Electronics News October 2011

n ew s Australia’s Premier Electronics Magazine

w w w. e l e c t r o n i c s n e w s . c o m . a u INSIDE

OCTOBER 11

Lighting evolution Opportunities and obstacles for the next wave of efficient lighting.

Page 16 News 4

Electronex 2011 expo report Highlights from the second iteration of the electronics expo, and hopes for the future of the industry Technology 8

Stacking up semiconductors The glue that will multiply the capabilities of computer chips Feature 10

Electronic design automation The race between EDA and CAD/CAE to break the engineering silos for more seamless electronics designs Product Feature 14

Testing times Platform integration is the name of the game for the latest test instruments Technical Feature 22

Security control

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How microcontrollers help pull together a security system’s varying components and sensors Design Corner 25

Dimming diodes Design | Communications | Environmental | Industrial | Research | Medical | Consumer

It’s difficult, but LEDs are dimmable. What are the best approaches?

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NEWS

n ew s

EDITOR’S MESSAGE

Don’t wait for policy changes

Published five times a year Reed Business Information Pty Ltd Tower 2, 475 Victoria Avenue Chatswood NSW 2067 Tel: (02) 9422 2999 Fax: (02) 9422 2977 www.electronicsnews.com.au PUBLISHER: Michelle Graves Email: michelle.graves@reedbusiness.com.au EDITOR Kevin Gomez Tel: (02) 9422 2976 kevin.gomez@reedbusiness.com.au SENIOR JOURNALIST Isaac Leung Tel: (02) 9422 2956 isaac.leung@reedbusiness.com.au

Kevin Gomez Editor

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• Communications / Networks • Test & Measurement • Thermal Management • PCB Design

It’s been a hectic month for the Electronics News team – organising the 7th Annual Future Awards, the inaugural Future Round Table, a special supplement on Industrial Electronics and then heading down to Melbourne to attend Electronex.

Based on the feedback from the professionals we met, there is an underlying sense of optimism in the electronics sector despite some other industries facing difficult times.

No doubt, a strong manufacturing industry can have a positive flow-on effect through to the electronics sector.

Unfortunately, cheap imports, often of inferior quality, and an apathetic government are hurting our manufacturing and engineering capabilities.

But, design and innovation have always been our strengths and we need to hold on and develop these as best we can. Not many know that the humble cut-out switch is an Australian invention (see page 8 in the accompanying Industrial Electronics supplement). It is unlikely that Canberra will rewrite the policies for our industry — the focus right now is on political survival.

But do the government policies really need changing?

Interestingly, one of the speakers at the Future Round Table spoke at length about the challenge for start-ups, especially in the electronics space. A relatively recent entrant into the country, he reckons we are already blessed with good government and policy support and have decent talent in the local electronics

industry (see page 14 in the enclosed Future supplement).

Are we then, too focused on hurdles, on aspects we consider lacking, to see the opportunities before us? At the round Table, we learnt that there are several hundred companies in the country working in the area of medical electronics. Most of them successful, one would hope.

Cochlear’s recent travails notwithstanding, is this an area that Australia can own? The risks are high and returns can take a while but there are huge potential rewards in the balance.

Are there other sectors on which we should focus? Drop me an email and we will consider all input received for forthcoming Round Tables and supplements.

This is the last issue of Electronics News for 2011 and it packs a host of interesting features that answer topical questions and then ask some more. Altium may have fled the country but where is the EDA market headed? What will it take for LEDs to become mainstream?

How will architecture-based approaches to test and measurement boost reliability?

I close with thank you to our sponsors Rohde & Schwarz, element14 and Kontron for supporting the Future Awards and the Round Table this year.

The team at Electronics News wishes all its readers a safe and enjoyable Holiday Season. We will be back with exciting issues in the New Year. kevin.gomez@reedbusiness.com.au

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NEWS

IN BRIEF

EVENT

OSRAM INVESTS IN PILOT PRODUCTION LINE FOR OLEDS OSRAM has invested 20 million Euros in a pilot production line for organic LEDs (OLEDs) in Regensburg, Germany.

The new facilities allow OSRAM to manufacture transparent OLED panels, to double the brightness of OLEDs, and to further strengthen durability and efficiency.

According to OSRAM, the production line will be expanded, driving down manufacturing costs by up to 90 percent as the company looks to introduce OLEDs into widespread usage.

Two thirds of OSRAM's investments in R&D are made in the field of LED and OLED. While LED emits light in a punctiform manner on the basis of a tiny shining chip, the OLED panels generate a luminous surface. In order for OLEDs to produce light, different organic synthetic materials are evaporated onto a basic material.

The luminous layer of OLED has a thickness of approx. 400 nanometres. www.osram.com

LOCAL NANOTECH FIRM TO BOOST SOLAR EFFICIENCIES NANO-NOUVELLE, a nanotechnology company based on the Sunshine Coast, has secured $1.1 million in new investment from Terra Rossa Capital, advancing its research which could boost sustainable energy yields.

Nano-Nouvelle was founded in 2007 at the University of the Sunshine Coast’s Innovation Centre.

Nano-Nouvelle aims to capture a significant slice of the booming sustainable energy markets using a patented approach and thin film technology to convert various forms of energy into electricity.

This latest investment builds upon research supported by a $256,000 grant from AusIndustry’s Climate Ready program in 2008.

The additional capital will enable Nano-Nouvelle to demonstrate prototype devices within the next 18 months, and advance in commercialisation.

Nano-Nouvelle is one of 82 companies that have been supported by the Innovation Centre Sunshine Coast to date.

4 OCTOBER 2011 www.electronicsnews.com.au

Another success for Electronex expo HE 2011 Electronex electronics design and assembly expo was held on 14 to 15 September 2011 at the Melbourne Park Function Centre.

The Surface Mount & Circuit Board Association (SMCBA) Conference 2011 was hosted at the conference centre next to the expo and delegates heard from both local and international speakers on a number of topics.

This year’s Melbourne event increased in size by approximately 25 percent on the 2010 inaugural event in Sydney, with 64 exhibitors representing over 90 companies. In all, over 1000 attendees visited the expo, while the SMCBA Conference was host to 144 delegates.

The continued growth and success of the Electronex event presents an optimistic yardstick for the health of the electronics industry in Australia.

Electronics News was in attendance at the expo on both days, and was able to talk to a number of exhibitors about the technologies they were presenting.

Scott Cree, sales manager of Mentor Technologies, was showcasing its design software for PCBs, FPGAs and wiring harnesses.

“I was impressed. As soon as they opened the door, people were coming through and asking lots of questions,” Cree said on the first day of the expo. “There has been a fairly high turnover of people throughout the morning.”

Rohde & Schwarz took the opportunity to show off its expansion toward the general electronics market, with a new range of oscilloscopes in addition to its traditional RF equipment.

Westek Electronics introduced attendees to its new company West Solar, a distributor for solar panels and solar-powered gadgets.

Ray Keefe from Successful Endeavours was at Electronex as a visitor, along with an intern and an employee from his company.

T

The electronics industry has responded enthusiastically to the second Electronex show.

“We are going around and seeing what suppliers are providing what,” Keefe told Electronics News.

“Electronics is a fast moving market, so keeping up to speed is very difficult. We are talking to vendors for equipment, asking ourselves if we have the right tools, if there are better things we could be buying; and looking for future buyers.”

Andrew Pollock, executive officer of the SMCBA, said the event was a success, as was the conference.

The conference was condensed into two days and aligned with the exhibition times. The extra rooms at the Melbourne venue meant delegates could attend concurrent sessions and get access to the same amount of information as before.

“We are running two streams for designers. Doug Brooks from UltraCAD is delivering one of the session for the designers. Suzie Webb is delivering the other session,” Pollock said.

“Matt Kelly from IBM is talking about high reliability lead-free assembly and test, and we've got Rick Stanton who...has a great deal of expertise, procedures and systems to handle issues to do with counterfeit components.”

Anthony Doran from Australasian

Electronex...presents an optimistic yardstick for the health of the electronics industry Exhibitions & Exhibitions is the key organiser behind Electronex. He was optimistic when Electronics News talked to him on the first day.

“It's always a good sign when on the first day of the show there are queues at the entrance waiting to get in. It was very busy this morning and the exhibitors have been commenting about the great crowd,” Doran said.

“We are broadening the product diversity of the show -- we have a greater range of product now on the floor than the one in Sydney.”

In 2012, Electronex will move back to Sydney.

“We plan to move to a bigger hall at the Australian Technology Park. I have had around 20 companies who were not at the Sydney show last year who want to book,” Doran said.

Based on the feedback from this year’s event, Doran says the Sydney event is expected to grow by nearly 50 percent. ■

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NEWS

AUTOMOTIVE

EVENT

World Solar Challenge STUDENTS and researchers will gather on 16 October 2011 in Darwin with their solar-powered vehicles, ready to race all the way to Adelaide.

42 teams from 21 countries are taking part in the World Solar Challenge 2011, which will require their cutting edge solar-powered cars to travel 3000km from Darwin to Adelaide, through unforgiving Australian bushland and highways.

According to CEO of the South Australian Motor Sports Board, Mark Warren, the World Solar Challenge will focus on engaging and inspiring some of Australia’s brightest young minds who hold the key to making sustainable green technology a mainstream possibility.

The three Australian entrants hail from TAFE SA, UNSW and Aurora Vehicle Association.

According to the Aurora Vehicle Association, the team will be racing

The solar vehicles will be required to travel long-distances through difficult conditions. in memory of its former chairman David Fewchuk who passed away in September 2010.

The race will be the debut appearance of the Aurora Evolution

vehicle, which is said to have a top speed of 155km/hr.

Sister car Southern Aurora will be taken on an outreach program to educate the general public. ■

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NEWS

RESEARCH

Funding for new military tech MINISTER for Defence Science and Personnel, Warren Snowdon, has announced $13 million funding for five defence-related research and development projects.

Five projects were selected out of 119 submissions received under Round 15 of the Defence Capability and Technology Demonstrator (CTD) Program.

Approved projects include: Nanoparticle-Hydrophone technology, which is being developed by a partnership between Phoenix Engineering Systems and Thales Australia to develop.

This technology is based on a simple pad-like device.

It has the potential to improve underwater sonar sensing for ships,

submarines and unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV).

Sonartech Atlas’s Active Pulse Analysis System, which is an advanced underwater detection and analysis system which enhances a vessel’s sonar sensing capabilities.

The Integrated Power System for Dismounted Combat, by Tectonica Australia, together with Australian National University and CSIRO. This is a technology integrating flexible lightweight power generating solar cells, more efficient power storage technology and power generating electronic textiles.

Combined with smarter power management techniques, they will reduce the weight of batteries a soldier needs to carry. â–

INDUSTRIAL

LCD makers unite THE Innovation Network Corporation of Japan will establish and operate a new company which will integrate the small- and mediumsized display businesses of Hitachi, Sony and Toshiba.

The companies will sign definitive and legally-binding agreements in autumn (northern hemisphere) 2011, with the aim of completing the business integration in Spring 2012.

This move is widely regarded as a defence against manufacturers in other Asian countries like Taiwan and South Korea, who have eroded Japanese companies' share in the LCD business.

The subsidiaries, Hitachi Displays, Sony Mobile Display Corporation and Toshiba Mobile Display, will be transferred to the new company.

INCJ, as a public-private partnership that provides financial, technological and management support for next-generation businesses, plans to invest a total of 200 billion yen in this company in exchange for shares to be newly issued to INCJ.

INCJ expects to eventually have 70 percent of the shares in the new company, while Hitachi, Sony and Toshiba will each hold 10 percent of the shares.

According to the companies, the global market for small- and medium-sized displays is expected to grow rapidly due to anticipated strong demand for high resolution, high value-added products, particularly as cosumers demand more smartphones and tablet computers.

The new company (named in the interim NewCo) will leverage the technologies of the subsidiaries and use capital from INCJ to establish new production lines in order to tap into the expanding market.

The hope is for it to become the market leader.

There will also be investment into research and development, focusing on the development of high-potential next-generation technologies, including higher resolution and thinner Organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays. â–

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TECHNOLOGY

Cable and antenna measurements made easy Set up and maintain antenna stations faster and easier with the new ZVH cable and antenna analyser ĆŠ 9K\CTF IWKFGF OGCUWTGOGPVU HQT OQTG GHHKEKGPE[ CPF GCUG QH WUG ĆŠ 5VGR D[ UVGR IWKFCPEG YKVJ EWUVQOK\CDNG UETGGP KPUVTWEVKQPU ĆŠ 5JQTV U UYKVEJKPI VKOGU DGVYGGP OGCUWTGOGPV HWPEVKQPU HQT UOQQVJ YQTM HNQY ĆŠ #WVQOCVKE VGUV TGRQTV IGPGTCVKQP ĆŠ 4QDWUV URNCUJ RTQQH JQWUKPI HQT TQWIJ HKGNF QRGTCVKQP YKVJ JQWT DCVVGT[ UWRRN[

RESEARCH

True 3D semiconductors

Stacking silicon for more power BM and 3M are jointly developing adhesives which will be used to package semiconductors into denselystacked silicon towers.

This development is a step toward creating “3D semiconductors�, which will make it possible to build commercial microprocessors composed of layers of up to 100 separate chips.

By stacking silicon in this way, processors could, for example, integrate memory and networking capabilities in a “brick�.

Computer chips could be 1000 times faster than today’s available technology, allowing even more powerful smartphones, tablets, computers and gaming devices.

According to IBM and 3M, their work bypasses the current attempts of 3D packaging, such as the problems with heat when chips are densely packed.

I

8 OCTOBER 2011 www.electronicsnews.com.au

IBM’s VP of research Bernard Meyerson says many of today’s chips, including 3D transistors, are actually 2D chips with very flat structures.

By focusing on developing a new material and packaging, IBM and 3M hope to create what they call “true 3D semiconductors� that offer more speed and capabilities while keeping power usage low, and solve problems such as heat buildup.

Many types of semiconductors today require packaging and bonding techniques that can only be applied to individual chips. 3M and IBM plan to develop adhesives that can be applied to silicon wafers, coating hundreds or even thousands of chips at a single time.

Under the agreement, IBM will draw on its expertise in creating unique semiconductor packaging processes, and 3M will provide its expertise in developing and manufacturing adhesive materials. â–

TECHNOLOGY

AUTOMOTIVE

RESEARCH

Laser headlights

Quantum computing key RESEARCHERS at Macquarie University in Sydney have discovered unconventional properties in quantum mechanical particles called anyons which could help in the construction of quantum computers.

Anyons are essential components in the development of quantum computers. They were previously through to behave like conventional quantum mechanical particles, which move very quickly.

However, Lauri Lehman, in conjunction with researchers from the University of Leeds and Microsoft Research, found the anyon, when put into motion, moves relatively slowly and behaves like a classical non-quantum particle.

The complex principles of quantum mechanics mean that the full implications of this research are still not fully understood.

The properties of anyons are a subject of intensive research as

Anyons could be a step toward quantum computing physicists continue to explore quantum mechanics.

According to Lehman, the anyon’s strange properties could be the key to doing quantum computation in a way that is particularly well

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It could also provide a starting point for testing quantum mechanics. â&#x2013;

BMW has developed a laser headlight for its vehicles, touting it as the next iteration of headlight technology after full LED systems.

According to BMW, laser light is the next logical step in development.

It could improve efficiency, and facilitate entirely new light functions.

Laser lights can produce nearparallel beams with an intensity a thousand times greater than that of conventional LEDs, with less than half the energy consumption.

BMW says the laser light is not emitted from the headlamp directly, but is first converted into a form that is suitable for use in road traffic. The resulting light is very bright and white.

It is also very pleasant to the eye and has a very low energy consumption.

Laser diodes have lengths of just ten microns (Îźm) each. This means the light sources can be integrated into the vehicle in new ways, providing new styling. www.bmw.com

www.mq.edu.au

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FEATURE

DESIGN

Time for EDA to grow up The future of EDA is a merging with system-engineering tools to allow the design and test of a complete product – before the first hole in a PCB has been drilled. By Electronics News staff he phrase Electronic Design Automation (EDA) was first coined to describe software that automated PCB layout and chip design. But the software has now evolved to such an extent that it’s hard to know what EDA really is anymore. The technology resembles a youth who’s reached the end of his formative years and is now looking for his true purpose in life.

Companies such as Cadence, Synopsys and Mentor Graphics have defined the progression of EDA thus far, introducing evermore sophisticated software to allow design engineers to route, optimise and verify their electronics before a chip is placed or a solder joint made.

Today’s state-of-the-art systems allow digital designers to select modules from standard libraries of technology “cells” that they can build up to meet their project’s requirements. These cells are proven architecture, speeding design, improving yield and accelerating time-to-market.

Analogue designers have it harder because it’s much more difficult to define “standard” components in that domain, but even here, things are moving ahead rapidly.

Rob Irwin, Product Manager with Australian EDA vendor Altium, sums up the history nicely in his blog on the EEWeb portal.

“If we hark back to the [early days of EDA], simply using the computer as a glorified drafting table didn’t really raise the abstraction level at which we could design,” notes Irwin.

“It just let us do what we’d always done, only a bit faster and more conveniently. It wasn’t until we used the computational power and logic available to automate processes and help make and enforce design decisions that we were able to move forward at the pace necessary to make the digital age a reality.”

T

10 OCTOBER 2011 www.electronicsnews.com.au

Altium has extended its software so every member of the design team can see exactly what’s happening across all design domains

So, job done then. Well, not quite, because today’s products aren’t just about laying out the electronics.

Inside the silo Before EDA, chips and PCBs were routed by hand by taping out on sheets of acetate set up on light tables and then shrinking the resultant design by photographic techniques such that they could be used for manufacturing.

The first EDA programs automated this drafting procedure, but the real breakthrough came in the 80s with the introduction of the VLSI design philosophy. This methodology espoused the use of programming languages that the designer used to specify the performance he wanted from his chips and boards. The soft-

ware then translated (or “compiled”) these instructions into the physical circuitry.

While undoubtedly improving electronics design efficiency, EDA has its drawbacks. For starters the software is complex, requiring a high level of expertise to operate, secondly it’s proprietary, meaning that it’s very difficult to swap from one vendor to another if disenchantment sets in, and third, attempts to integrate the electronics design with mechanical design and manufacturing have been patchy.

This last drawback has tended to reinforce a ‘silo mentality’ between the electronics design team and the mechanical and production engineers. There can even be divisions within the electronics design team

SHORTCUTS: EDA has evolved to such an extent that it’s hard to know what it really is anymore ■ Attempts to integrate the electronics design with mechanical design and manufacturing have been patchy ■ Software modelling is helping to bridge the gap between electronics design and end products ■ EDA vendors need to meet OEM demands for comprehensive design software of face extinction ■

FEATURE

“Contemporary EDA has tended to reinforce a ‘silo mentality’ between the electronics design team and the mechanical and production engineers”

itself between digital and analogue engineers, and hardware and software designers.

“This silo approach makes design tradeoffs extremely difficult,” says Mike Woodward, Communications Industry Marketing Manager with software modelling company MathWorks. “For example, the engineer may wish to use a cheaper power amplifier and correct for nonlinearities using digital methods (for example, digital pre-distortion), something difficult to do with many design tools.

“Often, design tools are targeted at a single design domain (for example, analogue design) and don’t co-simulate well with tools for other design domains,” notes Woodward in an earlier article for Electronics News (see EN September 2010). “This makes interaction between engineering teams more difficult than it needs to be.”

Cadence has attempted to soothe the conflict between hardware and software engineers by introducing its System Development Suite. The company notes that the differentiator between modern electronic products is often the software.

“Conventional [design] flows require manual migration from hardware to software and from one development environment to another, which may take months,” the company notes on its website. “As a result, 50 percent of overall development time can be spent on system integration.”

Mentor Graphics’ Flomerics software allows the electronics designer to check the thermal performance of the design

“The System Development Suite … [enables a] seamless migration path through the design phases,” says Nimish Modi, Senior VP of the System Realization Group at Cadence. “This integrated flow … provides a significant breakthrough in addressing the challenges of early software development and hardware/software convergence, leading to a dramatic reduction in development schedules.”

Over the wall But even when the electronics guys have got their act together, the end result could be “thrown over the wall” only to find that it bounces back weeks later because the packaged product runs too hot or a BGA can’t be reliably soldered.

In previous times a second iteration might have been possible, but with the pressure to produce ‘right-

first-time’ designs to meet evershorter product cycles, those days are long gone.

Some EDA vendors have reacted to customer pressure by attempting to add electro-mechanical and mechanical ‘modules’ to their products so that the electronics designers can take into account some of the challenges their colleagues will face further down the design chain.

Mentor Graphics, for example, acquired U.K. company Flomerics in October 2008. The computational fluid dynamics analysis company now forms the core of Mentor’s Mechanical Analysis Division. While Flomerics products can be turned to all forms of fluid flow, the primary advantage for Mentor is thermal analysis of electronics assemblies.

“Thermal analysis of today’s high powered, compact electronic products requires ever increasing sophisti-

cated conduction and convection thermal analysis, for both the full enclosure and PCBs, during the design process to meet reliability and time-to-market goals,” said Henry Potts, a vice president with Mentor, in a statement.

“As a supplier of design automation software, we must consider the entire product development process and provide analysis and collaboration tools wherever we can help our customers be more competitive.”

Altium’s Altium Designer product takes a similar approach with what the company describes as a “single, unified data model that lets every designer on a team see exactly what’s happening across all design domains – hardware, software and programmable hardware”.

“Productivity in electronics design is so much more than the speed to layout, reducing the numbers of > www.electronicsnews.com.au OCTOBER 2011 11

FEATURE

DESIGN

prototypes, or the management of output files for manufacture,” noted Gerry Gaffney, regional CEO for the Americas at Altium, in a statement.

“All these design authoring features are, of course, essential. But why create any type of prototype if you’re not sure whether it can be manufactured? Why know that a prototype board will fit its enclosure only to discover later that a changed component means that, suddenly, the production board does not?” he said.

The top-down approach EDA software has grown up in parallel with the electronics industry. That’s made it excellent for designing chips and boards, and latterly the software to drive those chips, but not so good at extending the design process beyond the electronics arena.

But electronics is rapidly moving beyond “electronic” products such as computers, TVs and mobile phones to become embedded into trains, planes, automobiles and, well, just about any modern product you can think of. And those products in turn

12 OCTOBER 2011 www.electronicsnews.com.au

CAD/CAE companies could be looking to encompass electronics design in their software suites. (Courtesy: Autodesk)

are designed by software.

As electronics has become more pervasive, the Computer Aided Design/Computer Aided Engineering

(CAD/CAE) vendors — that until now have been concerned with designing jet engines and washing machines — are beginning to

consider how to cope with the inevitable electronics content of their next products. They may not have made their move yet, but middlemen, like software modelling companies such as MathWorks and National Instruments (NI) are pioneering the way.

MathWorks promotes a modelbased design approach based on its MATLAB and Simulink products.

Model-based design allows engineers to construct a graphical representation of their system. But this graphical representation is more than just a visual model; it’s a dynamic environment that can be exercised with inputs so that engineers can simulate what will happen under real life operating conditions.

Simulink software uses functional blocks that accurately mimic the precise electrical or mechanical behaviour of the device they represent. MATLAB software provides the control engineer with access to a library of algorithms to aid the control design process. Observing the effect on the plant model and making changes to the algorithms

FEATURE

“The old-fashioned hierarchical approach to product design is too expensive, too slow and too prone to design re-runs” until the model’s behaviour meets the specification optimises the control design.

The final step is to compile the optimised control regimes into C code and port to a microcontroller to control, for example, an engine management unit.

“The plant model allows design engineers to develop control laws for the machine and try them out via simulation,” Bradley Horton, principal applications engineer with MathWorks Australia, told Electronics News in an earlier interview (see EN January 2010).

“There is no need to build expensive prototype hardware in order to test the control strategy – by simulation, Simulink and MATLAB enables control system development and early design verification.”

NI’s LabVIEW, launched in 1986 and now in its tenth incarnation, is a graphical programming environment used by engineers and scientists to develop sophisticated measurement, test, and control systems using intuitive graphical icons and wires that resemble a flowchart.

“When combined with modular hardware, LabVIEW is the centrepiece of the NI approach to graphical system design,” said the company in a statement, “which provides a unified platform for designing, prototyping and deploying applications with maximum efficiency.”

“By using LabVIEW, we decreased our system development time by onethird compared to the time we spent with traditional approaches,” says Glenn Larkin, engineer for the

National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the U.S.

Systems engineering Software modelling packages like MATLAB and LabVIEW aren’t capable of designing boards and chips but they do simplify the development of control regimes that can then be easily ported to microcontrollers. That puts the development of such regimes within the scope of engineers that aren’t expert in chip programming. And LabVIEW’s strength in the test arena allows for promising initiatives integrating design with test.

Such opportunities for seamless connections between design and manufacturing teams haven’t gone unnoticed by the EDA vendors.

Mentor Graphics, for example, has worked to combine a product, SystemVision, with NI’s LabVIEW such that test engineers can develop test programs without waiting for physical prototypes.

“Mentor has long recognized the need to move test integration up in the design process,” said Darrell Teegarden, a Director with Mentor’s System Modeling Group in a statement. “[SystemVision] makes it easy to test the design implementation virtually. SVX provides a virtual prototype of the entire system, while LabVIEW implements test program development and execution.”

SystemVision enables the system designer to model systems and components with a virtual prototype and use simulation to perform analyses of electrical, mechanical and thermal sub-system. The process allows test bench development to be done in parallel with system development and prototyping, speeding timeto-market.

to modern product design is putting their hegemony at risk.

The traditional vendors are reacting by pushing their business model to encompass more of the design process, but progress is slow and fragmented.

OEMs no longer want to maintain separate departments with teams of electronic, mechanical and manufacturing engineers working in glorious isolation. That old-fashioned hierarchical approach to product design is too expensive, too slow and too prone to design re-runs.

What’s needed, nay demanded, is a combined engineering team working in seamless harmony. The manufacturers are demanding soft-

ware that covers electronics chip and board design, mechanical packaging, verification, code development and compilation, and even modelling of the performance of the electronics in its target application.

It’s a big ask, but if an EDA vendor doesn’t grasp the nettle soon a software modelling company or CAD/CAE firm inevitably will. The result will be an early death for the pioneers of EDA rather than a blossoming from precocious youth into confident adulthood. ■ www.altium.com www.mathworks.com.au www.cadence.com www.mentor.com www.ni.com

What next?

The EDA vendors have dominated electronics design from the mid-80s, but a systems-engineering approach www.electronicsnews.com.au OCTOBER 2011 13

FEATURE

DESIGN

Test and measurement future How architecture-based approaches to test and measurement boosting reliability, cost-effectiveness and speed

HERE is little doubt that electronics and their components are getting more complex, with more functions and circuits squeezed into smaller spaces.

Even as engineers deal with the design challenges associated with these trends and shorter product development cycles, they must ensure the reliability of their solutions. But testing budgets are being squeezed by processes of rationalisation, even as tests become more comprehensive and demanding.

Fortunately, the digitalisation of

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test and measurement instruments means they tend to keep up with technological advances.

With the proper application of strategy and automation, test engineers can leverage all these advances to make their jobs easier, and their products more reliable.

Largely gone are the days of stacks of stand-alone test instruments. Improved flexibility and integration has been introduced with the new paradigm of modular, softwaredefined test architectures which adhere to industry standards.

Test instruments are now

Mixed domain oscilloscope TEKTRONIX has released the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first mixed domain oscilloscope (MDO) which includes the functionality of an oscilloscope and spectrum analyser in a single instrument.

The MDO4000 MDO allows engineers to capture timecorrelated analogue, digital and RF signals across four analogue, 16 digital and 1 RF The worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first mixed domain oscilloscope channel for a complete which integrates a spectrum analyser. system view, helping them to rapidly solve complicated design issues.

More than 60 percent of oscilloscope users also use a spectrum analyser to troubleshoot embedded system designs with integrated wireless functionality, requiring them to work in both the time and frequency domain.

Traditionally, an engineer was either a mixed signal/digital engineer or an RF engineer. But with wireless becoming more commonplace, design engineers must often work in both domains. The MDO4000 Mixed Domain Oscilloscope Series is the first oscilloscope to integrate the functionality of a spectrum analyser to provide a unique toolset which will save days or even weeks of debug time.

The company claims the MDO will become the new standard for electronics designs that increasingly include RF capabilities.

The RF input frequency range extends up to 6 GHz and provides a capture bandwidth of =1 GHz at all centre frequencies, 100 times wider than typical spectrum analysers. Users can see up to 4 decoded serial and/or parallel buses at one time on the same display.

Tekmark 02 9911 3888 www.tekmark.net.au

14 OCTOBER 2011 www.electronicsnews.com.au

designed for speed in automated and integrated platforms.

These standards and architectures allow instruments from different suppliers and with different functions to work together.

A completed test and measurement solution may, for instance, be capable of testing currents to high precision, analogue and digital signals, and analysing RF signals.

Modularity reduces the initial investment needed for test systems.

New capabilities and upgrades can be also be added easily.

Additionally, well-designed auto-

mated and integrated test systems differentiate between two types of tasks in test and measurement.

Some processes and tests are specific to the device being tested, while others are universal. Universal tasks are catered to by test management software, while device-specific tasks are covered by test code.

The new approaches to test and measurement, while benefitting from developments in computing technology, also mean engineers need a degree of software and coding expertise. Test programming software can help ease this transition. â&#x2013;

RF vector signal analyser NATIONAL Instruments has introduced a 14 GHz version of its NI PXIe-5665 high-performance RF vector signal analyser.

The company claims the new unit delivers best-in-class phase noise, dynamic range and accuracy, all in a cost-effective PXI form factor.

The PXI platform allows measurement speeds up to 20 times faster than box instruments. The unit can also take advantage of multi-core computing architectures and The VSA can be mixed and matched parallel programming capabiliwith other modules. ties through NI LabVIEW system design software.

Other features include peer-to-peer data streaming for signal processing and a flexible multiple input, multiple output (MIMO) architecture for phase-coherent measurements.

The vector signal analyser consists of the new NI PXIe-5605 downconverter, the NI PXIe-5653 local oscillator synthesizer and the NI PXIe5622, a 150 MS/s intermediate frequency (IF) digitizer.

This combination creates an ideal solution for spectrum and wideband vector signal analysis over a frequency range of 20 Hz to 14 GHz with analysis bandwidths up to 50 MHz. Engineers can mix and match the instrument with a variety of modules, and control an entire automated test system with LabVIEW system design software.

National Instruments 1800 300 800 www.ni.com

FEATURE

New 600MHz oscilloscopes Embedded test controller ROHDE & Schwarz announces new 600MHz RTO oscilloscopes, which are available as twochannel or four-channel models.

According to the company, this range caters to highperformance demands in the lower bandwidth range.

The new units cater to high-performance demands in the The lower bandwidth range. new models, the RTO1002 and RTO1004, have identical features to the previous 1GHz and 2GHz units. These include signal fidelity for accurate signal representation, low-noise frontend, full bandwidth even at 1mV/div, a singlecore ADC for more than 7 effective number of bits (ENOB), very fast signal acquisition and analysis, and one million wfms/s even when performing measurements and analysis.

The technology built into the oscilloscopes allow hardware-accelerated measurements, digital triggering, and fast and easy waveform arrangement with SmartGrid function and signal icons.

Rohde & Schwarz 02 8845 4100 www.rohde-schwarz.com.au

AGILENT Technologies has released the M9036A modular PXIe embedded controller for functional test systems.

The compact, three-slot controller is designed to take advantage of the x8 PCI Express links when using the Agilent M9018A PXIe chassis. Used together, these solutions provide the highest-throughput PXI test platform for peer-to-peer applications.

The standard M9036A has an Intel Core i5 2.4-GHz dual-core processor, with a removable 160-GB solid-state drive and 4GB The controller may be used to of RAM (upgradeable). create a hybrid test system.

The built-in front panel connectors enable integration with traditional standalone instruments to create hybrid test systems. Connectors include USB, LAN, DVI-I, GPIB, ExpressCard 34 and an SMB trigger.

Agilent 03 9210 5555 www.agilent.com.au

Digital storage scopes GOOD Will Instrument, distributed by Emona Instruments in Australia, has released two new dual-channel digital storage oscilloscope series, the GDS1000-U and the GDS-1000-A-U. The new units integrate a USB interface and firmware features such as go/no-go, data-logger and zoom FFT. The GDS-1000-U has 50MHz bandwidth minimum, while the GDS-1000A-U has 70MHz. Features include real-time sampling rate of 250 MSps, ET sampling rate of 25 GSps, 4k point record length per channel, and 5.7â&#x20AC;? colour TFT LCD display.

Emona Instruments 1800 632 953 www.emona.com.au

www.electronicsnews.com.au OCTOBER 2011 15

FEATURE

ENVIRONMENTAL

Designing the next lighting revo LEDs are environmentally friendly, efficient and cool. But clever design is needed to make them the future of mainstream lighting. Isaac Leung writes HE QUIET offices of enLighten Australia are behind unassuming glass doors, tucked away at the end of a small office park in Artarmon, NSW. But within that space, lit entirely by light emitting diodes (LEDs) supplemented with a little natural light, CEO David Whitfield and his staff are doing careful design work and winning innovation and environmental awards for their energyefficient lighting solutions.

In 2007, the Australian government started phasing out incandescent light bulbs for more energy-efficient lighting alternatives. Now, compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) have largely displaced the once-ubiquitous tungsten bulb in homes and businesses around Australia.

But Whitfield is already counting down to the demise of CFLs. “Hopefully in about five years, LEDs will dominate the commercial lighting industry,” he told Electronics News. “By 2020, you will be buying LED lights and putting them in new houses that will still be there when the house is bulldozed.”

Rapid technological evolution allied to a focus on their environmental advantages has transformed LEDs from mere indicators to a viable form of efficient lighting.

But like many nascent technologies, LED lighting faces many concerns, with a largely unregulated market encouraging a plethora of low quality products and bogus supplier claims, threatening to derail the honest efforts of quality-focused local manufacturers.

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Sustainable design Talk to anyone in the LED industry, and the figure 50,000 hours will inevitably come up. 50,000 hours is the average lifetime of a packaged LED in an ideal situation (design and environment play their part in whittling this down, of course).

LEDs can last more than twice as 16 OCTOBER 2011 www.electronicsnews.com.au

LEDs will be the next generation of sustainable lighting.

long as linear fluorescents, five times longer than CFLs, and fifty times longer than incandescent bulbs.

This long life means less frequent replacement and disposal of burntout lights, which in turn reduces the waste stream. Unlike CFLs, LEDs don’t use mercury, a toxic heavy metal that can contaminate the environment and is never broken down.

Lower energy use is another obvious advantage. While CFLs are more efficient than incandescent light bulbs (using 20 to 33 percent of the energy for the same light output), LEDs are better still.

“There are at least 50 million T8 fluorescent tubes in Australia,” says Whitfield. “If we replaced all of those with an ultra-efficient T5 fluorescent or an LED solution, three brown coal-fired power stations could be shut down.” enLighten Australia’s flagship Chamaeleon multi-function light, which won the Energy and Innovation categories at the 2011 Green Globe awards, yields energy reductions of up to 93 percent when

The right chip “LED lighting...needs to be designed as a package...to suit its purpose”

compared to conventional solutions.

According to Whitfield, the base LED package on its own can only generate savings of around 60 percent. The real opportunity for saving energy comes with careful design of additional electronics that prioritise energy efficiency.

To talk to Whitfield is to get an insight into the design decisions that will be key to ensuring LEDs fulfil market expectations of sustainable and reliable lighting.

“There are three basic things about a good LED light design,” he says. “One is choosing the right chip.

Two is supporting it with the right electronics, and three is putting it in an efficient fixture which doesn’t lose too much light.”

Early LED solutions were subject to drastic colour shifts toward the blue spectrum as they got older due to the decay of the phosphor that actually generates the white light.

These relatively primitive devices are cheap to manufacture, and are still used in equipment like torches where colour degradation is not so important. However, for commercial lighting applications, upgraded LEDs now dominate.

But perhaps more important is the LED’s thermal performance.

Diode efficiencies and running lifetime tend suffer as the temperature goes up. While not as hotrunning as the notoriously inefficient incandescent bulbs, LEDs still do generate plenty of heat.

“With virtually all our lighting, we use the Philips LumiLEDs,” explains Whitfield. “They are quite expensive, but a lot more heattolerant, for operations especially in northern parts of Australia. The light units can run up to 110 degrees and still last for 50,000 hours.”

FEATURE

olution Support electronics The Chamaeleon, designed to be used as normal and emergency lighting in commercial areas, has people-reactive and ambient light detection technologies built in, and two different power circuits.

The low-power circuit provides background light, while the fullpower circuit only activates when people are sensed and there’s not enough natural light.

“LEDs are dimmable, but we don’t tend to dim them. In low power and medium power lighting, dimming is generally inefficient,” Whitfield explains. “The driver in the light is designed to operate at peak efficiency at a certain wattage. If the LED is dimmed, then the inefficiencies of the driver are compounded.

“By running two separate circuits in the light, we have two drivers — one that runs at peak efficiency at the high lighting level, and the other that’s efficient at the low level.”

The driver and power supply are designed together and integrated into one unit. Whitfield’s team specifically engineers the electronics for the application. But the optimisation process is painstaking.

“Generally speaking there is no panacea. There are small, incremental savings all the way through,” he explains. “And because you have around ten of those points within a driver that absorb power, you only have to change each of those a little, and the effect on the driver can be quite significant.”

Luminaire and optics Increasingly heat-resistant LED packages are helping make the engineer’s job easier, but they can only do so much. The excess heat must be channelled away from the LED and junction to maintain the chip’s life.

While a small heatsink behind the board will suffice when dealing with a small number of well-spaced LEDs, clustering LEDs closely together multiplies the heating effect.

enLighten CEO David Whitfield and the assembled Chamaeleon

An OSRAM Opto Semiconductor green LED for projectors

This is why commercially available LED lamps tend to have a relatively prominent heatsink. But the design tolerances are narrow.

“If the heatsink is designed properly, as a rule of thumb, it should never be above 55 degrees,” says Whitfield. “But then the temperature shouldn’t be much below 50 either, because if it is, it means the heatsink is far too big, or you are not actually getting the heat away from the chip.”

Another design consideration is the optics, which diffuse or reflect the light emitted by the chip, reducing the glare associated with small points of bright light. Attention must be paid to factors like reflectivity and opacity to ensure the optics fulfill their function without cutting off too much light.

“Billions of dollars are spent to make the chip better,” says Whitfield.

“But very little attention is paid to

the electronics that drives the LED or the optics that go with it. That’s the big problem for the moment.”

Whitfield doesn’t believe the current direction of the industry — making lights that drop in to existing fixtures — is the best way forward.

“To get the most out of LED lighting, it needs to be designed as a package...to suit its purpose,” he says.

While the plug-and-play approach lowers the barriers to entry, Whitfield says the advantages of LEDs renders current fittings obsolete.

“If you have a well-designed LED light, it doesn’t need to be easy to install, because there’s no need to go back every 6 or 12 months to replace it,” he says. “It doesn’t matter if it is a little bit more difficult to service.”

Chip developments Half a world away from enLighten Australia’s offices, in the German and Malaysian laboratories of OSRAM Opto Semiconductors, intensive research and development is taking place to improve LED chip technology and applications.

Electronics News talked to Kai- > www.electronicsnews.com.au OCTOBER 2011 17

FEATURE

ENVIRONMENTAL

chung Cheng, OSRAM Opto Semiconductor’s APAC marketing director, about the latest advances and usages for LED technology.

Recent developments at the company include 660 nm wavelength ‘hyper’-red and 450 nm blue LEDs specifically engineered for horticulture, as well as high-intensity green LEDs for projectors. OSRAM’s highintensity LEDs are also being used in the headlights of high-end vehicles like the Audi A8.

But on a more conventional front, the company is engineering LEDs with better thermal dissipation characteristics and efficiencies.

“We are improving the material used in the packaging, and also continuing with efficiency improvements,” Cheng said.

“Our high-power LEDs in the Oslon range have thermal resistances of 7 K per Watt. Others can reach as low as 3.5 K per Watt.”

The lower the thermal resistance, the easier it is for the package to dissipate heat.

According to Cheng, the cost of LEDs is one of the major obstacles to broader adoption of the technology, and higher efficiency is part of the solution, since having brighter LEDs means fewer chips will need to be used.

OSRAM Opto Semiconductor’s laboratories have managed to achieved 142 lumen per Watt, with a one Watt LED driven at 350 mA at 2755 K colour temperature.

Another cost saving on the chip level is the move from 2- and 4-in wafer sizes to 6-in. The company is also working on researching siliconon-dust substrate (SDS) processes, which might allow LED production to make use of some of the advances from semiconductor IC manufacture.

A number of other material developments may also help bring down the cost of LEDs. For example, BluGlass, a spin-off company from Sydney’s Macquarie University, is developing a Remote Plasma 18 OCTOBER 2011 www.electronicsnews.com.au

Choosing the correct LED chip is just one of many design choices

Chemical Vapour Deposition (RPCVD) process which will allow low temperature growth of nitridebased thin films.

RPCVD’s growth temperature is lower than the conventional 1000°C required for metalorganic CVD (MOCVD), which is currently used to produce high brightness LEDs. By avoiding high temperature exposure, it is possible to reduce the strain on the device and the active materials, leading to performance boosts.

Even as LED technology continues to develop, the end is in sight. In a report by the US Department of Energy titled “Solid State Lighting Research and Development: Multi-Year Program Plan”, released in March 2010, an efficacy limit of 250 lumens per Watt was specified for 2020, at which point the line charting the rise of efficiency plateaus.

Standards and regulations Back in the commercial world, a lack of standards is presenting another obstacle to the widespread adoption of LED technology.

For Douglas Bryan, CEO of Lighting Council Australia, the many LED products flooding a lightly-regulated market is a cause for concern.

“There are some very good products available, but there are lots of products that fail to meet the claims of suppliers in terms of longevity and other aspects of performance like colour characteristics and efficacy,” Bryan told Electronics News.

“Quality issues on the market are undermining consumer confidence in the product to justify the major outlay for LEDs.” As the first step toward improving consumer confidence in LED lights, Lighting Council Australia introduced a labelling-based quality program called the Solid State Lighting (SSL) quality scheme.

A voluntary industry scheme, it relies on third-party test reports of the products provided by the supplier for critical parameters like luminaire efficacy, light output, measured input power, correlated colour temperature and the colour rendering index.

Once verified and paid for, a label is issued for use on the product and in product literature for a period of

three years.

The scheme, being entirely voluntary, is far from being a standard or regulation, and presents little, if any obstacle to rogue importers.

According to Bryan, Australian regulators are awaiting the introduction of international standards and the outcome of more testing around the world.

As with other products, the US, Europe and Asia are expected to have different standards and regulations. Currently, the most advanced is the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solid State Lighting Energy Star standard.

The U.S. standard is based around the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IES) LM-79 “Electrical and Photometric Measurements of Solid-State Lighting Products” and LM-80 “Measuring Lumen Maintenance of LED Light Sources” test methods.

Together, these two methods cover the luminaire and the LED package, arrays and modules, and LM-80 in particular is rigorous enough to eliminate most of the unsubstantiated claims made about LED lifetime.

Market adjustments Regardless of the standards shakeup, one thing is clear: the market will change, and opportunities will arise for Australia to take a slice of the LED pie.

There are conflicting views regarding what will happen.

Bryan believes Australia will be hard-pressed to compete against the sheer number of companies in China manufacturing LEDs. Like the rest of the electronics sector, Australians will have to be content with IP-heavy designing and advanced assembly duties.

David Whitfield is already doing design work here, but he believes there is an urgent need for the lighting industry to increase its profit margins on LEDs, based on the

FEATURE

fact that they last longer. He also thinks the Chinese LED manufacturing sector will be subject to a series of mergers and closures in the near future.

This will ease the downward pressure on LED prices, improve quality, and open up opportunities for Australian companies.

“Until 2020, Australia will replace somewhere between $10 and 20 billion worth of lighting with LEDs. Rather than importing devices, the government should support the establishment of a local manufacturing industry here,” Whitfield says.

“LED chips are produced by machines, there is not a lot of labour involved, so there’s no reason the manufacturers can’t be here.

“We can compete with China on quality, and on time-to-market, and we can offer a just-in-time delivery approach. With patents and IP, Australia can have an exporting manufacturing base.”

The next iteration of lighting technology, the Organic LED (OLED) is already emerging. However, Whitfield says it will likely play a complementary role to inorganic LEDs. “OLEDs and LEDs are different versions of the same thing – one is better at one thing, the other is better at another,” he explains.

“Commercially, OLED is 20 years behind LEDs. When it does get commercialised, there will be LEDs already in place, and then it becomes a question of whether it’s cost-effective to replace already-efficient LEDs with OLEDs.”

— the opportunity for brighter and near-ubiquitous lighting, without the heavy environmental cost; the opportunity for Australia to play a bigger part in the global electronics supply chain, and for quality electronics designers to make big profits from their expertise and hard work.

However, even as consumers and

and the rest of the world will need to work quickly to introduce regulation to the burgeoning market, to protect not just consumers and the electronics industry, but the potential of a new generation of lighting. ■ www.enlighten.com.au www.osram-os.com www.lightingcouncil.com.au

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Immense potential It is hard to imagine what Thomas Edison and the other scientists behind the incandescent light bulb would have thought of today’s world, as their invention is superceded by ever more efficient technologies in quick succession.

But perhaps Edison, that consummate capitalist, would recognise the immense potential surrounding LEDs

manufacturers around the world start to take notice of LEDs, there are threats to the widespread adoption of the technology. Already, many early adopters, stung by the flood of inferior products, perceive LEDs as being overpriced and of variable quality.

While the price of the technology will inevitably come down, Australia

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EMONA www.electronicsnews.com.au OCTOBER 2011 19

FEATURE

DESIGN

Dealing with interference In a world full of communications devices, each of which can interfere with sensitive electronics, a combination of shielding and filtering keeps equipment running safely and reliably HE ubiquity of devices like mobile phones and wireless technologies means the threat of electro-magnetic interference (EMI) and radio frequency interference (RFI) are constant concerns for electronics engineers.

“Interference can result in an erroneous output out of the circuit cards, which then results in an incorrect reading or incorrect function,” said Paul Payne, national sales manager of Faraday Shielding.

There are two approaches when it comes to dealing with interferences: protection and prevention.

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Protecting equipment When vulnerable electronics need to be protected from interference, engineers can implement shielding, and filter input/output cabling.

Shielding solution providers and engineers firstly study the specifications of the product to determine the attenuation required over a specified frequency band.

They then consider other requirements such as access, environment, cooling, power and communications.

This results in the final decision on shield material and construction.

Fibre optics are recommended for getting signals in and out of the

shielded area, due to their immunity to EMI/RFI. Where ordinary wires and cables need to run into the shielded area, filters are used to prevent signals from bypassing the shield via the cable. Filters are generally passive components which are made up of shunting capacitors and series inductors. By posing very high resistance to higher frequency signals, they attenuate the unwanted signals.

Preventing interference On the other end of the spectrum is the need to design products to be electromagnetically compatible.

According to George Stavrinou of Westek Electronics, a common approach is to entirely enclose the problem circuits in a conductive box, although total isolation is often difficult to achieve.

Design engineers can also make the problem easier to deal with by putting components that tend to cause interference into “trouble zones” within the product or on the circuit board, then shielding those zones from other areas.

Capacitors can be used as effective RF filters, while ferrite beads and toroids can provide additional attenuation for unwanted signals. ■

Antenna measurement facility installed FARADAY has installed the first ETS-Lindgren Antenna Measurement System AMS-8050 in Australia.

The system is a compact, fully anechoic (non-echoing) RF enclosure which will allow Faraday to offer quick, efficient, over-the-air antenna pattern measurements.

Other antenna parameters measured include total radiated power, effective isotropic radiated power, total/effective isotropic sensitivity, near-horizontal partial radiated power and near-horizon partial isotropic sensitivity.

20 OCTOBER 2011 www.electronicsnews.com.au

The enclosure allows fast antenna measurements.

The free-standing unit is built on a moveable cart for easy installation.

It can be used for rapid prototyping, design validation, precertification testing, performance measurement and production sampling.

The antenna performance measurements made in the AMS-8050 have shown good correlation to measurements made in larger, fully compliant chambers, and so are suited for pre-compliance testing.

The enclosure can be used as a self-contained test lab for fast tests of small wireless devices and handsets.

The system comes with software which makes fully-automated pattern and frequency response measurements for both active and passive antennas, for either vector or scalar qualities, in either transmit or receive mode.

Software-based post-processing capabilities include calculations for directivity, gain, radiation efficiency, total radiated power and total isotropic sensitivity. ■ Faraday 03 9729 5000 www.faradayshielding.biz

FEATURE

Customisable shielding systems

Electromagnetic interference filter SCHAFFNER, distributed by Westek Electronics, has introduced a new, low leakage EMC/EMI, single-phase, 240V AC filter series.

The filters are suitable for medical apparatus, test and measurement devices and IT equipment as well as automation systems.

Correct grounding is ensured with a metal base plate, while the rest of the filter housing is constructed from plastics in line with Restriction of Hazardous Substances directives.

Circuit topology of the filters comprises of asymmetrical noise attenuation and common mode noise rejection capacitors and balanced

core high impedance inductors for line conducted noise.

Special ultra-low leakage filters are available with leakage current at 0.002 milliamp or less. The standard version of the filters has 0.73mA leakage whereas the low leakage version has 0.52mA leakage. Filters are available in current ranges of 6, 10, 16, and 20 amps.

Installation of the filter is via screw-terminals covered by hinged shrouds to prevent accidental touching of live conductors. ■ Westek Electronics 03 9369 8802 www.westek.com.au

The shielded rooms can be configured with custom designs and features.

FARADAY is offering ETSLindgren's Series 81 shielding system for protecting large installations of sensitive equipment.

The Shielded Rooms have modular panels which allow scalability of the enclosures. Thirty six standard formations are available, as are custom designs.

The walls of the room are threequarter inch thick dimensionally stable cores which are laminated on both sides with 28-gauge sheet steel.

The cores meet ANSI A208.1 specifications, while the steel laminate provides attenuation to magnetic and electric fields, and plane waves.

The Series 81 also complies with

Universal Building Codes (UBC) and can be assembled in the most stringent seismic zones.

To maintain electrical isolation, a 6-mil dielectric vapour barrier and 1/8" dielectric underlayment are placed beneath the shielded floor panels. In addition, the enclosure can be converted into a ferrite-lined and/or conventional absorber-lined anechoic chamber.

Two door choices are available, as are power and signal line filters, waveguide feedthroughs, and modular RF floors panels. ■ Faraday 03 9729 5000 www.faradayshielding.biz

Electrostatic discharge suppressors WESTEK Electronics is distributing a new range of Würth ESD suppressors.

Suitable for use in portable electronic devices like PDAs, MP3 players, and mobile phone, as well as antennas, VGA, USB and IEEE ports, and network devices.

The components are available in designer kits with quantities of 20 components, suitable for DC voltages ranging from 5 volts to 26 volts and capacitances from 0.05 pF to 100 pF

in single and four channel topologies.

The ESD devices are characterised by low clamping voltages. They are also available with very low capacitance to suit high speed data transmission, or capacitances offering RF noise mitigation. In general, bi-directional protection is provided at very low leakage currents. ■ Westek Electronics 03 9369 8802 www.westek.com.au www.electronicsnews.com.au OCTOBER 2011 21

FEATURE

DESIGN

Modern microcontrollers enhan To provide the greatest possible protection, security systems must keep up with the latest technology. Anand Swami, Prashant Pandey and Rosarium Pila from STMicroelectronics explain ITH increasing threats to security, surveillance systems are no longer a luxury but have become a necessity. This article considers asolution for security and surveillance built around a 32-bit ARM Cortex-M3 based microcontroller (for example, an STM32), an image sensor and a Global System for Mobile communication/General Packet Radio Service (GSM/GPRS) module to endow the system with wireless capability.

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s important that the wireless surveillance and monitoring system is easy to install and maintain, and is power efficient. Figure 1 shows a typical system comprising the microcontroller (MCU), some sensors and a GSM/GPRS module.

copper wire that snaps when someone enters the enclosed area.

Tripwires can also be implemented with laser beams. Microswitches can be connected to doors and windows to detect attempts to open them.

W

GSM/GPRS Module

Figure 1: Application diagram for security solution using STM32 and GPRS

Microcontroller The STM32 is a 32-bit MCU based on the popular ARM 32-bit Cortex-M3 CPU running at 72 MHz with a performance of 90 DMIPS at 1.25 DMIPS/MHz. The chip includes 64Kbytes of SRAM and 1MB of flash memory. This MCU has single-cycle multiplication and hardware division. It also has up to 112 fast general purpose IOs to enhance overall performance. The IOs are 5 V tolerant. The device works on a single voltage from 2 to 3.6 V. The inbuilt real-time clock (RTC) can be used for implementation of time and calendar.

A Cortex M3-based MCU also has lower interrupt latency (supports tail chaining, late arriving); higher code density (supports unaligned and aligned memory access); faster context switch; nested vector interrupt controller (NVIC), and OS Timer (integrated SysTick timer).

Sensors For the camera sensor a camera interface library is implemented on the STM32 to capture the image 22 OCTOBER 2011 www.electronicsnews.com.au

Figure 2: Wireless surveillance system network from the camera. The camera sensor is interfaced with the microcontroller via I2C. To capture the image, commands are provided through an I2C interface. Direct Memory Access (DMA) is used to capture the image through General Purpose IO (GPIO).

The image sensor will capture the image in JPEG formats of different resolutions. The image is then transferred to the web server over GPRS. Other sensors that can be used

include glass break detectors, which are triggered by the sound and shock waves caused by breaking glass, gas leak detectors, smoke and heat detectors, and passive infrared detectors, which detect the presence of infrared emitting bodies.

Area control can also be implemented with such a system, by interfacing tripwires, microswitches and magnetic switches with the microcontroller. The tripwire is a thin

The GSM/GPRS module is used for wireless connectivity.

GPRS is a packet-oriented mobile data service on the 2.5G cellular communication systems. GPRS supports Internet Protocol (IP), Point-to-Point protocol (PPP) and X.25 connections.

The multiple access methods used in GSM/GPRS are based on frequency division duplex (FDD) and time domain multiple access (TDMA). During a session, a user is assigned to one pair of uplink and downlink frequency channels.

The channels are combined with time domain statistical multiplexing.

The packets have constant length, corresponding to a GSM time slot.

The downlink uses first-come first-served packet scheduling, while the uplink uses a scheme very similar to Reservation-ALOHA. This means that slotted ALOHA is used for reservation inquiries during a contention phase, and the actual data is transferred using dynamic TDMA with first-come firstserved scheduling.

Theoretical maximum speeds of up to 171.2 kbps are achievable with GPRS when all eight timeslots are used concurrently.

A GPRS connection is established by reference to its access point name (APN). The APN defines the services such as wireless application protocol (WAP) access, short message service (SMS), multimedia messaging service (MMS), and for Internet communication services such as email and World Wide Web access.

In order to set up a GPRS connection for a wireless modem, a user must specify an APN, optionally a user name and password, and very

FEATURE

nce security systems rarely an IP address, all provided by the network operator. The GPRS facilitates instant connections whereby information can be sent or received immediately as the need arises, subject to radio coverage.

Working principle The protected area is equipped with appropriate sensors and control panel with the GSM/GPRS module.

Interaction between the sensors and control panel is provided through the wireless or wired interface.

In case of unauthorised entry into the protected area, one of the proximity sensors triggers the camera sensor to capture an image and this information is passed to the web server over GPRS. The notification of the intrusion can also be sent to a remote monitoring station or the mobile phone of the user concerned.

There are two operating modes for this surveillance solution: Triggered mode and streaming mode.

In triggered mode the image is captured by camera and transferred to the GPRS module via USART, then the GPRS module uploads the image to web server. The user can view the image of the protected area from any remote PC or mobile hand set using a web browser.

In streaming mode, the image is captured by camera and transferred to the web server over GPRS at preconfigured intervals.

The multi-sensor surveillance system uploads the sensor data to a surveillance server periodically via wireless network.

The data is encrypted with a key.

The owner of the security system can log on to the server to view the live images and other sensor data (see figure 2).

Captured images and sensor data is also archived for later viewing and forensic purposes.

The data is stored securely and the user may access it using a password. The administrator can

configure sensors, monitoring intervals, alarm parameters remotely.

The wireless surveillance has a number of key advantages over a wired version.

First, it is easy to manage and can facilitate surveillance even in an area where it is difficult to lay cables, especially when target areas are far

from each other and scattered. The cost of traditional network wiring is very high and also tedious to maintain. The system can implement a centralized management and control of surveillance parameters.

Second, a wireless system is flexible. The system can be expanded by adding surveillance nodes, and the

software can be remotely updated.

Third, the system is reliable, robust, powerful and compact.

Finally, a wireless system is costeffective because the wireless network can be established quickly and at lower cost compared with traditional wired networks. ■ www.st.com

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Other product and company names listed are trademarks or trade names of their respective companies. 02251

www.electronicsnews.com.au OCTOBER 2011 23

FEATURE

PROFILE

One on one with Doug Ford Doug Ford is the owner and principal engineer of Doug Ford Analog Design, which he founded in 2008 as an electronic design consultancy. Electronics News finds out what makes him tick

How did you get started in electronics?

I started as a hobbyist. Back in those days, it was valves. Everyone was tossing out their old black and white valve TVs and buying colour TVs, so I’d grab them and strip the components out, and make guitar amplifiers and valve transmitters.

I then discovered transistors and the fact that you could do things with transistors rather similar to valves, and from a hobby, it grew into a profession.

I got an electrical engineering degree in university. My first major job was with Jands Electronics. I actually started with them prior to completing my degree, but as a bench technician.

Once I finished my degree, I was offered a role there as design engineer. I was with Jands for a total of around 19 years. That was back in the days when once you got a job, you figured that a job was pretty much there for life.

In the early days of Jands, they were manufacturing everything that you needed to put on a rock show.

We are talking about power amplifiers, mixing consoles, lighting control consoles, lighting dimmers, high power PA speakers and signal processing gear.

Over a period of time, their product field narrowed until these 24 OCTOBER 2011 www.electronicsnews.com.au

days they are primarily manufacturing lighting control consoles. And I think they manufactured dimmers simply to support the consoles. Back in 1999-2000 I was getting pretty bored of designing dimmers all day.

So I went to RODE Microphones, where I was for about 18 months, and did some frankly, really good work there, designing very low noise microphone pre-amplifiers for their new range of mics. In fact to my best of my knowledge, to this day they are still using the topologies I developed during that time.

There was a conflict of personalities, so I went to Newcastle and worked for a family business called Woods Battery Chargers, designing industrial battery chargers.

Eighteen months, then back down to Sydney, to Thales Underwater Systems, designing sonar systems.for defense and seismic sonar systems for oil prospecting.

I was basically sold off, with part of that company to another French company called Sercel, who set up shop in the same building as Thales.

Sercel took over the seismic sonar part of things, leaving Thales to concentrate on the military.

Sercel went belly-up in about ‘96’97. That was when I went to Addcom, who were designing telephony headsets for call centres, and worked there for 20 months, before starting my own business.

How did you get into your current job?

It was about three and a half years ago that I figured it was time to strike out on my own. I set up Doug Ford Analogue Design.

Initially, I got pretty good start-up money, because I was subcontracting, doing a defence project.

That lasted for about 6 or 8 months. Then the company I was subcontracting for went belly-up, owing me $27,000. But I survived that and survived the GFC.

What is your specialty?

I guess I am still across quite a diverse range of technology and industries, all of which require analogue expertise.

We’re talking about anything related to power conversion, and also amplification, such as low-noise preamps for studio mics, it might be front-ends for sonar systems, a variety of different signal processing applications, and sometimes you mix the two together.

Sometimes you can combine all of those with a degree of thermal management expertise, and all of a sudden you realise you are in a good place to do some high brightness LED work.

What do you enjoy about your role?

I think that anybody who goes into business for themselves enjoys being their own boss, but that’s actually a relatively trivial side of it.

What I most enjoy is firstly the range of different jobs, the different industries I can work with.

Secondly, there’s always a real buzz that comes when you see something that you’ve worked on go into production and get used by people.

What challenges you?

I was bought up in a family that was not in business. A lot of families eat, drink and understand business right from the word go. They are picking up tax law with their mother’s milk. Not so for me. I had to learn all the various business skills that were required in terms of administration, finance, all that sort of thing. I am still learning. That’s a big challenge.

The second challenge relates to how do I go about marketing myself.

How do I let my company name be known to people who need it. I am still frankly clueless in as far as that’s concerned.

How has the industry changed?

In the 70s and 80s, you could expect an Australian manufacturer to pretty much have all of the technologies required to manufacture their product under one roof.

Things went pretty moribund in the 80s, and started reviving in the 90s, but now each company has its own particular skill set.

There’s a lot more cross-fertilisation because the industries are somewhat more specialised now.

What problems face the electronics industry?

There is a hangover from the GFC, which might take a little while to fade.

Things change. Competitors pop up, new technologies can easily displace somebody’s existing multihundred-million dollar industry with something that costs a tuppence that you can hold in your hand.

More and more often we are getting disruptive technologies. I think a degree of agility is required.

What advice do you have to give to younger engineers?

Don’t leap from university into starting a business, unless you have a family background in business, and a whole lot of start-up money.

See if you can give yourself maybe somewhere between half a dozen and a dozen years of working for a few companies, so that you can learn the engineering methodologies from each one.

It behoves anybody to get a pretty wide cross-section – the more experience you can get, the better you’ll be as an engineer. This applies whether you are talking about design engineers or QA type engineers. ■ www.dfad.com.au

FEATURE

DESIGN CORNER

Dimming LEDs LEDs are starting to challenge conventional light sources, but dimming can be tricky.

Keith Buettner from DLPC compares the techniques S light emitting diodes (LEDs) start to replace incandescent bulbs and even compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs in mainstream lighting applications, consumers who are used to being able to dim conventional bulbs are demanding the same of solid state lighting.

Dimming LEDs can be a difficult, inefficient exercise.

This article will discuss three possible techniques, some of which tend to work better than others when used in combination with LEDs. The techniques are: Siliconcontrolled rectifier (SCR) dimming, analogue dimming and Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) dimming.

In a basic circuit the analogue control element dissipates as much or even more energy than the LED. Because the LED’s forward voltage drop is low, the difference between input and output voltage increases, the efficiency is lowered and the temperature increases.

When using driver chips to stepup the voltage for the LED, the input current to the control circuit is larger than the current to the LED. Consequently, switching circuits are subject to large currents, dictating the use of a larger switching device.

A

SCR dimming SCR dimming is a technique used for ordinary incandescent and halogen lamps which consume AC power.

Because these lamps can be considered as purely resistive devices, the current and voltage waveform are always in phase.

Consequently, no matter what the deviation from a sine wave voltage, a change in the value of the input voltage RMS will alter the intensity of emitted light.

SCR dimming does have some drawbacks, especially when it is put to work in systems with LEDs. Because the rectifier distorts the pure sine wave voltage, the harmonic coefficient increases which can cause a rise in electromagnetic interference (EMI).

And, at low loads, a bleeder resistor — consuming around 2 W — must be used. Moreover, the input LC filter circuit for the SCR dimmer circuit can cause oscillations on the part of the rectifier, in turn affecting LED driving power, and causing audible noise and blinking.

Analogue dimming Analogue dimming is linear proportional control of output current by using either simple transistor or

PWM dimming PWM dimming is achieved by keeping a constant pulse period for > Figure 1: PWM waveform 300 mA peak current, 150 mA average current

resistor topologies or specially designed chips such as Mornsun Power’s KC24RT and KC24W. By adjusting the LED supply current, the device’s light output can be altered.

Unfortunately this can cause a problem with the ‘white’ LEDs commonly used for LED lighting.

At the heart of white LED devices are actually blue LED chips covered with a phosphor. This covering absorbs the blue light.

The final light which is emitted by the device is therefore a mix of blue and yellow that approximates white light and is perceived by the human eye as such.

A change in supply current alters the balance of blue and yellow components, which changes the eye’s perception of the colour ‘temperature’. Additionally, analogue dimming is inefficient and can cause problems during the start-up process.

However, many LED driver chips are designed for use with analogue dimming (or PWM dimming) control circuits on the input. www.electronicsnews.com.au OCTOBER 2011 25

FEATURE

DESIGN CORNER

Figure 2: PWM dimming using UC2843 and Mornsun KC24RT-350 LED driver

Figure 3: Stepped LED dimming circuit

26 OCTOBER 2011 www.electronicsnews.com.au

FEATURE

the modulation, but varying the pulse-on to pulse-off ratio (duty cycle) the average current is lowered and the LED dims.

Since LEDs are diodes, they can switch rapidly. This allows the use of PWM switching frequencies up to hundreds of kilohertz, eliminating flicker. No other lighting device can switch this fast.

PWM dimming changes the average current value, but does not change the magnitude of the peak current, which must match the LED electrical characteristics.

Figure 1 shows a 300mA maximum output current through the PWM dimming waveforms adjusted to 150mA average.

Because the magnitude of the peak current doesn’t change, PWM dimming doesn’t change the colour temperature of the white LED. In addition to that, because the technology is a constant current source, it does not change the circuit’s operating conditions, so even across a wide range of dimming, there is no flickering or temperature increase due to inefficiency.

A new type of PWM dimming As previously seen, PWM dimming has several advantages over other techniques for controlling the intensity of LED lighting.

However, common 555 timer chips can still pose problems with the accuracy of the PWM signal and its duty cycle. Using a microcontroller for the PWM signal generation also is relatively expensive, and can present programming challenges for the relatively inexperienced electronics engineer or designer.

To implement PWM dimming, another option is available, with the of the UC2843 fixed frequency current mode controller.

This chip is designed for DC-to-DC converter applications and has a very smooth output PWM signal.

In LED dimming applications, the potentiometer alters the duty cycle.

In order to prevent the UC2843

output voltage becoming too large, the use of a voltage regulator diode clamp is advised.

In practical applications, the potentiometer is moved to a remote wall switch (see figure 2).

For step dimming, the potentiometer can be replaced with several smaller resistors activated by a rotary switch (see figure 3).

It is then a simple matter to calculate the resistance value required to change the duty cycle by, for example, 20 percent increments. ■ Further information: Keith Buettner is the owner of Digital Linear and Passive Components (DLPC), the Australian distributor for Morsun www.dlpc.com.au

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innovative electronic control solutions www.electronicsnews.com.au OCTOBER 2011 27

NEW PRODUCTS

SPOTLIGHT

More powerful microcontrollers STMICROELECTRONICS has announced the STM32 F4 series of microcontrollers, which it claims is the world’s most powerful Cortex-M processor-based microcontroller range in the market.

The ARM Cortex-M4 core adds signal processing capabilities and faster operations to the STM32 microcontroller range.

The single-cycle DSP instructions of the new units open the doors to the digital signal controller (DSC) market that requires high computational capability and DSP instructions for demanding applications such as high-end motor control, medical equipment and security.

The F4 can be considered a simple, fully compatible upgrade from the F2 series, with higher performance, more SRAM and access to a robust collection of peripherals. Customers can now combine both MCU and DSP chips in one high-performance digital signal controller.

STMicroelectronics (+65) 6427 7765 www.st.com

circuit board holes, and results in flat finish on both sides.

After hand-setting, the holes are left with a solder-plated copper wall and a solder-filled barrel. If a through-hole is not required, top and bottom pads are just soldered. Where a through-hole is necessary, the solder core is removed with a desoldering tool or wick after soldering both sides.

The system makes use of bail-bars consisting of lengths of solder wire which have been electroplated with pure copper, then over-plated with tin and scored at intervals of approximately 2mm.

Each bail-bar is divided into 25 bails. An insertion tool is used to insert the end of the bail-bar into the hole. The bail-bar is snapped off to leave one bail in the hole.

An automatic snap punch is placed over the end of the bail and pressed down, compressing the bail lengthwise and expanding it radially into the walls of the hole.

After soldering both sides of the board to ensure connection between the pads and the sleeve, the hole may be de-soldered if a clear through-hole is required.

SATCAM & RTD Circuit Design 02 9807 7081 www.satcam.com.au

I2C-bus buffers Through-hole connection system SATCAM says its through-hole connection system is a simple way to achieve plated-through holes without investing in an electroplating system.

The kit comes in 0.8mm, 1.0mm and 1.2mm sizes. Each kit contains tooling and sufficient bails for 250 holes, one size per pack.

According to SATCAM, the simple manual process permits quick and cost-effective conductivisation of

NXP Semiconductors, distributed by Active Components, has introduced the PCA9525 and PCA9605 no-offset I2C-bus buffers.

These buffers enable system designers to isolate capacitance and interface with other bus buffers.

They use the no-offset scoreboard method to decide signal direction, rather than using a directional pin and relying on offset voltages to control direction and prevent bus latch-up.

The devices are interoperable even with static offset or incremental bus buffers, allowing easy design-in regardless of which other devices are on the bus.

The new buffers enable I2C-based monitoring and control systems which can serve with hundreds of nodes and/or bus wiring lengths up to 1 km at lower frequencies. Designers can now consider running I2C communications over long distances.

Active Components 02 9893 9400 www.activecomponents.com

Military-grade rackmount server KONTRON has announced the KISS 4U PCI760 MIL-STD rackmount server for military use.

The server platform has been tested and certified according to the MIL-STD-810F and 461E specifications and can be configured application-ready.

It is operational in extremely high and low temperatures (-5 to +60°C operating, -25 to +85°C non-oper-

Wireless Solution BREAKTHROUGH! E Durable and Stable under severe circumstance E Environmentally Friendly E Fast Development Contact us at: Ginsei Sangyo Co., Ltd.

TEL: +81 3 3356 5715 Email: sales@ginsei-jp.com www.ginsei-jp.com

28 OCTOBER 2011 www.electronicsnews.com.au

NEW PRODUCTS

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

both cameras are combined using a single GUI to measure, make decisions, and show results as if they came from a single sensor.

Adept Turnkey 02 9979 2599 www.adept.net.au

ating), and was repeatedly tested for shock and vibration resistance.

It has also been tested for electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) and electro-magnetic radiation (EMS).

The systems are designed for continuous operation and offer an MTBF of 50,000 hours.

The lockable front cover offers IP20 protection and optionally IP52 protection is available against the dust and damp penetration.

The server can be equipped with a variety of processors, ranging from 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 right up to the Intel Core 2 Quad processor Q9400 with four 2.66 GHz cores for high parallel data processing with up to 8 GB DDR2 dual channel RAM. For data storage, Kontron integrates a 64 GB SSD to host the operating system and the program data as well as up to three 3.5" SATA HDDs with 500 GB in the Kontron removable disk carrier DA135.

Kontron 02 9457 0047 www.kontron.com.au

Free components libraries

Coin cell holders KEYSTONE Electronics, distributed

by NPA in Australia, has introduced a new line of vertical entry, lithium coin cell holders, for use in portable medical and other electronic devices.

Designed to retain cells securely under shock and vibration, these holders feature flame retardant housings UL rated 94V -0 and dual-spring contacts with low contact resistant.

These contacts are made of spring steel with tin plating. Various sizes are available for different diameters.

The rugged holders are polarised for circuit protection and will accept all major manufacturers' batteries.

RS Components and Accelerated Designs have introduced a new series of component libraries providing schematic symbols and Printed Circuit Board (PCB) footprints.

The libraries are available for download free of charge in a vendorneutral format from the DesignSpark site. They include data for a range of products from STMicroelectronics and Microchip. The data can be exported to any EDA and CAD/CAE system using the Ultra Libraries translator software, which also supports the DesignSpark PCB software.

RS Components 1300 656 636 www.rs-components.com www.designspark.com

NPA 08 8268 2733 npa.com.au

Distribution deal for Fast components ELEMENT14 has introduced Analog smart 3D sensor ADEPT Turnkey is now sole distributor of LMI Technologies’ Gocator 2000 series of smart 3D sensors.

The Gocator laser line smart sensors are all-in-one 3D measurement and control solutions for applications like factory automation.

They can be accessed via Ethernet. The camera can be triggered by time, encoder, external input, or software.

With the sensors’ built-in web tools, users can perform inline part inspection, communicate results (either directly or to a PLC), and other tasks with just a web browser.

The LMI Gocator can link to a second camera. Profile data from

Devices’ New Products Express program in the Asia Pacific region.

Engineers in Australia will be able to purchase components from Analog Devices with no minimum quantity and next day delivery.

These include the Synchronous Buck Controller, power management components, IF receivers, amplifier components, and ADCs According to element14, the Asia Pacific’s electronics manufacturing sectors are continuing to grow, and the expedited component delivery will be in great demand.

element14 1300 361 005 au.element14.com

>

32-bit ARM Cortex-M0 and Cortex-M3 Microcontrollers Very low active power consumption: 160 uA/MHz Reduced processing time with Cortex-M CPU Very fast wake-up time; 2 us Ultra-low standby current Autonomous Peripheral Operation PRS - Peripheral Reflex System 5 unique Energy Modes LESENSE - Low Energy Sensor interface

Extremely efficient Peripherals: - ADC: 12-bit, 1 Msps at only 350 uA - Analog Comparator: using down to 100 nA - LCD: 8x36 segments at only 0.55 uA - LEUART: Full UART @ 9600 bps using only 150 nA - AES: 128/256-bit crypto-engine in only 54/75 cycles Free Simplicity Studio with Advanced Energy Monitoring

Contact us at sales@apexelex.com www.electronicsnews.com.au OCTOBER 2011 29

NEW PRODUCTS

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

Bluetooth wireless audio analysis

Three-phase motor pre-driver

AUDIO test manufacturer Audio Precision, distributed in Australia by Vicom, has announced a new Bluetooth input/output hardware option for its APx Series of audio analysers.

The new hardware module with built-in Bluetooth radio allows wireless audio testing over a Bluetooth link.

Once the new module is installed in an APx audio analyser, all Bluetooth controls are integrated into the analyser software.

APx supports A2DP, HFP, HSP, and AVRCP profiles and SBC and CVSD codecs, allowing over 30 one-click acoustic and electronic tests to be carried out quickly, be it on Bluetooth -connected headsets, hands-free devices, automotive head units, A/V receivers and smartphones.

According to Audio Precision, using the new module’s built-in Bluetooth radio combined with the other connectivity options of APx (including high performance analogue, AES3 digital, S/PDIF, HDMI and I2S), every part of a device’s audio chain can be measured with one analyser instrument.

Engineers can measure their Bluetooth devices directly from within the APx analyser’s software, eliminating the uncertainty and inconvenience of adapters.

The option is compatible with the APx520, APx 521, APx 525 and APx 585 models.

Vicom 03 9563 7844 www.vicom.com.au

World’s smallest infrared LED OSRAM Opto Semiconductors, distributed by Soanar in Australia, has introduced the smallest infrared LED with more than one Watt of optical power.

The IR OSLON SFH 4715S allows engineers to build compact illumination units for CMOS/CCD cameras.

The module includes OSRAM’s 30 OCTOBER 2011 www.electronicsnews.com.au

nanostack chip technology and the temperature-stable OSLON Black Series package. It typically provides 1070mW optical power at 1A operating current, and it features a typical thermal resistance of 6.5 K/W. A lens with +-45° emission angle is integrated in the device.

With a wavelength of 850 nm, the IR OSLON is particularly well matched with the sensitivity of CMOS and CCD camera sensors. The small package allows compact arrangements which enable a very high power density.

The highly efficient stack chips have two p-n junctions connected in series and generate nearly twice the optical power of conventional units.

The chip technology and the package properties ensure an operating lifetime of up to 50,000 hours.

Soanar 1300 762 627 www.soanar.com

TEXAS Instruments, distributed by Apex Electronics, has introduced the DRV8301 integrated three-phase brushless motor pre-driver.

According to the company, the unit reduces board space use, while driving sub-10-A to 60-A external field-effect transistors (FETs).

Texas Instruments claims the predriver provides current scalability, improved thermal performance and greater efficiency in brushless DC and permanent magnet synchronous motor applications.

In addition to a fully protected three-phase brushless gate driver, it includes a 1.5-A step-down voltage regulator to power the system microcontroller (MCU), two current-sense amplifiers with integrated input and feedback resistors for current measurements and a SPI interface for device configuration from the MCU. APEX Electronics +64(04) 974 8943 nz.apexelex.com

High security switch MAGNASPHERE, distributed by Koloona Industries in Australia, has introduced the L1.5 series High Security Switch component.

The unit is suited for use with safes, vaults and other applications requiring a high level of security.

The new switch has been tested to the 9th edition L634 Level 1 criteria, and has dual alarm contacts for both IDS and ACS within the single unit.

According to the manufacturer, users of the product benefit from its reduced installation time and costs.

The switch requires no field adjustment, and has a low profile for easier integration, and is costcompetitive with older technologies.

Koloona Industries 02 9820 5233 www.koloona.com.au

Fanless controller ICP Electronics Australia has released IEI’s TANK-101B-D525/N455 fanless embedded controller with Intel Atom D525 for automotive use.

Within its aluminium alloy chassis is shock-proof CompactFlash/SATA DOM solid-state onboard memory.

COM and CAN communications provide isolation protection for device control. High-speed communications is via dual Realtek GbE LAN and 802.11b/g/n.The fanless design can operate in an extended temperature range of -20°C ~ 70°C. ICP Electronics 02 9457 6011 www.icp-australia.com.au

Automation transceiver module RADIOCRAFTS, distributed in Australia by M2M Connectivity, has launched the world’s first KNX-RF Multi module for building automation applications.

The RC1180-KNX2 module complies with the world’s only open international standard for home and building control.

The new unit is the world’s first RF module which includes a complete KNX-RF Multi protocol stack. This surface-mounted transceiver module is designed for sensors, actuators and other related equipment, and is easy to integrate into products due to its small size, interface and embedded protocol.

The standard supports up to 5 frequencies, and multi-hop repeaters extending the range by two hops.

It also supports battery-operated transmitters and receivers, and can be used for unidirectional and bidirectional devices.

M2M Connectivity 03 9696 3011 www.m2mconnectivity.com.au

WEB DIRECTORY

To advertise email sarah.bateman@reedbusiness.com.au

Amtex Electronics www.amtex.com.au Established in 1979, Amtex Electronics has become a leading supplier of Power Supplies, Battery Chargers, DC-DC Converters & Lab Supplies for both standard and custom solutions. From our large inventory, quick-turn-around local assembly and backed by expert technical staff you can be assured of the right products, when you need them.

Please visit our web site or call 02 9809 5022 for further information.

au.element14.com Welcome to element14, the new face of Farnell.

With access to over 450,000 products, from 3,500 leading suppliers, element14 connects you to a world of electronic components.

We offer great value-added services such as local, free re-reeling, cut-to-length cable and peel packaging.

We also offer a leading information portal and community website for design engineers developed to bridge the information divide in the electronics design industry.Visit our website today!

ASD TECHNOLOGY www.asdtech.com.au ASD Technology is a premier supplier of quality RF/ Microwave, Millimeterwave, Fiber Optics and Satcom components and subassemblies. Our products include Amplifiers, Antennas, Attenuators, Adapters, Cable Assemblies, Circulators, Coaxial Connectors, Directional Couplers, Filters, Fiber Optic Links, Isolators, Limiters, Mixers, Noise Sources, Oscillators, Phase Shifters, Power Dividers Combiners, Splitters, Synthesizers, Switches, Terminations, Waveguide Components and more.

FLUKE CALIBRATION www.fluke.com.au Fluke Calibration is a leader in precision calibration instrumentation and software for electrical, temperature, pressure, flow, and RF measurements. Calibration products from Fluke are found in calibration facilities around the world, including National Metrology Institutes, that demand the highest levels of performance and reliability, backed by state of the art metrology and uncompromising support.

Aussirad Electronics www.aussirad.com.au • Potentionmeters Omeg-Panel-switched 1/4W-100W • Rotary encoders with LED • LED 12V Lighting Colours 3W-7W with dimmable options • JoystickPosition sensors- for robots-airbag • Resistors 1/8W to greater than 5000W braking types • Capacitors –Full range • Fans 12- 24-48V dc – AC24-380Vac • Diodes- Semiconductors-mA to greater than 250A • Solar Panels on / off grid Inquiries welcome

Koloona Industries www.koloona.com.au

High quality circular connectors with the LEMO designed push pull mating. Harsh environment connectors rated to IP68.

Plastic connectors for the medical industry.

Coaxial, triaxial, quadrax, multi contact and fibre optic connectors. LEMO is accredited with ISO9001:2000 and all connectors are RoHS compliant.

Koloona Industries is a wholly owned Australian Company who have been Importing and Distributing Electrical & Electronic Components for 30 years.

Koloona specialise in High Quality Switching and Protection Components with many supportive products to complete the range. We pride ourselves on our ability to offer quick service and full technical and application support.

Powerbox Australia www.powerbox.com.au Microchip Technology Inc. www.microchip.com/8bit • Low pin count and small form factor • Easy migration • Cost effective • Low power capability • Ease of use and quick development • Mutiple product options • Flexible flash program memory

SATCAM www.satcam.com.au RS Components www.rsaustralia.com www.rsnewzealand.com Easy access to over 350,000 Electronic, Electrical and Industrial products from over 2,500 of the world's leading manufacturers. Online users have instant stock availability and access to over 100,000 free datasheets. Delivery is free for all orders over $125 in Australia and New Zealand.

Faraday Pty Ltd is a specialist electromagnetic shielding company, which provides design, installation, and testing of shielding systems for Industrial, Medical and Defence EMI requirements. Faraday represents pre-eminent international companies including ETS Lindgren (EMCO / RANTEC / Holaday), AR Worldwide (Amp Research / AR-modular rf), Solar Electronics and TESEO.

Lemo www.lemo.com

M Rutty & Co www.mrutty.com.au "Companies include Portescap miniature & speciality motors, Dunkermotoren advanced motion solutions, Mavilor - AC/DC motors and drives, Italtronic DIN rail enclosures and Bivar PCB hardware. Specializing in subracks & innovative high quality 19" enclosures".

Faraday Pty. Ltd. www.faradayshielding.biz

Quick Circuit from SATCAM allows you to make your own prototype circuit boards • circuit board prototypes in hours • uses standard CAD output • mills, drills and routs – no chemicals • analog, digital, RF and microwave • engraves and mills panels • plated-through holes • LED illumination of work area • models with automatic tool change Shouldn't you have one on your bench?

MORNSUN www.mornsun-power.com Australia & New Zealand Distributor DLPC Pty Ltd (07) 3823 4844 Email: keith@dlpc.com.au

Victorian Distributor Fairmont Marketing (03) 9878 3077 Email: nick@fairmontmarketing.com.au

"Powerbox suppling a wide selection of AC/DC Power Supplies, DC/DC Converters, Military Power Supply, Railway Converters, Security Power Supply, Euro Cassettes, External Power Supply, Medical Power Supply, Battery Chargers, Laboratory Power Supplies & DC/AC Inverters"

New South Wales Distributor EMT Electronics (02) 9703 5425 Email: schubert.tan@emtelectronics.com.au

Soanar Plus www.soanarplus.com Soanar Plus offers an on-line ordering service with more than 7,500 plus parts in stock and ready for next day delivery. Our site offers real-time pricing and availability, broken pack quantities, side by side comparison and datasheets. This website complements our FREE catalogue.

TekMark Australia Pty Ltd www.tekmark.net.au Leading supplier of Electronics Test & Measurement Technologies. Authorised Distributor of Tektronix in Australia. Key products offered: Oscilloscopes, Spectrum Analysers, Signal Generators,Video Test Equipment, Logic Analysers, Frequency Counters, Power Supplies, Digital Multimeters, Access Network Testers, Optical & Metallic TDRs, RF Test Equipment.

www.electronicsnews.com.au OCTOBER 2011 31

Hello faster update rates.

Goodbye status quo.

Oscilloscopes Redefined

FREE 3000-X Series Scope when you buy a 1 GHz 7000B or 9000 series oscilloscope Find an authorised distributor: www.agilent.com/find/distributor Contact 1800 629 485 or tm_ap@agilent.com © 2011 Agilent Technologies, Inc.