EEWeb Pulse - Issue 17, 2011

19
EEWeb PULSE EEWeb.com Issue 17 October 25, 2011 Jeff Crystal & Phillip Stearns Voltaic Systems Electrical Engineering Community

description

Interview with Jeff Crystal, COO and Phillip Stearns, Lead Product Development and Testing Technician at Voltaic Systems; Hardcore Micros - Microchip’s PIC10F32x; MPLS-TP: Emerging Technology for Packet Transport Network; RTZ - Return to Zero Comic;

Transcript of EEWeb Pulse - Issue 17, 2011

Page 1: EEWeb Pulse - Issue 17, 2011

EEWeb

PULSE EEWeb.comIssue 17

October 25, 2011

Jeff Crystal & Phillip StearnsVoltaic Systems

Electrical Engineering Community

Page 2: EEWeb Pulse - Issue 17, 2011

Contact Us For Advertising Opportunities

[email protected]

www.eeweb.com/advertising

Electrical Engineering CommunityEEWeb

Digi-Key is an authorized distributor for all supplier partners. New products added daily. © 2011 Digi-Key Corporation, 701 Brooks Ave. South, Thief River Falls, MN 56701, USADigi-Key is an authorized distributor for all supplier partners. New products added daily.

www.digikey.com/techxchange

It’s all about connections.

The user-to-user forum is for everyone, from design engineers to hobbyists, to discuss technology, products, designs and more. Join the discussions that match your interest or offer your expertise to others.

Join the discussion now at:

discussions

hobbyists

engineers

industry experts

resourceslinks

technical documentswhite papers

reference designs

application notes

community

power

microcontroller

lighting

wireless

sensor

students

Page 3: EEWeb Pulse - Issue 17, 2011

EEWeb | Electrical Engineering Community Visit www.eeweb.com 3

TABLE O

F CO

NTEN

TSTABLE OF CONTENTS

Jeff Crystal and Phillip Stearns 4VOLTAIC SYSTEMSInterview with Jeff Crystal, COO and Phillip Stearns, Lead Product Development and Testing Technician

Featured Products 8Hardcore Micros - Microchip’s PIC10F32x 10 BY PAUL CLARKE WITH EBM-PAPST

MPLS-TP: Emerging Technology for 14Packet Transport NetworkBY RISHI CHUGH WITH ALTERA

RTZ - Return to Zero Comic 18

A look at the new and interesting features coming to PIC Microcontrollers.

An introduction to Multi-Protocol Label Switching-Transport Profile as a new, emerging technology.

Page 4: EEWeb Pulse - Issue 17, 2011

EEWeb | Electrical Engineering Community Visit www.eeweb.com 4

INTERVIEWFEA

TURED IN

TERVIEW

Jeff Crystal &Phillip Stearns

How did you get into electronics/engineering and when did you start?Jeff: I majored in biomedical engineering at Tulane, which had a big circuits component, but I really wasn’t able to put my degree to use as I went into management consulting and then software startups. One of the joys of starting with Voltaic was the opportunity to get hands-on again with electronics and physical devices.

Phil: I was always curious about electronics and started tinkering with one of those Radioshack 30 in 1 electronics labs in grade school. Most of that curiosity, however, was sated by opening electronic devices and prodding about their insides. Putting them back together in working order, though, was a whole other story. I gained all of my knowledge of basic theory when studying engineering physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder, before transferring to the Denver

campus to study audio engineering, where I explored the practical applications of that theory in music production.

What’s fun about solar?Jeff: It’s like flying. You know technically how an airplane functions but every time I take off from a runway, I’m like, “Wow, this really works.” It is the same thing with solar. I use it every day, but when I take a solar panel and connect it to a battery or a device or a light and it powers it up, I get a little thrill. Luckily, learning to use solar is a little easier than learning how to fly.

Phil: It is incredibly liberating to realize that it’s possible to generate power without having to plug into a wall. I have the most fun dreaming up creative ways of integrating small-scale solar in sculptures and other artworks. Teaching solar is a very rewarding experience too.

What are your favorite hardware tools that you use?Jeff: For what we’re doing, a multimeter or two is really the everyday tool we depend on.

Jeff Crystal - COO (right)Phillip Stearns - Lead Product Development and Testing Technician (left)

Voltaic Systems

Page 5: EEWeb Pulse - Issue 17, 2011

EEWeb | Electrical Engineering Community Visit www.eeweb.com 5

INTERVIEWFEA

TURED IN

TERVIEW

Phil: I really like the Array 3710 programmable load and the Array 3644 programmable bench supply. The two in combination allow for detailed analysis of battery charging and discharging characteristics.

What are your favorite software tools that you use?Jeff: This may sound funny, but we use PowerPoint all the time to draw up specs on all sorts of things. For the most part, we’re not doing circuit level design, we’re specifying the physical design and the behavior. It allows us to work really quickly to build specifications on a wide range of components.

Phil: I’m a hardware guy.

What is the hardest/trickiest bug you have ever fixed?Jeff: For me, it is the actual manufacturing of components. We’re dealing with over 15 suppliers and we’re trying to work with them to make the highest quality components. Even with simple components like phone adapters that you’d think should have zero problems, it turns out that sometimes the supplier solders a bit wrong, so it breaks if you bend it too far. We’re constantly getting samples, trying to break them, and making suggestions on how to manufacture them for better durability. I’d love to say that we have “fixed” this, but the reality is that we will always be making improvements to our components.

Phil: Charging Apple products is a tricky affair, and it took a bit of reverse engineering and conversations with our suppliers to figure out. All the Apple products charge using OEM

cables and docks, most of which plug into an AC power adapter via USB. What we learned was that all four pins of the USB connector are used to communicate to the Apple device telling it how much power it can draw, and these vary by Apple device. For the time being, we seem to have it all figured out, but with Apple constantly upgrading its products and changing its standard, who knows how long it will be before we have to figure it out all over again.

It is incredibly liberating to realize

that it’s possible to generate power without having to plug into a wall.

What is on your bookshelf?Jeff: A lot of books on economic development, plus too many Nordic mystery novels. I use the Web for most of my engineering information.

Phil: A healthy mix of electronic references, critical theory, sound and art theory, modern physics, and gardening books: A well worn copy of The Art of Electronics by Horowitz and Hill, several different selections from Don Lancaster’s Cookbook series, Baudrillard, Virillio, Zizek, Agamben, John Cage’s Silence, Harry Partch’s Genesis of a Music, How to Imagine by Gianfranco Baruchello, and The One-Straw

Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka are just a few of my favorites.

What online resources do you use?Jeff: I spend a decent amount of time on Adafruit.com—sometimes for their technical explanations, which are simple, but written very well. I also look to them as a model for sharing information I’ve learned about almost anything, and sharing it with the world. We’re not as good as them at this and might not ever be, but we really love how open they are about sharing and teaching.

Phil: Google. Whenever there’s a part (especially ICs) that I encounter in the field that I’m not familiar with, I pop the part number into Google and can usually pull up a datasheet a few clicks later. Wikipedia is also good for refreshing my memory and filling in any gaps in knowledge. If the answers aren’t in either of those places, I tend to turn to the books.

Do you have any tricks up your sleeve?Phil: Unrelated to my work at Voltaic, I circuit bend devices (intentionally short circuit components) to induce erratic output. It’s an anti-engineering approach to producing art with electronics. You can see some images I’ve produced with low resolution digital cameras http://continentcontinent.cc/index.php/continent/ar ticle/viewArticle/27. Because we as a society haven’t fully dealt with the end-of-life issues of our electronic devices, fully functional machines can be found on the street awaiting trash collection. These discarded electronic devices are becoming fodder for a growing art movement

Page 6: EEWeb Pulse - Issue 17, 2011

EEWeb | Electrical Engineering Community Visit www.eeweb.com 6

INTERVIEWFEA

TURED IN

TERVIEW

that involves using them as raw material for creative projects.

What has been your favorite project?Jeff: Recently, getting our iPad solar charger (http://www.voltaicsystems.com/) out was a lot of fun. There are a lot of people doing things around phone charging, but no one had really done anything close to the right design, performance, and price for tablets. On the engineering side, there were a lot of tradeoffs about cost, weight, charge times, and device compatibility we had to think through. I think we’re happiest when we can be building products that no one else is.

Do you have any note-worthy engineering experiences?Jeff: The first time that we connected one of our batteries in development to a device and the battery started smoking. I think we all learned the importance of over-discharge protection at that moment. We also got more formal on the battery testing process to make sure the things we specified actually made it into the product.

Phil: When I took on learning how to build my own bench supply, I connected my first linear supply circuit to the mains, and almost immediately both of the large filter capacitors popped and started venting a noxious smelling smoke. It took three days and several cans of air freshener for the smell to go away. It was an important lesson in double checking electrical connections and matching component specs to project demands; a postmortem examination revealed that I had wired the transformer backwards!

What are you currently working on?Jeff: We’re working on solar LED lighting. LEDs are getting more powerful and cheaper. And to some extent, so are batteries and solar panels. This means that it will become economical for a safe, clean lighting source to replace unsafe, dirty, and expensive lighting sources like kerosene across the globe.

Phil: A big project that we’re coming close to finishing is our line of laptop chargers. We’ve been tweaking designs for optimum efficiency charging from solar, as well as making sure the batteries can supply power for the most demanding laptops on the market today. We hope to release our new high-power systems in the fall. On the low power side of things we’re taking on NiMH battery charging, and are developing a AA battery charger optimized for charging from solar.

What direction do you see your business heading in the next few years?Jeff: We think there is a conversion happening from AC to DC. If you think about LED lighting as well as our phones and tablets (becoming the defacto TV), you can power a lot of things in a home without AC. From a solar perspective, this means you don’t need an inverter. You don’t need a big lead acid battery. You need a small to moderate sized solar panel and a compact lithium-ion or lithium-polymer battery. We think this will make the economics of solar much more effective and practical for low and middle-income families around the globe.

What challenges do you foresee in our industry?Jeff: In consumer electronics, size and performance are always an issue. People want things smaller and cheaper. The issue is that solar cells really haven’t gotten that much more efficient. So when people buy products with a tiny little solar panel on it, they may think it is cute but the end result is that it just doesn’t work that well and they end up souring on all of solar. I think properly setting expectations and educating masses of people who have been trained on plugging things into perfectly functioning wall outlets on how to use solar will take some time.

I think the other challenge will be dealing with end-of-life issues. In a decade or so, there will be a lot of solar panels and batteries that have stopped functioning properly. Are these recycled properly? Can we recover the value from them. I don’t think that has been worked out.

Phil: The challenge of educating people is a major issue. I see the portable solar market as a path toward marketing larger utility-based approaches to solar energy production. If many people are having poor experiences with portable solar charging, then that will inform their attitudes toward proposals for larger scale installations in their communities. Sadly, not all of us are convinced that solar is worth the expense, otherwise we’d see panels covering rooftops and southern-facing office buildings everywhere. Ultimately, the larger scale utility-focused installations are where solar’s greatest potential lies. Making

Page 7: EEWeb Pulse - Issue 17, 2011

EEWeb | Electrical Engineering Community Visit www.eeweb.com 7

INTERVIEWFEA

TURED IN

TERVIEW

solar portable means that people will carry it with them, which is great, except that we spend much of our time indoors. This means the resources used in making portable charging systems are not being utilized to their maximum potential. Permanent outdoor installations will gather and convert solar energy whenever it’s available rather than only when availability and circumstance intersect to place the user of portable solar outdoors during a sunny day. In addition to being able to charge on the go (while biking to work), plugging devices into outlets powered by panels on the roof makes sense. A challenge I see is integrating portable solar products with grid interactive systems so that every

little watt has the chance to add up.

Additionally, the manufacturing processes used to make portable solar resilient and durable also contribute to the end-of-life issues. Monocrystalline and polycrystalline silicon are easily recycled, but not if they’re encased in epoxy. Newer, more efficient thin film solar appears to satisfy the durability requirement when mounted on a suitable substrate, but will also have to address issues of recycling, especially due to the increased use of exotic materials. As Jeff said, there is a lot left to be worked out when it comes to dealing with end-of-life issues.

What are you doing on the environmental side of things?

Jeff: In addition to the big idea that we’re helping people generate their own power and helping them create street-level conversations about alternative energy, the biggest change in the production of components of the last few years has been RoHS standards. We select suppliers who comply with RoHS and require it any place it applies. We’re also trying to get more of our own components back in-house from customers so that we can reuse or recycle them properly. I think we can get a lot better here though. ■

From design to service, Microtips offers a variety of competitively priced Liquid Crystal Display modules which includes standard character and graphic monochrome, passive and active color displays with white LED as well as custom LCD modules and complete OEM services.

For your own design needs please contact Microtips Technology: [email protected]

7” High Bright

240 x 160 COG w/LED Backlight

QVGA Green w/LED Backlight

LCD for Any Application

Microtips Technology

Automotive, Medical, Telecom, POS

Page 8: EEWeb Pulse - Issue 17, 2011

EEWeb | Electrical Engineering Community Visit www.eeweb.com 8

FEATURED

PROD

UCTS

FEATURED PRODUCTS

Oscilloscopes with Waveform GeneratorAgilent Technologies Inc. added optional arbitrary waveform generation capability and five new analysis applications to its InfiniiVision 3000 X-Series oscilloscopes. AWG makes it easy for engineers to capture waveforms with their oscilloscopes and instantly convert them to stimulus files to simplify stimulus/response testing. Nine months ago, Agilent was the first major test-instrument vendor to integrate a function generator with an oscilloscope. This integration is popular with manufacturers who want to simplify stimulus-response testing, R&D engineers who need to simulate missing signals and educators who want a simple

tool for teaching students about instrument operation. Now the company has become the first to add AWG to its oscilloscopes. Agilent is including this software upgrade – which is used with the integrated WaveGen 20-MHZ function generator option – at no additional cost. For more information, please click here.

Embedded Motor Control Dev KitMicrochip Technology Inc., a leading provider of microcontroller, analog and Flash-IP solutions, and Digilent®, Inc., today announced the availability of a Microchip dsPIC33 Digital Signal Controller (DSC)-based development kit. The Digilent® Cerebot™ MC7 Development Kit addresses the growing interest in embedded motor control from the academic and hobbyist markets, and is ideal for learning about microcontrollers and solving real problems. The kit includes a demonstration board that provides four half-bridge circuits, eight RC servo motor connectors, the ability to use Digilent Pmod™ peripheral modules, and an integrated programming/debugging circuit that

is compatible with the free MPLAB® IDE. Example applications include university embedded-systems and communications classes, senior capstone projects, and numerous other academic and hobbyist projects. For more information, please click here.

Improved Handheld Spectrum AnalyzerAgilent Technologies Inc. announced it is adding new features and options to its recently launched N934xC handheld spectrum analyzer (HSA) family. The introduction also includes HSA PC software enhancements. “The HSA launched in March 2011 delivered a rich, powerful, field-ready instrument for engineers and technicians,” said Brian LeMay, general manager of Agilent’s Chengdu Instruments Division. “Now we have added even more capabilities to make it one of the most versatile handheld spectrum analyzers available today.” For more information, please click here.

Page 9: EEWeb Pulse - Issue 17, 2011

Avago Technologies new generation optocouplers, ACPL-x6xL series and ACNW261L, o� er signi� cant power e� ciency improvements for industrial communication interfaces. With 35 years of experience in digital optocoupler design, Avago delivers quality you can count on.

www.avagotech.com/optocouplers

Technology You Can Trust

Ultra Low Power Digital Optocouplers in Industrial Communication Interfaces90% less power than standard optocouplers40% lower power than alternative opto-isolators

To request a free evaluation board go to:

Controller Transceiver

OptocouplersACPL-M61L/064L/W61L/K64L

Bus L

ine

Key Features• Ultra low power

• High temperature and supply voltage range

• High noise immunity (35 kV/µs dynamic and static common mode rejection)

• Certifi ed for safe insulation (up to 1140 Vpeak continuous working voltage)

Page 10: EEWeb Pulse - Issue 17, 2011

EEWeb | Electrical Engineering Community Visit www.eeweb.com 10

HARDCOREMICROS

Paul ClarkeElectronics Design Engineer

MicrochipsPIC10F32x

As an embedded engineer I’m always looking for more and more functions from a smaller and smaller

package. Over the last six months, Microchip has been releasing information about the smallest of its chips— PIC10F32x—and in this article we will look at the new and interesting features coming to PICs.

Up till now when I have looked at the very small end of the micro range, the PIC10s have never offered anything that would get me excited or convince me that they are very usable. At ebm-papst, when I’m designing bottom-end tiny products, I need at least one PWM, so I have been using what I would have called a slightly overspec PIC12F615 for my products.

In the last few weeks however, Microchip has released the Data Sheet for the PIC10F320 and PIC10F322. These I have been looking at using for some time; however, it was the added features of these two new chips that stand out to me, and I’m not just talking about the added Flash and RAM or PWMs they now have.

The first new shiny feature is Configurable Logic Cells (CLCs). The PIC10 is not the first to have these, as there is a new breed of PIC12s and 16s that have these too. However, having this and the other features on such a small chip is surprising and also powerful.

CLCs are chunks of combinational logic that can be configured to perform high-speed functions without needing core processing time. Each block has eight

Figure 1

Page 11: EEWeb Pulse - Issue 17, 2011

EEWeb | Electrical Engineering Community Visit www.eeweb.com 11

TECHN

ICA

L ARTIC

LETECHNICAL ARTICLE

inputs that can come from I/O pins, internal clocks, Peripherals, or even from register bits. These inputs can then be passed through one of a number of pre-configured logic blocks that perform functions like AND-OR, S-R, J-K and D type flip-flops. What’s then quite nice is that an external pin can be driven directly from this output, read internally, or it can even generate an interrupt. It may not have the flexibility and programmability of, say, a FPGA LAB, but I can see these becoming very useful glue logic tools for embedded engineers.

lcxg1

lcxg

LCxEN

LCxPOL

lcx_out

LCxOUT

LCxOE

Q1 LE

D Q

lcxg2lcxg3lcxg4

LCxMODE<2:0>

LogicFunction

TRIS Control

sets

CLCxIFflag

CLCx

LCxINTPLCxINTN

Interruptdet

Interruptdet

Inpu

t Dat

a Sele

ction

Gat

es

See Figure 19-2

See Figure 19-3

CLCxIN[0]

CLCxIN[1]

CLCxIN[2]

CLCxIN[3]

CLCxIN[6]

CLCxIN[5]

CLCxIN[4]

CLCxIN[7]

Figure 2

CLCxIN[0]

lcxd1T

LCxG1POL

Data GATE 1

Data GATE 2

Data GATE 3

Data GATE 4

Data Selection

lcxg1

LCxD1G1T

LCxD1S<2:0>

LCxD2S<2:0>

LCxD3S<2:0>

LCxD4S<2:0>

000

111lcxd1N

CLCxIN[1]CLCxIN[2]CLCxIN[3]CLCxIN[4]CLCxIN[5]CLCxIN[6]CLCxIN[7]

CLCxIN[0]

lcxd2T

000

111lcxd2N

CLCxIN[1]CLCxIN[2]CLCxIN[3]CLCxIN[4]CLCxIN[5]CLCxIN[6]CLCxIN[7]

CLCxIN[0]

lcxd3T

000

111

lcxd3N

CLCxIN[1]CLCxIN[2]CLCxIN[3]CLCxIN[4]CLCxIN[5]CLCxIN[6]CLCxIN[7]

CLCxIN[0]

lcxd4T

000

111lcxd4N

CLCxIN[1]CLCxIN[2]CLCxIN[3]CLCxIN[4]CLCxIN[5]CLCxIN[6]CLCxIN[7]

LCxD1G1N

LCxD2G1T

LCxD2G1N

LCxD3G1T

LCxD3G1N

LCxD4G1T

LCxD4G1N

lcxg2(Same as Data GATE 1)

(Same as Data GATE 1)

(Same as Data GATE 1)

lcxg3

lcxg4

Figure 3

SQD

R

lcxg1 lcxg1lcxg2 lcxg2lcxg3

lcxq

lcxqlcxq

lcxqlcxq

lcxqlcxq

lcxq

AND - OR OR - XOR

LCxMODE<2:0>=000 LCxMODE<2:0>=001

LCxMODE<2:0>=010 LCxMODE<2:0>=011

LCxMODE<2:0>=100 LCxMODE<2:0>=101

LCxMODE<2:0>=110 LCxMODE<2:0>=111

4-input AND S-R Latch

1-input D Flip-Flop with S and R 2-input D Flip-Flop with R

J-K Flip-Flop with R 1-input Transparent Latch with S and R

lcxg3lcxg4 lcxg4

lcxg1 lcxg1lcxg2 lcxg2

lcxg4

lcxg1

lcxg3

lcxg4

lcxg2

lcxg1

lcxg3lcxg3

lcxg4

lcxg1lcxg2

lcxg4

lcxg2

lcxg1

lcxg3

lcxg2

lcxg3 lcxg3lcxg4 lcxg4

SQD

LE R

J Q

RK

D Q

R

S Q

R

Another nice feature to find in such a small chip is the Complementary Waveform Generator (CWG). This allows you generate controllable waveforms for use in a half bridge or switching power supply for example. The module allows for selectable input sources and have some nice and simple auto-shutdown controls. Dead time is also programmable for both the rise and fall side. I’ve seen similar modules on the larger chips but found this much easier to understand and more independent of the code that may be running on the core.

Both the CLC and CWG could be really nice units if only you have a clock source that is easy to control and whose frequency is easy to set. Well the chips now also come with a Numerically Controlled Oscillator (NCO) that can be used to feed the above CLC and CWG modules. This is no Phase Lock Loop (PLL) but will allow for simple clock division. The module works by having a configured value added to an accumulator on each clock cycle. The overflow is then used as a raw output that can be

Figure 4

Page 12: EEWeb Pulse - Issue 17, 2011

EEWeb | Electrical Engineering Community Visit www.eeweb.com 12

TECHN

ICA

L ARTIC

LETECHNICAL ARTICLE

used to drive the module in a number of modes. For example, simple toggling of the output allows for a fixed 50 percent duty, or you can use the module for pulsed frequencies with output pulse width control.

The new features could very well be a clue to where Microchip is going with new designs, maybe trying out these features on the smaller silicon before it makes its way up to the 32bit cores. However, these new features are a welcome sight to me as an embedded engineer. I like the idea of getting more and more features inside small chips—my designs do not need a lot of I/O pins but they need to be clever. I really don’t want to be using

11

S Q

R Q

D Q

Q

Increment

Interrupt Event

TRIS Control

Overflow

NCOx Clock

NxOE

NCOx

NxCKS<1:0>

NxEN

NCOx ClockRipple Counter

Reset

NxPWS<2:0>

NCO1CLK

10LC1OUT

01Fosc

00HFINTOSC

Set NCOxIF Flag

To CLC and CWG modules

To NxOUT bit

NxPFM

NxPOL

16

Buffer

2

3

20

20

16

0

1

(1)

Accumulator

GxCS

GxASDLA

GxASDLA - 01

GxASDLB - 01

GxASDLBGxASE

shutdown

Auto-ShutdownSource

GxARSEN

CWG1FLT (INT pin)GxASDFLT

LC1OUTGxASDCLC1

GxASE Data BitWRITE

set dominate

CWGxDBR

GxPOLA

GxPOLB

GxOEA

GxOEB

TRISx CWGxA

TRISx

CWGxB

cwg_clock

Input Source

2

2

2

1

6

CWGxDBF

6

Fosc

HFINTOSC

GxIS2

PWM1OUTPMW2OUT

N1OUTLC1OUT

001011

“0”“1”

001011

“0”“1”

1

1

0

0

EN

S

S

Q

QD

R Q

R =

ENR =

S Q

R Q

x = CWG module number

a whopping big QFP just to get the features, but suffer with the high pin count.

About the Author

Paul Clarke is a digital electronics engineer with strong software skills in assembly and C for embedded systems. At ebm-papst, he develops embedded electronics for thermal management control solutions for the air movement industry. He is responsible for the entire development cycle, from working with customers on requirement specifications to circuit and PCB design, developing the software, release of drawings, and production support. ■

Figure 5

Figure 6

Page 13: EEWeb Pulse - Issue 17, 2011

80V, 500mA, 3-Phase MOSFET Driver HIP4086, HIP4086AThe HIP4086 and HIP4086A (referred to as the HIP4086/A) are three phase N-Channel MOSFET drivers. Both parts are specifically targeted for PWM motor control. These drivers have flexible input protocol for driving every possible switch combination. The user can even override the shoot-through protection for switched reluctance applications.

The HIP4086/A have a wide range of programmable dead times (0.5ms to 4.5ms) which makes them very suitable for the low frequencies (up to 100kHz) typically used for motor drives.

The only difference between the HIP4086 and the HIP4086A is that the HIP4086A has the built-in charge pumps disabled. This is useful in applications that require very quiet EMI performance (the charge pumps operate at 10MHz). The advantage of the HIP4086 is that the built-in charge pumps allow indefinitely long on times for the high-side drivers.

To insure that the high-side driver boot capacitors are fully charged prior to turning on, a programmable bootstrap refresh pulse is activated when VDD is first applied. When active, the refresh pulse turns on all three of the low-side bridge FETs while holding off the three high-side bridge FETs to charge the high-side boot capacitors. After the refresh pulse clears, normal operation begins.

Another useful feature of the HIP4086/A is the programmable undervoltage set point. The set point range varies from 6.6V to 8.5V.

Features• Independently drives 6 N-Channel MOSFETs in three phase

bridge configuration

• Bootstrap supply max voltage up to 95VDC with bias supply from 7V to 15V

• 1.25A peak turn-off current

• User programmable dead time (0.5µs to 4.5µs)

• Bootstrap and optional charge pump maintain the high-side driver bias voltage.

• Programmable bootstrap refresh time

• Drives 1000pF load with typical rise time of 20ns and Fall Time of 10ns

• Programmable undervoltage set point

Applications• Brushless Motors (BLDC)

• 3-phase AC motors

• Switched reluctance motor drives

• Battery powered vehicles

• Battery powered tools

Related LiteratureAN9642 “HIP4086 3-Phase Bridge Driver Configurations and Applications”

”HIP4086EVAL Evaluation Board Application Note” (Coming Soon)

FIGURE 1. TYPICAL APPLICATION FIGURE 2. CHARGE PUMP OUTPUT CURRENT

Controller

AHO

CLO

BLO

ALO

CHO

BHO

CLI

BLI

ALI

CHI

BHI

AHICHS

AHS

BHS

CHB

AHB

BHB

VDD

RDEL

VDD

Speed

Brake

Battery24V...48V

HIP4086/A

VSS

-60 -40 -20 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160

200

150

100

50

0

JUNCTION TEMPERATURE (°C)

OU

TPU

T C

UR

RE

NT

(µA

)

VxHB - VxHS = 10V

June 1, 2011FN4220.7

Intersil (and design) is a registered trademark of Intersil Americas Inc. Copyright Intersil Americas Inc. 2010, 2011All Rights Reserved. All other trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

Get the Datasheet and Order Samples

http://www.intersil.com

Page 14: EEWeb Pulse - Issue 17, 2011

EEWeb | Electrical Engineering Community Visit www.eeweb.com 14

TECHN

ICA

L ARTIC

LETECHNICAL ARTICLE

Rishi ChughSr. Manager, Product Marketing

Emerging TechnologyMPLS-TP

for PacketTransport Network

With the ever growing demand for bandwidth primarily being driven by the wireless-mobile

market, the communication equipment suppliers are on a quest to transform the existing cell-based grid into more scalable and efficient packet-based networks—particularly transport. The legacy TDM (i.e., SONET/SDH) has been known for its reliability and manageability. These are the current bench marks for packet-based technology. Today with 40GE/100GE standardized, Ethernet is seen as the most cost-effective and scalable architecture for deploying packet-based networks. The key advantage which one achieves from packet-based networks is statistical multiplexing, whereby multiple client information is a single stream of data traffic.

As there is more deployment of packet-based services, carrier operators are looking to reduce CAPEX spending and provide scalable solutions. Multi-Protocol Label Switching–Transport Profile (MPLS-TP) is emerging as a new technology, which is being developed by The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to provide a reliable transport infrastructure for any type of client or aggregate multiple clients. The objective of MPLS-TP

is to provide service providers with a reliable packet-based technology that is based upon circuit-based transport networking, and thus is expected to align with current organizational processes and large-scale work procedures similar to other packet transport technologies. These key objectives to meet the demands of transport networks are shown in Figure 1.

Objective

MPLS-TP provides a common platform for providing reliable transport solutions for packet and TDM services over optical networks, thereby leveraging the widely deployed MPLS technology. In order to ensure the successful deployment of this platform, it is necessary to define and support implementation of OAM and resiliency features associated with tradition MPLS stack. These are essential features for carrier transport –performance monitoring, multi-domain, protection, scalable operations. MPLS-TP is being deployed in entire OTN network food chain, where larger ODU payloads are being transported. Vendors today are architecting their solutions to handle more finely grained units of traffic, carried over the OTN via MPLS.

Page 15: EEWeb Pulse - Issue 17, 2011

EEWeb | Electrical Engineering Community Visit www.eeweb.com 15

TECHN

ICA

L ARTIC

LETECHNICAL ARTICLE

Key characteristics of MPLS-TP shown in Figure 2:

• Connection oriented platform (Pseudowire archi-tecture)

• Client-agnostic (L1,L2,L3 clients)

• Physical layer agnostic (Not specific PMA require-ments or rates)

• Enhanced operations, administration, and mainte-nance (OAM) functions

• Support for various protection schemes i.e., FEC as in transport protocol stack

• Control Plane GMPLS is supported by MPLS-TP client or server

• Multicasting

Scalable

Support any number of clients within the entire network (from

access to core)

Cost-Effective

Low protocol complexity (L1/L2) with unified management

& control across packets

Reliable

Transport Network - OTN PIPE

Monitor end-to-end performance and

connection oriented. Strong OAM,

resiliency

Multi-Client

Support any type of client traffic with quality of service.

Figure 1: Different Demands made on Transport Networks

Management Plane

Control Plane

Data Plane

Network Stack

Framing/Forwarding/OAM

Protection, Restoration

Figure 2: MPLS-TP Deployment in the Network Stack

Today’s generation of FPGA devices provides a platform for implementing advanced MPLS-TP OAM solutions (supporting ITU-T G.8113.1 or IEFT standards). These solutions enable communication vendors to design their systems to be compatible with both IETE and ITU-T stan-dards. These system solutions will accelerate market adoption to transition to packet transport networks. Pro-tocol stack like 1588v2 and SyncE are also supported on FPGAs today, thereby providing a complete solution stack for telecom equipment vendors.

Summary

MPLS-TP is enabling next-generation packet-based net-works by integrating the routing and transport platforms. MPLS-TP-based architecture takes advantage of the cost-effectiveness and ease-of-use of Pseudowire and adds service features like flow control, Quality of Ser-vice (QoS) and connection oriented provisioning. The key benefit is consistent operations and OAM functions across the entire network stack and compliance with in-terworking MPLS platforms. Architecturally MPLS-TP is highly scalable due to its multiplexing capability, which supports multiple layers. By deploying MPLS-TP, opera-tors can add new services, while reducing cost signifi-cantly.

MPLS-TP specifications are well suited for aggregation and access nodes of the network, where migration of TDM-based network to packet-based network is occur-ring. The OAM enhancements associated with MPLS-TP will allow service providers to have better visibility within their core network and improve overall performance. Figure 3 illustrates how MPLS and MPLS-TP can be de-ployed and their complementary nature.

Page 16: EEWeb Pulse - Issue 17, 2011

EEWeb | Electrical Engineering Community Visit www.eeweb.com 16

TECHN

ICA

L ARTIC

LETECHNICAL ARTICLE

Option 1L2 MPLS/MPLS-TP

ACCESS AGGREGATION CORE

Option 2L2 MPLS/MPLS-TPMPLS/MPLS-TP

Option 3MPLS/MPLS-TP MPLS/MPLS-TP

Option 4(Static) (Dynamic)

MPLS/MPLS-TP MPLS/MPLS-TP MPLS/MPLS-TP

Figure 3: MPLS-TS Food Chain

About the Author

As senior product marketing manager, Rishi Chugh is responsible for product marketing in Altera’s wireline business group, as well as leading its specific product

planning activities. Mr. Chugh joined Altera in March 2008, and has over 15 years of industry experience with LSI and Artisan Components (acquired by ARM). ■

Page 17: EEWeb Pulse - Issue 17, 2011

1.800.574.2791

EEWeb

Contact Us For Advertising Opportunities

[email protected]

www.eeweb.com/advertising

Electrical Engineering Community

Page 18: EEWeb Pulse - Issue 17, 2011

EEWeb | Electrical Engineering Community Visit www.eeweb.com 18

RETURN TO

ZERORETURN TO ZERO

Page 19: EEWeb Pulse - Issue 17, 2011

EEWeb | Electrical Engineering Community Visit www.eeweb.com 19

RETURN TO

ZERORETURN TO ZERO

EEWebElectrical Engineering Community

Join Todaywww.eeweb.com/register