Automotive Applications

Product development services for a range of automotive applications, including mobile satellite communications and automotive cruise control radars.

For satellite communications applications, ERA has pioneered the use of unique low cost, very low profile scanning antennas. Designed initially for reception of satellite TV services in Ku-Band, the technology is being used on recreational vehicles, sports utility vehicles, buses, coaches and trains. The technology can readily be extended to higher frequency bands, for example to serve future interactive services in Ka-Band.
Low profile satcom antenna designed by ERA in collaboration with Winegard
ERA has applied its novel twist reflector antenna technology to Automotive Cruise Control Radar systems which operates in the 77GHz band. Using its unique manufacturing processes, ERA has been able to incorporate a total of eight high performance antennas into a single housing.

This housing is also used to accommodate the RF electronics and to provide heat sinking for the high power components. De-icing of the radome is also possible. Production costs are compatible with application of the sensor system across a wide range of automotive platforms.

Source:www.era.co.uk

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Single-chip receiver for mobiles handles TV and radio

Start-up Mirics Semiconductor describes its new MS1001 RF-tuner IC (Picture) as a "polyband" device for mobile digital-broadcast reception. Although several companies have recently made announcements that focus on the mobile-TV sector, Mirics says that its chip has much wider applicability, covering multiple broadcast standards. The chip covers broadcast bands ranging from 100 kHz to 1.9 GHz.

The primary target market is the mobile phone. The company forecasts that, by 2009, some 20% of all phones will have mobile TV, but a much higher proportion will have radio capability, and the fraction that does have TV will encompass numerous standards. Mirics aims to provide the receiver function for TV and radio at the same cost and power level as FM radio alone. All the chip's signal processing is analog, and the chip reconfigures and reconnects its on-chip functional blocks in response to external commands, depending on the band and signal type. This reconfiguration extends to the basic architecture of the receiver function. In some cases, the receiver uses a direct-conversion, zero-IF layout; in others, it uses a conventional heterodyne architecture. The MS1001 has five RF inputs with individual on-chip low-noise amplifiers. It yields quadrature output signals, and you use a three-wire serial digital port to control the device's configuration, which you can change dynamically. As well as providing a single receiver chip for all bands, Mirics asserts that its product is the cheapest and lowest power device available, at $3.50 (10,000). Mirics aims to further reduce the cost to make the device competitive with chips that provide the FM function alone and to exploit mixed-signal capability to add a flexible on-chip digital demodulation capability

Source:www.edn.com

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SOG LCD modules

Targeting high-resolution portable products such as PDAs and GPS units, a family of 2.7- and 3.5-in. system-on-glass (SOG) LTPS LCD modules delivers a resolution of up to 640 x 480 pixels. Available in both transflective and transmissive configurations, the 70%color gamut switching VGA/QVGA devices include a touch panel and can display up to 16.19 million colors using a built-in step interpolation circuit.

The transmissive 3.5-in. 229-ppi LCD has a luminance of 250 nits and a contrast of 400:1, and the 2.7-in. 302-ppi LCD 200 nits at 400:1 contrast. The transflective versions offer a brightness of 200 nits with the 3.5-in. screen, and 180 nits at 2.7 in. (Call for pricing—available Feb. 2007.)

Source:www.electronicproducts.com

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14-Channel Clock ICs Boast Low Phase

The AD9516 series of clock ICs features low-phase-noise clock generation with 14-channel clock distribution at jitter levels below 1 ps. The devices integrate an integer-N synthesizer, two reference inputs, a voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO), programmable dividers, adjustable delay lines, and 14 clock drivers, including LVPECL, LVDS, and CMOS. This high level of integration eliminates several discrete components, reducing board space and costs by more than 50%, according to Analog Devices. Also, integrating the VCO on-chip greatly reduces the risks associated with the failure of discrete oscillators, improving system reliability.

The clock ICs come in five versions, each supporting a specific frequency range. The AD9516-0 includes a VCO that tunes from 2.60 to 2.95 GHz. The other parts cover lower frequencies, down to the AD9516-4's range of 1.50 to 1.90 GHz. The devices can also be used with an external VCO up to 2.4 GHz. Each unit includes six LVPECL outputs that can operate up to the VCO's maximum rate, as well as four/eight outputs that can be programmed to either LVDS (four outputs max) or CMOS (eight outputs max) levels. In LVDS mode, the outputs operate to 1 GHz, and in CMOS mode they operate to 250 MHz. The devices come in 9- by 9-mm, 64-lead lead-frame chip-scale packages.

Source:www.elecdesign.com

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Digital Signal Controllers Expand Options for Power Conversion and Motor Control

Texas Instruments has expanded its TMS320C2000 family of digital signal controllers by adding new options for on-chip memory and more PWM peripherals. The new controllers include the TMS320F2809 and TMS320F2802 flash-based controllers and custom ROM-based TMS320C2801 and TMS320C2802, which are fully hardware- and software- compatible with the three existing TMS320F280x controllers. With the wider mix of memory options, the new controllers make it easier for system designers to tradeoff memory and cost (see the table). That flexibility will aid designers as they apply these ICs in applications such as motor control, digital power conversion, intelligent sensor control and other applications in industrial, appliance, automotive, medical and consumer products.

The TMS320F2809 offers 256 kbytes of on-chip flash, double the size of the previously introduced ‘F2808. It also increases the number of PWM channels with 150-ps resolution from four to six. In addition, this flagship member of the TMS320C2000 family doubles the sampling speed on the 12-bit pipelined A-D converter to 12.5 Msamples/s. In contrast, most embedded A-D converters are typically limited to sampling rates in the single megahertz range. Furthermore, the F2809’s A-D converter boasts an effective number of bits (ENOB) of 10.9 and is valid across the full -40 to +125° C temperature range. As with other members of the TMS320C2000 family, the ‘F2809 features a 100-MIPS CPU.

The controllers’ high resolution PWMs provide 16 bits of accuracy in a 100-kHz control loop and 12 bits at 1.5 MHz. According to Texas Instruments, competing processors limit accuracy to less than 10 bits at 100 kHz and less than 6 bits at 1.5 MHz. In digital power applications, the higher resolution PWM results in a faster transient response with a smaller ripple amplitude. The high resolution PWM also eliminates ‘limit cycle’ issues, which means power supply designers are able to use digital control in high-switching frequency supplies.

Furthermore, the new combinations of performance, memory, and peripherals offered by the C28x and F28x benefit advanced motor control applications. For example, one TI customer—Self-Guided Systems—recently integrated F280x controllers into the brushless dc motors used to guide the company’s Hybrid Z self-stabilizing, autonomous lawnmower. The mower’s cutting blades triangulate their position based upon mower position and reflector location. The Hybrid Z then navigates itself and cuts grass to a pre-set length without any human intervention.

All C280x and F280x devices feature a 32-bit wide data path for superior performance and mixed 16-/32-bit instruction set for improved code density. These chips provide complete control system capabilities from signal input through the on-chip A-D converter, quadrature encoder pulse (QEP), and timer captures and compares through signal output with up to 16 independent PWM channels. Besides the 150-ps PWMs, there are as many as 10 PWM outputs with 10-ns resolution. For communications, the TMS320C2000 family offers a range of interface options including multiple CAN, I2C, UART and SPI ports.

Source:www.powerelectronics.com

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Nanotube Computing Breakthrough

The use of carbon nanotubes in ultrafast computers and other electronic devices has been stymied because batches of the material contain nanotubes with varying electronic properties. One nanotube is semiconducting, while the next is conducting. Now Northwestern University researchers have developed a reliable and potentially practical way to sort through this mess, segregating nanotubes into precisely the types needed for high-performance electronics. The advance could speed progress toward nanotube computers and has many nearer-term applications, including high-definition displays, devices for nanotoxicity testing, and solar cells.


The new process separates metallic and semiconducting nanotubes. It also segregates them by diameter (another important parameter for reliable computer chips) and eliminates contaminants, such as other forms of carbon. While the researchers expected to be able to sort nanotubes by diameter, the sorting by electronic type came as a surprise, says Mark Hersam, materials-science and engineering professor and one of the Northwestern researchers. "We didn't believe it at first," he says.


Carbon nanotubes are appealing candidates for eventually replacing silicon-based computing because of their small size and excellent electronic properties: some are semiconductors--perfect for transistors--and others are metallic conductors and could be useful as wires for connecting transistors. But getting the right electronic type "makes a big, big difference," says Mildred Dresselhaus, professor of physics and electrical engineering at MIT. Placing metallic nanotubes where there should be semiconducting nanotubes would cause the chip to fail.


So although researchers have been able to painstakingly create logic circuits using carbon nanotubes (see "Carbon Nanotube Computers"), the methods employed to sort them are "all pretty tedious," Dresselhaus says, and not something that could be scaled up for manufacturing chips with the millions of transistors needed to compete with today's computers. In addition, past methods have failed to completely separate semiconducting and metallic nanotubes, says Richard Martel, chemistry professor at the University of Montreal. Martel calls the Northwestern researchers' new approach, described this month in the new journal Nature Nanotechnology, "a breakthrough in the field."


The researchers begin by adding surfactants to a batch of nanotubes. The surfactants latch on to the nanotubes, but differences in the nanotubes' size and electronic properties cause the surfactants to assemble in different concentrations and arrangements, which in turn lead to measurable differences in density. These distinct densities can be sorted out using a well-known process called ultra-centrifugation, which involves spinning the materials at ultrafast speeds--up to 64,000 revolutions per minute

Source:www.technologyreview.com

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Wireless GroundLink® System (WGL)

Teledyne Controls’ Wireless GroundLink® System (WGL) enables aircraft operators to fully automate the recording and transmission of their flight data, therefore eliminating all risk of data loss involved with traditional manual procedures. Offering unprecedented reliability, the GroundLink solution is a unique patented system that records and wirelessly transfers flight data from the aircraft to the ground, without any media handling and human intervention.

Using a Teledyne proprietary protocol, the raw data recorded during flight is compressed, encrypted and then transmitted via cellular technology and the Internet to the airline's or Teledyne's ground-based data center for processing and analysis. With the Teledyne Wireless GroundLink solution, airlines can significantly reduce data delivery delays (the data is typically available within 10-15 minutes after an aircraft has landed, versus several days or weeks with manual data retrieval). Additional operational benefits are realized since human resources, equipment costs and data-loss associated with manual retrieval methods are virtually eliminated.

Key Features of Teledyne's Wireless GroundLink® System

A fast, reliable and cost effective solution to move data on and off the aircraft

QAR data retrieval from aircraft without human involvement

Upload software and databases into on-board aircraft systems

Data accumulated during the flight is compressed and encrypted for security

Simultaneous use of up to eight full duplex radios

Multi-band radios for world wide operation

Upgradable to support emerging cellular data standards

Multiple radio transmission reduces data transfer time

Data delivered world wide, over the Internet

No investment in the infrastructure –Uses existing infrastructure maintained by service providers

Operates in controlled frequency spectrum world wide, protected from interference

End-to-end automation on aircraft data retrieval and analysis when used in conjunction with the AirFASE® flight data analysis tool.

Source:www.teledyne-controls.com

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