Electronics News June 2013 by Prime Creative Media

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ne ws Australiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Premier Electronics Magazine

www.electronicsnews.com.au INSIDE

JUNE 13

Page 7 News 4

MPU shakedown

Last one standing

The only solar panel manufacturer left in Australia faces a turbulent global market. How is Tindo Solar planning to beat the odds? Page 13

Old order challenged as mobile vitality triggers reshuffle in the top microprocessor manufacturing ranks Technology 7

Powerful prints CSIRO scientists print A3 sized flexible solar cells Feature 10

Component sourcing How the evolution of the electronics supply chain is saving time and money Feature 16

Industrial processors How processor technology is changing to keep up with industry demands Feature 20

Post Print Approved PP255003/00319

Embedded design Overcoming challenges and turning threats into opportunities Design Corner 22

Get more from your oscilloscopes

EN0613_000_STM

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NEWS

EDITOR’S MESSAGE

Interventions can help if done strategically

ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Martin Sinclair martin.sinclair@cirrusmedia.com.au EDITOR Kevin Gomez Tel: (02) 8484 0976 kevin.gomez@cirrusmedia.com.au DEPUTY EDITOR Isaac Leung Tel: (02) 8484 0956 isaac.leung@cirrusmedia.com.au KEY ACCOUNT MANAGER Tim Richards Tel: (02) 8484 0829 Fax: (02) 8484 0915 tim.richards@cirrusmedia.com.au

Kevin Gomez Editor

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• Transport • Power Supplies • EMI/RFI • Digital Home • Electronex Preview

THE engineering communities in Australia would have been extremely disappointed with Ford’s decision to cease manufacturing in this country. There were strong financial considerations behind this decision and the government’s generous funding and political support proved inconsequential in the end. In fact the government’s propping up of our car manufacturing sector has come in for considerable flak with believers of laissez-faire economics pushing for market forces to decide the fate of the industry. Interestingly, governments in other countries are stepping in to fund and rebuild industries – especially in the case of manufacturing and electronics. The US government is already turning around its manufacturing sector with pro-local policies and a form of protectionism. The situation in Europe is also interesting. The European Commission has set itself an ambitious target to double chip production to around 20 percent of global production by 2020 and is setting up a $6.7 billion war chest to fund this activity. For Australia and others looking at industry intervention by governments, the EU case has some lessons. For starters, it helps if the government thinks big, ensures consistency and adopts a long term strategy – not an election sop that varies with every change in leadership. The European Union (EU) is already charting out a plan with a total investment of $134 billion between 2013

and 2020 to make its nanoelectronics industry a leader. In essence, the EU wishes to recreate the success of Airbus, but in the chip sector. Helping drive this plan is a high-tech electronics design cluster in the world’s fashion capital, Milan. As the lucky country drifts towards a ‘mining plus service’ economy, the EU is fighting to regain a hold on the electronics sector. The Commission has determined that nanoelectronics is strategic to European wealth creation as a least 10 percent of GDP depends on electronics products and services. There has been much been said about the concentration of electronics manufacturing in China. But things are changing. Wages in manufacturing hubs were up 22 percent last year and the Chinese government is committed to ensuring that salaries grow at least 13 percent annually for the next five years. Some countries are already capitalising on that country’s high wages – China already buys more from Germany than it exports there. With its large workforce, long term strategists are touting Indonesia as the next China. If they are right, Australia can leverage its proximity to this awakening giant. If several manufacturing facilities spring up across the Timor Sea, perhaps it’s not Milan, but Melbourne that could host a high-tech electronics design cluster. kevin.gomez@cirrusmedia.com.au

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NEWS

IN BRIEF

iTo rePlacemenT TransParenT conducTors Poised For raPid groWTh TOUCH Display Research has published its report on the market for ITO replacement conductor technologies, forecasting rapid growth from 2013 to 2020. The report, titled “ITO Replacement—Non-ITO Transparent Conductor Technologies, Supply Chain and Market Forecast Report,” profiles over 180 companies and research institutes working on advanced transparent conductive (TC) materials. “ITO (Indium Tin Oxide) is the mainstream transparent conductor currently. However, due to its high cost, long process and fragility, nonITO type TC is gaining momentum,” said Dr. Jennifer Colegrove, president and analyst of Touch Display Research. Materials like metal mesh, carbon nano tube (CNT), conductive polymer, silver nanowire, graphene, and other technologies are replacing ITO, and at the same time providing functions beyond the capabilities of ITO. Commercially, Atmel has been mass producing XSense for several months, while Fujifilm is expanding its EXCLEAR capacity. UniPixel is starting the mass production of UniBoss, while Cambrios is leading the silver nanowire TC market. Transparent conductor applications include touch sensors, displays, lighting, thin-film solar, smart windows, EMI shielding, etc.

Bridgelux and ToshiBa exPand led ParTnershiP BRIDGELUX and Toshiba have extended their strategic technology collaboration, having completed the transfer of the former’s GaN-onSilicon LED-making technology assets to Toshiba. The two companies will collaborate on developing GaNon-Silicon, via licensing and manufacturing supply partnership. The agreement allows Bridgelux to continue to develop its GaNon-Sapphire LED products. At the same time, it will commercialise, productise and bring to market GaNon-Silicon technologies by working together with Toshiba.

4 JUNE 2013 www.electronicsnews.com.au

INDUSTRIAL

AMD pushed off second place in MPU sales by Qualcomm and Samsung AMD has dropped from second place in microprocessor (MPU) sales to fourth, after being pushed off its perch by Qualcomm and Samsung. Since the 1990s, AMD has been second place in MPU sales, behind Intel. However, a slowdown in notebook and desktop personal computer purchases, coupled with strong growth in smartphones and tablet PCs, have seen PC-dependent x86 MPU companies Intel and AMD continuing to lose marketshare. The new top 10 MPU list from IC Insights shows most leading suppliers of mobile processors based on ARM technology moving higher in the ranking. AMD and Intel are the only ones still selling central processors built with x86 microarchitectures. Qualcomm has taken over the second ranking, a strong performer in the cellphone integrated circuit business, based on its strength in phone application processors, including the Snapdragon SoC, which saw a 28 percent leap in sales in 2012, pushing its MPU marketshare to 9.4 percent. Samsung took third place. The

AMD and Intel are the only ones within the top 10 MPU rankings still selling central processors built with x86 microarchitectures. South Korean company provides its own ARM-based processors, and also the source for Apple’s customdesigned MPUs for its iPad tablet PCs and iPhone handsets. Intel remains the dominant leader in microprocessor sales with 65.3 percent of the market. However, its share slipped by one percent from 2011 figures. AMD’s share of microprocessor sales fell to 6.4 percent in 2012 compared to 8.2 percent in 2011,

AMD is already making moves to transition to the new order, announcing in late 2012 that it would be the first MPU supplier to sell microprocessors built with x86 and ARM architectures. This is set to start in 2014. The $56.5 billion microprocessor market continued to be the largest single semiconductor product category in 2012, accounting for 22 percent of total IC sales. n www.icinsights.com

MEDICAL

New electrode designs improve cochlear implants AUSTRALIAN academic and commercial researchers have developed designs for higherperformance electrodes which could substantially improve sound perception in the next generation of cochlear implants. The work was carried out by University of Melbourne Research Fellow Dr Carrie Newbold, the HEARing Cooperative Research Centre (HEARing CRC) and Cochlear Limited. The research, which has been ongoing since 2001, looks at less intrusive, slim electrode designs, the use of new biomaterials and manufacturing techniques to produce electrodes with higher capacity for information transmission. The new designs are based on Dr Newbold’s research into the

The next generation of cochlear implants could benefit from slimmer electrode designs. Image credit: Cochlear. interactions between the cochlear implant’s electrodes and the tiny nerve cells of the cochlear. The current design of the cochlear implant uses 22 individual

electrodes. Because they are so small, their connecting wires are even thinner. This necessitates hand assembly, limiting production. The delicate membranes and internal structures in the cochlea present an additional challenge during the implant process. The new designs address these challenges by changing the physical characteristics of the electrode array and making it easier to surgically insert the device with minimum risk of damage. The researchers are also looking at the potential application of new conductive polymers for improving hearing stimulation in the cochlear. These replacement plastics are more efficient with electricity, and are also less brittle. n www.hearingcrc.org

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IN BRIEF

ENVIRONMENTAL

Efficiency breakthrough for Dyesol DYESOL says it has achieved a “game changing” technical breakthrough, by boosting the efficiency of its Dye Solar Cell (DSC) technology to 11.3 percent at full sun. The Australian company is currently working to transition its DSC technology from liquid-based to solidstate systems (also known as mesoscopic solar cells) to meet the demands of product life and mass manufacture. In 2010, solid-state DSC performance was at five percent conversion efficiency, significantly lagging the performance of liquid based systems. However, Dyesol capitalised on the work of its scientist Dr Peng Qin, based at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, and has now achieved solid-state DSC laboratory efficiency of 11.3 percent. While industrial/commercial efficiencies tend to fall short of laboratory figures, Dyesol claims to be confident of achieving industrial efficiencies greater than 10 percent because of the added simplicity of working with solid-state systems. With greater than 10 percent conversion efficiency, the technology will be grid competitive. Additionally, because DSC technology has advantages over photovoltaic E N 0 6 1 systems 3 _ 0 0 in 0 _places S E Mwith . p sub-optimal df Pa ge 1 1 light conditions, the company says its commercialised

Three suicides aT Foxconn FacTory in 20 days

The new breakthrough makes Dyesol technology grid-competitive. products will prove to be very competitive. Dyesol Chairman Richard Caldwell says the business case for solar remains compelling, but the cards are still on the table in regards to which technology will dominate the solar industry in the future. Dyesol says there will be further improvements in solid-state performance 5 / 0 5 / 1 3 , 1 0 :in2the 2 :coming 0 5 months. A M An EST

www.dyesol.com

FOXCONN’s personnel problems persist, with China Labour Watch claiming three Foxconn workers killed themselves at the company’s Zhengzhou factory in three weeks spanning April and May. The spate of suicides started on 24 April, when a 24-year-old male worker who had started working at the factory two days before jumped off a dormitory building. On 27 April, a 23-year-old female worker jumped off an apartment building. This was followed on 14 May with a 30-year-old male worker’s suicide by jumping from a roof. The rights group said the reasons for the suicides are unclear, but mentioned a possible relationship to the new silence mode policy at Zhengzhou. According to the group’s sources, the policy prohibits talking on the job on pains of termination. Foxconn manufactures products for big electronics firms including Apple and Sony.

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www.semikron.com www.electronicsnews.com.au JUNE 2013 5

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IN BRIEF

VicToria seeks small Technologies edge THE VICTORIAN Government has unveiled a new strategy to bolster small technology skills in the state. Small technologies underpin advanced manufacturing and materials, and applications include micro-electronics, and nano sensors. The aim is to drive small technologies, resulting in trickle-on benefits which will allow the continued growth of associated industries like medical technology. The strategy will also focus on the incorporation of small technologies into new products, processes and commercial applications. One of the initiatives within the strategy will provide university students with real-world industry experience on small technologies projects and skills, while raising awareness of small tech career paths. It will also aim to foster an entrepreneurial culture and E Nhelp 0 6students 1 3 _ 0develop 0 0 _ vital MI C . p d f commercialisation skills.

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INDUSTRIAL

ElectroneX returns ELECTRONEX returns to Melbourne on 11 to 12 September 2013 at the Melbourne Park Function Centre. Alternating annually between Melbourne and Sydney, ElectroneX is the only expo in Australia catering to the electronics industry, and is designed to help professionals stay in touch with the latest technology developments for systems integration and production electronics. With a move towards niche and specialised manufacturing applications, the competitive future of practically every Australian industry sector is more and more reliant on the utilisation and integration of the latest electronics innovations in production, assembly, systems development, maintenance and service. Design, electronic and electrical engineers, OEM, scientific, IT and communications professionals and service technicians are invited to attend the event where they will find the latest technology driving future product and system developments. As a trade show, ElectroneX boasts over 80 companies showcasing and demonstrating the latest new product releases for industry and commercial applications. The SMCBA Electronics Design and Manufacture Conference P a g e isPbeing a g eco-hosted 1 1 5with / 0the 5 /exhibition. 1 3 , 3 : 2 5 : The 2013 SMCBA conference will feature several

Remote Mobile Tele-assistance technology which connects remote experts with on site operators. international presenters, and workshops on CAD library management for electronics designs, and EMC compliance. Other presentations will include a Statistical Process Control workshop, an IPC Certification Course and a program for new or soon to be graduates and technicians entering the industry.n 3 7

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www.electronex.com.au www.smcba.asn.au

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TECHNOLOGY

ENVIRONMENTAL

Printing A3 sized flexible organic solar cells AUSTRALIAN scientists have produced A3 sized flexible plastic solar cells, the largest made in Australia and ten times the size of the previous record. Researchers from the Victorian Organic Solar Cell Consortium leveraged a new $200,000 solar cell printer installed at CSIRO to print the organic photovoltaic cells. The VICOSC is a collaboration between CSIRO, The University of Melbourne, Monash University and industry partners. Cells of this size allow for a big range of possible applications. It can be integrated into advertising signage, to power lights and interactive elements, or embedded into laptop cases. THE VICOSC team started three years ago making cells the size of a EN0 6 1 3 _moved 0 0 0 up _ EtoLcells E fingernail, then measuring 10cm square. The new

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VICOSCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new solar cell printer installed at CSIRO. skyscrapers, or printing cells directly printer allows production of 30cm onto materials like steel to embed wide cells. solar capabilities into buildings. The Holy Grail of flexible solar 1 cells 2 0is1in3the - 0building 5 - 3 0industry, T 1 1 : be 0 3 : 2 1 +The 1 0organic : 0 0 photovoltaic cells, which produce 10â&#x20AC;&#x201C;50 watts of power it laminating the cells to windows of

per square metre, could even be used to improve the efficiency of more traditional silicon solar panels. According to VICOSC, the group is using existing screen printing technologies and techniques, improving the accessibility of the technology. Using semiconducting inks, the researchers print the cells straight onto paper-thin flexible plastic or steel. With the ability to print at speeds of up to ten metres per minute, they can produce one cell every two seconds. As part of the consortium, a complementary screen printing line is also being installed at nearby Monash University. Combined, they will make the Clayton Manufacturing and Materials Precinct one of the largest organic solar cell printing facilities in the world. n www.vicosc.unimelb.edu.au www.csiro.au

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Lower-grade silicon panels made more efficient allows scientists and manufacturers UNSW engineers have developed to use lower-quality, cheaper silicon a way to dramatically improve the to create solar cells which outperquality of low-grade silicon, with form conventional modules made flow-on implications for the electrical from better-quality materials. efficiency and cost of solar panels. Currently, premium quality Cheaper silicon is lower quality, commercial silicon solar cells have having more defects and contaminants a maximum efficiency of around 19 which reduce efficiency. However, percent. The world record of labhydrogen atoms can be introduced created solar cells is 25 percent (also into the atomic structure of silicon to held by UNSW). The new technique correct the defects, but researchers allows efficiencies between 21 and have had limited success in under23 percent, even though it uses lower standing or controlling the mechanism quality silicon. to maximise the benefits. With the discovered control The breakthrough addresses this, mechanism, scientists can toggle the with the scientists finding the mechanismEtoN control in. p d fcharge 0 6 1 3hydrogen _ 0 0 0 atoms _ CON P astate g e of 1hydrogen 1 5 / atoms 0 5 / in 1 3 , silicon between positive, neutral and silicon. The new process effectively

negative charges. The charge state determines how well the hydrogen can move around the silicon and its reactivity. By controlling the charges, the team saw a 10,000 times improvement in the mobility of the hydrogen atoms, and can now control the hydrogen so it chemically bonds to, and deactivates, defects and contaminants. The UNSW team currently has eight industry partners interested in commercialising the technology, and is also working with manufacturing equipment companies to implement the 3 : new 2 7 :capabilities. 2 1 PM AEST The project was supported by

Scientia Professor Stuart Wenham from the UNSW School of Photovoltaics and Renewable Energy Engineering. Image credit: UNSW. the Australian Renewable Energy Agency. It is expected to be completed in 2016. n www.unsw.edu.au

COMMUNICATIONS

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A TEAM of Australian researchers have taken the world another step towards quantum internet. The team is the first in the world to have detected the spin, or quantum state, of a single atom using a combined optical and electrical approach. The study is a collaboration between researchers from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology based at UNSW, the Australian National University and the University of Melbourne. Associate Professor Jeffrey McCallum at the University of Melbourne used an ion implanter to shoot erbium atoms into a standard industrial silicon transistor. When the atom was in a particular quantum state and laser light was shone on it, an electron was knocked off the atom. This was detected electrically, by the silicon transistor switching on. The new hybrid approach to

8 JUNE 2013 www.electronicsnews.com.au Australia 122x100.indd 1

08.05.2013 11:14:38

Laser light addressing a single erbium atom in a silicon chip. Image credit: UNSW. reading the spin of an atom opens up the possibility of using light to couple the atoms, or qubits, together to form a quantum computer. This is easier than using electricity. It will also allow the connection of a solid state quantum computer to a quantum communications system. The next step will be to control the spin of the erbium atom, and to replicate their results using a phosphorus atom embedded in silicon. n

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TECHNOLOGY

COMMUNICATIONS

Long distance high speed data link in under a second. The bandwidth RESEARCHERS of the Fraunhofer is also equivalent to 2400 DSL16000 Institute for Applied Solid State internet connections. Physics and the Karlsruhe Institute The long-range demonstration saw for Technology have achieved longthe data being transmitted between distance wireless transmission with two skyscrapers, over a distance of speeds rivalling fibre optics. more than one kilometre. A recent demonstration of the The radio link is based on active wireless technology set a new world electronic circuits, which enables record, with data transmitted at similarly high data rates as in fibre40Gbit/s via radio transmitters optic systems, therefore allowing and receivers operating at 240GHz radio and fibre-optic links to be frequency, over one kilometre. seamlessly integrated. With speeds which are According to the researchers, competitive with fibre optics, the radio link could be used to close gaps using the high frequency range The transmitter and receiver chips are based on transistors with high carrier between 200 and 280 GHz the in providing broadband internet by mobility, and the ICs measure only 4 x 1.5mmÂ˛. fast transmission of large volumes supplementing the network in rural transistors with high carrier mobility scales with frequency/wavelength, of data, due to low atmospheric areas and places which are difficult (HEMT) and as a result the ICs the hardware can be compact. In attenuation for those frequencies. to access. measure only 4 x 1.5 mmÂ˛. n Additionally, AtN40Gbit/s, ofW. a pdf E 0 6 1 3 data _ 0 0the 0 _size HK P a g e 1 because 1 6 / 0the 5 /size 1 3 , 1 the : 2Fraunhofer 1 : 3 4 unit, P M the A Etransmitter ST and receiver chips are based on of electronic circuits and antennae complete DVD can be transmitted www.iaf.fraunhofer.de

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FEATURE

dEsign

Electronic component sourcing:

evolution and strategies As the component sourcing landscape continues to change with technology, what strategies and factors do Australian electronics engineers need to keep in mind when considering their parts options? Isaac Leung writes.

ITH the accelerating pace of new product development and small volume, IP-heavy projects, the Australian electronics industry prides itself on keeping to its relentless drumbeat of innovation. In an innovation-centric world, time to market is key to success. Today’s approach to electronics design and development is characterised by the frenetic design and production workflows. Component sourcing processes have evolved to keep up. Bigger companies often have specialist component engineers in charge of selecting, sourcing, testing and qualifying parts, maintaining approved parts lists and finding substitutes for obsolete components. But design engineers at smaller firms, who cannot afford the overheads of a dedicated component engineer, can often find themselves involved in or in charge of the component sourcing process, including liaising with production over parts sign-offs. Electronics News talked to element14 and Successful Endeavours for both a vendor and design house perspective on component sourcing.

A bit of history Ray Keefe is the founder, electronics designer and embedded software designer of Successful Endeavours. He has been working in the industry for the past three decades. “In the 1980s, [the component sourcing process] consisted of ringing around suppliers, getting catalogues, 10 JUNE 2013 www.electronicsnews.com.au

element14 still has a local team which helps customers cross reference components, find alternatives, and provide parts data. looking up catalogues, finding stuff, contacting the supplier again to find out whether you could actually get that, or what the lead times were,” Keefe said. Given the limited technical information which can be squeezed into paper catalogues, element14’s regional director Peter Davis recalled that vendors would maintain paper databases of data sheets for each component in filing cabinets, which their staff would fax or post to customers as requested. With the amount of manual work

required, electronics design and manufacturing houses found they could gain a competitive edge by building big component databases to shorten the sourcing process. The 1990s saw vendors starting to provide their catalogues on CD-ROM or as software. This move to digital technology, while not truly supplanting paper catalogues, added searchability. It became easier to engineers who didn’t have in-house databases to find new components. “That brought to engineers’ desktops that backend automation

that people had been building into their systems. We started to see the designer taking a stronger role in the sourcing process than they had in the past,” Keefe observed. Starting from the early 2000s, vendors moved online, making the full spectrum of component information available for viewing and searching, and integrating product discovery with the online purchase process. “We now have on the web a full datasheet for every single component part that we sell,” Davis

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FEATURE

said. “We also have full image stocks of everything, if you want to have a look at the product before you buy. We also include often line-drawings and specifications in regards to print layout. We have examples of 3D images, so people can get a look at the products online to get views from multiple dimensions.” With the advent of online communities, vendors like element14 are also offering peer ratings on parts and components, and forums on which users can share comments about products. Of course, the traditional paper catalogue is still around and still in use, as are its reincarnations in various digital media. And element14 still has a team placed locally which helps customers cross reference components, find alternatives, and provide parts data, be it online or over the phone.

A global approach All this information being placed online by various distributors has in turn led to the development of electronic parts search engines such as FindChips and Octopart, which offer consolidated product data and tracking of the prices and availability of components from vendors around the world. “Customers are using these more and more to source product as they can bring together lots of different global distributors together all into one internet-based virtual marketplace,” Davis said. “They do however have limitations that customers need to work around, such as price in US dollars, and little information about lead times and in stock positions, but this will improve over time.” As a vendor with operations all around the world, element14 sees a global approach as an unavoidable reality in today’s electronic components market. According to Davis, the very structure of the element14 online database means products sold by the company in Europe and America are automatically visible available

to customers in Australia, rendering geographically-based barriers meaningless. Any product launch now is a global product launch. “We try to deal with all the manufacturers where we can on a global basis,” Davis explained. “We are in discussions with the manufacturers continually about pricing on a global basis, about global product releases, and worldwide availability of products. “ “We are trying to open up as many products from a particular

“We are trying to open up as many products from a particular manufacturer as we can to every single customer around the world.” manufacturer as we can to every single customer around the world.” Manufacturers who prefer to implement different strategies for each geographic market, or who wish to test the market with regionspecific launches of components, have pushed back against the current, meaning there is constant negotiation between globalised vendors and more conservative industry players. However, Davis says element14 has been largely successful in establishing global distribution contracts with its top suppliers. “Data helps with that. With element14, all our data is transparent to our global teams, and they know which products sell well in which market, and what the best cost is globally in each of the markets, so it does enable us to go back to the supplier with a lot more information,” he said.

Due diligence While engineers now have unprecedented access to a global supply chain, component information and tools, Keefe says the basics of detailed research are still a

necessity, especially when sourcing very specific components. “You can go to the manufacturers’ websites, run their selection tool, select what you want and do not want, and they will narrow down the subset of candidates,” Keefe said. “The only drawback is that sometimes those tools skip over components you could have used, because of the way they categorise the features.” As such, Keefe will sometimes execute a less refined search, then manually scan through the parts listed, to make sure the online search systems have not skipped any

promising components. Keefe also subscribes to the newsletters from the major parts vendors and manufacturers to keep up to date with the latest product releases as they occur. Aside from actually knowing what components and capabilities are out there, engineers also need to look at their availability, especially considering the small runs and prototype runs which are typical in the Australian industry. Most manufacturers will not deal directly with a customer requiring only modest quantities of components. “Part of the sourcing problem is www.electronicsnews.com.au JUNE 2013 11

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filtering through what you can and can’t buy, and what you can buy in small quantities or in the quantity you are interested in, versus what you can buy if you want to order 100,000,” Keefe explained. In 2012, Successful Endeavours embarked on the development of a three-phase power factor correction controller which needed processing capabilities for real-time harmonics analysis and advanced math. Keefe decided on the ARM Cortex M4 processor for the application. Even though an initial search indicated that multiple manufacturers and vendors offered the processor component, in-depth research revealed only one manufacturer was able to provide the part in small production/ prototype quantities within the timeframe of the project.

Workflow integration Keefe divides the components needed for any particular project into two main classes: specific and unique parts which are only available from a selected manufacturer and/or vendor list; and components which need to meet certain specifications, but which can be sourced generically. As a design house, Successful Endeavours takes part in projects where the design is handed over to a manufacturer, or in design and supply contracts where the firm designs the product, and also organises manufacturing. With the former, Keefe will liaise with the manufacturer to ensure the design meets the latter’s manufacturing capabilities. Component sourcing also forms part of this process. “If we are dealing with a manufacturer, they might have preferred manufacturers lists, which we should take into account in our sourcing,” he explained. “We will generally hand over the bill of materials not just as a list of designators and quantities and component descriptions, but will often provide an example supplier.” 12 JUNE 2013 www.electronicsnews.com.au

For design and supply contracts, the transition between design and component sourcing, then manufacturing, is much simpler. “If we are the end manufacturer, then it’s quite easy: we know our capabilities, we know who we like to buy from, we know what works well, what doesn’t work well, we can design our product around our test capabilities,” Keefe said.

Cost factors Besides the obvious considerations for technical and dimensional specifications, the component sourcing process also has a direct relationship with the bill of materials (BOM) cost. Keefe cautions against an overemphasis on optimising BOM costs during the design and component sourcing phases.

“Part of the sourcing problem is filtering through what you can and can’t buy, and what you can buy...in the quantity you are interested in.” While it might be tempting to reduce the materials cost by buying separate cheap components over more integrated options, the costs of loading more parts onto a board can outweigh those savings. Process costs are especially significant when doing the relatively modest runs that Australian manufacturers specialise in. “When you are sourcing, particularly for lower production lines, look into buying more highly integrated parts, so the loader has less work to do,” Keefe said. “Because there are process costs associated with this, not just materials cost.” According to Peter Davis, another hidden cost can be much more insidious: counterfeits and greymarket parts sourced for a lower

price from lesser-known distributors. “We get horror stories literally every week from customers who have bought products from other distributors which they later found not to be manufacturers’ original parts, they might have been pre-used or pre-loaded, or they are just grey products imported out of Asia,” he told Electronics News. “The low initial cost of the components is false economy, because of the cost of reworking boards, sending stock back, testing them and making sure the components are the quality they need to be.” “All of that would not have been necessarily had they bought the products from somebody who has this proved quality assured, direct relationship with the manufacturer.”

An integrated future? EDA suppliers are now seeking to increase the integration of the component sourcing and selection processes into their software solutions. Case in point: Altium Designer’s “Live Links to Supplier Data” feature. The software uses a direct connection to supplier web services, allowing electronics engineers to search across said supplier’s entire online product catalogue, then integrate the data at various stages within the design process. Designers using the software

can import component parameters, data sheet links, pricing and stock information, etc, from Farnell (element14), Mouser, Digi-Key, Newark, Allied and Arrow. “We work with clients who might have an Altium database, and they build a component for every individual part that they might order, with the manufacturer’s reference information built into it,” observed Keefe. “[Altium] are putting a lot work into library development to support that process…they have certainly identified that as one of the key strategies for their forward competitiveness.” The mechanisms for component sourcing continue to multiply and evolve with technology, and engineers can benefit from improved information availability, automation and access to a global supply chain. However, whether they are flipping through catalogues, ordering through the phone, searching and transacting online, or leveraging the latest component libraries and workflows in EDA solutions, the basic strategies and requirements remain the same: to deliver the required level of functionality within the scope, timeframe and budget of a project, while minimising the risks from counterfeits and sub-standard quality components. n www.successful.com.au au.element14.com

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The typical Tindo panel goes through three distinct lines in the factory: layout, lamination, and finishing. Image credit: RenewablesSA

Staying the course

on s lar

With the solar industry in turmoil, how is Australia’s only remaining panel manufacturer planning to remain competitive? Isaac Leung writes.

S Australia’s only remaining manufacturer of solar photovoltaic panels, it is fitting that Tindo Solar’s name is derived from the local Kaurna language word for “sun”. The company is the brainchild of three entrepreneurial South Australians – Richard Inwood, Adrian Ferraretto and Ben Kerry – who committed $6 million to set up a turnkey solar module manufacturing plant in November 2011. Manufacturing operations started in February 2012. Electronics News talked to Richard Inwood, Tindo Solar’s manager of business and people, about maintaining manufacturing in Australia against the current of outsourcing, and the company’s

strategy and role even as the photovoltaic industry in Australia and beyond face challenges.

Bright opportunity, dark clouds In December 2012, the Clean Energy Council released the Solar Power Australia 2011-12 report, which found 3.2 percent of all electricity generation capacity in Australia today comes from solar panel installations. Over the two years covered by the report, a total of 1.29GW of solar capacity was installed, with residential installations making up more than 95 percent of the market. Increasingly, everyday Australians are seeing photovoltaic systems as a good investment for energy savings into the future, despite the demise of feed-in tariffs.

The attractiveness of solar is partly due to the lowered initial investment required by customers, as system prices have dropped over the last few years. This was the result of a simple supply-and-demand market mechanism: a glut of solar panels flooded the market when Chinese solar panel production quadrupled between 2009 and 2011. Large numbers of panel manufacturers in China popped up, funded by government subsidies and low-interest loans from state banks Price-wise, it was a race to the bottom, and manufacturers faced unmoving inventories and dwindling profit margins. Critics in the US, Europe, and Australia say these manufacturers started dumping panels at below cost on foreign www.electronicsnews.com.au JUNE 2013 13

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markets, and accused China of “green mercantilism”. Others, like Professor John Matthews of the Macquarie Graduate School of Management, saw the strategy as being the opening moves toward a balanced, competitive capitalist industry in China around solar photovoltaics. “China as a latecomer made a strategic decision to focus on the dominant technology of crystalline silicon and drive down its costs through scaling up production,” he wrote in an article titled “What’s going on with Chinese solar?”. In any case, 2013 will be a year of change for the photovoltaic industry. In January, IHS iSuppli indicated that by the end of the year, the global number of companies participating directly in the manufacturing of PV solar panels, from polysilicon manufacturing through module assembly, will be just 150, down from 2012’s 500. In March, news broke that major solar player Suntech’s subsidiary in Wuxi went bankrupt. In May, Europe imposed provisional anti-dumping duties of an average of 47 percent on Chinese photovoltaic imports, following similar moves in the US.

Appetite for more But even as the market became saturated with Chinese panels, Tindo Solar, like many other electronics firms in Australia, recognised that success depended on capitalising on its strengths, and on differentiating itself from other players in the market. “The traditional regime would be to purchase something from somewhere, typically China. It’s sold by the manufacturer, an exporter picks it up, ships it to Australia, where an importer picks it up, sells it to a wholesaler who then retails it,” Inwood observed. “We thought that there was an appetite, and in fact almost a responsibility to give Australians the opportunity to explore an Australiamade high quality solar module, purpose designed and manufactured here, locally in Australia.” To cater for this demand, Tindo 14 JUNE 2013 www.electronicsnews.com.au

Tindo’s plant is highly automated. Image credit: RenewablesSA Solar designs, manufactures, engineers and sells the solar panels straight from the factory to both domestic and commercial customers. When asked about this adherence to an all-Australian operation, Inwood acknowledges that it would be cheaper to manufacture in China. However, doing so would not only blunt the company’s local edge, but also compromise quality. “Once you have an outsourced manufacturing capacity, no matter how good you are, you have lost control over the quality elements that I think are critical to the output and longevity and the set-and-forget type of thing that solar should be, no matter how much you monitor that factory,” he said. Like other smart manufacturers in Australia, Tindo Solar’s founders realised savvy operations were the key to controlling costs. By adopting a direct-sales model, the company eliminated the middle-man resellers, exporters and importers, and the costs associated with them. To appeal to larger-scale clients, Tindo Solar has a power purchase funding option for bigger projects, which effectively eliminates up-front capital expenditure for an AC or DC panel based installation. In return for a capital expenditure-free supply and installation of the solar plant, clients agree to purchase the power generated by the solar plant from Tindo Solar for a set period of time. “That power would typically cost less than what they are paying now,” Inwood explained. “We then cap the increases per annum to CPI, so they can budget.”

“No CAPEX, decreased power price, less price increases for the term of the agreement, and at the end of the term, they own the system. That’s pretty compelling news for large factories and people who have large businesses, and large electricity bills looking to find a way to manage those kinds of imposts on the bottom line.”

The factory Technology also plays a big role, a fact that is immediately obvious to any potential customer who walks into the company’s premises – Inwood regularly escorts clients on a quick tour of the factory itself, and the company also holds regular tours. “We put $6 million into the business, and $4 million of that went into machines, with robots, vacuums and component handling. So it’s extremely high tech, high quality, which you won’t get in many factories,” he said. “It’s completely automated. We could practically run the plant, barebones, with a skeleton staff of four people. But we employ 12, plus another six on the road.” Unavoidably, Tindo Solar has to source many of its components from overseas, since there are no Australian manufacturers for these products: the metal junction box is imported from Germany, the silicon wafer and glass is from Dow Corning, while the microinverter is from Texas-based SolarBridge. The typical Tindo solar panel module goes through three distinct lines in the factory: layout, lamination, and finishing. In the layout line, a pair of mirrored robots start the process

of turning silicon wafers into photovoltaic panels. The robots orientate the wafers, and solder them onto ribbons to build strings of ten. Six of these strings, with 60 cells, constitute a fully laid out module. The robots automatically solder these strings to complete the circuit. The formal layout process then commences, where the wafers are layered over glass and EVA, then itself sandwiched with the EVA and back sheet. To ensure quality control, this assembly is tested for errors, and an electroluminescent tester checks for hairline cracks. “If there are errors, we take them out of circulation, make sure the wafer is repaired or fixed, and put back into the panel and then doublecheck again,” Inwood said. The panels move on to the lamination line, where two 18 tonne laminators carry out the encapsulation process to seal them from the deleterious effects of the environment and air. This is followed by the finishing line, which entails trimming, framing, frame checks, junction box application, a flash test, and optional microinverter installation. It is the final step which determines if the resulting photovoltaic module is an AC or a DC variant – for an AC module, a microinverter is fitted on the back of the panel, converting the direct current generated by the panel into AC.

Safer rooftops Due to the way solar panels generate electricity from sunlight, traditional installations (which number close to a million on Australian rooftops) deliver energy in DC. The direct current from the panels runs to an inverter, usually mounted on a wall, which then converts the energy to AC. However, the high voltage present on the roof can be a fire hazard, especially if a system has not been properly installed. A fault in the 400 to 600V system can result in an arc flash, and because the current is being generated by the solar panels, there is effectively no way to shut down the source. “You cannot put water on

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An intense quality assurance process ensures maximum yield. Image credit: RenewablesSA

an electrical fire. The unofficial response from the NFS at the point is to retreat 30m and apply fine mist,” Inwood said. “That means basically to let it burn to the ground. The NFS will try their hardest if there is someone inside, but otherwise they really don’t know what to do with these things during the day when there is high voltage.” By directly converting the current to AC at the panel via microinverters, Tindo Solar’s systems eliminate the inverters, and the electricity runs at 30V across the roof. Additionally, AC systems allow much better granular control and performance insight through the individual microinverters. “You can pinpoint every single panel and you know what each panel is doing. You have more performance, because each panel has its own system, so whatever is happening to other panels, it does not affect the others,” Inwood said. The microinverters, which integrate thin-film capacitors, have a 25 year warranty as standard, compared to the usual five years for wall-mounted inverters.

Flight to quality There is little doubt that this is EN 6 1 3 _and 0 0uncertainty. 0 _ NPA time of0change The turmoil gripping the wider

photovoltaic market is affecting Australian retailers too. Adelaide-based Love Energy, for example, collapsed over the Easter break, and Unleash Solar went into administration in March. “We are seeing retailers in Australia go out of business: there have been two here in SA just recently, and rumours of another three or four happening across the country,” said Inwood. But Tindo Solar is seeing an opportunity where others see risk. In the next five years, it hopes to capture a minimum of 10 percent of the Australian market, on the strength of its technology and the cachet of being Australia-made. In time, the company will also train its sights on the wider export market, such as India. “With government support, we may have a look at some pretty sizeable overseas markets, which will then allow us to start to replicate the plant and increase employment quite sizeably,” product would fit there.” Inwood said. In the meantime, however, “India…has budgeted approximately 30-odd billion dollars Tindo Solar plans to capitalise on the instability within the Chinese of PV over the next ten years. photovoltaic industry, and the That’s a sizeable market but it’s a expected increase in the prices of different market to Australia. We solar panels from overseas. should be exploring that, we need 1 a delegation 2 0 1 3 - to 0 5go- there 3 0 Tand 1 0 look : 5 at 8 : 3 9 +“The 1 0 public : 0 0 is really looking for someone to trust in solar. And we markets, and explore what kind of

have an edge there, because we are local and we have an open-door policy,” Inwood explains. “That sense of being Australian, keeping manufacturing jobs going, and having faith in a high-tech plant…it’s a flight to quality that we are now seeing.” n www.tindosolar.com.au

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Industrial processors:

Live long and process New industrial processor technologies are driving new ways of working, leading to reduced downtime, increased safety, and quick returns on investment. Isaac Leung writes. 16 JUNE 2013 www.electronicsnews.com.au

NDUSTRIAL systems have come a long way since the days of PLCs using analogue 4-20mA control loops. Whether it be communications or internal architecture, the evolution of industrial electronics has been one towards increased digitisation and integration. Along with the need for plantfloor-to-boardroom visibility, the shift towards industrial computer systems has been driven by the need for improved performance and speed, while still delivering rugged reliability and long-term availability. Industrial processors, as the

critical “brains” of these systems, are changing too – and not just to keep up with new application demands. In some cases, emerging processor technologies are driving new ways of working, leading to reduced downtime, increased safety, and quicker returns on investment. Electronics News talked to Cameron Swen, Strategic Marketing Manager for Industrial Controls and Automation, AMD Embedded Solutions Division, and Christian Eder, Director of Marketing at congatec, for their insiders’ view on the latest and most significant industrial processor technologies.

Long term availability Given the potential cost of downtime, industrial clients are understandably risk-averse. Unlike the IT and consumer spaces, where fast-paced technological upgrades are a fact of life, the industrial sector values mature technologies proven to deliver reliable operation. As such, industrial systems are characterised by longevity – unlike consumer desktop computers which tend to be upgraded or replaced every 4.5 years, typical lifecycles for industrial computers start from a minimum of five years, and can

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Current-generation SoCs are yet another step towards increased integration of different computing elements.

range up to 15 years or more. Because industrial computers tend to be highly customised for their applications, the ability to quickly replace faulty processors with the exact model is paramount. Consumer-grade processors, which tend to see rapid obsolescence and ever-shifting socket interfaces, are unsuited for such uses. Processor manufacturers like AMD cater for these longer lifecycles, by guaranteeing supplies of its embedded and industrial lines of processors for at least seven years. Others, like Freescale, guarantee their system on chips (SoCs) to be

available for a minimum of 10 years, ensuring ongoing support and parts for industrial customers.

Interconnected stability Minimising or avoiding downtime on a day-to-day basis is another key focus for industrial customers. It is not surprising that in any discussion of industrial computers, the question of ruggedness is raised. According to AMD’s Cameron Swen, the features of industrial processors contribute to and enable the reliability and ruggedness of systems built around them. “Ensuring maximum reliability in mission critical systems is a very complex topic that encompasses the design and manufacturing processes at the silicon, board and system levels and starts with the size, weight and power (SWaP) fundamentals,” Swen explained. Talking to system integrators and processor manufacturers, it quickly becomes clear that factors like shock and vibration resistance, power consumption and thermal management are interconnected pieces of the same puzzle. Power consumption affects thermal output, which in turn determines the size and types of required cooling options, which has direct consequences for the ruggedness and ingress protection capabilities of the entire system. Many industrial computers operate in vehicle or factory environments where they are subject to shock and/or constant vibration. The need for ingress protection against dust and moisture also limits the airflow available for cooling. As such, the conventional approach to cooling with big and heavy heatsinks and fans is out of the question – the constant movement would make short work of such systems. To combat vibration and shock, processor manufacturers like AMD provide solutions in small footprint form factors like ball grid array (BGA) surface-mount packaging, which are soldered directly on the board for extra security. To minimise the size of the cooling solutions required in the

end solution, chip makers combine two general approaches: extend the operational temperature range of their processors; and reduce power consumption while boosting efficiency in order to reduce the heat generated by the processor. “Managing thermals is essential for these types of systems and delivering full featured processing solutions that are able to meet the performance requirements while still operating with modest power consumption ensures that the processor doesn’t impose thermal stress on the rest of the system,” Swen said. Like other processor manufacturers, AMD is developing its low power Embedded APUs, SoCs and discrete graphics processors

“Processors themselves are quite general purpose. Our systems are tailored for industrial functions through the features we provide on the modules.” to deliver maximum performance per watt, without radiating a lot of energy as heat. Of course, power consumption can be a pressing priority in some applications, such as equipment used in remote areas, or equipment which needs to be truly wireless – the reduced energy requirements of these processors increases their suitability for such uses.

Integration and performance Whether it be in consumer electronics or industrial applications, the continuing trend is towards increased integration. Having a single box responsible

for a whole raft of functions is not just cheaper, but also reduces overall system complexity, and makes maintenance simpler. According to congatec’s Christian Eder, the traditional configuration which required programmable logic controllers (PLCs) with I/Os going out to another system with the human machine interface (HMI) is giving way to industrial PCs. “The functionality can be melded into one single box quite easily,” Eder explained. “With multi-core platforms, you can separate tasks between the cores.” Utilising virtualisation solutions such as the Real Time Hypervisor from Real Time Systems, one core can take on the function of the PLC, running a real-time operating system, while another core can run an embedded operating system and serve as the user interface. These systems can run the same software as traditional PLCs and HMIs. These two completely separate systems exist in the one industrial PC, and are connected to each other by a virtual Ethernet controller. Integration is also apparent on the chip level: notably, AMD’s merger with ATI in 2006 allowed the semiconductor company to meld the central processing unit (CPU) and a graphics processing unit (GPU) into one chip, which the firm dubbed an accelerated processing unit (APU). The GPU is also integrated into AMD’s SoC offerings. As a result, Eder says even some of the low power AMD processors which have computing performance akin to Intel’s Atom processors come equipped with very high performance graphics engines, which provides additional advantages for 3D or display applications. According to Cameron Swen from AMD, the integrated GPU can also be used to provide a performance boost to applications which support multi-threaded processing. “The GPU in the heterogeneous architecture of the AMD APUs and SoCs can be programmed through OpenCL for a variety of compute intensive functions to deliver excellent performance per watt,” Swen explained. “For applications www.electronicsnews.com.au JUNE 2013 17

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like PC-based machine vision cameras, a fan-less design can be created that delivers excellent image processing performance.”

Maximising capabilities While chipmakers continue to bake features into their processors that present compelling capabilities for industrial applications, the role of the engineers who build the industrial PCs and boards on which the processors reside remains key. According to Eder, it is the engineers at companies like congatec who ensure that the advantages provided by the processors are translated into useable features in the final solution. “Processors themselves are quite general purpose,” Eder said. “Our systems are tailored for industrial functions through the features we provide on the modules.” These include BIOS/UEFI features, microcontrollers which handle battery management or watchdog timers (critical for detecting and recovering from faults), and implementing support within the firmware for remote management capabilities such as Intel’s Active Management Technology (AMT). When working with ARM-based processors, such as the Freescale i.MX 6 SoC, which do not have BIOS or UEFI for the initialisation functions, the onus is on congatec and other system manufacturers to provide the software support systems, such as bootloaders in addition to the drivers which support the embedded features provided by the processor. Security is also a focus for congatec, and keeping up with the changes in technology is an important part of the job. “Today we equip our modules with an external security chip,” said Eder, “But upcoming processor generations will have enhanced security features like Trusted Platform Module (TPM) built in.” But perhaps the most complicated issue that engineers have to deal with is power management. The demand for reduced power consumption and thermal 18 JUNE 2013 www.electronicsnews.com.au

Heterogeneous systems are expected to provide a leap in performance, while simplifying programming. management means many industrial processors run in low-power states most of the time, requiring careful power management. “Parts of the processors are switched off when not needed,” Eder explained. “This brings the most power use improvements, but this also means a high change of load on the power supplies.” For a high-performance CPU, the electrical load can drop from 50A down to almost zero within microseconds, depending on the application. Software with repeated cycles of high processing demands and idle times can aggravate the situation, and special know-how on the part of the board engineers is needed to avoid destabilising voltage swings caused by this high change in loads.

Hot and cold Even with on-chip power/thermal management measures, cooling is still very important. “The cooler the chips stay, the longer the life expectancy,” Eder said. “The mean time between failures (MTBF) numbers can double if you cool it down additionally 5 degrees, for example.” But optimised cooling is not just about reliability. Intel’s Turbo Boost

functionality, for instance, provides greater computer performance by dynamically overclocking the processor, but the feature limited by temperature constraints. By providing better cooling within the constraints of the application, the processor can run at higher clock

“Ensuring maximum reliability in mission critical systems... encompasses the design and manufacturing processes at the silicon, board and system levels” speeds for longer. To address this, congatec engineered a new COM Express-compliant heat-spreader and heat-piped-based cooling solution. The new cooler improved cooling by 14 degrees compared to previous coolers. This yielded a calculated eight-fold increase in MTBF figures, and 30 to 40 percent more

performance due to the ability to run on Turbo Boost mode for a longer period of time. According to Eder, completed modules undergo intensive testing to ensure they can stand up to the rigours of industrial applications. “Temperature is always an issue, even for extended CPUs where our module is specified for 0 to 60 degrees Celcius,” explained Eder. “We do the tests down to -40 degrees, and up to 90-100 degrees, just to make sure that the design is rugged, even if we do not end up exceeding chip maker specifications.” Where the module is specified as an extended temperature version, congatec will ensure all other components also perform under the extended temperature range, and test the systems to ensure they meet specifications.

Future directions In the short term at least, according to Eder, the trend towards increasing numbers of cores will continue, as will influence from the mobile and smartphone markets. “Scaling will happen with additional processors, and with slight improvements from single

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processors. We will get many more processors in parallel onto the chips,” he said. “I am also looking forward to the next ARM developments. Right now we see the Cortex A9 coming out. With ARM targeting the server market, and I am curious to see what emerges from there.” On AMD’s part, increased integration is the way forward, with a strong push towards Heterogeneous System Architectures. The idea is to go beyond the current integration of CPUs and GPUs, or even SoC approaches which integrate DSP and FPGA functionality to boost performance and system flexibility. Currently, in order to use the GPU to process data, a program running on the CPU queues work for the GPU using system calls through a device driver stack managed by a completely separate scheduler. According to AMD, this introduces significant dispatch latency, with overhead that makes the process worthwhile only when the application requires a very large amount of parallel computation. The aim for Heterogeneous System Architectures is to even more closely integrate different processing elements, unify their memory space, and reduce additional data handling and transfer – in short, to make the sum greater than its parts. Applications will be able to create data structures in a single unified address space and initiate work items on the hardware most appropriate for a given task. Data sharing between the various compute elements will be simple. Multiple compute tasks will be able to work on the same coherent memory regions, utilising barriers and atomic memory operations as needed to maintain data synchronisation between processors. “Heterogeneous architectures are still in their infancy, with new solutions coming down the line that will make them easily programmable you will start to see interesting combinations of processing solutions, that people may not have considered yet,” Swen told Electronics News. In the short term, the journey towards increased architectural

integration will yield drastic improvements in the size, weight and power fundamentals for industrial and embedded applications.

Standards and holistic compatibility But even as chip makers continue looking into the future, legacy support is still of utmost importance. “Industrial applications are generally slow to adopt new technologies,” Swen said. “This helps to ensure that the processor technology, and products offering it, are mature enough to deliver reliable operation.” “For this reason it is important that solutions offer a migration path between legacy, existing and newly available technology.” According to AMD, four main considerations affect migration compatibility: price, power, performance and features. From an OEM’s point of view, as systems mature, the boards and peripherals from which they are built tend to become scarcer, and thus more expensive to source. At the same time, the emergence of newer technologies drive down the price at which an OEM can sell older, legacy solutions. Newer industrial processors, which support the latest I/O technology, aid OEMs with this price pressure, because they can build systems with current-market, commonly-available, lower cost components, providing more function at a lower price. Overall power consumption constraints also apply to technology migration. To allow clients to simplify their migration path, hardware designers are challenged with finding a solution which supports the latest I/O and peripheral technology, delivers as-good or better performance, fits into the same or smaller enclosure, but still uses the same or less power. And while performance is often not seen as a major selection criteria for industrial systems, it is often the metric by which system manufacturers are differentiated. The challenge is the balancing act between processing performance,

Engineers at companies like congatec ensure that the advantages provided by the processors are translated into useable features in the final solution. power consumption and cost. Finally, to enable drop-in replacement of systems, newer systems need to retain support for legacy peripherals, while still providing for the latest generation of I/O technology. In many cases, clients will demand certain features as compulsory for the solution. Industrial processor chip makers offer processors which support legacy I/O, but it is the role of the OEM to integrate these functions in their systems. Compatibility and standards are thus a focus for both AMD and congatec. Even while pushing E N 0 6the 1 3adoption _ 0 0 0 of _ MA R . p d to improve heterogeneous architectures, AMD

is working with partners like ARM, Samsung and Qualcomm to unify approaches to the issue. On its part, congatec sits on and advises a number of standards committees, with the aim of promoting competition and intervendor compatibility, which keeps prices down and encourages technological innovation. “We are trying to stabilise and enhance standards, to make sure customers are not tied to one or another vendor. When we talk about standards, it must be exchangeable between vendors, which is very important,” Eder said. n f P a g e 1 1www.amd.com/au 6 / 0 5 / 1 3 , www.congatec.com

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NI’s vector signal transceiver is just the start for a technology which is melding hardware and software.

The changing face of

embedded design With the embedded market becoming more competitive than ever, how can Australian companies leverage technology and turn potential threats into opportunities? Isaac Leung writes.

20 JUNE 2013 www.electronicsnews.com.au

IKE their peers around the world, Australia’s embedded designers are facing incredible pressure – the market is more competitive than ever, budgets are tight, and products are expected to have an unprecedented number of functions built-in. Electronics News talked to Victor Mieres, NI’s Vice President of Emerging Markets for Asia/ Rest of World, about the latest developments in the industry, the role of technology in dealing with

the latest challenges, and what Australia can do to stay on the forefront of the sector.

Great expectations The smartphone is a convenient device, and as one of the most vibrant markets for the electronics and tech industry, it presents a golden opportunity for select players. But for electronics designers, the smartphone is a physical manifestation of the today’s foremost challenge: the customers’ demand to integrate

unprecendented functionality into a unified product. “Design teams for embedded electronics are being challenged with having to come up with designs at a much faster rate, with incredibly reduced budgets. That has forced them to do things differently,” Mieres said. With the embedded design and test industry evolving in response to an increasingly globalised and connected world, design team structures have changed irrevocably. Projects which might once have involved a

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team working together in the same physical office may now find their members distributed across the world and different time zones. The budget challenges and increasing specialisation of companies can also have a big impact on design teams, with the development, test and manufacturing workload now distributed between in-house talent and often outsourced, offshore contractors. Of course, technology has (mostly) kept pace with this evolution. With greater network bandwidth and more intelligent and advanced tools, smaller teams can do more with less. Seamlessly connected software means geographic borders are no longer hindrances: the same project can be worked on by designers across time zones, from Sydney to Mumbai to London. NI has observed the melding of the design and test phases of the product lifecycle, and a breakdown of the silo barrier between manufacturing and R&D. “Designers used to throw their designs to the test engineers over the wall,” Mieres explained. “Now, design and test are merging.” Today, smaller design houses can quickly advance from early prototypes, through the testing processes at the manufacturing house and multiple iterations, into the final design, all while using the same toolset across the workflow, accelerating time to market. “We have invested quite a bit of resources to make sure that we empower domain knowledge experts to very quickly execute embedded design without needing specificallyskilled embedded designers and engineers in their team,” Mieres said. “That is the leap forward for design and really empowers innovators and inventors.”

Expanding reach If design and test are melding, so too are hardware and software, according to NI’s vision. This has

expanded the company’s scope beyond just test engineering, with its solutions now touching on whole new ecosystems and platforms. “It used to be software on one side, to be written on the computer, then the I/O hardware, and the converters, on the other side. Fast buses allowed communication with the test instrument and the processing happened on the computer,” Mieres said. “Over the years, [National Instrument’s] main thrust has been expanding the reach of applications that we can help through our graphic system design approach.” Field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and reconfigurable IO (RIO) are very much at the core of NI’s vision – it is the technology that enables the blurring of the line between hardware and software. FPGAs are reprogrammable silicon chips which can be configured to implement custom hardware functionality through software development environments. At NIWeek in August 2012, NI released the industry’s first Vector Signal Transceiver (VST), which includes user-programmable FPGAs allowing the instrument to be customised with user-specified algorithms that are implemented directly into the hardware, effectively transforming the instrument into one which is specific for the application. This approach means instruments now have the flexibility of software, while still retaining their hardware performance edge. “With the FPGA in the middle, we can now take advantage of LabVIEW functionality on the hardware,” Mieres explained. “We have given power to ourselves as designers, as well as customers to use LabVIEW to modify hardware on-the-fly.” But the VST is just the start. “This FPGA RIO architecture will be a platform woven into all the technologies we have,” Mieres

Design and test are merging, according to Victor Mieres, NI’s Vice President of Emerging Markets for Asia/Rest of World. said. “As costs decrease, we will be putting it into as many products as we can.” According to Mieres, NI will seek to make RIO architecture broad-based, deployable on as many platforms and solutions as possible. “We will continue to expand the range of I/O that can connect to this prototyping platform, from DC to RF, in all combinations and permutations, and work on opening the platform up for third-party designers that can complement it with new modules and technology,” he said.

A perspective on Australia The trends in embedded design and test are global. But what about the Australian industry? There is no doubt that the Australian electronics industry faces a challenge. The most obvious is the high labour cost, and the strength of the currency makes it hard to use

Australia as a manufacturing base for products to be exported. “Australia has to continue to leverage its strengths, such as IP and innovation, and continue to work with a more globalised world,” advised Mieres. While Australia has an incredible talent pool, there is also a burgeoning number of skilled engineers in the emerging markets. In order to profit from this trend, Australian industry has to accept that outsourcing is a part of life, and work to perceive these potential threats as opportunities. “[Australian companies] will need to work with teams for development work,” Mieres said. “We believe with our technology, we can help smaller teams do more. The idea is to retain the IP in Australia, and learn to outsource, where it makes sense to do so.” “Manufacturing is a clear case for a globalised approach, and that requires very tight integration between the tools used for design, and the tools used for test.” “Nowadays, companies have designs happening over here, and remote manufacturing, and there is real-time connection and monitoring from the headquarters in Australia to see what is happening in the manufacturing lane.” On a macro scale, Australia needs to continue supporting its core strengths. Government, research institutions and industry need to motivate students to choose careers in science and technology, continue spending wisely on R&D, and nurture a welcoming environment of ideas to attract talent from overseas. Finally, Mieres says Australia should use its geographic proximity to emerging markets as an opportunity, and a doorstep to a large potential market. “It’s tricky, things will change, but it is a growing market. And by being close to the market, opportunities may emerge,” he said. n www.ni.com www.electronicsnews.com.au JUNE 2013 21

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TEST

How to get more than 8 bits from your 8-bit scope Many oscilloscopes allow access to higher resolution measurements. Agilent Technologies outlines how and when to use these controls, and the associated trade-offs and benefits.

HE majority of today’s oscilloscopes are designed with 8-bit ADCs (analogueto-digital converters). At the same time, most oscilloscopes include settings that enable higher resolution measurements. These controls are largely unknown to most scope users, yet have enormous potential for users who want to maximise their ability to view signals with greater accuracy, especially for small signals measurements, or for high dynamic range measurements.

Bits Oscilloscopes consist of a few key architectural blocks. Analogue signals pass through the oscilloscope’s frontend where they are conditioned and then routed to an ADC. The ADC then sends the digitised bits to a processing block and on-board memory where signal information is accessed and displayed. Resolution is the smallest quantisation level determined by the analogue-to-digital (A/D) converter in the oscilloscope. A scope’s ADC with a resolution of 8 bits can encode an analogue input to one in 256 different levels, since 28 = 256. The ADC operates on the scope’s full scale vertical value. Thus the Q-level steps are associated with the full-scale vertical scope setting. If the user adjusts the vertical setting to 100mV per division, full screen equals 800mV (8 divisions * 100mV/div) and Q-level resolution is equal to 3.125 mV/level (800mV divided by 256 levels). If measuring current, for a 22 JUNE 2013 www.electronicsnews.com.au

vertical setting of 10mA/div, Q-level resolution is set at 312.5uA/level (80mA divided by 256 levels). Use of full bits is limited by noise induced by the oscilloscope itself. Noise can come from a variety of sources, including the front end of the scope or the ADC in the scope. The ADC itself has quantisation error. Quantisation noise is the difference between the original signal and the digitised signal. The amount of quantisation error is less than the least significant ADC digit and exists in all ADCs. However, for oscilloscopes, quantisation noise plays a lesser role in contribution of overall noise and the front end of the oscilloscope plays a more significant role as shown in figure 1.

Oversampling Models within a single oscilloscope family typically share the same technology blocks, and vendors add different filters to create a series of products each with a unique bandwidth and price point. ADCs are typically designed with maximum sample rate associated with the top memory of the family. This can be an excellent opportunity for consumers of the scopes that aren’t the top bandwidth models in a family. Typically, these lower bandwidth models thus have excess sample rate versus what would be needed to reconstruct signals without aliasing. For example, you will find several 1 GHz scope models on the market today with a maximum sample rate of 20Gsa/s.

Utilising some lesser-known settings allows users to view signals with greater accuracy. Is 20Gsa/s needed to reconstruct signals with frequency components up to 1 GHz? Certainly not. How much sample rate is needed? Nyquist states that at least 2Gsa/s sample rate is needed. The scope industry as a whole has converged on a ratio of 2.5 times sample rate versus scope bandwidth as an effective method of preventing aliasing. So a 1 GHz bandwidth scope needs 2.5Gsa/s to faithfully reconstruct signals as frequency components above 1 GHz will naturally be attenuated by the scope’s front end. The fact that a 1 GHz scope ships with 20Gsa/s sample rate means the scope vendor overdesigned the scope by leveraging a faster ADC needed by a higher-bandwidth scope in the same family. The excess sample rate would nominally go wasted as it doesn’t contribute to

better measurement quality despite the thinking that “more is always better.” Could the excess sample rate be used for some other purpose? If a signal is sampled at a rate much higher than the Nyquist frequency, and then is digitally filtered to limit it to the scope bandwidth, the scope magically gets additional resolution. The 8-bit ADC combined with the digital filter can be made to produce more than the 256 Q levels associated with an 8-bit ADC. Using this technique, the scope can obtain an effective resolution that is more precise than what the ADC would naturally produce. In fact in the example described above an 8-bit ADC can be made to act like a 12-bit ADC given the excess sample rate relative to bandwidth. Most scope vendors include a setting that allows the scope to oversample and digitally filter the

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output of the ADC to achieve more bits of resolution. Some vendors call this high-res mode, while other vendors use different names. All major vendors include this capability in their scopes. For scopes with sample rate equal or near to the 2.5 times ratio relative to scope front-end bandwidth, turning on high res mode will cut the overall bandwidth while providing more than 8 bits of resolution. For scopes with a sample rate much greater than the 2.5 times ratio relative to bandwidth, turning on high-res mode will enable greater resolution with no tradeoff in overall scope bandwidth. Deep memory impacts the range of timebase settings over which higher bits of resolution can be retained. Let’s take a look at an example of a scope with bandwidth of 500MHz, and sample rate of 20GSa/s. The user turns on high-res mode and specifies that the digital processing yield 11-bits of resolution. To go from 8-bits of resolution to 11-bits of resolution the scope ADC doesn’t change, but the digital filter based on ADC outputs does. The filter must oversample by 8 times (23 = 8) to get 3 additional bits of resolution. Each group of 8 samples will be averaged into a signal vertical value using a boxcar average. The effective sample rate is now 2.5Gsa/s (20Gsa/s divided by 8 samples per boxcar average) still more than sufficient for the scope front-end bandwidth of 500MHz. What impact does scope memory depth have on high-res mode? It depends. Check with your scope vendor. As an example, Agilent Infiniium scopes perform the high-res digital filtering after the ADC, but before samples are stored to memory. So while the user might oversample to get 12 bits of resolution, no compromise is made to memory depth. The filtered samples are stored in memory and the scope retains its native memory depth. All scope acquisition memory is fixed in sise. Having deeper memory enables scopes with to retain faster sample rates over bigger windows of captured time. For example, a 4 GHz scope with 10Gsa/s and 1 Mpts per channel can capture a time window

of 100 μs at the fastest sample rate. If the timebase is changed to 20 μs per division the scope is already using all 1 Mpts per channel memory, and hence must reduce its sample rate by 2 times in order to display the required time window of 200 μs. The scope is now sampling at 5Gsa/s. Nyquist tells us that the scope will alias signals greater than 2.5GHz so we’ve effectively reduced the scope bandwidth by changing the scope’s timebase to see more time on the scope display. If the scope had 10 Mpts instead of 1Mpts per channel of acquisition memory, the change to the time base would not have impacted sample rate and effective bandwidth until the scope display window was set to 2 ms or higher. Likewise, high-resolution mode works the same way with memory. Remember the formula, (Acquisition Time Window) = (Memory Depth)/ (Sample Rate). When the scope user desires to see longer windows of time on the scope display, the scope will at some point need to reduce sample rate limiting the effective bandwidth of the scope. This can be a benefit in enabling high-re mode to limit overall scope bandwidth when a low-pass filter is needed. By increasing the number of samples used in each digital filter calculation, the user can lower the effective sample rate and resulting bandwidth of the scope. Why would a user want to do this? This technique can be employed to perform bandwidth limiting that may not be native to the scope. For example, if you scope has 20 MHz bandwidth limiting on the 1MΩ high-Z path, but not the 50Ω path, you can use this technique to bandwidth limit the scope to bandwidth limit your scope on the 50Ω path. Or use this technique to create addition bandwidth limit filters not found natively on either signal path in your scope. Need to look at small current or voltage current signals and want to reduce noise higher frequency sources? This is an excellent way to accomplish bandwidth reduction.

Averaging Oscilloscopes include another mode called averaging. This causes the

Figure 1. While scopes with 12 bits of resolution have less noise than the smallest 8-bit Q level, 12-bit scope noise is far greater than the smallest Q level of scopes with 12 bits of resolution. The additional Q levels can only be used if overall scope noise is reduced.

Figure 2. If your scope has excess sample rate relative to needed bandwidth, turn on high-res mode to increase bits of resolution and reduce scope noise as shown.

Figure 3 . If viewing a repetitive signal, turn on averaging to reduce noise and increase visibility of small changes to the signal you are viewing.

Figure 4. Use high-res mode and averaging to see signals that would be impossible to view with default scope settings. oscilloscope to average vertical values along each captured waveform with vertical values from successive waveforms. Oscilloscopes allow the user to specify how many waveforms to average. Averaging is another technique that allows users to reduce noise from the oscilloscope. Unlike high-res mode using oversampling techniques, average doesn’t work for

single shot acquisitions. Averaging requires a repetitive signal, may result in infrequent anomalies. Just like with a spectrum analyser, another area where averaging is useful is when performing FFT analysis using a scope. Averaging reduces the noise floor and improves SRDR. ■ www.agilent.com www.electronicsnews.com.au JUNE 2013 23

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POWER

Developing custom power module solutions Custom power module solutions can improve time to market, reduce production and manufacturing error, and improve competitive differentiation. Marco Di Lella, product manager of SEMIKRON, writes.

N the last few years, demands of the power module market have changed rapidly: cost-saving measures and a focus on efficiency have led to stringent power design constraints. R&D engineers are working on innovative solutions where high integration level and the latest chip technologies are the driving factors in the design phase. This article outlines all the aspects to consider when offering a custom solution in order to cater for the continuous flux in market demand for power module design and performance. Today’s R&D power engineers are working to develop electrical topologies which can ensure the best efficiency performance, power consumption and space reduction. There are some markets for which these issues are of utmost imporE NThe 0 6uninterruptible 1 3 _ 0 2 4 _ power COM tance.

supply (UPS) and solar markets, for example, are always looking to minimise the number of power modules while achieving high performance. Electrical vehicles are an emerging market where performance, power consumption and space will also become a point of differentiation when offering a power module solution. Figure 1 shows how customer needs and power suppliers strategies are interconnected. o Required x Not required ++ Very important + Important – Not so important Depending on the market Figure 1. Customer demand and power supplier offer matrix interconnection. there are different strategies implemented. For non-cost-driven markets, differentiation is key. The winning factor is the capability to offer solutions that meet customers’ specific needs. With cost driven markets on the other hand, the strategy is to offer standard solutions in high quantities. Three important key points are focus on the application; fast time to 1market 2 0 and 1 3 customer - 0 5 - 3differentiation. 0 T1 1 : 0 1 : 4 1 + 1 0 : 0 0

Figure 2. Available platforms and chips to offer custom solutions.

Focus on the application SEMIKRON offers the right chip technology in the right power modules in order to meet customers’ requests. This leads to the advantage of a high power integration level and space saving. 24 JUNE 2013 www.electronicsnews.com.au

SEMIKRON's power modules are supplied with or without baseplate, featuring different power contact interface such as soldering terminals or screws terminals. The platforms can integrate the latest chip technologies like SiC diodes, Mosfet for high voltage applications and IGBT for high switching

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can suggest the best combinations of chipset and power module. The company leverages its experience in different application markets such as UPS, PV, electrical drives, welding and railway, along with thermal and electrical simulations, in order to choose the right housing and the right number of modules to build up the required electrical configuration. The newest chip technologies are all qualified for reliability. Only chip technologies that have passed more 10 hours of test and gone through 17 different reliability tests are considered for a custom project.

Fast time to market Power electronics is a dynamic market. The speed with which the first prototypes can be ready and how fast the mass produced solutions can be released are essential market success factors for a customer: to be first in the market means to capture market share. In terms of product life cycles, time-to-market is measured as the time between project release and volume release. Each validation phase consists of a series of steps to be fulfilled; at the end of each validation phase some prototypes are produced and delivered to the customer for final approval in order to proceed to the next step. SEMIKRON supports customers in achieving fast time-to-market when developing a new project. This means collaboration in all project phases: the customer is involved during the project definition to ensure a quick definition of engineering specifications. This helps to eliminate changes late in the design process when they are very expensive. Software support is used to minimise the engineering workload, and to ensure that every product performs according to customer requirements. This allows custom and on-spec modules to be produced quickly and consistently. Similar products are grouped into families that can be processed on the same equipment and in the same sequence. This allows SEMIKRON to shorten changeover time between products. The production lead time

and costs are therefore reduced.

Customer advantages The power module market is often based on standard electrical configurations. In most cases a custom solution is not available in the market and customer has to go through a lot of effort to achieve the desired configuration using off-theshelf components. More than one power module may be necessary to assembly the final configuration; and the number of modules increases with configuration complexity level. This must be balanced with available space, and the complexity of the PCB routing. Thus, as the complexity of the application increases, the customer becomes liable for a huge bill of material management, logistic difficulty, and elongated development time. A custom-made solution can be the answer. By using custom electrical configurations, the number of modules can be reduced and each power module will feature only the needed electrical requirements. PCB design efforts are reduced saving development time thanks to a perfect match between module pin-out and PCB routing needs. There is a significant reduction of bill of material and easier logistic and assembly process is achieved. Assembly error is reduced and manufacturing reliability is increased. Figure 4 shows an example covering the development of a threephase PWM rectifier buck converter featuring IGBTs and diodes rated for 40A/1200V. This example compares between a standard solution based on TO devices and a custom solution based on the SEMIPONT6 platform by SEMIKRON. Due to the very complex layout, 27 pieces of TO devices were needed, as opposed to one SEMIPONT6 module integrating the whole threephase configuration. One screw per TO device is needed for heatsink assembly, while the power module needed only one assembly step with only two mounting screws. There is a clear benefit in the

Figure 3. Product life cycle process.

Figure 4. Three-phase PWM rectifier buck converter design.

Figure 5. Material cost split and assembly time comparison. PCB routing, since the power module pin-out has been designed according to customer requirements while TO devices do not feature flexible power pins position. The investigations confirmed the benefits in using a custom solution: • A significant bill of material reduction led to a 10% lower material costs for the custom solution. The cost breakdown is shown in figure 5. • With less parts to manage, the assembly time was reduced. Just one module against 27 pcs to handle, with an estimated assembly time reduction up to 85 percent. • Less parts to handle reduced the risk of assembly error. Manufacturing errors could be reduced up to 80 percent.

Conclusions Besides volume-driven standard power module configurations, SEMIKRON can additionally offer customer-specific topologies in various housings, addressing the market need for differentiation in dedicated applications. SEMIKRON has a support and production structure to handle specific customer demands quickly and effectively, with a dedicated application support team, experienced R&D team and flexible module production. Custom power module solutions provide the advantages of easy assembly process due to reduced material handling, form factor reduction due to high integration level and higher production reliability. ■ www.semikron.com www.electronicsnews.com.au JUNE 2013 25

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INDUSTRIAL

Smaller connectors While a plug connector’s component size was not particularly important in the 1980s, it certainly is more of a focus today as electronic devices get smaller and smaller, writes Phoenix Contact.

N AREAS such as consumer electronics, mobile telecommunications, and computers, devices are getting increasingly smaller and more powerful. This tendency towards miniaturisation is also taking hold in industrial device connection technology. Today, the main challenge for industrial electronic connectors is to implement more functions and more performance while at the same time reducing product size and weight. Companies like Phoenix Contact have sought to approach the problem with smart engineering, and have succeeded in reducing component size by up to 15 percent, while retaining the same range of features as standard size connectors. For example, the M17 Compact range feature reduced cable connector diameters, down from 21.3mm to 18.7mm. Similarly, the plug connectors lengths are now 44.5mm, down from the standard full-size 52.3mm. Despite this dimensional downsize, the M17 Compact circular plug connector still manages to carry a current of 20 A at a nominal voltage of 630 V. This allows them to compete with M23 connectors.

Compact housing design The secret behind the new connectors’ ability to retain the original power ratings are the housings. Four compact housing types are available, catering for different connection types. Standard is the plug-in cable connector, which features a quick locking system. To allow use for 26 JUNE 2013 www.electronicsnews.com.au

flying connections, the solution range includes a coupler plug connector. A straight device plug connector with flange mounting is provided for connecting to walls of housings and switching cabinets. The device plug connector is secured to via a fourhole flange with M3-size screws. Panel feed-through is also provided for in the M17 Compact range.

Figure 1. Miniature-format M17 plug connectors - high power ratings despite small component sizes.

Personalisation To improve visual identification, especially in applications where many similar plug connections may exist side by side, black, orange and green colour rings can be fitted on the plug connectors. On drives, this colour coding feature provides a clear distinction between the power plug and the signal plug. Personalised colour schemes for plug connectors to match customer requirements are also available.

Quick locking Phoenix Contact’s Speedcon quick locking system, found on its standard sized M17 connectors, is also a feature on the plug connectors of the M17 Compact range. With Speedcon, the connector is ‘blindly’ plugged onto the equipment flange and locked in place by simply turning the knurled nut by half a revolution. This greatly simplifies handling, especially where installation space is restricted. This is important because device and drive manufacturers are also miniaturising their device sizes and installation spaces. The plug connector nevertheless remains fully resilient to leaks and vibrations.

Figure 2. Despite its dimensions being reduced by 15 percent, the M17 Compact circular plug connector can carry currents up to 20 A at 630 V. The new knurled design, marked ‘open - locked,’ provides quick visual guidance for users. There is never any confusion about whether the plug connection is open or safely locked.

Generous conductor cross sections For signal transmission, conductor cross sections can range from 0.06mm² all the way up to 1mm². For power-carrying connections, conductor cross sections up to 2.5 mm² are possible. The cable clamping areas range from a cable diameter of 3.5mm right up to 12.7mm. The cable shielding can be fixed to the housing using a 360° surround contact and does not affect the cable diameter. The shielding mesh does not need to be

Figure 3. M17 Compact housing types: Plug-in cable and coupler connectors (top); straight device plug connector and panel feed-through (bottom). cut down to a specific length for this. Because the contacts are clipped on laterally and the shielding does not need to be cut, assembling these plug connectors is easy and saves time. Thanks to protection class IP67, which all M17 Compact-type connectors achieve when locked, these connectors are a tidy, compact and secure solution for providing power to devices and drive units in industrial environments. The plug connectors are equally at home transmitting signals for control panels as they are in sensor/ actuator cabling. n www.phoenixcontact.com.au

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Miniature but full-featured plug connectors

HOENIX Contact released its M17 compact series of round plug connectors. The company cut the diameter of the cable connector by 2.6mm to 18.7mm, while the connector length was also reduced by about 15 percent. The miniature M17 plug connectors are suited for power ratings up to 630V, and are available in three housings. In addition to cable and coupler connectors, there is also a panel feed-through option with integrated mounting flange. By interchanging the moulded seal, the panel feed-through variant can be used for rear and front

reliably interlocked with just half panel mounting. In addition, eight a turn, with the position clearly and nine-pin insulators, which are identified by the “open/locked” factory equipped with 1 mm crimp marking. The IP67-compliant contacts, are available. Optional housings and are shielded against colour marking using plastic rings electromagnetic interference. on the housing help prevent false All of the previous isolators of the connections being made. AD_ ENNAT APR_ 1 3 . p d f Pa ge 1 2 5 / 0 3 / 1 3 , standard M17 series from Phoenix Plug connectors are quickly and

Contact can be combined with the round M17 compact plug connectors and provide an optimum solution for supplying power to compact devices and drive units.n Phoenix Contact 1300 786 411 1 0 : 2 0 : 3 2 AM AEDT www.phoenixcontact.com.au

Infinite Designs, One Platform with the only complete system design environment

NI LabVIEW is the only comprehensive development environment with the unprecedented hardware integration and wide-ranging compatibility you need to meet any measurement and control application challenge. And LabVIEW is at the heart of the graphical system design approach, which uses an open platform of productive software and reconfigurable hardware to accelerate the development of your system.

>> Accelerate your system design productivity at ni.com/labview-platform

Australia: 1800 300 800 New Zealand: 0800 553 322 The miniature plug connectors are suited for up to 630V.

©2013 National Instruments. All rights reserved. LabVIEW, National Instruments, NI, and ni.com are trademarks of National Instruments. Other product and company names listed are trademarks or trade names of their respective companies. 09430

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Anti-vibration grommets

Programmable power supplies for test instrumentation NATIONAL Instruments has announced its latest general-purpose programmable power supplies, which simplify system design and help save rack space. The NI PXIe-4112 and PXIe-4113 power modules provide the highest power density available in PXI. They eliminate the need to mix multiple instrumentation form factors. When programmed with NI LabVIEW software and paired with a range of PXI hardware instrumentation, the new power supplies can help engineers create a complete, customised test solution. According to NI, engineers incorporating these latest technologies into their automated test systems have technical and time-to-market advantages over those using legacy box instrument approaches. The new programmable power supplies feature two 60 W power supply channels in a single PXI Express slot. The NI PXIe-4112 power supply features 60 V at 1 A per channel and the NI PXIe-4113 power supply offers 10 V at 6 A per channel. The two channels can be combined to create a single 120 W channel. To synchronise measurements, engineers can combine the power supplies with more than 1,500 PXI modular instruments ranging from digital multimeters to RF analysers and generators, and simply trigger the instruments across the PXI chassis backplane. National Instruments 1800 300 800 www.ni.com

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NPA 08 8268 2733 www.npa.com.au

Movement/tilt sensors

AC-DC converter DLPC is distributing Mornsun’s new LS05, a low cost, small size, high efficiency 5W AC-DC converter. The LS05 series features a specifically designed SIP package with a high Isolation Voltage of 3KVAC, as opposed to the use of larger traditional DIP packages for AC-DC power supplies. The converter series is approved for both UL and EN60950 certification. The LS05 series is physically small, but offers high performance. The units boast with efficiencies as high as 75 percent, as well as a wide input voltage range of 85~264VAC, 100~400VDC. With a wide operating temperature (-40~+85°C) and short

NPA has released anti-vibration grommets from Keystone Electronics, specifically engineered for electrical insulation, mechanical damping and noise suppression in office or lab equipment. Engineered to isolate sensitive instrumentation from unpredictable vibration and shock, these new devices feature “fingers” which flex as needed to dampen unwanted noise or vibration. Incorporated are special shoulder screws to provide correct spacing which allows screws to be fully tightened down. Designed to accommodate panels from .031” to .125” thick, these insulating anti-vibration grommets are manufactured from durable EPDM rubber in black or blue color. The mating, custom fitted shoulder screws are made of Nickel plated steel in 6-32 and M3 threads.

circuit protection, the converters are highly reliable. The LS05 series is available as a vertically mounted device that can replace conventional larger power supplies as a complete solution within a smaller and economical foot print. DLPC 07 3823 4844 www.dlpc.com.au

GLYN High-Tech Distribution is now SignalQuest’s distributor for Australia and New Zealand. SignalQuest designs and manufactures electronic sensors that measure tilt angle, acceleration, shock, vibration and movement as well as application specific inertial measurement devices. SignalQuest micro sensors can be used for a variety of applications, including waking up devices on movement to achieve additional battery savings, motion and tilt sensing to detect tampering, industrial safety or security issues, and activity monitoring. Glyn High-Tech Distribution 02 8850 0320 www.glyn.com.au

Development traceability solution ALDEC has launched SpecTRACER, a requirements lifecycle management solution for FPGA and ASIC devices developed for safetycritical industries with rigorous certification standards. Spec-TRACER provides the traceability objectives demanded by standards like DO-254 for avionics, ISO 26262 for automotive, IEC 61508/61511 for industrial and IEC 61513 for nuclear. According to Aldec, managing and recording how an FPGA or ASIC is developed against its requirements is an increasingly complex task, yet essential for certification and critical to produce high-quality, reliable, safe and compliant products. Spec-TRACER aids in ensuring that traceability exists throughout the entire development lifecycle, in order to prove that the product has been designed and tested through a requirements-based process, from top-level design requirements to HDL source code, and from verification test cases to the testbench and through to the simulation results. Aldec 02 8090 7498 www.aldec.com

Ingress protection with cable gland TREOTHAM Automation is now distributing the Klikseal, a two-part ingress-protected cable gland grommet with cable anchorage. Klikseal has integrated tension relief, wide sealing range and

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is suitable for fitting in holes in materials of 1.5 mm to 5 mm thickness. It provides an IP67/IP65 protection seal, and is suited for temperatures from -20 to +125ºC. According to Treotham Automation, the cable gland is quick and simple to assemble without the use of tools. It is also halogen-free, and made from TPE and Polyamide 66 UL approved material. Klikseal is compact, selfadjusting to its surrounding wall thickness, click-fixed in place, has a membrane seal, is waterproof, requires very little effort to install with its collapsible outer membrane. Treotham Automation 02 9907 1788 www.treotham.com.au

Converters, drivers and power supplies ELEMENT14 is now distributing an expanded range of products from RECOM Power, including DC/DC converters; isolated board mount and LED driver, and switch-mode power supplies; PCB mount and LED Drivers/PSU. All of RECOM’s products are compliant with the new RoHS2 directive, and are available for immediate despatch from element14. RECOM’s new range of DC/DC converters includes the series RBE, REE, ROE, and R1SE which are low cost, but still deliver high efficiency. The R1SE Series, with 1 watt of power, 1000VDC isolation and 5V input/output, is the first release in the new economical “E-class”. Used mainly to provide isolation for the interfaces of bus systems, order code 2218601, this range has a 30% price advantage compared to the standard products, with no compromises to quality. RECOM offers a wide range of

DC/DC converters that are certified to the stringent requirements of the IEC/EN 60601 - Medical Equipment standard. These are suitable for a huge variety of medical applications in which high isolation and low leakage currents are required. The LED driver range includes the RCD-48 series, a step-down constant current source used typically for applications such as 48V bus lighting solutions or high voltage LED arrays. element14 au.element14.com/catalogue

Current pulse logger WEIDMULLER’S new Varitector Logger 30 is a plug-and-play unit which helps engineers optimise their surge protection devices. The Varitector Loggger 30 counts the current pulses greater than a set threshold value which are discharged by PE conductors on surge protection devices. This allows it to register and document large current pulses caused by lightning strikes and surge voltages, and log the time and frequency of these incidents. Using this time-stamped information, engineers can design and implement appropriate systems as well as tweak existing ones to ensure they are continuously functioning at optimal levels and protected against surges. Maintenance staff can verify installed units and forward plan routine maintenance tasks. For accurate measurement of currents, the Varitector Logger 30 features an external sensor with a ferrite toroid. Clipped to the earth cable, it detects current peaks on the PE conductor which can be caused by events such as a lightning strike. The memory capacity of the device is large to ensure comprehensive documentation of data. A large and clear, two-line LCD display provides easy visualisation of current/incident data. The menus are navigated via buttons on the devices. The Varitector Logger 30 also features a standard internal CR123A replaceable 3-V battery with at least a four-year service life. Weidmuller 02 9671 9999 www.weidmuller.com.au

Versatile vector signal generator ROHDE & Schwarz has released the SMW200A, a high-end vector signal generator which creates complex multichannel scenarios for tests with the highest demands. The R&S SMW200A high-end vector signal generator generates complex, digitally modulated signals. It combines a baseband generator, RF generator and MIMO fading simulator in a single instrument. It covers the frequency range from 100 kHz to 3 GHz or 6 GHz and features an I/Q modulation bandwidth of 160 MHz with internal baseband. Its versatile configuration options allows its use as various instruments, from singlepath vector signal generator to multichannel MIMO receiver tester. With exceptional modulation and RF characteristics, the unit is ideal for developing high-end components, modules and complete products for wideband communications systems such as LTE-Advanced and WLAN IEEE 802.11ac. The generator performs especially well when it comes to the verification of 3G and 4G base stations as well as aerospace and defence applications. The R&S SMW200A can be equipped with an optional second RF path for frequencies up to 6 GHz and with a maximum of two baseband and four fading simulator modules, giving users two full-featured vector signal generators in a single unit. The signal quality of the R&S SMW200A ensures high accuracy in spectral and modulation measurements. The SSB phase noise is –139 dBc (typ.) at 1 GHz (20 kHz offset). Rohde & Schwarz 02 8874 5111 www.rohde-schwarz.com.au

Bluetooth advanced remote control kits TEXAS Instruments has released a new Bluetooth low energy advanced remote control kit, leveraging its CC2541 SoC and BLE-Stack software. The new Bluetooth kit extends TI’s wireless remote control solutions for embedded applications, enabling Bluetooth-powered remotes with mouse-pointing and keyboard functionality, sync, as well as gesture-, touch- and motion-based input controls. The Bluetooth low energy solution builds upon TI’s successful remote control family based on the ZigBee RF4CE technology. With the new kit, manufacturers can now easily complement their ZigBee RF4CE remote designs with

Bluetooth low energy technology. TI engineered the solution to deliver pin-to-pin and SoC digital domain compatibility between TI’s CC253x ZigBee technology and the CC254x Bluetooth low energy SoC. This means the research and development time used to port IR database, sensor fusion algorithms, drivers and other IP can be reused between the two technologies. Additionally, the BLE-Stack 1.3.1 release contains the advanced remote sample application software in addition to general enhancements to the stack software. Texas Instruments 1800 999 084 www.ti.com www.electronicsnews.com.au JUNE 2013 29

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NEW PRODUCTS

Email your product news to editor@electronicsnews.com.au SPOTLIGHT

Configurable starter kit

Feature-packed oscilloscopes at moderate prices TEKMARK Australia is now distributing GW Instek’s GDS-2000A series digital oscilloscope, with a high-value design framework at moderate cost. The GDS-2000A includes 2Ga/s sampling rate, 2M record length, 2 or 4 input channels and a large 8” screen color LCD display, to perform very fast waveform acquisition and procession at 80,000wfms/s update rate utilising VPO(Visual Persistence Oscilloscope) technology. The digital oscilloscope range includes 8 distinct models, catering to bandwidths of 300MHz, 200MHz, 100MHz and 70MHz and inputs of 2 and 4 channels. The 2Mpt record length not enables long time waveform storage and also acts as a huge database of the input signals for the post-storage waveform analysis. Also included as standard features are two search-engine software, waveform search and segmented memory. Waveform search defines the waveform types for the search whereas segmented memory divides the whole record length into a number of segments as to speed up the waveform search by looking into only the segments containing the waveforms of interest. The GDS-2000A series is equipped RS-232C interface, USB ports, and Go-NoGo output are provided as standard, and the Ethernet port, SVGA Video output and USB to GPIB adaptor are available as options. TekMark Australia 02 9911 3888 www.tekmark.net.au

Fast communications cable certifiers POWER Parameters is now distributing the LanTEK II series cable certifiers, a productive and cost-effective way to comprehensively test and certify basic link, channel link and permanent link. The LanTEK II series is available in three models with frequency sweep ranges of 350, 500 and 1000 MHz, permitting testing of cat 5, 6 and 7(C1) cables and networks. The LanTEK II series testers are available with fibre optic link testing for multi-mode (850/1300 nm utilising LED[C2] source) and single mode (1310/1550 nm with laser 30 JUNE 2013 www.electronicsnews.com.au

source) in full duplex testing. The units complete Cat 5e testing within 9 seconds and Cat 6 in 13 seconds, and is said to be on average some 30 percent faster than many other certifiers. The testers provide on-board memory for test results, and in the case of Cat 6, 1700 test results complete with graphical information can be stored. The storage capacity far exceeds that generally available in similar instruments. Results can be transferred via USB thumb drive. Power Parameters 1800 623 350 www.parameters.com.au

Six-channel relay modules METROMATICS is distributing Acromag’s new BusWorks XT Series multi-channel optocoupler and interposing relay modules for the monitoring and control of high energy field devices. The six-channel XTA-120V-6 optocoupler and interposing relay modules monitor and control highvoltage field actuators (on/off, high/low, open/close) using remote input/outputs, PLCs, or other distributed control systems with DC logic signalling. The modules have six individually isolated 120V AC/DC digital (discrete) inputs to sense on/off levels and provide 5-32V DC logic outputs to a fieldbus input module or a controller. The XTA-MRNO-6 interposing relay module receives 4-32V DC logic-level signals from an output module or controller to switch six mechanical relay outputs. These two high-voltage relay interface modules offer a highdensity, cost-effective solution to safely monitor or control inductive and other high-power loads (motors, valves, solenoids, etc.) with control system input/output modules that only support lowlevel DC signals. These multi-channel discrete contact sensor and relay output modules offer a safe, isolated interface between high-energy field devices and sensitive control system I/O modules. By adding optocouplers and relays, you can use PLC, DCS, or remote I/O modules with 5-24V logic circuits to operate 120V AC/DC contactors. Metromatics 03 9872 4592 www.metromatics.com.au

KONTRON has introduced a readyto-use and individually configurable starter kit for Freescale QorIQ-based Computer-on-Modules. The Kontron COMe-QorIQ starter kit comes equipped with the Kontron Evaluation Carrierboard for QorIQ and all the necessary components including the power supply and adapter cards for the individually configurable SerDes lanes. The starter kit can be pre-configured to specific demands. Options include a preinstalled QorIQ-based Kontron module, pre-configured SerDes lanes and a Linux or VxWorks operating system and BSP. With these features, developers can immediately launch into the evaluation of their desired QorIQ platform. Computer-on-Modules with 32 bit Freescale QorIQ P2020 or 64 bit Freescale QorIQ P5020 processor are currently available. Application areas of Power Architecture-based Computer-onModules range from embedded data processing systems in harsh outdoor and onboard environments.

Kontron Australia 02 9457 0047 www.kontron.com.au

Altium Designer updated ALTIUM has updated its flagship Altium Designer 3D PCB design solution with enhancements it claims will significantly enhance design clarity and reduce supply chain risk. Altium Designer version 13.2 provides users with better control over their design data, and a clearer view of the project throughout the development process. The release offers improved documentation features for PCB

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Up close

5minutes with...

Richard Popple - National Sales Manager of Test & Measurement products at Rohde & Schwarz Why did you choose this industry? I’m ex-Navy. I was a radar technician by trade, and I’ve always had an interest in technology and electronics as a kid. The career progression in the service put me in a calibration laboratory, placing me to get into the test instrument industry. I went from radar technician to calibration lab manager to technical sale. What excites you the most about the local electronics industry? There is a lot of really good work being done with very little resources. We are seeing people doing quite innovative things on a shoestring. We are a defence contractor. So we do a lot of business with defence directly, with defence primes. The amount of activity that is going on in that space has been quite interesting over the last couple of years. We see new advances like 802.11ac, and LTE Advanced. We then take that knowledge across to non-traditional users of that technology, and add value that way. That’s exciting.

What is the future of the electronics industry in Australia? We need to stick to our knitting. The industry in Australia has a history of innovation, development, and adding value to our economy. We are not necessarily going to be a manufacturing country again, but we can certainly innovate and contribute to both the Australian economy and the global economy with the right sort of research and development incentives. What can the government do to ensure a healthy electronics industry? Research and development needs to be encouraged and rewarded. Genuine R&D outcomes should have a tax benefit. To do that properly, we need a trained workforce both at the engineering/ research engineer level, but also at the technical level. The biggest issue that we see as we wander around the industry is a lack of skilled technicians and even a lack of skilled engineers. A lot of those people are people like

me who have moved out of the technical fields into commercial fields, or left the industry completely. The government needs to support both the engineering – the universities, but also industry, to provide trades training. What opportunities are the Australian electronics industry missing out on? We often miss the opportunity to effectively commercialise some good ideas. There are processes in place for government to aid commercialisation. There are bodies around like CSIRO and the DSTO which are nominally aimed at commercialisation. But the Universities seem to be terrible at it. It seems to be a very difficult thing for university research to make that step up to product development and commercialisation. The Australian electronics industry can add a lot of value to the Australian economy, but it needs support from R&D grants, from training grants and training frameworks both in trade and the engineering level. n

Web-based PCB design and manufacturing

designs, as well as significant gains to improving the cost-conscious engineering process. New features include a Live Drill table, which is a highly customisable, real-time view of the drilling requirements of a PCB design. Altium has also opted to elevate the Bill of Materials from its previous role as a post-design output report. With ActiveBOM, the Bill of Materials is now edited and developed in parallel with the design evolution of the schematics and PCB layout files. According to Altium, these features facilitate a design-to-cost approach to projects. Altium 02 9410 1005 www.altium.com

DOWNSTREAM Technologies has announced FabStream, an integrated printed circuit board (PCB) design and manufacturing service targeted at the small business, start-up and DIY electronics market. Downstream Technologies, which also develops the CAM350, BluePrint and DFMStream solutions, is distributed and supported in Australia by SATCAM. According to Downstream Technologies, FabStream is envisioned as an intuitive PCB solution for a complex part of the electronic product development process. The solution supports individuals who may be less experienced in PCB design and manufacturing by eliminating design pitfalls that can lead to problems getting a board produced. The global service is largely Internet-based, and is available

24/7. The user logs onto the FabStream website, selects a FabStream manufacturing partner and downloads the free SoloPCB Design software which is customised for that specific manufacturer’s capabilities. Using the customised software, they proceed to create PCB libraries, schematics and board layouts, before ordering the PCBs online with the manufacturer. SATCAM 02 9807 7081 www.satcam.com.au

Hand-formable cable assemblies ROJONE is distributing Pasternack Enterprises’ range of semi-flexible, hand-formable coax cable assemblies up to 18GHz.

www.rohde-schwarz.com

The cable assemblies can be an ideal alternative to the more costly preformed coaxial assemblies. The formable semi-rigid cables are dimensionally and electrically similar to their semi-rigid counterpart and have a tinnedcopper-braid outer shield that provides excellent RF shielding, greater than 100 dB. Since they are hand formable, the cable assemblies do not require special tooling for shaping or reshaping. They can be formed more than once without damaging the outer conductor. Pasternack’s hand formable precision assemblies are 100 percent Hi-Pot, continuity, and VSWR tested. The cable assemblies are available with multiple configurations including male and female genders of SMA, N, TNC, MCX and MMCX connectors. The RF cable assemblies can be ordered in 6, 9, 12 and 24 inch standard lengths, but are also available in custom lengths. Rojone 02 9829 1555 www.rojone.com.au www.electronicsnews.com.au JUNE 2013 31

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