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Biomedical ‘lab-on-chip’ for wearable health

Posted on by mixos

Wearable biomedical product developer Onera Health has introduced an ultra-low-power biosignal sensor hub for wearable health.

The Onera Biomedical-Lab-on-Chip sensor system-on-chip acquires and processes multiple biosignals and is designed for a broad range of wearable health applications and devices. The devices, says the company, offer many solutions and opportunities for innovation in the medical, wellness and fitness space.

“Our highly integrated and comprehensive biosignal sensor hub is a unique solution that promises to revolutionize this competitive field,” says Ruben de Francisco, Founder and CEO of Onera. “It combines clinical-grade physiological measurements and analysis with ultra-low-power consumption, enabling the development of miniaturized and high-quality wearable devices. Launching this powerful chip as a stand-alone product within our portfolio, not just as part of our innovative Onera diagnostic and monitoring solutions, is yet another exciting step for our company.”

The Onera Biomedical-Lab-on-Chip is a multi-channel sensor readout system with integrated data processing, power management, and interfacing features. It offers a wide range of on-chip biomedical sensor readouts, including 10 readouts for ExG, covering EEG, ECG, EMG, and EOG, two bioimpedance readouts, and two readouts for photoplethysmography.

The data can be processed by on-chip digital filters and accelerators, supported by an ARM Cortex M4F processor. The chip features several standard wired interfaces such as UART, SPI, I2C, and I2S.

The chip fully operates on a single power source which can be anything between 0.8V and 3.6V, since power management is also integrated on-chip. In addition, a large amount of SRAM and embedded FLASH is available, supporting the large number of data streams with accurate data-synchronization as an essential feature.

To support the development and transition to commercialization of its products, the company says it has recently ramped-up hiring, including adding to its leadership team.

more information: Onera Health

BLDC Motor and DC Brushed Motor Driver

Posted on by mixos

This BLDC motor driver board is equipped with a smart IFX007T half-bridge. The BLDC motor control project is capable to drive one BLDC motor. Alternatively, it can be used to drive one or two bi-directional DC motors (H-Bridge configuration, cascaded to support the second motor) or up to three uni-directional DC motors (half-bridge configuration). The implemented integrated IFX007T half-bridges can be controlled by a PWM via the IN Pin. Interfacing to a microcontroller or Arduino is easy by the integrated driver IC which features logic level inputs, diagnosis with current sense, slew rate adjustment, and dead time generation, etc. The three IFX007T half-bridges are also fully protected against over-temperature, under-voltage, overcurrent, and short circuit events. The project is capable of high-frequency PWM e.g., 30Khz. All inputs are logic level, current sense outputs are for diagnosis purposes, and slew rates are adjustable using R7, R8, R9. This is able to be used for fast and inexpensive prototyping of (BL)DC motor control, easy testing of half-and full-bridge motor control Status flag diagnosis with current sense capability, Over-temperature shut down with latch behavior and under-voltage shut down. It is advisable to use forced cool air to control the temperature of the IFX007 chip.

BLDC Motor and DC Brushed Motor Driver – [Link]

Brushed DC Motor Controller Using Rotary Encoder – Arduino Compatible

Posted on by mixos

This DC Motor controller provides direction and speed control of brushed DC Motor using Rotary Encoder. This is Arduino compatible hardware that consists of LMD18201 DC motor driver chip, Atmega328 microcontroller, Rotary Encoder, L317 regulator, and other components.  Hardware offers easy control of brushed DC motor up to 3A with speed, direction, and brake control. The encoder includes a tactile switch, which can be used to control the ON/OFF or Direction of the motor and the encoder helps to set the speed.

Brushed DC Motor Controller Using Rotary Encoder – Arduino Compatible – [Link]

Open Source PDM to USB microphone based on the Raspberry PI RP2040

Posted on by mixos

Maker Mahesh Venkitachalam has designed a high-quality microphone he calls Mico using the main component of the Raspberry Pi Pico – the RP2040 controller chip. He writes:

Recently, I’ve been working with the Raspberry Pi Pico. I’ve been dazzled with the RP2040 – especially with the PIO and the documentation and software support provided by the company. The Pico uses TinyUSB which has audio support, which got me thinking – surely someone must have thought of making a USB mic with this? And sure enough, Sandeep Mistry has done just that, with his Microphone Library for Pico open source project. So I already had firmware for my project. Now I just needed to make the hardware. Thus the idea of Mico was born.

I wanted a compact design for the mic, but I knew it was difficult to make it as small as the noisy mic shown above, due to the size of the RP2040 chip and mechanical design considerations. So I opted for a simple design with a reliable USB Type-A plug. I initially toyed with the idea of making the USB connector as part of the PCB, but that meant a thicker PCB and higher costs, so I dropped the idea. I also added an LED to the board for ease of testing.

Video

33W charger reference design uses silicon mosfets

Posted on by mixos

High-Efficiency ‘CO2 Smart Power’ Devices are Now Available for Volume Order

Silanna Semiconductor, The Power Density Leader, has confirmed that despite the worldwide chip shortage, it has been able to ramp up production of its ‘end-to-end’ family of power conversion semiconductors allowing it to satisfy customer orders in volume.

Silanna Semiconductor’s CO2 Smart Power™ portfolio, which includes active clamp flyback (ACF) AC/DC controllers and wide-voltage, high-frequency point-of-load (PoL) DC/DC converters, offers the industry’s highest levels of integration and efficiency. The unique nature of the technology combined with Silanna’s robust approach to management of its manufacturing and supply chain, has ensured minimum impact on production and lead times.

Mark Drucker, Silanna Semiconductor’s CEO, comments:

“While the lead time on a growing number of conventional power management ICs has risen, Silanna has been able to ramp up volume production. As a result, engineers choosing our AC/DC and DC/DC components for their power management schemes can realize all the benefits of improved efficiencies, reduced component counts and improved reliability while minimizing time-to-market.”

Silanna’s CO2 Smart Power™ portfolio of AC/DC and DC/DC devices provides complete solutions that address the ultimate power management challenge of delivering improved performance, unrivaled power densities and reduced BoMs while ensuring more efficient energy use. All of the products have been specifically designed for optimum performance and best-in-class power density. As well as minimizing energy use during operation, they also drive down the so-called ‘vampire’ power drain when on standby. In most cases, this translates directly into advanced products and systems that use less electricity and, therefore, contribute less to harmful CO2 emissions.

Silanna’s AC/DC controllers provide the ease-of-design of a simple flyback controller with all the benefits of an ACF design. This includes recycling the leakage inductance energy of the flyback transformer and limiting the primary FET drain voltage spike during the turn-off events. Employing Silanna Semiconductor’s OptiModeTM digital control architecture, these devices adjust the mode of operation on a cycle-by-cycle basis to maintain high efficiency, low EMI, fast dynamic load regulation, and other key power supply parameters in response to varying line voltage and load.

The high operating frequencies of Silanna’s PoL DC/DC converters mean smaller, lower cost, higher-performing output filters and significant size and cost reductions. Choosing these devices allows engineers to significantly increase the power density of their designs with volumes approaching 12% of that required by low-frequency alternatives.

The combination of best-in-class power density and efficiency, minimum no-load power and unprecedented BoM savings makes Silanna’s CO2 Smart Power technologies particularly suited to reducing the size, weight and energy consumption of single- and multi-port travel adaptors and device chargers.

Uncased power density is 22W/inch3, peak efficiency is >92% and no-load power (at 230Vac) is <20mW, according to Silanna, with flat efficiency across 90 to 265Vac, and more that 6dB margin over conducted and radiated EMI requirements – see the design test report to interpret this claim.

more information: RD-23 reference design report can be found here

MPLAB® ICE 4 In-Circuit Emulator, Programmer and Debugger

Posted on by mixos

Microchip Technology has announced its next-generation in-circuit emulator for its microcontrollers and microprocessor, including Atmel-created parts such as AVR and SAM.

The MPLAB ICE 4 in-circuit emulator system boosts productivity with feature-rich programming and debugging for PIC®, AVR® and SAM devices and dsPIC® Digital Signal Controllers (DSCs). It offers a flexible development environment combined with the capabilities to develop power-efficient code while reducing the debug time. It debugs and programs with a powerful and easy-to-use graphical user interface that uses the latest version of MPLAB X Integrated Development Environment (IDE), version 6.00.

It is compatible out-of-the-box with multiple Microchip connectors, and has adapter boards for the legacy target connections including:

  • JTAG adapter for SAM MCUs
  • ICSP adapter board for AVR MCUs:
    JTAG  10pin
    10pin mini
    6pin
    6pin mini
  • ICSP adapter board for PIC and dsPIC
  • Arm Cortex-M trace adapter board for SAM MCUs
  • PIC32 trace adapter board for PIC32M MCUs

The MPLAB ICE 4 in-circuit emulator connects to a host PC using a SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interface and easy-to-use wireless connectivity options for much greater flexibility. By using Ethernet or Wi-Fi® access point interfaces, you can enable wireless connection to the tool for debugging, programming and more. At one end, the MPLAB ICE 4 in-circuit emulator connects to the target using a high-speed 40-pin rugged edge rate cable assembly and at the other end, it connects to adapter boards tailored for supported device communication.

more information: ICE 4 product page is here

ADLINK launches COM-HPC Client Type and COM Express Type 6 Modules with 12th Gen Intel® Core™ processors

Posted on by mixos

Breakthrough Intel® Core™ technology with ADLINK Computer-on-Modules allow for hybrid architecture performance and a wide variety of deployment scenarios with superior performance

ADLINK Technology Inc., a global leader in edge computing, introduces the world’s first 12th Gen Intel Core processor-based Computer-on-Modules (COMs), available in two form factors  –  COM-HPC Client Type and COM Express Type 6. ADLINK COMs with the Intel 12th Gen Intel® Core™ processor family (Codename: Alder Lake-H) allows for a unique design that can be adapted for single-thread or multithread performance. The advanced hybrid architecture can be used for stationary, mobile and portable solutions. It also provides system integrators with future-proof design that supports both current and future best-in-class peripherals.

“Working closely with Intel, we are bringing timely, next-generation computing modules to the market with Intel® Alder Lake-H” said Alex Wang, Senior Product Manager – Module Product Center, ADLINK. “We now offer a full line-up of COM-HPC and COM Express modules for any deployment scenario and budget.”

ADLINK COMs with Intel® Alder Lake-H  provides support for PCIe 4.0 and DDR5 memory with up to 4800 MT/s combined with increased cache, as well as security and manageability features, AI enablement to deliver intelligent workload optimization, enhanced graphics, AI, computer vision, and enhanced peripheral, connectivity, and fast memory access capabilities.

The integrated Intel® Iris® Xe graphics architecture, with up to 96EUs, offers four concurrent 4K60 HDR displays and an Intel Deep Learning Boost to deliver superior AI performance. Using DDI, eDP 1.4b and USB4/TBT4, the four independent displays support Display Alternative mode, providing premium graphics features for superior content support, display and I/O virtualization.

System integrators can use ADLINK COMS with Intel® Alder Lake-H to boost productivity and fuel IoT innovation across a wide variety of applications, including ultrasound, test and measurement, industrial edge servers, machine vision, mammography, surgical robots, security or perimeter tracking, and access control.

For more information about ADLINK COMs, follow the links for ADLINK COM-HPC-cADP (COM-HPC Client Type) and Express-ADP (COM Express Type 6) modules.

Adafruit QT PY-ESP32-S2 And Free Pink Adafruit Feather RP2040 For Orders Reaching $99.00

Posted on by Emmanuel Odunlade

Electronics Manufacturer Adafruit has launched the newest member of its QT-PY family of development boards, the QT PY-ESP32-S2 which comes with an incentive, a free Feather RP2040 for RP2040 Chip for orders starting at $99.00.

The 3rd board in a family which already features boards such as the Microchip SAMD21 based QT PY-SAMD21 Dev Board, and the Raspberry Pi RP2040 chip-based QT-PY RP2040, the QT-PY ESP32-S2 is a furtherance of the desire by Adafruit to create python-based development boards based on popular MCUs.

As the name implies, the QT-PY ESP32-S2 is based on the ESP32-S2 System-on-Chip (SoC) featuring a 32-bit Xtensa LX7 single-core processor with a clock speed of 240 MHz, 2 MB PSRAM, 4 MB Flash, and an ultra-low-power coprocessor based on RISC-V architecture. The SoC also features a 2.4 GHz WiFi, native USB OTG interface, ADC, 43 GPIOs, UART, I2C, LED PWM, LCD interface, SPI, I2S, camera interface, DAC, touch sensor, and a temperature sensor. The ESP32-S2 supports security features like eFuse flash encryption, integrated AES, SHA, and RSA algorithms, etc.

The board has the same form-factor and pin-out as the Seeed Xiao and can be soldered to a PCB through its castellated edges. It debuts STEMMA QT connectors for I2C bus and supports plug-and-play development with any MCU via a cable without B2B soldering. The board also features a 3.3V voltage regulator, USB-C, 13 GPIOs, UART, RGB NeoPixel with a power control pin, a reset button, a boot button, battery input pads, and 5x capacitive touch. Additionally, with a low regulator peak current output of 600mA and a deep sleep current of 100uA, the board is suitable for power-efficient application performance.

Key Highlights and Specifications of QT PY-ESP32-S2 Dev Board:

  • SoC: ESP32-S2; 32-bit Xtensa LX7 single-core processor @ 240 MHz, with 2.4 GHz WiFi, 2 MB PSRAM, 4 MB Flash, native USB, and an ultra-low-power coprocessor based on RISC-V architecture.
  • OS: supports Arduino IDE or CircuitPython
  • Power:
    • 3.3V regulator / 600mA peak output
    • Deep sleep at 100uA
    • up to 6V input (via external Battery input pads)
  • Connectors: 13 GPIO pins:
    • 11 on breakout pads and  2 more on QT connector
    • 10 x 12-bit analog inputs (SPI high-speed pads do not have analog inputs)
    • 8-bit analog output DAC
    • PWM outputs on any pin
    • 2x I2C ports, one on the breakout pads, and another with STEMMA QT plug-n-play connector
    • 1x UART
    • 1x SPI (on the high-speed SPI peripheral puns)
    • Hardware I2S on any pins
    • 5 x Capacitive Touch (require no additional components
  • USB:
    • USB Type C connector
    • Native USB supported by every OS – can be used in Arduino or CircuitPython as USB serial console, MIDI, Keyboard/Mouse HID
  • Misc:
    • RGB NeoPixel LED (with power control to reduce quiescent power in deep sleep)
    • 1x Reset button
    • 1x Boot button
  • Dimensions: 21.8mm x 17.9mm x 5.7mm

As an incentive for customers who buy her product, Adafruit offers a free Feather RP2040 for RP2040 Chip for others above $99.00.

Highlight features and specifications of the Pink Feather RP2040 include:

  • MCU: RP2040 32-bit Cortex M0+ dual-core running @ 125 MHz @ 3.3V logic/power, 264 KB RAM
  • Storage: 8 MB SPI FLASH chip (for storing files and CircuitPython/MicroPython code storage), No EEPROM
  • Power: 3.3V Power/enable pin, 3.3V regulator with 500mA peak current output
  • Serials: USB -C connector (for accessing built-in ROM USB bootloader and serial port debugging)
  • Connectors/Interfaces:
  • 21 x GPIO pins including;
    • 4x 12-bit ADCs (+1 more than Pico), 2x I2C, 2x SPI, 2x UART peripherals (one is labeled the ‘main’ interface in standard Feather locations), 16 x PWM outputs, 8 digital non-ADC/non-peripheral GPIO
  • Misc: Built-in 200mA+ Lipoly charger with charging status indicator LED, Pin #13 red LED for general purpose blinking, RGB NeoPixel for full-color indication, Onboard STEMMA QT connector, Both Reset button and Bootloader select button for quick restarts (no unplugging-replugging to relaunch code), Optional SWD debug port
  • Dimension: 50.8mm x 22.8mm x 7mm

The Adafruit QT PY-ESP32-S2 sold at $9.95, with the Pink Feather RP2040 given out as an incentive on the development board for orders starting from $99.00.

More information on the QT PY-ESP32 can be found on the product’s page.

Monolithic Power Systems (MPS) MP3364 4-Channel Boost WLED Driver

Posted on by mixos

Monolithic Power Systems (MPS) MP3364 4-Channel Boost WLED Driver is a step-up converter with four-channel current sources. The device is designed to drive white LED arrays as backlighting for small- or medium-sized LCD panels. The device uses peak current mode as its PWM control architecture to regulate the boost converter. Four-channel current sources are applied to the LED cathode to adjust the LED brightness. The MP3364 regulates the current in each LED string to the value set by an external current setting resistor, with 2.5% current regulation accuracy between strings.

A low on-resistance MOSFET and headroom voltage are provided to improve efficiency. The MP3364 has a standard I2C digital interface for easy use. The switching frequency can be configured via a resistor, I2C interface, or external clock. The MP3364 provides analog, PWM, and mixed dimming modes with a PWM input. The dimming mode can be selected via the I2C interface or the MIX/AD pin. The device also has a phase shift function to eliminate noise during PWM dimming.

Robust protections are included to guarantee safe operation. Protections include over-current protection (OCP), over-voltage protection (OVP), over-temperature protection (OTP), LED short protection, and LED open protection. The MP3364 can automatically decrease the LED current at higher temperatures. The Monolithic Power Systems (MPS) MP3364 is available in a QFN-24 (4mm x 4mm) package.

Features

  • 3.5V to 36V input voltage range
  • Four channels with a maximum 150mA per channel
  • Internal 100mΩ, 50V MOSFET
  • Configurable fSW Up to 2.2MHz
  • External sync SW function
  • Multi-dimming operation mode through PWM input, including:
  • Direct PWM dimming
  • Analog dimming
  • Mixed dimming with 25% or 12.5% transfer point
  • 15000:1 dimming ratio during PWM dimming when fPWM ≤ 200Hz
  • 200:1 dimming ratio during analog dimming through PWM dimming signal input
  • Excellent EMI performance, frequency spread spectrum
  • I2C interface, three selectable IC addresses
  • Phase shift function for PWM dimming
  • 2.5% current matching
  • Cycle-by-cycle current limiting
  • Disconnect VOUT from VIN
  • Optional: LED current can automatically decrease at higher temperatures
  • LED short/open, OTP, OCP, and inductor short protection
  • Configurable LED short threshold
  • Configurable OVP threshold
  • Fault indicator signal output
  • Available in a QFN-24 (4mm x 4mm) package

Application Circuit

Block Diagram

more information: https://www.monolithicpower.com/en/mp3364.html

TDA4VM processor starter kit for Edge AI vision systems

Posted on by mixos

Bring smart cameras, robots and intelligent machines to life with the TDA4VM processor starter kit. With a fast setup process and an assortment of foundational demos and tutorials, you can start prototyping a vision-based application in less than an hour. The kit enables 8 TOPS of deep learning performance and hardware-accelerated edge AI processing without any hand-tooling. You can unleash high-speed AI in your embedded application only using Linux and industry-standard APIs (TensorFlow Lite, ONNX Runtime, TVM, GStreamer, Docker, ROS, OpenGL ES).

Features

  • Performance—TDA4VM processor enables 8 TOPS deep learning performance and hardware-accelerated edge AI at low power
  • Camera interfaces—two CSI-2 ports compatible with Raspberry Pi and a high-speed 40-pin Semtec camera connector connecting up to eight cameras (requires TIDA-01413 sensor fusion add-on card)
  • Connectivity—three USB 3.0 Type A ports, one USB 3.0 Type C ports, one ethernet port, one M.2 Key E connector and one M.2 Key M connector, four CAN-FD interfaces, four UART terminals over one USB bridge
  • Memory—DRAM, LPDDR4‐4266, 4 gigabytes total memory, support for inline ECC
  • Display—DisplayPort with up to 4K resolution with MST support and 1080 HDMI

source: https://www.ti.com/tool/SK-TDA4VM

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