LASER COMPONENTS has expanded its range of VCSEL lasers. Its wide range of products now includes emitters with 850nm and 940nm in power classes between 200mW and 50W. All products are characterized by extremely short rise times and thus support pulse trains in the low nanosecond range and below.
Thanks to the semiconductor structure, the emission wavelength remains nearly constant, even with temperature fluctuations. This allows narrow-band bandpass filters to be used on the detector side. Upon customer request, the laser diodes are also available as powerful arrays.
In vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs), light is emitted perpendicular to the chip’s surface and can therefore be easily collimated. The high power and short pulse sequence of the compact multi-mode lasers make this technology attractive for the LiDAR market, among others.
There, these properties ensure greater ranges and higher resolutions. Market researchers therefore assume that the global market for VCSEL lasers will grow rapidly in the next ten years.
Axiomtek – a world-renowned leader relentlessly devoted in the research, development and manufacture of series of innovative and reliable industrial computer products of high efficiency – is pleased to introduce the PICO52R, its new 2.5-inch pico-ITX motherboard powered by the 8th gen Intel® Core™ i7/i5/i3 and Celeron® processor (code name: Whiskey Lake). Its reversed onboard CPU is attached on the rear side of the board to aid with heat dissipation and offers flexibility for easy system integration especially in space constraint enclosure. This embedded SBC features one DisplayPort, one HDMI and one LVDS for triple display applications. Leveraging the Intel® Active Management Technology 11, powerful CPU and rich I/O interfaces, the high-performance PICO52R provides high-precision services for edge computing, machine vision and industrial IoT applications.
“Designed with minimum maintenance and maximum ruggedness, the PICO52R can operate from -20°C to +60°C (-4°F to 140°F). It comes with a +12V DC power supply input with AT Auto Power On to ensure the reliable system operation,” said Michelle Mi, a product manager of ECSE Division at Axiomtek. “In addition, this pico-ITX embedded board utilizes Intel® HD graphics to optimize the imaging performance and bring the most captivating visual experiences. It is also equipped with two USB 3.0 ports to support industrial cameras, one M.2 Key E slot for wireless communication capabilities and two Gigabit Ethernet ports for mass data transmission.”
Advanced Features:
8th gen Intel® Core™ i7/i5/i3 and Celeron® processor (code name: Whiskey Lake)
1 DDR4-2400 SO-DIMM for up to 16GB of memory
2 USB 2.0 and 2 USB 3.0
2 GbE LAN and 2 RS-232/422/485
M.2 Key E
Intel® AMT 11 supported
Within its small form factor, the PICO52R supports one 260-pin DDR4-2400 SO-DIMM for up to 16GB of system memory. The Intel® Core™-based embedded board comes with rich I/O options, including two USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, two RS-232/422/485 ports, two Gigabit Ethernet ports with Intel® i219-LM and Intel® i211-AT, one DisplayPort port, one HDMI port and one 18/24-bit single/dual channel LVDS port. Moreover, it has a watchdog timer to detect and recover from computer malfunctions and supports hardware monitoring features to monitor temperature, voltage, fan speed, and more. With the support of Intel® Active Management Technology 11 (Intel® AMT 11), the PICO52R can complete remote management easily.
The PICO52R is now available for purchase. For more product information or customization services, please visit our global website at www.axiomtek.com or contact one of our sales representatives at info@axiomtek.com.tw
AAEON, a leader in AI edge solutions, announces the release of the BOXER-8251AI AI edge box PC powered by NVIDIA® Jetson Xavier™ NX. With greater performance and compact size, the BOXER-8251AI offers greater flexibility to bring even more smart applications to life.
The BOXER-8251AI is powered by the innovative Jetson Xavier NX from NVIDIA. Featuring a six-core 64-bit ARM processor, it boasts 384 CUDA® cores, 48 Tensor Cores, and two NVDLA engines capable of running multiple neural networks in parallel, delivering accelerated computing performance up to 21 TOPS. Built to bring dedicated AI processing to the edge, the system also features 8GB of LPDDR4 memory and 16GB of onboard eMMC memory that’s expandable through the Micro-SD card slot.
One of the most innovative features of the NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX is the ability of users to select five different performance modes. These modes allow users to tailor the number of cores, processor speed, and power draw the system utilizes. Thanks to extensive testing and development by AAEON, along with rugged thermal design, users are able to match processor performance with a thermal performance for each operating mode.
The BOXER-8251AI also provides users with greater flexibility with its compact size and I/O features. With two COM ports and four USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, as well as Gigabit Ethernet port, the BOXER-8251AI can easily integrate into existing applications as well as new ones. Its rugged, fanless design keeps dust and other contaminants out of the system, offering reliable and low-maintenance operation for more stable performance.
“With the BOXER-8251AI powered by NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX, users and developers have even greater freedom to select the kind of performance they need for their projects and applications,” said Alex Hsueh, Senior Director of AAEON’s System Platform Division. “Thanks to this flexibility, the BOXER-8251AI is able to power a wide range of AI and edge computing applications from Smart City environments to monitoring public transportation users for fever and compliance with face mask requirements.”
The project presented here is a photodiode amplifier for visible light. The output voltage of the circuit increases linearly with light intensity. Low-cost BPW34 photodiode is used as a light sensor and OPA381 op-amp as an amplifier. OPA381 is a transimpedance amplifier that converts photodiode current flow into voltage. The operating voltage of this circuit is 5V DC, and output ranges to almost 0V to 4.5V DC. The project can be used to make a LUX meter and other photo lab equipment. The analog output of the project is within the range of microcontroller’s ADC for easy interface with micro-controllers. By combining this project with Arduino and LCD, you can create a light meter for photography. It is advisable to use filters in front of the sensor to stop infra-red noise as the sensitivity of BPW34 is near to infrared. Half-cut table tennis ball will help as a filter.
BPW34 Photo Diode
BPW34 Photo Diode: BPW34 is a PIN photodiode with high speed and high radiant sensitivity in miniature, flat, top view, clear plastic package. It is sensitive to visible and near-infrared radiation.
OPA381 Precision, Low Power, 18MHz Transimpedance Amplifier: The OPA381 family of transimpedance amplifiers provides 18MHz of Gain Bandwidth (GBW), with extremely high precision, excellent long-term stability, and very low 1/f noise. The OPA381 features an offset voltage of 25μV (max), offset drift of 0.1μV/°C (max), and bias current of 3pA. The OPA381 far exceeds the offset, drift, and noise performance that conventional JFET op amps provide. The signal bandwidth of a transimpedance amplifier depends largely on the GBW of the amplifier and the parasitic capacitance of the photodiode, as well as the feedback resistor. The 18MHz GBW of the OPA381 enables a transimpedance bandwidth of > 250kHz in most configurations. The OPA381 is ideally suited for fast control loops for power level measurement on an optical fibber. As a result of the high precision and low-noise characteristics of the OPA381, a dynamic range of 5 decades can be achieved. This capability allows the measurement of signal currents on the order of 10nA, and up to 1mA in a single I/V conversion stage. In contrast to logarithmic amplifiers, the OPA381 provides very wide bandwidth throughout the full dynamic range.
The module can also be used as Arduino nano shield, the output is connected to A0 analog pin, 5V DC, and GND connection power up the board from Arduino Nano.
In the past, we have seen some Rockchip boards from Radxa, like the Rock pi N10(RK3399Pro) and the Rock PiS powered by the RK3308 Cortex-A35 processor. Now, Radxa has launched a Rock Pi E SBC, which is a Rockchip RK3328 based SBC. It is equipped with a 64bits quad core processor, USB 3.0, dual ethernet, wireless connectivity at the size of 2.5×2.2 inch (56x65mm), making it perfect for IoT and network applications. ROCK Pi E comes in various ram sizes from 512MB to 4GB DDR3, and uses uSD card for OS and storage as well as supporting eMMC module. Optionally, ROCK Pi E supports PoE, additional HAT is required. The SBC that is similar to the ROCK Pi E in the market, is the NanoPi R2S dual Gigabit Ethernet SBC from FriendlyElec, which is powered by Rockchip RK3328 SBC. The major difference between the two SBC is that Rock Pi E is equipped with one Gigabit Ethernet port, a USB 3.0 port, a built-in WiFi, and Bluetooth connectivity which is unavailable on the NanoPi R2S.
The following are specifications of Rock Pi E:
SoC – Rockchip RK3328 quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor @ up to 1.3 GHz
System Memory – 256MB, 512MB, 1GB, or 2GB DDR3
Storage – MicroSD card slot up to 128GB, eMMC module support ( 16GB / 32GB / 64GB / 128GB)
Video & Audio – 3.5mm AV output jack (Not 100% sure whether composite video is supported)
Connectivity
1x Gigabit Ethernet port with PoE support via an additional HAT
10/100M Ethernet
Wireless
2.4 GHz 802.11 b/g/n Wifi 4 and Bluetooth 4.2 via RTL8723DU OR
Dual-band 802.11b/g/n/ac WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 4.2 via RTL8821CU
USB – 1x USB 3.0 Type-A host port
Expansion – 40-pin expansion header with 1x USB 2.0, 1x I2C, 1x SPI, 2x
UART, 1x I2S, 5V, 3.3V and GND signals
Misc – Reset key, Maskrom key, LEDs
Power Supply – 5V via USB-C port
Dimensions – 56 x 65mm.
The ROCk Pi E currently supports Debian Buster, Ubuntu Bionic, etc. The following are the only variants available for sale on Seeed Studio :
Rock Pi E D4W1P : The ROCK Pi E D4W1P Is equipped with 512MB DDR3, RTL8723DU (Wi-Fi 4 + Bluetooth 4.2), PoE support, with an additional PoE HAT, and uses a micro-SD card for OS and storage as well as supports eMMC modules. It sells for $24.
Rock Pi E D8W2P: The ROCK Pi E D8W2P comes in 1GB DDR3 RAM and uses a micro-SD card for OS and storage as well as supports eMMC modules. Also, this supports PoE, with an additional PoE HAT, for $26.
Rock Pi E D8W2: The ROCK Pi E D8W2 comes in 1GB DDR3 RAM and uses a micro-SD card for OS and storage as well as supports eMMC modules. RTL8821CU (Wi-Fi 5 + Bluetooth 4.2), PoE support, for $28.
We can find some of the variants on ALLNetChina with a starting price of $19, offering 512MB RAM, and no wireless module. Radxa did not release enough details regarding accessories, hopefully we will get some updates soon. You can find more information about the board on Radxa’s wiki page, and you can purchase the boards on Seeed Studio’s website.
Infineon Technologies AG will expand its XENSIV™ 3D magnetic sensor family TLx493D. At its in-house digital trade show “Virtual Sensor Experience”, the chipmaker will present a new device for industrial and consumer applications: the TLI493D-W2BW. It uses the latest 3D Hall generation from Infineon and is housed in an extremely small wafer-level package. With an 87 percent smaller footprint and 46 percent less height than previous comparable products, the sensor opens up new design options.
Due to the small WLB-5 package (1.13 mm x 0.93 mm x 0.59 mm) and its low current consumption of 7 nA in power-down mode, the new magnetic sensor is also suitable for use in applications that previously used resistor-based or optical solutions. Magnetic sensors offer numerous advantages here, such as their high accuracy or robustness against dust and moisture. In addition, magnetic sensors are easier to assemble and offer more design options.
In particular, the low height of the TLI493D-W2BW is helpful in extremely space-critical applications such as BLDC commutation in micromotors or control elements such as joysticks or game consoles. It enables designs with double-sided PCBs or positioning of the sensor between two PCBs. This allows optimal use of the available space; for example, additional components can be placed above the sensor.
Technical features
The new sensor has an integrated wake-up function. It is available in four variants with preconfigured standard addresses. A higher resolution (typ. 32.5 to 130 µT/LSB12) compared to the previous generation extends the range of applications. XY angle measurement is also supported.
The update rate is up to 5.7 kHz (8.4 kHz for XY), while the resolution in low-power modes can be adjusted in eight steps between 0.05 and 770 Hz. Power consumption in power-down mode is specified at 7 nA. The supply current is 3.4 mA. The sensor has an I2C interface and a dedicated interrupt pin.
Availability
Samples of the new XENSIV 3D sensor TLI493D-W2BW are already available. Series production will start in August 2020. Further information is available at www.infineon.com/3dmagnetic.
PolarFire SoC Icicle Kit is an affordable development tool for Microchip’s PolarFireSoC, a low-power FPGA fused or integrated with a hardened quad-core 64-bit RISC-V microprocessor subsystem. The Icicle tool is the first development panel for the significant Polarfire SoC, which is the world’s first FPGA and Linux-capable RISC-V system in a single chip. If your purpose is to develop cutting edge apps in integrated artificial intelligence, wired networking, or industrial automation, or just trying to explore RISC-V and FPGAs, this Icicle Kit and its rigorous Mi-V niche of tools are the best way to start.
Features & Specs includes:
PolarFire Soc (MPFS250T-FCVG48EES)
1 x RV64IMAC core
4 x RV64GC core
254K logic elements non-volatile fabric
784 x math block (18 x 18)
4 x 12.7 Gbps SEDES
Secure boot
Memory
2GB LPDDR4 x 32
Storage
1 Gb SPI flash
8 GB Emmc flash or SD card slot (multiple)
Networking
2 x Gigabit Ethernet
Expansion Interfaces
Raspberry Pi-compatible 40-pin header
mikroBUS socket
PCIe gen2
Micro USB 2.0 Hi Speed OTG
4 x UART (via sinle micro USB)
2 x CAN
SPI
I²C
Power
12 VDC / 5 A barrel jack input
On/Off switch
I²C power monitoring measuring four power rails
User Interfaces
4 x User push button
4 x User LED
4 x Power status LED
Programming and Debugging
UART vis micro USB
Onboard JTAG connector or embedded FlashPro6 (multiplexed)
52 x test points
PolarFire SoC Block Diagram
The Icicletool is based on Microchip’s Polar SoC (MPFS250T-FCVG48EES), which is a system-on-chip that uses the effective PolarFire FPGA and a five-core RISC-V microprocessor subsystem together. According to the official PolarFire Soc document, the PolarFire® SoC FPGA family offers an unmatched combo of low power use, heat efficient, and defense-grade security for smart connected systems. This kit is the first system on chip (SoC) field-programmable gate array (FPGA) having an established, well organized RISC-V CPU cluster and a deterministic L2 memory subsystem which is compatible with Linux and real-time apps. PolarFire SoC device offers up to 50% lower energy than alt FPGAs, ranging from 25K to 460K logic elements (LEs) featuring transceivers.
Full production of the board is currently underway and the first units are expected to ship to backers in September 2020. All PolarFire SoC Icicle Kits will be shipped to backers from the Crowd Supply warehouse in the United States. For more information about fulfillment, visit the Crowd Supply Guide page on ordering, paying, and shipping. The retail price (without shipping) of the PolarFire Icicle Kit is $489. The $499 price in this Crowd Supply campaign includes $10 for US domestic shipping. Funding ends on Aug 31, 2020 at 04:59 PM PDT (11:59 PM UTC). more information can be found here.
SparkFun has created several Real-Time Kinematics (RTK) as well as dead reckoning boards in the past, but this new ZED-F9RGPS piHAT from the Colorado-based manufacturer is the very first high-precision sensor fusion board to combine both the RTK and dead reckoning features in one professional platform.
The Raspberry Pi add-on board with impressive configuration options takes advantage of u-blox’s automotive dead reckoning technology to provide highly accurate and continuous positioning for automotive and other unmanned vehicle applications including vehicle tracking. The pHAT features u-blox’s 184-channel ZED-F9R GPS receiver module for ADR which supports concurrent reception of four GNSS systems with 20cm accuracy when connected to an RTK base station. The combination of the integrated 3D sensor measurements on the ZED-F9R and the GNSS is responsible for the up to 30Hz real-time positioning rate being delivered.
The ZED-F9R GPS pHAT is touted as an ideal solution for autonomous robotic applications that demand position accuracy under challenging situations. The pHAT can maximize accurate positioning in dense or covered areas as well as provide continuous positioning for areas with poor signal conditions or complete signal loss like short tunnels and parking garages.
SparkFun’s announcement for this $250 ZED-F9R GPR-RTK dead reckoning pHAT was made alongside a similar $290 open source GPS-RTK dead reckoning breakout model with the same high precision sensor GPS board but without RPi compatibility. “By default, we chose to use the Raspberry Pi’s serial UART to communicate with the module. With pre-soldered headers, no soldering is required to stack the pHAT on a Raspberry Pi, NVIDIA Jetson Nano, Google Coral, or any single-board computer with the 2 x 20 form factor. To give more connection flexibility, the board also breaks out a few 0.1 spaced pins from the u-blox receiver and a Qwiic connector is also added to facilitate connections between the board and Qwiic enabled devices.
For additional interesting features, the ZED-F9R GPS pHAT comes equipped with a micro USB port and an on-board rechargeable battery that provides power to the ZED-F9R module’s RTC in order to reduce the time-to-first fix from a cold start.
The RPi’s GPS-RTK dead reckoning pHAT sells for $249.95 on SparkFun’s product and shopping page, alongside a GPS antenna with a price range of $3.95 to $64.95, depending on the type you want.
Robert Poser has posted his project on GitHub called PaperiNode, which is a flexible, low power, energy-harvesting, LoRa-enabled, electronic paper display. PaperiNode is ideal for the Paperino (an easy to use micro EPD breakout-board for the Photon or other Arduino-compatible microcontrollers. The eInk-based ePaper display mimics the appearance of natural paper and is capable of holding text and images indefinitely, even without electricity). This makes Paperino perfect for your next battery-driven, a connected project where the display content changes rarely.
Specifications include:
MCU: ATmega328pb (16MHz, 32KB FLASH, 2KB SRAM)
External RTC: MCP7940M
LoRa Chip: RFM95W, Antenna EU_863_870 or u.FL connector for external antenna
EPD: 1.1″ Plastic Logic, 148x70pixel
Flash: Winbond W25X40Cl, 4Mbit
Low power design: Deep Sleep 2.4uA
PV cells: IXYS SLMD121H04L
Energy-harvesting PMIC: E-Peas AEM10941 w/ MPPT
Storage device: EDLC supercap 400mF
PaperiNode Power Consumption
The PaperiNode has more to offer than just being a flexible EPD breakout board. It is also an Arduino-compatible development board and comes with complete example code and EPD drivers that are capable of running nonstop just from the small amount of power it harnesses from its two IXYS SLMD121H04L solar panels which are mounted on the rear of the device. The process of harnessing the solar energy from the two photovoltaic panels is carried out via a dedicated E-Peas AEM10941 MPPT PMIC, which also acts as a buffer to keep the balance topped up on a large 400mF HA230F EDLC supercapacitor from Cap XX. This supercapacitor device enables the device to store some charge for later use when there are no clear skies for a solar charge, and the solar cells aren’t able to gather the peak Tx current needed by the radio. The supercapacitor also offers enough headroom for some radio capabilities.
The device features the ATmega328PB, which is a very popular MCU in the Arduino family. It features 32KB of flash / 2KB of SRAM, running at 16MHz, and it is housed inside SMD TQFP part instead of the PDIP. The ATmega functions well at low power, and when it’s turned fully off. This is possible via the external RTC IC it features, called the Microchip MCP7940M. The Microchip MCP7940M is capable of sending a configurable interrupt signal via its MFP pin. This enables you to design your applications to utilize only a minute amount of power. One remarkable thing about the EPD module is that it does not need power to hold a static image, couple with the fact that the ATmega remains idle in ” sleep” mode, just waiting for an interrupt from the RTC to turn it on, there is really no power consumption, just about 2.4uA between display updates. One thing that is very important for graphics application is memory space. The ATmega offers 32KB of flash which can be sufficient for application code, but small for image data, font sets. This problem can be solved through the Winbond W25X40Cl 4Mbit FLASH memory found on the schematic.
The device is an open-source device. The device has a second revision which is the successor of the first edition, and contains the following changes:
Reduced deep sleep current
SPI pins exposed on bottom side to connect external sensors etc.
SPI flash added to store measurement data or upto seven pictures
Finally, the device features a DS2401, which is a Silicon Serial Number IC. It is a hard-coded 48-bit serial number, which is unique across all devices. The advantage of this is that it saves you time programming each device with a UUID, and enables a unique identity for each device, making identification of each device very easy. The PaperiNode is now available on Tindie for $59, and you can find support for the project on GitHub.
Single chip high efficiency step-down converter, app note from ON Semiconductors.
The LV5980MC is a fixed 370 kHz, high−output−current, Non−synchronous PWM converter that integrates a low−resistance, high−side MOSFET and a Customer Chosen, External Diode for the rectification. The LV5980MC utilizes externally compensated current mode control to provide good transient response, ease of implementation, and excellent loop stability. It regulates input voltages from 4.5 V to 23 V down to an output voltage as low as 1.235 V and is able to supply up to 3.0 A of load current. The LV5980MC includes Power Save Feature to enhance efficiency during Light Load. In low consumption mode, the device show operating current of 63 A from VIN by shutting down unnecessary circuits.
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