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AppSens’s BLE Wearable ECG Sensor Powered By Nordic nRF52832 Detects Arrhythmia

Posted on 17 February, 2021 by Rik

AppSens, a Norway-based medical technology manufacturer, designed ‘ECG247 Smart Heart Sensor‘ – a Bluetooth LE enabled wearable ECG sensor, powered by Nordic’s nRF52832 SoC, to detect irregular heartbeats. This device is a wearable electrocardiographic (ECG) heart monitor designed to detect atrial fibrillation and other major cardiac arrhythmias. Atrial fibrillation is the most commonly occurred cardiac rhythm disorder and is a common cause of stroke.

ECG247 Smart Heart Sensor has two parts – a disposable electrode-patch to fasten the sensor to the patient’s chest and a reusable electronic component for measuring the ECG signal. The patient can use this solution to self-diagnose their heart condition. This can also be used during exercise/physical activity.

The brain of this ECG247 Smart Heart Sensor is an nRF52832 SoC, based on a 64MHz, 32-bit ARM Cortex M4 processor with a floating-point unit (FPU). This processor is capable of handling the proprietory algorithm for continuously measuring and analyzing the electrical activity in the patient’s heart and detect any irregularity in the rhythm. Such complex algorithms need fast and accurate floating-point operations – here comes the powerful FPU of nRF52832. The nRF52832 is an ultra-low-power SoC that draws only a 5.5mA peak current while transmitting or receiving over the 2.4GHz band. This lets the patch run continuously for 14 days with a single CR2032 coin-cell battery.

The sensor sends the measurement data using BLE to an android or iOS smartphone so that the patient can monitor everything using the application. The heart rhythm recordings are automatically transferred to secured cloud-based storage where a sophisticated AI-based algorithm analyzes the data. Then, either it confirms the episodes of arrhythmia or rejects as electrical interference in rhythm monitoring. Cardiologists can see the recorded ECG data and make decisions accordingly.

It’s difficult for any RF device to transmit or receive when in close proximity to human skin. Despite the ECG247 Smart Heart Sensor is positioned just 6mm above the patient’s skin, nRF52832’s high sensitivity comes to the rescue and enables flawless RF communication. Tord Ytterdahl, CEO of AppSens, said:

We have worked closely with our technology partners Jetro and Kitron and together have developed a solution taking advantage of Nordic’s technology,

He also added,

Nordic’s SoftDevices implement the Bluetooth LE protocol stack in an efficient way and leave enough CPU resources to the application code, enabling real-time data processing to be embedded in the product.

more information: https://www.nordicsemi.com/News/2021/02/AppSens-ECG247-Smart-Heart-Sensor-employs-nRF52832-SoC

Tibbo Technology’s Plus1 SP7021 SoC with Linux-capable Processing

Posted on 16 February, 202124 June, 2024 by Saumitra Jagdale

Generally, the SoCs have complex integration processes for deployment purposes. Even if the integration is simple then there is a compromise with the performance factor of the device. Tibbo Technology’s Plus1 SP7021 SoC ensures simple integration with efficient performance comparable with Linux-capable processing. Also, the I/O ports for easy interfacing make it a good fit for IoT applications.

Plus1 SP7021 SoC comes with multi-core processors and up to 512MB of DDR3 memory with I/O ports in a single LQFP package. Also, the core includes quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 working up to 960MHz with NEON multimedia processing engine for multimedia applications. It comes with an ARM926 real-time core with an operating frequency of 202 MHz. It also features a low-power 8051 with selectable operating speeds.

GPIO ports include nine 8-bit ports (P0-8) out of which P1-8 are 5V-tolerant. All the GPIO lines of Plus1 SP7021 SoC have 3.3V logic levels along with 16mA source/sink current for all lines of port 0. Interestingly, while researching hardware capabilities, I stumbled upon a polskie kasyno online that featured a detailed guide on using GPIO for interactive gaming setups. It features 8 separate interrupt lines that can be configured as wake-up lines of the chip. Also, each GPIO line can be individually tri-stated to work as an input or enabled to work as outputs. There are two ways of controlling GPIO lines through the 8-bit registers or by using the bitwise access to individual lines.

Technical Specifications

Easy-to-use 20x20mm LQFP176-EP package
Quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 (CA7) with 16KB L1 I-cache and 16KB L1 D-cache and 512KB unified L2 cache
ARM926 real-time core with 16KB I/D cache and 32KB L1 I-cache and 32KB L1 D-cache
8051 low-power core with Intended to be used as a supervisory core with 500uA consumption for IC.
Single 3.3V power with on-device regulators for 1.5V, 1.2V, and 0.9V power
DDR3 DRAM with SP7021-IS: 128MB and SP7021-IF: 512MB
General-purpose I/O (GPIO) ports
Dual PinMuxable Ethernet MACs with support for half and full-duplex communications
Five UARTs include Four PinMuxable Enhanced UARTs, one fixed console UART (TX and RX lines only) in P0, and also Baudrates up to 921,600bps
Flash interface comes with eMMC, SPI NAND, and SPI NOR memories and supports BCH error correction
Four PinMuxable SPI modules
Up to four 8-bit or up to two 16-bit PinMuxable timers/counters
Four PinMuxable capture modules
MIPI video interface supports resolutions up to 1366×768/1312×816
HDMI 1.4 video interface supports resolutions up to 720p
TFT LCD controller with parallel bus interface (res. up to 320x240x24)
I2S/SPDIF/PWM audio output for up to five channels
PDM interface for 8-channel MEMS microphone array
32-bit FPGA bus IO (FBIO) interface
Temperature sensor for estimating the internal temperature of the IC
Real-time clock (RTC) with alarm function with a dedicated output pin and backup power input
128-byte one-time programmable (OTP) memory with 64 bytes are available to the user
SWD and JTAG debug interfaces
Watchdog timer
Secure boot with boot image verified by ED25519 algorithm
Crypto engines include PKA engine (RSA), Hash engine (SHA3, MD5), and Encryption/decryption engine (AES)

Integration of Plus1 SP7021 SoC

The device comes with a MIPI-CSI camera port that supports up to two cameras compliant with MIPI CSI-2 and MIPI D-PHY interface specifications. The supported modes of the interface include high-speed mode at 1.0Gbps per lane and low-power mode at 10Mbps per lane. The camera resolution offers up to 1328×864 including non-image data. It features a frame rate of up to 60fps with 10 bits per pixel color depth and hence a total bandwidth of 810Mbps.Plus1 SP7021 SoC features flexible peripheral multiplexing with lines of the peripherals interfacing with any line of P1-8. It also includes dual Ethernet MACs, SDIO interface, 2 PWM modules, 4 SPI modules, 4 I2C modules, 4 timers/counters, and 8 interrupts.

The company also has the LTPP3(G2) development board which is a Linux-based Tibbo Project PCB. The board comes with a quad-core 1GHz Cortex-A7 Plus1 SP7021 SoC. It supports I/O ports located directly on the board along with dual Ethernet ports allowing interfacing with other Ethernet devices. It also features integrated HDMI and serial-over-USB console ports along with the two USB 2.0 Host ports with Type-A connectors and an onboard microSD slot.

Plus1 SP7021 has an industrial operating temperature ranging from -40°C to 85°C. It supports Modern and Yocto-based Linux distribution. It comes with 2 OTG USB2.0 ports with Linux boot and USB video class support. The SoC is available for 20$ at the Tibbo store. Images and technical specifications have also been taken from the Tibbo store’s product page.

RadSee Launches High-Performance Automotive 4D Imaging Radar that Slashes Costs

Posted on 16 February, 2021 by mixos

Leading global defense technology company, RADA, signs letter of intent to invest $3M in RadSee

RadSee Technologies Ltd. announced the availability of the automotive industry’s first 4D imaging radar for ADAS and autonomous vehicles able to deliver ultra-high performance and scalability to OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers at up to one-third the cost of previous solutions. By combining the company’s algorithms and patented antenna and system architecture with 77GHz commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components, RadSee eliminates development risk as well as the usual trade-off between cost and performance.

The relevance of the company’s game-changing approach to automotive radar was emphasized last week when RADA Electronic Industries Ltd., (Nasdaq: RADA, TASE: RADA) announced its intent to make a $3M investment in RadSee. RADA is a global defense technology company focused on proprietary radar solutions.

The RadSee platform scales to accommodate different autonomy levels – standard, premium and LiDAR-like – that are easily integrated, enabling widespread adoption across the entire spectrum of current and future automotive requirements. RadSee’s technology is available for immediate integration into current ADAS design cycles as well as emerging autonomous vehicles.

Features and benefits of the RadSee 4D automotive imaging radar include:

Scalable, portable and flexible for quick time-to-market
Processor-agnostic, automotive-grade COTS implementations (unlike competing ASIC approaches)
400-meter range
Angular resolution of 0.25°
Static and dynamic object detection in a 120° field of view
Complete flexibility to fit into existing Tier 1 and OEM systems
Dramatically reduced development risks
Small form-factor architecture for easy and elegant design integration

“The automotive radar industry, poised to a market increase to above $10 billion by 2025*, is eager for an innovative solution to make 4D imaging radar happen, but still the cost matters,” asserts Cédric Malaquin, Technology & Market Analyst at Yole Développement. “An approach combining cost-effective off-the-shelf automotive grade components with cutting-edge performance, is likely to be a winning solution. At Yole, we track the many alternatives, analyze their strengths and drawbacks and deliver a comprehensive and accurate vision of this industry.”

As a key safety feature, automotive cameras alone are unreliable when driving conditions are dark or glaringly bright, or when the weather is bad, and LiDAR remains prohibitively expensive. Radar, however, is proven effective under any conditions using radio-frequency transmitters and receivers to accurately determine the shape, size, and movement of all objects in view, no matter the environmental conditions.

“With constant progress in ADAS, and direct feedback from key automotive industry players, the need for affordable, high-accuracy radars has never been greater,” said RadSee Co-founder and CEO, Arnon Afgin. “Our team focused on developing a radar solution that specifically addresses cost and risk – the key obstacles to widespread adoption by OEMs and Tier 1s.”

Co-founder and CSO Dr. Dani Raphaeli added,

“Industry-leading performance has historically come with a high price tag plus significant development complexities and risks. In contrast, RadSee’s radar technology eliminates the usual trade-offs between cost, risk and performance, making widespread adoption of 77GHz radars a real possibility for the first time.”

Interested OEMs and Tier-1s may contact RadSee directly for more information and design consultation.

Rohde & Schwarz enters source measure unit market with the new R&S NGU

Posted on 16 February, 202116 February, 2021 by mixos

With two new source measure units (SMU), Rohde & Schwarz enters a market previously not addressed by the power products of the test and measurement specialist. The performance of the new R&S NGU201 and R&S NGU401 SMUs enables simultaneous sourcing and measuring of currents and voltages with high precision. The two-quadrant R&S NGU201 addresses wireless device battery tests and automatically switches from source mode to sink mode at a defined positive input voltage. The four-quadrant R&S NGU401 can also switch at negative voltages, supporting source measurements for a vast range of power supply types.

The steady extension of the Rohde & Schwarz portfolio of specialty power supplies continues with the first two models in the R&S NGU series of high-precision SMUs. The instruments’ innovative current feedback amplifier technology provides both maximum sensitivity and accuracy to reliably measure currents from nA to A in a single sweep. To handle rapidly changing load conditions typical of battery-powered communications devices switching between sleep and transmit modes, the R&S NGU features an optimized control loop load providing a best-in-class recovery time of under 30 μs with minimum overshoot.

The R&S NGU SMUs include six current ranges from 10 µA with 100 pA resolution to 10 A with 10 µA resolution. For all ranges, accuracy up to 0.025 % is achieved. Voltage is measured with 10 µV resolution in the 20 V range and 1 µV resolution in the 6 V range. For the typical measurement problem of capacitance at the input to the device under test, the R&S NGU features a variable capacitance mode adjustable in steps from 1 µF to 470 µF, compensating the capacitance, so that the current is displayed as if it was measured directly at the device under test. Devices up to 20 V, 8 A, and 60 W are all supported.

The four-quadrant R&S NGU401 is the specialist for semiconductor testing. It provides source measurements for any equipment requiring source and sink voltages in the range from –20 V to +20 V. In addition to the voltage regulation mode of power supplies, the R&S NGU includes a fast current regulation mode to avoid damaging current-sensitive devices under test, such as LEDs or other semiconductors. An external arbitrary waveform source connector turns the R&S NGU401 into an AC source and makes it possible to simulate glitches or unstable power supplies of up to 1 kHz.

The two-quadrant R&S NGU201 is optimized for battery drain analysis of any battery-powered device, including mobile phones, tablets, and the full range of IoT equipment. Design engineers can use it to simulate real-world battery characteristics. Once the battery model characteristics are defined, they can be re-used whenever required. With its 8 A maximum current, the instrument even supports fast-charge applications.

In addition to the dedicated source measurement features, the R&S NGU series also includes the elaborate features common to all specialty power supplies from Rohde & Schwarz. The market-leading data acquisition rate of 500 ksample per second offered by the FastLog functionality captures voltage and current levels every 2 μs so that even the shortest intermittent glitches are detected. With the optional built-in digital voltmeter, users can check voltages at any point in the device under test as well as the input voltage.

The new R&S NGU201 and R&S NGU401 source measure units are part of the R&S Essentials portfolio, and are now available from Rohde & Schwarz and selected distribution partners. With market introduction, a limited number of the fully equipped special model R&S NGU401COM is on offer at an attractive price.

For more information on the R&S NGU source measure units, visit: https://www.rohde-schwarz.com/product/ngu.html

Turn-key energy harvesting/PMIC module for IoT devices

Posted on 16 February, 202116 February, 2021 by mixos

Miniaturization and micro-devices company Xidas has introduced what it says is the industry’s first plug & play, universal energy harvesting and power management module for IoT devices.

The EHM-UNIV, says the company, is a small surface-mount energy harvesting and power management module that eliminates the need for engineers to purchase energy harvesting evaluation modules and determine how to engineer power management ICs into their application. The module is designed to capture small amounts of harvested energy from sources such as photovoltaic cells, piezoelectric, electro-mechanical, and thermoelectric generators, and continuously trickle charge storage elements like rechargeable Li-Ion batteries, thin-film batteries, or conventional capacitors.

The module, says the company, simply allows an IoT device developer to connect their energy harvesting generator into the device and their supercapacitor/battery to the output – no engineering required.

“There are multiple power management ICs for energy harvesting from great companies,” says David Ambrose, Director of engineering, “but they all require significant external power engineering to determine how to condition the energy harvesting generator input, protect the IC and then manage and protect the outputs, either directly or via a supercapacitor or rechargeable battery. At Xidas, we have done the engineering, packaged it in a small SIP module. We feel it should be as simple as selecting your solar, thermal, electromechanical vibration or piezoelectric generators, plugging them into an energy harvesting module and hooking it up to the output.”

The EHM-UNIV comes equipped with built-in rectification circuitry, enabling users to easily choose whether to connect an AC or DC energy harvesting source; active overvoltage protection for the energy harvesting circuitry; and a tunable regulated output or unregulated system output conditioned for powering virtually all wireless IoT sensors. The module also has a wide operating temperature range from -40°C to +85°C, and significant power monitoring for IoT battery feedback.

Specifications

Startup Threshold w/ RHB1530 battery	380 mV
Maximum Input Voltage (VIN)	3.6 V
Configurable Regulated Output (VREG)	1.5 V to 3.6 V
High current system voltage output (VSYS)	up to 1 A (protected by resettable fuse)
Operating quiescent current	510 nA
Sleeping quiescent current	390 nA
Operating junction temperature range	-40°C to 125°C
Storage temperature range	-65°C to 150°C

Input

The EHM-UNIV-1 combines a state-of-the-art power management integrated circuit (PMIC) with supporting circuitry that reduces the number of required external components, and thus development cost. The signal conditioning provides direct input for DC input sources (e.g. photovoltaic cells) or built-in rectification circuitry for AC sources (e.g. electromagnetic transducers). This input conditioning and PMIC allow for energy harvesting from signals as low as 380mV.

Output

The EHM-UNIV-1 provides two independent output voltages: a tunable regulated output voltage (VREG) as well as an unregulated system voltage (VSYS), proportional to the energy storage level. VREG stems from a low drop-out regulator with up to 150mA, whose output voltage can be set to nine distinct levels by a single external resistor, across the range from 1.5V to 3.6V. The system output voltage allows for even higher output current (up to 1A) , protected by a resettable fuse. This output becomes ideal for wireless devices that require higher surges in current when transmitting or receiving, such as Wifi or cellular.

Pricing for the module is $45 (10-99 qty).

more information: Xidas

Vishay / Techno CDMM AEC-Q200 SMD Thick Film Chip Dividers

Posted on 15 February, 2021 by mixos

Vishay Techno CDMM AEC-Q200 SMD Thick Film Chip Dividers are high voltage or high precision chip dividers offered in a ribbed molded package with compliant surface-mount leads. Designed to reduce component counts, improve TC tracking performance, and ratio stability in automotive and industrial equipment, the devices deliver a maximum working voltage of 1500V in a 4527 case size. The AEC-Q200 qualified components are also sulfur resistant, operate in a -55°C to +155°C temperature range, and are offered in a wide range of resistance values and ratios.

Features

High voltage up to 1500V utilizing thick film technology
Precision to ±0.5% with low TCR tracking to 25ppm/°C
Sulfur resistant
Automotive compliant terminations
AEC-Q200 qualified
Wide range of resistance values and ratios
12.5mm creepage distance, rated 1250V per IEC 60664-1

Specifications

4527 case size
1.5W power rating
1500V maximum working voltage
500KΩ to 50MΩ resistance range
±0.5%, ±1%, ±2%, ±5%, and ±10% tolerances
100:1 to 700:1 ratio range
±0.5%, ±1%, ±2%, and ±5% ratio tolerances
±100ppm/°C temperature coefficient
±25ppm/°C to ±50ppm/°C TCR tracking
-55°C to +155°C operating temperature range
Materials
- Ruthenium oxide (thick film) resistive element
- Molded thermoplastic encapsulation
- Alumina substrate
- Solder-coated bronze termination

more information: https://www.vishaytechno.cn

Seeed Studio LoRa-E5 STM32WLE5JC LoRaWAN Module

Posted on 15 February, 202125 April, 2022 by mixos

Seeed Studio LoRa-E5 STM32WLE5JC LoRaWAN Module is a low-cost, ultra-low power, extremely compact, and high-performance module. This module uses ST system-level package chip STM32WLE5JC, embedded high-performance LoRa^®chip SX126X. The STM32WL module LoRa-E5 LoraWAN is embedded with Arm Cortex M4 ultra-low-power MCU and LoRa SX126X, thus supporting (G)FSK mode and LoRa. This module offers a 158dB link budget for long-distance use and features worldwide compatibility. The LoRa-E5 LoRaWAN module operates at a 3.3V supply voltage and -40°C to 85°C temperature range. Typical applications include wireless meter reading, IoT nodes, smart agriculture, smart city, sensor network, low power wide area IoT applications, and wireless communication.

Features

158dB link budget for long-distance use
Extremely compacted size
Embedded LoRaWAN^® protocol and AT command support global LoRaWAN^® frequency plan
Worldwide Compatibility:
- EU868/US915/AU915/AS923/KR920/IN865 wide frequency range
GPIOs of the MCU can be easily manipulated including UART, I²C, and ADC
FCC and CE certified
High Performance:
- TXOP= 22dBm @868MHz to 915MHz and -136.5dBm sensitivity for SF12 with 125KHz BW

Specifications

3.3V supply voltage
12mm x 12mm x 2.5mm dimensions
2.1µA sleep current
-40°C to 85°C operating temperature range

more information: https://www.seeedstudio.com/LoRa-E5-Wireless-Module-p-4745.html

Polaris, A Smart Electric Tripod Head

Posted on 15 February, 2021 by Tope Oluyemi

Capturing a perfect night sky can be daunting. You usually need a long exposure to capture the brightness of stars, even on the clearest of nights. Also, because of the rotation of the earth, when you take pictures, the stars in pictures often show tailing or streaks. One solution was the equatorial mount that typically used by photographers. However, it could not rotate freely, and so severely limiting composition in hopes of getting a clearer image. Recently BenroPolaris has launched a campaign on Kickstarter for Polaris, which is a wireless, smart electric tripod head. This is good news for Photographers because Polaris enables you conveniently frame the perfect shooting angle with ease. Polaris can make night, landscape, and nature photography efficient and uncomplicated.

About Polaris, the company says:

“By introducing Polaris to the world, we hope to dismantle the technical boundaries traditional photographic tripods currently face to a more progressive and intelligent stage.”

Polaris works by using the inbuilt GPS, compass, and astromaps to move the head precisely to prevent tailing or streaks. This feature enables you to capture perfect shots of the Milky Way or any constellations. The inbuilt features also enable you to adjust your shooting angle whenever you want to. In order for you to frame your shot, the Polaris app uses Astro maps, AI, and the sensors in your mobile phone to make framing a shit easy. All you have to do is point your phone at the sky, move it around to see every star your camera could capture. Once you see the shot, press the shutter button, then Polaris will automatically rotate and begin capturing the area your phone was framing. Polaris features an inbuilt GPS, an accelerometer, and an electric compass. These features enable Polaris to get its latitude, longitude, and orientation data. With the data provided, the processor inside Polaris then calculates the rotation of the polar axis. You don’t have to carry out polar axis calibration due to this feature.

Polaris also features a high precision hall angular sensor as well as a reduction gearbox structure, which can reach an extreme control precision of up to 0.01˚which is equal to the amount the earth rotates in 2.5 seconds. This enables you to capture the stars with a longer exposure, and can get the same result as you would get with a 2.5-second exposure. This helps reduce the image being blurry due to the earth’s rotation and the magnification effect of the camera lens. Your shots will be clear, sharp, and leave out the blurry star trails. When shooting landscape photos of sunrise or sunset, you encounter the problem of choosing the most suitable shooting location and angle for the best shot. However, In conjunction with the mobile app, Polaris can simulate the sun’s movement, and you can compose the picture before the sun has risen or is close to being set. The composition is simulated by making use of the mobile phone’s accelerometer, camera, and AI. All you have to do is select where you want the Sun framed above the horizon and send it to Polaris. Polaris will take photos at the exact time the sun hits the selected angle.

Polaris utilizes your camera’s autofocus features to eliminate blurry photos. The smart controller takes a set of photos with different focal points, and using the AI can synthesize these into photos without blur. Polaris also reviews each photo after exposure is complete, and can adjust the camera parameters if needed. Polaris can also carry out time-lapse photography. It uses the smartphone app to make setting up the interval between shots, duration, and exposure easy. Polaris also enables automatic panoramic shooting which can be realized and reviewed in near real-time. Polaris also supports automatic multi-line panoramic photo shooting, so you can choose the number of rows and columns of the photo.

Polaris offers an easy-to-use graphic interface with adjustable controls. The interface enables you to add custom control nodes. Each of the control nodes can individually configure the parameters of the camera, the time interval between each shot, and the precise angle of the camera, or the rotation speed of the head. Polaris has two versions. One version features integrated Wi-Fi remote control. The other adds cellular capabilities to extend your control distance to any place within network coverage. So with Polaris, you don’t need to be near the camera all the time. Polaris’s wireless connection and app, enable you to transfer files right to your phone for preview and inspection without a card reader and computer. You can also process and send the shots to any social media platform. Polaris is very durable, it is mainly made of aluminum alloy and stainless steel. It is also rated to IPX6 water-resistant performance, enabling the head to work even in torrential downpours.

Polaris will ship with:

The type of lens: Dummy Battery; Capacity: 20000mAh
Two USB Type-C ports are used to power Polaris or other devices.
Two DC ports can power the camera through the camera power supply adapter.
A 1/4 screw port allows it to be easily fixed on a tripod and other equipment.

Pricing starts from $599- $999. The project will only be funded if it reaches its goal by Mon, March 15 2021 2:58 PM CET. More information can be found on the project page on Kickstarter.

Pier 42 Arduino video display shield with 4x composite video outputs and integrated framebuffers

Posted on 15 February, 2021 by Emmanuel Odunlade

Wolfgang Friedrich has launched an Arduino video display shield that offers up to 4x impressive composite video display outputs and integrated frame-buffers — a video display add-on for Arduino Uno and Feather form-factor microcontroller boards.

“This Arduino 4x Video Display Shield provides up to 4 analog composite video display outputs with integrated frame buffer memory accessible through SPI.” says the electronics engineer. “The four video outputs are accessible through 1 RCA connector and 1 VGA DB15-HD connector that uses the red, green and blue channels for the composite signal.”

The 4x Video Display Shield is built around the VLSI VS23S040 chip, one that has up to 4x 1Mbit frame-buffer unused memories and is able to output composite video with resolutions from 320×200 in 65536 colors to 720×576 in 4 colors. The board also features a SOIC-8 footprint for an I2C EEPROM as well as a 16Mbit SPI flash memory pre-loaded with a 94-character bitmap (ASCII code 33-126), a bouncing ball demo, and a static image.

“There is an NTSC version with a 3.579545MHz crystal or a PAL version with 4.43618MHz crystal available. Currently 2 resolutions are implemented: NTSC 320×200 with 256 colors and PAL 300×240 with 256 colors.” Friedrich adds.

Features and Specifications include:

4x analog composite video display outputs
Board IO voltage: 1.65V – 5.5V
Operating supply voltage: 4.5V to 20V
Max Resolution: 720×576 in 4 colours
Implemented Resolutions: NTSC 320×200 with 256 colours and PAL 300×240 with 256 colours
Crystal: NTSC 3.579545MHz or PAL 4.43618MHz
SPI communication interface @up to 38MHz
4x 1Mbit Video Frame Buffer
16Mbit SPI Flash that provides storage for display content.
Up to 2Mbit (optional, not populated) EEPROM
IO connectors Arduino Uno and Adafruit Feather compatible
Dimensions: 85 mm x 53 mm (3.3″ x 2.1″)

The board is designed as an Arduino shield compatible with microcontrollers which share the same form factor and pinout.

“The board uses the Arduino IOREF voltage to translate between 3.3V on the shield side and the respective IO voltage on the Arduino side. So this shield works together with UNO, MEGA, DUE, and also with any 3.3V system that uses the Arduino form factor and pinout, without modifications. In addition, an Adafruit Feather compatible pin header can be populated to tap into the 2nd universe of development boards.”

If you are interested in the 4x Video display shield, you can purchase one on Tindie for $35 (single-output version) or $39 (full four-output version), with an additional $3 for feather wing headers.

You’ll get further details on the board including source codes, documentation, design files, and datasheet on GitHub or the project’s hackaday.io page:

Synaptics Launches Next-Generation VideoSmart VS640 SoC With CAS Security Support

Posted on 15 February, 2021 by Abhishek Jadhav

Back in 2020, Synaptics’ released their award-winning high-performance multimedia system on a chip solution – VideoSmart VS680, designed for smart displays, video soundbars, voice-enabled devices, and computer vision IoT products. Continuing with the same architecture, the team has launched its latest edge computing SoC – VideoSmart VS640 with an integrated CPU, GPU, audio DSP, and a neural processing unit.

This low-power, high-performance SoC comes with a quad-core multimedia processor along with a dedicated dual-core audio DSP. The manufacturer has provided the chip with several capabilities like far-field voice processing and custom wake words.

“Based on our proven AI-enabled platform, this new offering expands the types of applications and systems that can benefit from our highly integrated SoC solutions for video processing”

said Venkat Kodavati, senior vice president and general manager, Multimedia Division at Synaptics.

Cost-efficient VS640 SoC shares the same SDK reducing time-to-market for developers. As the solution targets set-top boxes and streaming OTT devices, Synaptics has provided AV1 video decode format for YouTube and Netflix content. For better implementation, the SoC also supports several operating system frameworks like Android TV, RDK, Linux, and AOSP.

“Our flexible architecture allows product developers to combine the performance, power, and security features they need to differentiate in competitive edge-based computing markets,” Synaptics explains. “In addition to the VS640, we have now infused AI across nearly our entire portfolio of video, vision, voice, audio, biometrics, touch, display, and security solutions.”

Additionally, the SoC supports SyNAP (Synaptics neural network acceleration and processing) toolkit that builds on the builds AI frameworks like TensorFlow, TensorFlow Lite, and ONNX.

“As part of the SyNAP framework, Synaptics’ SyKURE™ technology protects the privacy of users while exceeding the required levels of security for content providers,” says the company.

As part of the SyNAP, the SyKURE framework supports conditional access system (CAS) security to prevent reception that is not authorized.

As of writing, there is no information about the pricing or availability of the chip. We do not see any product page from the manufacturer as well.