15W Quasi-Resonant Flyback AC-DC Power Supply – Reference Design

The STEVAl-ISA171V1 reference design from STMicroelectronics implements a 15 W ac-dc power supply designed in quasi-resonant flyback topology for a wide-range input voltage. Its key features are its small size and minimal bill of material, high efficiency and low standby consumption.

The core of the application is the VIPER35, the quasi-resonant offline high voltage converter from the VIPerPLUS product family.

The VIPER35 integrates an 800 V rugged power MOSFET with pwm current-mode control.

Extremely low consumption under no-load conditions is ensured thanks to burst mode operation that reduces the average switching frequency and minimizes all frequency-related losses.

The VIPER35 operates in quasi resonant mode, a feature that helps to meet the EMI standards.

Key Features:

  • Wide input voltage range: 90- to 264-Vac
  • Output voltage: 12V
  • Output current: 1.25A
  • Rated output power: 15W
  • Quasi resonant operation
  • Input power standby at 230Vac: < 30mW
  • Active mode efficiency: >82%
  • EMI: pre-compliance with EN55022-Class-B
  • RoHS compliant
STMicroelectronics NV

Advantech Launches Medical-Grade AVAS-400 Series 4K UHD Video Recorder

Advantech, a leading provider of medical computing platforms and solutions, is pleased to announce its AVAS-400 Series medical-grade 4K ultra high-definition (UHD) video recorder aimed at ensuring operating precision.

Advantech’s AVAS-400 Series, including the model AVAS-401 and the model AVAS-402, is ideal for surgery centers, operating rooms, and training facilities that use 4K UHD cameras and display monitors for surgical operations and post-surgery reviews and research. To achieve the visual accuracy and precision required for medical applications, the AVAS-400 Series can be used to capture video at 4K UHD resolution. This video can then be streamed to connected displays for monitoring and reviewing surgical procedures.

4K UHD True-to-Life Surgical Video Recorder for Enhanced Imaging

For surgical procedures, the ability to support 4K UHD video streaming is extremely important. This is because 4K UHD video streaming provides surgeons with an unprecedented level of detail that allows them to distinguish between tissue, blood vessels, and other anatomy. Thus, the use of AVAS-400 Series can give surgeons an extra level of confidence. Moreover, the enhanced visual information and clarity provided by 4K UHD technology can also assist post-surgery evaluations and lead to improvements in patient care.

Furthermore, the provision of open APIs and SDKs ensures easy integration with existing infrastructure and management systems to enable intelligent operating rooms and achieve intelligent healthcare. Finally, compared to other recorders available on the market, the AVAS-400 Series offers an economical imaging solution that is easy to deploy and operate via the intuitive controls.

Key Features

  • Supports 4K resolution and simultaneous recording of two video channels
  • Video signals can be recorded to the internal hard disk drive
  • Integrated USB drive and network server
  • Programmable hotkeys offer more efficient control
  • Supports Windows and Linux operating systems
  • CE, FCC, EN60601-1, UL-60601-1, and CCC Certification

Advantech’s AVAS-400 Series 4K UHD video recorder is available for order now. For more information regarding the AVAS-400 Series video recorder or other Advantech Digital Healthcare products and solutions, contact your local sales representative or visit the Advantech website.

An affordable edge-computing device for high-performance and power-efficient robotics automation

Industrial automation offers greater quality control, flexibility and safety for manufacturing. snickerdoodle is a customisable, affordable, palm-sized device that minimises the time, effort and cost of setting up industrial robotics.

Older manufacturing systems lack the benefits of new digital sensing and connectivity technologies (robotics and Internet of Things). But upgrading infrastructure necessitates building hardware-software platforms and customising for performance, power and component integration requirements. This involves significant capital and personnel investments, planned well in advance. These investments need to be weighed against the risks of manufacturing downtime, avoidable equipment damage and process inefficiencies. Under the snickerdoodle project, krtkl (pronounced ‘critical’) created the first, full-stack development board for robotic systems. This houses a central ‘brain’ for various manufacturing component and subsystem connectivity, integration, control and monitoring operations. As the underlying hardware is software reconfigurable, snickerdoodle simplifies the challenge of enabling interfaces for a wide array of sensors, actuators and communication protocols. This offers operators easy-to-understand information and control options. EU SME Instrument funding enabled the project to complete a feasibility assessment and a go-to-market strategy and establish a manufacturing supply chain.

Simplified implementation and development time

snickerdoodle is comprised of multiple processors, software which can be customised by end users who can program the built-in FPGA and wireless connectivity. All this is contained in a device the size of a business card. The main processor runs general purpose and/or real-time operating systems to take care of higher-level tasks, such as machine-to-machine networking or motor control loops. The programmable logic, or FPGA (the ‘brain’), allows both customisation of a system’s inputs and outputs, ranging from interfacing with motors and sensors to becoming a pure video-processing machine. This can be useful in production line monitoring, or computer vision, for example. The FPGA also runs complex control and data-processing algorithms. The system has built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to make integration with modern networks more straightforward. “After years of working in mechatronics and embedded systems, developing one-off solutions for companies to bring new automation products to market, it became obvious that what was needed was a central ‘brain’. This needed to be quickly and easily adaptable to meet the requirements of each specific application,” explains project coordinator Ryan Cousins.

From factories to footwear

After extensive thermal, environmental and endurance testing (on site and in emissions labs), and design simulations (using engineering software), krtkl has developed industrial-grade versions of the technology, available on demand. The commercial version of snickerdoodle and other parts of the development platform (piSmasher and breakyBreaky) are currently available on Mouser for worldwide, same-day shipment. The hardware will also be made available on Amazon later this year. Current commercial uses include real-time motor control and path planning for industrial robotics (six-axis robotic arm for furniture assembly, painting and inspection); low-power/high-endurance remote sensing (oil/gas/utilities), and data collection and processing for preventative maintenance (factory automation). Additionally, the whole snickerdoodle system (including breakyBreaky, piSmasher, enclosures, accessories, etc.) has been used in commercial- and consumer-grade products that have obtained formal FCC certification.

“We’ve seen snickerdoodle used in everything from industrial automation to smart retail and e-sports accessories. We launched with almost no outside capital – something very few people believed was possible. We foresee it touching the lives of many people – even if they never know it exists,” says Cousins.

The team is working on upgrading the device to make it compatible with the latest silicon technologies. This will accommodate cutting-edge applications, such as higher-resolution video processing, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and other computationally intensive uses.

source: cordis.europa.eu

Interfacing BMP280 Pressure Sensor Module with Arduino

Project Goal: To measure the atmospheric pressure using one of the best modules i,e BMP280 Pressure sensor module.

Components Used in the Project:

  • Arduino Uno
  • BMP280
  • Connecting Wires
  • LCD 16 X2

BMP280 Pressure Sensor Module

The BMP280 sensor module operates with the minimum voltage (VDD) of 1.71V, However, the previous version of this sensor modules operate on 1.8V (VDD). The BMP sensor includes a Pressure sensing element, Humidity sensing element as well as Temperature sensing element which is then attached to Pressure front-end, Humidity front-end and temperature front-end.

These front end IC’s are sensitive analog amplifiers that are utilized in the process of the amplifying of small signals. In this integration, the analog values are turned to digital signal and this voltage is supplied to the logic circuits for further interface.

The BMP280 can be also utilized in mobile phones, tablets, PCs, Portable health care devices, GPS devices, home weather stations, etc. By using this procedure we can simply interface BMP280 with the Arduino.

Schematic

Code

#include <Wire.h>
#include <SPI.h>
#include <Adafruit_BMP280.h>
#include <LiquidCrystal.h>
Adafruit_BMP280 bmp; // I2C
//Adafruit_BMP280 bmp(BMP_CS); // hardware SPI
//Adafruit_BMP280 bmp(BMP_CS, BMP_MOSI, BMP_MISO,  BMP_SCK);
LiquidCrystal lcd(9, 8, 5, 4, 3, 2);
void setup() {
  lcd.begin(16,2);
  Serial.begin(9600);
  Serial.println(F("BMP280 test"));
  lcd.print("Welcome to ");
  lcd.setCursor(0,1);
  lcd.print("CIRCUIT DIGEST");
  delay(1000);
  lcd.clear();
  if (!bmp.begin()) {
    Serial.println(F("Could not find a valid BMP280 sensor, check wiring!"));
    while (1);
  }
  /* Default settings from datasheet. */
  bmp.setSampling(Adafruit_BMP280::MODE_NORMAL,     /* Operating Mode. */
                  Adafruit_BMP280::SAMPLING_X2,     /* Temp. oversampling */
                  Adafruit_BMP280::SAMPLING_X16,    /* Pressure oversampling */
                  Adafruit_BMP280::FILTER_X16,      /* Filtering. */
                  Adafruit_BMP280::STANDBY_MS_500); /* Standby time. */
}
void loop() {
    Serial.print(F("Temperature = "));
    Serial.print(bmp.readTemperature());
    Serial.println(" *C");
    lcd.setCursor(0,0);
    lcd.print("Temp= ");
    lcd.print(bmp.readTemperature());

    Serial.print(F("Pressure = "));
    Serial.print(bmp.readPressure());
    Serial.println(" Pa");
    lcd.setCursor(0,1);
    lcd.print("Press= ");
    lcd.print(bmp.readPressure());
    Serial.print(F("Approx altitude = "));
    Serial.print(bmp.readAltitude(1018)); /* Adjusted to local forecast! */
    Serial.println(" m");
    Serial.println();
    delay(2000);
}

Demo

Avalue introduces EMX-WHLGP, a 8th Gen Intel® Whiskey Lake U Core™ SoC i7/i5/i3 Thin MINI ITX motherboard

Avalue Technology Inc., a global industrial PC solution provider and an associate member of the Intel® Internet of Things Solutions Alliance, is unveiling EMX-WHLGP, based on Whiskey Lake U Intel® Core™ and Celeron® Processors.

The 8th Gen Intel® Whiskey Lake U Core™ SoC i7/i5/i3 & Celeron® BGA onboard processor, leverage the power efficiency of 14nm microarchitecture to deliver double-digit performance compare to the KabyLake Refresh, offers a future-proof platform for intelligent solution development and higher turbo clocks.

EMX-WHLGP, the Thin Mini ITX Motherboard, offering Triple display: two HDMI plus one HDMI switch with one dual-channel LVDS (default LVDS) by Chrontel CH7511 in the resolution of 1920*1080, ideal for all-in-one PC, POS, Digital Signage, and kiosk markets.

Meanwhile, EMX-WHLGP features extended temperature tolerance -20°C~+60°C (with heatsink and heater attached, 0.5 m/s air flow speed testing) and fanless design, which is suitable for industrial and outdoor application under harsh operating conditions. It is designed with high temperature resistant components and automatically heating by EC and heater when operating temperature is below 0°C, which takes around 8 to 10 minutes for EMX-WHLGP to boot up from -20°C. Heatsink with heater for extended temperature is optional for ordering. For customer who does not require extended temperature support, Avalue also offer finished product which support 0°C~+60°C.

EMX-WHLGP main features:

  • Onboard 8th Gen Intel® Whiskey Lake U Core™ SoC i7/i5/i3 & Celeron®BGA Processor
  • Two 260-pin DDR4 2400 MHz SO-DIMM socket, supports up to 32GB Max (non ECC only)
  • 2 x HDMI + 1 x HDMI/Dual-channel LVDS (default LVDS); Triple display (HDMI+HDMI+LVDS)
  • 1 x Intel® I219LM Gigabit Ethernet PHY, 2 x Intel® I210IT PCI-e Gigabit Ethernet (Co-lay Intel® I211AT/I210AT)
  • Realtek ALC892 Audio Codec & TI TPA3113D2PWP Stereo Class-D 6W x 2 Audio Amplifier
  • 1 x SATA III, 1 x SATA Power, 4 x USB 2.0, 3 x USB 3.1 Gen1, 1 x USB Type C without DP Signal
  • 4 x RS232, 2 x RS232/422/485, 16-bit GPIO
  • 1 x M.2 Key A 2230 support WiFi module ( 1 x PCI-e x 1 & USB 2.0 Signal), 1 x M.2 Type B 3042/2242/2260/2280 support WWAN+GNSS or SSD with 1 x SIM                       card slot
  • Support Line-out & Mic-in & Front audio pin-header, Onboard TPM 2.0
  • DC in +12~24V
  • Operating Temp -20°C~+60°C (with heatsink and heater attached, 0.5 m/s air flow speed testing)

Additionally, EMX-WHLGP provides more flexibilities and expansions as below, making it an ideal solution for versatile industrial applications. Such as, PCI-e x 8 Golden Finger offers 1 x PCI-e x 1, 1 x PCI-e x 4, 1 x SATA III, and 1 x USB 2.0. The customers can either design their own daughter board easily, or transform the form factor into uATX by connecting with a Riser card.

Visit www.avalue.com.tw for more information on Avalue products, or contact sales@avalue.com.tw to talk to our sales team.

PD Micro – A Pro Micro with USB-C Power Delivery

PD Micro is the first Arduino-compatible board with USB-C power delivery. The pins are compatible with Pro micro. PD Micro allows you to control high voltage easily from USB-C Power delivery. It’s useful for applications that require voltage higher than 5V – like motor control or a high-power LED.

New USB-C Power Delivery Library

PD Micro is accompanied by our newly-implemented, simple, compact, USB-C power delivery library. This was written over the course of porting the code for PD Micro. We ended up writing a library completely from scratch. The result is a simple, compact, portable source code for USB-C device only application, which can be put inside ATmega328/ATmega32U4.

Specifications:

  • Microcontroller: ATmega32U4 running at 5V/16MHz
  • Voltage Regulator: TPS62175 DC-DC for efficient 5-20V to 5V
  • USB-C PHY: FUSB302 (USB PD communication on CC pins)
  • ESD protection on D+/D-/CC1/CC2 pins
  • Pinout: (pin compatible to Pro Micro)
    • 9x 10-bit ADC pins
    • 12x Digital I/Os (INT and I2C bus are shared with FUSB302)
    • 5x GND pins
    • 3x VBUS pins (USB-C power)
    • 1x 5V pin (DC-DC output)
  • Status LEDs:
    • TX / RX
    • 5 LED for Power Delivery voltage level
    • 3 LED for Power Delivery current level
  • Reset button
  • USB-C port for programming and power delivery
  • 3.5 mm 2 pos Terminal Jack for power output
  • Four layer PCB with ground plane and 3 mm wide VBUS trace
  • Size: 1.6 x 0.7 inches (extra 0.3 inches for power connector pins)

Features:

  • Set power delivery voltage output level by updating code through Arduino IDE
  • New USB Power delivery protocol library for UFP(device):
    • Written from draft, not base on any existing library
    • Simple, size optimized, more than half of RAM and Code space in ATmega32 are available to user
    • Highly portable code
    • Fully open source

The project will soon launch on www.crowdsupply.com, stay tuned.

Fundamentals of MOSFET and IGBT Gate Driver Circuits

The main purpose of this application report is to demonstrate a systematic approach to design high-performance gate drive circuits for high-speed switching applications. It is an informative collection of topics offering a “one-stop-shopping” to solve the most common design challenges. Therefore, it should be of interest to power electronics engineers at all levels of experience. The most popular circuit solutions and their performance are analyzed, including the effect of parasitic components, transient and extreme operating conditions. The discussion builds from simple to more complex problems starting with an overview of MOSFET technology and switching operation. Design procedure for ground referenced and high side gate drive circuits, AC coupled and transformer isolated solutions are described in great details. A special section deals with the gate drive requirements of the MOSFETs in synchronous rectifier applications. For more information, see the Overview for MOSFET and IGBT Gate Drivers product page.

Several, step-by-step numerical design examples complement the application report.

Fundamentals of MOSFET and IGBT Gate Driver Circuits – [PDF]

Winmate IP70 is a Mini-ITX board equipped with Apollo Lake Pentium

Taiwan based company called Winmate recently released a new board. The new board is equipped with a quad0core 1.1GHz/2.5GHz Apollo Lake Pentium N420 processor. It is rated an industrial thin Mini ITX board with operating temperature support from -20 to 60°C and the storage temperature is -40 to 70⁰ C.

The Winmate board is equipped with up to 8GB dual-socket, 1866MHz DDR3L and comes with 4 USB 3.0 ports, 2 GbE ports, and 2 SATA interfaces. The board is currently called the Winmate IP70 and it currently has no operating system information however, a similar board released by the company runs on Linux and Windows. So there is a high probability that this board will also support Linux and Windows.

Mini-ITX Motherboard with Intel® Pentium® N4200 Processor

Winmate IP70 comes with different peripherals, some of which are: an audio jack,  a single DP 1.2 (4096 x 2160 @60Hz), 1x HDMI 1.4b (3840 x 2160 @ 30Hz), 1 Power jack, a 1 x 3-pin digital panel for controlling brightness and even a 1 x 7-pin inverter. Dimensions of the board are 170 mm by 170 mm are also available along with an On-Screen-Display (OSD) membrane control.

Also, there is an M.2 slot for Wi-Fi and an optional PCIe 2.0 expansion slot on the Winmate IP70 board. One of the two SATA presents will not be available when the M.2 SATA is being used. This is because SATA 2 and M.2 SATA cannot be used concurrently.

For graphics, there is an Intel HD Graphics 505 which supports DirectX 12 and OpenGL4.3. The audio controller is a Realtek HD codec and it accepts 12V Single Voltage Power input.

Technical Specifications

  • Processor: Intel Pentium N4200 Apollo Lake Processor 1.10 GHz, up to 2.50 GHz with turbo boost technology
  • Memory: 2 × DDR3L 1866 MHz SO-DIMM (max. 8GB)
  • Ethernet Controller: Intel I210AT Gigabit-LAN Controller + I219LM Gigabit-LAN PHY
  • Expansion Slot: 1 x M.2 slot (for SSD)
  • Back Side I/O: 2 x RJ-45 for Giga LAN
    • 1 x DP 1.2
    • 1 x HDMI 1.4b
    • 1 x Audio Jack (Mic-in, Line-out)
    • 1 x (+12V) DC-in Power Jack
    • 1 x Clear CMOS Button
    • 1 x Reset Button
  • Others:
    • 3 x RS-232 2×5 pin-header
    • 1 x RS-232/422/485 2×5 pin-header
    • 4 x USB 2.0
    • 1 x LVDS by DF-13 40 pin connector
    • 1 x SATA power by 2×4 pin wafer
    • 2 x -pin-header for a speaker (with Amplifier): Left, Right
    • 1 x 14-pin pin-header for DIO
    • 1 x 3-pin digital panel backlight brightness controller
    • 1 x 2×2-pin DC-in 12V connector
    • 2 x 2-pin wafer for +5V external power (Red)
    • 1 x 2-pin wafer for 12V external power (Yellow)
    • 1 x OSD membrane control
    • 1 x eDP panel by JAE-FI-X30S-HF 30p connector (Optional)
    • 1 x 10-pin wafer for VGA output(Optional)
  • Audio Controller: Realtek HD codec

The Winmate board currently has no pricing or availability information and it can be seen on the product page that some specifications might be changed without prior notice

OptiMOS™ IPOL voltage regulators with COT engine for enhanced transients and easy design

Infineon Technologies AG introduces the IR3887M, IR3888M and IR3889M devices in its new family of integrated-point-of-load voltage regulators featuring a fast constant-on-time (COT) engine. This product family is designed for today’s server, base station and telecom (operating at 85˚C ambient temperature) and storage applications requiring both high efficiency and high density. The IR3887M is the smallest 30 A device on the market. Fusing Infineon’s latest FET generation and enhanced package technology allows for thermal support for 30 A in a small 4 mm x 5 mm footprint.

The OptiMOS™ IPOL product family comes with an enhanced-stability COT engine with ceramic capacitors without the need for external compensation. Wide input voltage range of 4.3 V – 17 V, 2 V min with 5 V external bias, and precise output voltage (0.5 % accurate reference voltage) are supported. The voltage regulators offer high efficiency at light-load and thermally-compensated internal overcurrent protection with four selectable limits for a less expensive and smaller inductor.

High switching frequency (up to 2 MHz) for small PCB size and fewer bill-of-materials (BOM) is guaranteed with easy design and layout. These products provide benchmark efficiency, low power losses and the ability to thermally handle up to 30 A of continuous current. Customers can also benefit from the benchmark output voltage regulation and enhanced load transients response.

The IR3888M and IR3889M come in a small, 5 mm x 6 mm footprint in a PQFN package. The IR3888M handles continuous current up to 25 A and is RoHS2 compliant.

Availability

The IR388M and IR3889M are in stock now. The IR3887M device is also planned for release in 2020. More information will be available at www.infineon.com/integrated-pol-voltage-regulators.

Toradex Launches New SoM Family, Verdin

Toradex announced the launch of its newest family of System on Modules (SoM), Verdin. The first modules of the line feature the NXP i.MX 8M Mini and Nano applications processors.

Features of the new Verdin line include a battery-ready design with an input voltage range of 3.3-5V; low power 1.8V IOs; the ability to easily extend power management to carrier board peripherals; off-the-shelf thermal solutions; and a range of test reports including data on EMC, shock, and vibration tolerance. It utilizes 260pin SODIMM DDR4 edge-connector. Additionally, it features up to 4x Cortex-A53, up to 2GB of RAM and 16GB of eMMC Flash Memory.

I/Os on the SoMs include USB, gigabit ethernet, PCle, CAN-FD, and more.

Toradex will be offering two off-the-shelf carrier boards. The first being the Verdin Development Board, a larger board that exposes all the features available on Verdin. As such, the Verdin Development Board allows users to build up even complex systems in no time.

Highlights

  • Latest System on Module form factor
  • Up to 4x Cortex-A53, 1x Cortex-M4/M7
  • NXP® i.MX 8M Mini and i.MX 8M Nano applications processor
  • Armv8 64-Bit CPU cores
  • On-board dual-band 802.11ac 2×2 MU-MIMO Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5
  • Supported by open-source Torizon Linux Operating System
  • Power- and cost-optimized

The second board, Dahlia, is a  120mm x 120mm board. Dahlia is designed to provide a simplified development experience with features such as a convenient USB-C power option and full debugging over USB.

For more information, visit https://www.toradex.com/computer-on-modules/verdin-arm-family.

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