explore and experiment with all facets of RF communication. By providing source code, thorough documentation, easy to grasp tutorials and an open forum for discussions, it aims to demystify modern radio systems.   The technical specifications include a frequency range of 300 MHz to 3.8 GHz, independent Rx/Tx 12-bit 40 MSPS quadrature sampling, capability for...

Nano Rectannas Grab More Energy From Sunlight 

Even the best silicon panels collect only about 20% of available solar radiation and they require additional devices to convert the energy to usable electricity. A new technique using nano-sized antenna arrays could theoretically harvest more than 70% of the energy in sunlight, but the technology required to build and test them has been lacking. These nano-antennas, called "rectennas" because they can both absorb solar radiation and rectify the radiation waveform to generate direct...

Fun With LEDs Can Save You Money 

LEDs can have a place in so many different applications that you may wonder where to begin using them.The Elektor book  Fun with LEDs presents more than twenty exciting LED projects aimed at young & old. From an Air Writer, a Party Light, Running Lights, a LED Fader right up to a Christmas Tree. Each project consists of an explanation with a detailed circuit diagram and is illustrated with photographs. In addition, the free support page on the Elektor website offers inspiring videos...

Spin Motors in Minutes Without Using Sensors 

Texas Instruments has introduced two 3-phase, brushless DC (BLDC) motor drivers that allow designers to spin motors in minutes rather than months. Traditional BLDC motor designs require five to ten components, along with firmware. The sensorless 5-V, 680-mA DRV10866 and the 12-V, 1.5-A DRV11873 cut this component count to one with no firmware required, significantly reducing board space and system costs. The devices also provide the lowest operating voltage and standby current to reduce power...

Audio Devices Feature On-Chip Active Noise Cancellation 

STMicroelectronics and Soundchip have jointly launched two high definition personal audio (HD-PA) engines dubbed STANC0 and STANC1, along with an HD-PA microphone, the MP34AB01H. The devices, targeted at software-controlled smart audio accessories, are designed to regulate the sound performance of over-ear, on-ear and in-ear headsets. They incorporate Soundchip's Soundcore R3 technology, which implement a hybrid analog/digital architecture that can process audio signals with zero latency...

Radio-based Distance Measurement in Wireless Sensor Network 

Atmel has introduced the new AT86RF233 2.4GHz IEEE 802.15.4 radio transceiver that supports distance measurement between two radios, also known as ranging. This technology uses the measurement of phase differences between radio signals and enables items to be tracked within a wireless network for industrial and consumer applications. Phase measurement is a less complex technology than current distance measurement technologies available on the market today, with similar measurement accuracy...

All About EVE 

FTDI Chip, as part of its effort to help engineers create economical graphical user interfaces (GUIs), offers advanced software support for its new Embedded Video Engine (EVE) family through third party partnership. It has collaborated with tool chain vendor MikroElektronika, providing it with detailed libraries for accessing the Visual TFT graphic development solution.   The EVE family has an object based structure (where objects can be images, fonts, etc.) that presents engineers with...

1000 Raspberry Pi Boards For Free 

RS Components (RS) is celebrating the first anniversary of the launch of Raspberry Pi with the unveiling of a special limited edition of the low-cost, credit-card-sized computer board. Just 1,000 Raspberry Pi Model B, Revision 2 boards have been produced by RS in an exclusive blue color. Each limited edition board is stamped with a serial number and is supplied in a special presentation box together with a crystal blue user case and a certificate of authenticity signed by Eben Upton,...

Carry a Chip in your Heart 

Imec recently demonstrated a low-power intracardiac chip designed to detect ventricular fibrillation. Billed as a major step toward next-generation cardiac resynchronization therapy solutions, the new chip features innovative signal processing functions and consumes only 20 µW with all channels active.   Robust and accurate heart rate monitoring of the right and left ventricles and the right atrium is essential for implantable devices used in cardiac resynchronization therapy, and...

Dedicated DSP Device Digitizes Analog Position Sensors 

The iC-TW8 signal processor from iC-Haus converts signals from sine/cosine position sensors to incremental digital signals, using automatic functions to minimize angular errors and jitter. It supports push-button sensor calibration and continuous adaptation of sensor parameters during operation. Angular position is calculated with a programmable resolution of up to 65,536 increments per input cycle and output as indexed incremental signals from an SPI port.   The iC-TW8 integrates two...

Silicium LEDs Are No Longer Red 

A joint research team at the University of Toronto and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) has produced nanoscale silicon-based LEDs (SiLEDs). According to the researchers, these nanocrystals, consisting of only a few hundred to several thousand atoms, offer significant potential as highly efficient light emitters.   Standard LEDs are made from direct band gap materials, mainly gallium compounds. Up to now silicon has been regarded as unsuitable for use in LEDs because it can...

Elektor March 2013 Edition On Sale Now 

Compared to the double January & February 2013 magazine, the March 2013 edition of Elektor is back to normal size at 84 pages. None the less the latest edition packs a wonderful  array of subjects from the realms of electronics.   The blockbuster project this month is no doubt our 500 ppm LCR Meter (yes that

World 

The PicoScope 3207A is a 2 channel USB oscilloscope with 250 MHz bandwidth, 1 GS/s sampling rate, 256 MS buffer memory and a built-in function generator. Basic timebase accuracy is ±2 ppm. Other features include digital triggering for accurate, stable waveform display, and equivalent-time sampling, which boosts the effective sampling rate to 10 GS/s for repetitive signals. The instrument has 512 MS buffer memory and an additional 32k-sample arbitrary waveform generator with 100 MS/s update...