Silicon detectors are widely used in particle and nuclear physics for measuring ionizing radiation. This Do-It-Yourself project allows making a low-cost particle detector from scratch using silicon photodiodes. It can distinguish different particle types (alpha particles and electrons) and measures their energy between 33 keV and 8 MeV. The detector must be shielded from light and is, therefore, best mounted inside your favorite candy tin box. The signal output can be directly connected with microphone or headset inputs of regular laptops and smartphones.
The DIY particle detector is open source science hardware, released under the CERN open hardware license. Construction details and software for undertaking measurements can be found on the corresponding project website. The circuit board and electronic parts (~20 EUR) can be easily procured via kitspace, an open hardware design repository.
DIY Silicon Photodiode Particle Detector directly from CERN – [Link]
If your project demands some high precision analog measurements, then here is a new Olimex BB-ADS1262 that can help get the job done easily; with up to 10 channels of 32-bit ADC conversion, the new BB-AD S1262 breakout board is considered a great add-on for microcontrollers.
Before, system designers who needed a high-resolution analog-to-digital-converter have to sacrifice certain desired specifications like low noise, low offset drift, and several other integrated features. Things have however become easier as there are now ADCs that have helped to eliminate these trade-offs by providing a high resolution alongside fault-detection features, faster data rates, and wider temperature range, thereby maximizing performance.
The new BB-ADS1262 from Olimex is built around the Texas Instrument ADS1262 ADC chip and offers up to 10 Channel low-noise low-drive 32-bit ADC on an Open-source hardware breakout board.
“The BB-ADS1262 is a breakout board for the ADS1262 low-noise, low-drift 38.4 KSPS, delta-sigma ADCs with an integrated PGA (Programmable Gain Amplifier), reference, and internal faults monitors. Possible applications are sensor reading, small signals (ECG / EEG), weight scales, strain gauge sensors, thermocouples, and resistance temperature devices (RTDs).”
says the Bulgarian open source specialist as he launches his new design.
The 10 channel sigma-delta precise 32 bit ADC breakout board is fully open source according to the Open Source Hardware definition and licensed under the CERN – Open Hardware Licence Version 2.0; software is released under the GPL3 Licensee (including an Arduino demo code) while the documentation is under a CC BY SA 3.0.
Designed for high accuracy and stability, the BB-ADS1262 breakout board has some key features worth taking note of, including;
Up to 32-bit ADC conversion precision
Data rates of 2.5 samples per second to up to 38,400 samples per second
An offset drift of 1 nV / 0C and a gain drift of 0.5 ppm / 0C
CMOS programmable gain amplifier plus Differential Input
Noise level: 7 nVRMS (2.5 samples per second with the gain set to 32)
50 Hz and 60 Hz Rejection
Internal voltage reference: 2.5V
Linearity: 3 parts per million and,
47 x 18 mm ( 1.85 x 0.7 inch) in size
The BB-ADS1262 board currently sells at $28, precisely €25.95 (with some discounts over a certain number of pieces) in Olimex’s shop. More details on it including hardware files and source codes can be found in their GitHub repository.
Newark has added the new entry-level TBS2000B Digital Storage Oscilloscope from Tektronix to its test and measurement portfolio.
The TBS2000B series is a complete drop-in replacement for TBS2000 series oscilloscopes, with the same form factor and programmable interface.
Features of the TBS2000B include:
A 9-inch WVGA display with a 5-million-point record length and 2GS/s sample rate which enables users to capture and display more signal, speeding up debug, and design validation.
32 automated measurements and on-waveform cursor readouts with search and mark features that enable identification of events that occur in the acquired waveform.
TekVPI, Tektronix’s proprietary probe support interface, enabling application coverage using the latest active differential and current probes with automatic scaling and units. This is the industry’s only entry-level instrument featuring TekVPI, according to the company. The TBS2000B also supports traditional passive BNC probes.
Range of connectivity options including Wi-Fi support (via USB Wi-Fi dongle), 2 USB host ports, and 100-BaseT Ethernet for sharing of measurements and collaboration.
Newark offers 24/5 technical support with test and measurement specialists on-hand and online resources such Newark’s online probe selector tool.
The Tektronix TBS2000B Digital Storage Oscilloscope is available from Newark in North America.
Analog Devices released the LT8650S,LT8652S and LT8653S dual-channel 4A/8.5A/2A synchronous step-down Silent Switcher® converters. The silent switcher series is based on the Silent Switcher 2 architecture, coupled with spread spectrum frequency modulation. Per the company, this ensure PCB layout robustness to achieve ultra-low EMI performance that meets CISPR25 emissions.
The outputs are able to be paralleled to scale up or down the current based on the system. This can be performed while optimizing thermal performance.
LT8650S/LT8652S/LT8653S Key Features as Provided by the Company
SeeedStudio has been working on an addition to their BeagleBone Green Development Board family with an update to the BeagleBone Green Wireless board named BeagleBone Green Gateway. The board features the new Octavo Systems OSD3358, which is a SiP (System in Package) that integrates the AM3358 1GHz ARM Cortex-A8 Processor, 512MB DDR3 SRAM, and other wonderful features into one package.
The new board is being designed to suit applications where the board is being used as a gateway, as such, it comes with both Ethernet Connectivity, WiFi and BLE Wireless connectivity options. The board also comes with an extra DC connector for power (overcoming the Micro USB only for power limitation), and an onboard I2C RTC, so that it is more suitable for industrial application or applications where time accuracy is required.
The board is available for pre-order for 59.90 USD
Key Features
Fully Compatible with BeagleBone® Black and Seeed Studio BeagleBone® Green
Compact size for convenient deployment
Powerful Sitara™ AM3358 Arm® Cortex® A8 Processor
Rich I/O Peripherals
PRUs for Real-TIme Capabilities
Cape Support for Expandability
Open-Source
Support from the fast-growing community
Some of the expected features and specifications of the new board include;
Processor
Processor: Octavo Systems OSD3358
AM3358 1GHz ARM Cortex-A8
2×32-bit 200-MHz programmable real-time units (PRUs)
3D graphics accelerator
NEON floating-point accelerator
512MB DDR3 SDRAM
4KB EEPROM
Integrated power management
Memory
4GB 8-bit eMMC onboard flash storage
SD/MMC Connector for microSD
Connectivity
DC Jack for power, 12V
Ethernet 10/100Mbit
USB 2.0 Host x2
USB client for power and communications
2x 46 pin headers
2x Grove connectors (I2C and UART)
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n 2.4GHz
Bluetooth 4.1 with BLE
I2C RTC, and 3V battery connector
Debug UART header
3x Buttons
2x 46 pin headers and 2x Grove connectors fully compatible with Seeed Studio Beaglebone Green and Seeed Studio Beaglebone Green Wireless
Operating Temperature: 0 ~ 70
The BeagleBone Green Gateway is expected to run Debian with the Cloud9 IDE just like the BeagleBone Green Wireless, and it’s price even though not yet announced by Seeed, is expected to be more than that of the BeagleBone Green Wireless due to the new features. Any thoughts/comments/ideas on the BeagleBone Green Gateway? Do share via the comment section.
We have many tiny and compact Arm Linux SBC on the market today, ranging from NanoPi NEO to Raspberry Pi Zero or Rock Pi S. However, Daniel Palmer is launching a crowdfunding campaign for the BreadBee, which is tiny, but yet fully-functional Linux-based single-board computer designed based on MStar MSC313E Cortex-A7 system-on-chip (SoC) originally aimed at IP cameras. Palmer say:
“The BreadBee is based on a relatively unknown IP camera SoC, the MSC313E, from a company called MStar.” He continues “You might have never heard of MStar but you probably have one of their chips in your TV. There are no solutions yet that can run a real OS like Linux that can be integrated by hobbyists into boards from cheap PCB vendors that don’t have show stopping limitations; i.e. the AllWinner V3s is very similar to the SoC used here but it only has one SPI controller that is lost as soon as you put SPI NOR on it… The MSC313E has just enough of the usual microcontroller peripherals to make it useful, comes in a (relatively) easy to work with QFN package, is tiny and costs ~$4. It is a bit harder to integrate into your designs than a microcontroller that requires a single power supply but all of the information you would need to do so is right here. The schematic for the BreadBee is incredibly simple.”
The Tiny BreadBee
At 32x30mm (around 1.26×1.18″) in footprint, which is smaller than any Arm Linux SBC on the market today, the compact BreadBee features a wide range of specifications. It includes a single-core 1GHz Arm Cortex-A7 with NEON instructions, 64MB of DDR2 memory, 64kB of static RAM, bootable and memory-mapped SPI-NOR, a 100Mb Ethernet port. It also includes 24-pin dual-row header (2.54mm pitch) with SPI, I2C, 4x 10-bit ADC, 3x UART, GPIOs 21-pin header (1.27mm pitch) with SD/SDIO, USB 2.0, GPIOs, eight pulse-width modulated (PWM) pins, a real-time clock, watchdog timer, SD/SDIO interface, a USB PHY and host/device mux. The networking feature includes 10/100M Ethernet (RJ45).
The BreadBee Blinking When Performing
Some of the MSC313E‘s hardware features are not quite ready for prime-time yet. However, hardware specifications available, but as-yet unsupported features of the SoC includes the camera interface and H.264 encoder for IP camera duties, an audio ADC and DAC, hardware cryptographic acceleration, and 8051 low-power-mode management microcontroller, (somewhat like an IR decoder that can wake the chip up based on the IR codes it sees), a command-queue direct memory access (DMA) controller, and finally an on-die temperature sensor. Even though the MStar MSC313E is a camera processor, the camera interface does not look exposed in the board, so it seems to be designed to control I/Os over Ethernet. WiFi is not available for now, however, there may be a future model that replaced the Ethernet jack with an Ampak WiFi module.
For more information on the BreadBee, and how to sign up to be alerted when the crowdfunding campaign goes live, you can visit Crowd Supply or the project’s GitHub repository. Pricing is yet to be confirmed, but Palmer is rooting for production costs of around $10 per unit in small quantities.
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Maryland say they have developed a step-by-step recipe to produce single-atom transistors. by Rich Pell @ smart2zero.com
Transistors consisting of only several-atom clusters or even single atoms, say the researchers, promise to become the building blocks of a new generation of computers with unparalleled memory and processing power, but are notoriously difficult to fabricate in quantity. Now, using the new instructions, the researchers have become only the second in the world to construct a single-atom transistor and the first to consistently fabricate a series of single electron transistors with atom-scale control over the devices’ geometry.
The scientists demonstrated that they could precisely adjust the rate at which individual electrons flow through a physical gap or electrical barrier in their transistor. That strictly quantum phenomenon – known as quantum tunneling – only becomes important when gaps are extremely tiny, such as in the miniature transistors. Precise control over quantum tunneling is key, say the researchers, because it enables the transistors to become “entangled” or interlinked in a way only possible through quantum mechanics and opens new possibilities for creating quantum bits (qubits) that could be used in quantum computing.
To fabricate single-atom and few-atom transistors, the researchers relied on a known technique in which a silicon chip is covered with a layer of hydrogen atoms, which readily bind to silicon. The fine tip of a scanning tunneling microscope then removed hydrogen atoms at selected sites. The remaining hydrogen acted as a barrier so that when the researchers directed phosphine gas (PH3) at the silicon surface, individual PH3 molecules attached only to the locations where the hydrogen had been removed (see video).
The researchers then heated the silicon surface, which ejected hydrogen atoms from the PH3 and caused the phosphorus atom that was left behind to embed itself in the surface. With additional processing, say the researchers, bound phosphorous atoms created the foundation of a series of highly stable single- or few-atom devices that have the potential to serve as qubits.
MYIR introduces the VECP Starter Kit, a complete Vision Edge Computing Platform designed to support excellent image processing for typical applications like Machine Vision, Industry, IoT, Medical and more others in different areas of business and everyday life.
The VECP Starter Kit is using Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ ZU3EG solution and comes with a MYD-CZU3EG-ISP development board as well as some accessories to help users start their development rapidly. The MYD-CZU3EG-ISP board consists of a MYC-CZU3EG CPU Module with installed active heatsink, a base board and a SONY imx334 4K Sensor which is installed on the rear of the base board and connected to the board MIPI-CSI interface through an FPC cable. The board is ready to run Linux OS and provided with plenty of software resources.
Interfaces of MYD-CZU3EG-ISP Board (delivered with installed active heatsink by default)
The MYD-CZU3EG-ISP development board shows outstanding image processing performance through the built-in ISP core which is capable of handling 4K video at 30fps and implementing ultra-low delay video transmission at maximum 0.7ms. It also has integrated IP cores for high-speed video standards like GigE vision and USB3 vison to allow the image transmission via the Gigabit Ethernet or USB 3.0 from the board FPGA logic part.
Function Block Diagram
The VECP Starter Kit is offered at $599/unit only. MYIR also offers custom design services for board design based on the MYD-CZU3EG-ISP development board or customized image sensors or customized IP cores according to customers’ requirements.
VECP Data Processing Frame
For whatever deep learning purpose or production, the VECP Starter Kit will be easily for users to begin their edging computing experience and reduce their time to market with the design reference or system integration.
MYD-CZU3EG-ISP Development Board (delivered with installed active heatsink by default)
AAEON, a leader in AI and edge computing solutions, announces the VPC-3350AI embedded PC featuring Intel® Movidius® Myriad™ X. Built for industrial and in-vehicle use, the VPC-3350AI provides faster and smoother AI processing compared to similar systems which rely on CPU performance alone.
The VPC-3350AI is based on a flexible platform powered by Intel® Atom™ x5 E3940 (formerly Apollo Lake) paired with two Intel® Movidius® Myriad™ X VPU modules. Together, these modules provide the VPC-3350AI with processing speeds up to 210 FPS and 8 TOPs as a dedicated neural network accelerator (evaluated by GooLeNet). This configuration of two VPUs with processor allows the VPC-3350AI to support asynchronous processing of AI models, allowing for higher framerates and faster, smoother image processing for AI inferences.
The VPC-3350AI features an innovative thermal solution providing wide temperature operations from -20°C to 60°C, perfect for operating in almost any environment. The VPC-3350AI is designed with an assortment of I/O ports including four POE ports, two COM, and USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, allowing for flexibility to integrate with any project. AAEON’s industry leading OEM/ODM and manufacturer services provide options for clients to configure the VPC-3350AI to their needs, including providing up to four Intel Movidius Myriad X VPUs, expanded I/O and functionality for in-vehicle operations.
With Intel Movidius Myriad X, the VPC-3350AI is a perfect fit for AI and edge computing applications, including license plate and facial recognition. As an in-vehicle AI embedded system, it helps to power driver safety applications such as advanced driver-assist systems (ADAS) or driver monitoring and behavior analysis for heavy vehicle operators.
“With flexible design and AI processing powered by Intel Movidius Myriad X, the VPC-3350AI is the choice for vital embedded applications which rely on processing of visual data,” said Josh Chen, Product Manager with AAEON’s Network Security Division. “With its flexible design, the VPC-3350AI offers several key advantages as a solution for many of today’s AI and edge computing needs.”
The NCID9211 is part of a family of galvanically digital isolators that use ON Semiconductor’s patented off-chip capacitor isolation technology
The NCID9211 is part of a family of galvanically digital isolators that use ON Semiconductor’s patented off-chip capacitor isolation technology. These isolators support digital communication between systems without conducting ground loops or hazardous voltages.
Their capactive ceramic substrate construction offers ~25 times the thickness of thin film on-chip capacitors and coreless transformers, resulting in electrical performance benefits traditionally offered by optocouplers but exceeding optocouplers in speed, common mode transient immunity as well as temperature and lifetime performance.
Key features
Digital Isolator Matching Insulation Reliability of Optocouplers (DTI ≥ 0.5 mm)
High Speed, No Insulation Material Wear Over Time and No Degradation
8 mm Clearance and Creepage, SO16 Wide Body Package
Safety and Regulatory Approvals, AEC−Q100 Qualified
Additional features
Digital Isolator matching insulation reliability of optocouplers
Full Duplex, Bi−directional communication
DTI (Distance Through Insulation): ≥ 0.5 mm
8 mm creepage and clearance distance to achieve reliable HV insulation.
SO16 wide body package
Maximum working insulation voltage: 2000 V peak
Minimum common-mode rejection: 100 kV/µs
High Speed:
Data rate (NRZ): 50 Mbps
Propagation delay: 25 ns max.
Pulse width distortion: 10 ns max.
Specifications guaranteed over 2.5 to 5.5 V supply voltage and −40 to +125 °C extended temperature range
No insulation material wear out over time, no degradation, consistent device-to-device performance
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