New Electronics - 9 April 2013

8/9/2019 New Electronics - 9 April 2013

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isit www.newelectronics.co.uk/forum and join the discussion 9 April 2013

Focusing on the detailsDigital optical microscopy will help to answer fundamental questions about materials

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Contents Vol 46 No 7

9 April 2013 3www.newelectronics.co.uk

Got a problem? Seeif the Forum canhelp you solve it

Comment 5

Forty years of the

technology you

never knew you

needed

News 6

Peratech looks to

adapt its QTC

technology to suit

printed electronics

Cisco set to buy

small cell specialist

Ubiquisys for

$310million

ARM and TSMC tape

out the first Cortex-

A57 processor

based on a 16nm

FinFET process

Europe should take

advantage of the

opportunities which

the Internet of

Things will present,

says keynote

speaker at DATE

The most popular

items from the

New Electronics

website

C o v e r : I B M Z

u r i c h

www .n e w e l e c t r o ni c s . c o .uk / f o r u

m

30

24

18

6

14

Interview 12

Onwards and upwards

Plextek Group chairman Colin Smithers says that, after morethan 20 years as a design consultancy with many strings to

its bow, it’s time for the company to move forward

Cover Story 14

Focusing on the details

The microscope is one of science’s oldest tools, yet digital

optical microscopy is set to help researchers answers some

fundamental questions in a range of fields

Aerospace 18

Flying the funky stuff

An all British satellite project featuring experimental UK

technology is nearing completion. Eight payloads are set to

enter orbit later this year on a three year mission

Digital Design 21

Security is key

Built in crypto functions could help the industry to extend trust

into the supply chain and combat the growing threat posed bycounterfeit components

Programmable Platforms 24

Small is beautiful

There’s plenty of opportunity for small scale programmable

logic devices, claims this developer, as it launches its smallest

part – not only in terms of capacity, but also of size

Communications Test 27

Ready for the callThe automotive eCall system will be mandatory in cars sold

in Europe after 2014, but what’s in the system and how

extensive is the testing regime?

Engineering MAnagement 30

Ticking the boxes

When elements of a design change, can you ensure the

changes have been applied to all the relevant parts of the

system – and can you prove it?


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Comment

It’s hard to believe the first mobile phone call was made 40 years ago;the technology continues to feel as though it’s a recent development.

Yet, four decades ago, an engineer made that call using a prototypeversion of the Motorola DynaTAC. If you believe Wikipedia, the call reachedthe wrong number. Neverthless, it connected and the rest, as they say, ishistory. But what a history.

Getting to that first mobile phone call had taken many years. Althoughcar phones were in use in the US and the UK, these large and heavysystems remained tethered to the car.

Bell had already launched a commercial system using cellular

principles in 1969. The service, which was available on trains runningbetween Washington and New York, used trackside hardware to switchcalls and demonstrated some of the principles involved in handing callsover and frequency management.

It took another 10 years before the problem of handing over mobilephone calls was solved satisfactorily – systems engineers finally realisedthat mobile phone users were upwardly mobile in a number of senses.While handing calls over between cells worked well enough if you were onthe street, it wasn’t so good if you were up a New York skyscraper. Asusers moved around, their phones linked with different cells – but not theones which the network expected. If a call linked to an unexpected cell, it

dropped out. That brought finer granularity to the cellular network, but italso created backhaul problems.

When the first commercial mobile phone call was made in Chicago in1983, early adopters needed deep pockets – the production version of theDynaTAC carried a price tag of $3995.

In three decades, the mobile phone has gone from a novelty to anessential tool: those who weren’t born when the mobile phone reached theUK in 1985 probably cannot imagine life without one. It would take a verybrave person to predict what the mobile phone will be capable of inanother 30 years.

Graham Pitcher, Group Editor ([email protected])


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News Printed Electronics

Preparing for printingResearch project adapts QTC materials to printed

electronics. Graham Pitcher reports.

Peratech is working with the Centre for

Process Innovation (CPI) to develop newformulations for its QTC materials. Theproject, supported by the Technology

Strategy Board, will establish if existingcommercial printing machinery can beused to print a new generation of printable

electronics, including QTC sensors.“The next innovation in electronics is

being able to print complete circuitassemblies as this reduces unit costsdramatically,” explained David Lussey,Peratech’s cto. “Both active and passive

components are being printed onto paper, textiles and plastics using flexographic printing processes. Theresearch project with CPI is designed to create QTC ink formulations that can be used in this and similarprinting processes so that QTC pressure sensors and switches can be incorporated into these next

generation, printed electronic circuits.”The research project with CPI is halfway to completion, with several promising formulations being tested.

The first run of printed QTC electronics using a standard flexographic press was completed in February. “The

beauty of working with CPI is it has a development print line, so new formulations can be tested andfeedback is available immediately,” added Lussey. “This is very important as it enables us to experimentwith printing the new formulations on different types of materials.”

Nigel Perry, CPI’s ceo, added: “Our joint research on QTC print ink for volume printed electronics will openits use up for a huge number of possible applications. We have already shown that printing does not need tobe done in proper cleanroom conditions, which reduces the production costs even more.”

Cutting LED costs

The University of Cambridge has opened a£1million facility aimed at reducing the cost of manufacturing gallium nitride leds.

“A 48W led lightbulb made from GaN onsapphire leds costs about £15,” said Professor SirColin Humphreys, from Cambridge University’sDepartment of Materials Science and Metallurgy.“The research we have performed on GaN onsilicon leds, plus that which we will carry out inthis new reactor, means people will be able to buyan led bulb for just £3.”

Prof Humphreys also believes GaN couldreplace silicon in power electronics devices. “If

we can replicate these devices using GaN, webelieve we could make them 40% more efficient.”

Cisco to buy Ubiquisys

Cisco is to buy Ubiquisys, the Swindon basedsmall cell specialist, for $310million. The move issaid by Cisco to reinforce its capability to delivermobile internet networks.

Kelly Ahuja, general manager of Cisco’s MobilityBusiness Group, said: “By acquiring Ubiquisys, weare expanding on our current mobility leadershipand our end to end product portfolio.”

Ubiquisys has focused on small cellcommunications and on intelligent software forlicensed 3G and LTE spectrum. It believes this,coupled with Cisco’s mobility portfolio and Wi-Fiexpertise, will support the transition to nextgeneration radio access networks.

Weightless 1.0 ratified

Version 1.0 of the Weightless machinecommunications standard has been ratified atthe Weightless SIG’s fourth Plenary Conference.

“We are delighted to have reached this seminalmoment for machine communications,” saidProfessor William Webb, ceo of the Weightless SIG.“This technology can enable the tens of billions of connections forecasted over the next decade.”

At the terminal level, data rates ranging from1kbit/s to 10Mbit/s are possible, with packetsizes ranging from 10byte with no upper limit.Acknowledged and unacknowledged messagetransmission modes are supported and there isa multicast call capability.

At the network level, scheduling will allowtransmissions to be planned, resulting in highloading efficiency. Frequency hopping andintelligent frequency planning will maximisethroughput, says the body. Modulation schemesand spreading factors will enable 5km coverageto indoor terminals, it adds.For more, go to weightless.org

Briefs

Azio has launched the first interface board for thenon profit open source Myriad RF project. Myriad RF

was launched in March by Lime Microsystems toencourage innovation in the sector.

The DEO-Nano interface board connects to the

Myriad-RF 1 board, allowing designers to use

Altera’s Cyclone IV fpgas in Myriad RF projects. Italso provides a USB connector for pcs and

Raspberry Pi.Meanwhile, Azio says the first 250 customers for

the Myriad-RF 1 will be entered into a draw for a free

DEO-Nano. For more, go to www.azio-tw.com

First interface board launched for Myriad RF community

Bio-battery breakthrough

Researchers from the University of East Anglia have shown that it is

possible for bacteria to lie directly on the surface of a metal or mineral

and to transfer electrical charge through their cell membranes. The

team believes this could bring efficient microbial fuel cells or ‘bio

batteries’ a step closer.

Lead researcher Dr Tom Clarke said: “We knew that bacteria could

transfer electricity into metals and minerals and that the interaction

depends on special proteins on the surface of the bacteria. Our

research shows these proteins can ‘touch’ the mineral surface directly

and produce an electric current, meaning that is possible for the

bacteria to lie on the surface of a metal or mineral and conduct

electricity through their cell membranes.”

9 April 20136 www.newelectronics.co.uk


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ARM Processor News

FET accompli?ARM and TSMC tape out FinFET based Cortex-A57.

Graham Pitcher reports.

ARM and TSMC have made the first tape out of

an ARM Cortex-A57 processor which featuresFinFET process technology. This is said by thecompanies to be the first milestone in their

collaboration to optimise the 64bit ARMv8processor series on a FinFET process. The testchip was implemented using a commercially

available 16nm FinFET tool chain and designservices provided by TSMC’s Open Innovation

Platform (OIP) ecosystem and ARM ConnectedCommunity partners.

“This first ARM Cortex-A57 processorimplementation paves the way for our mutual

customers to leverage the performance and power efficiency of 16nm FinFET technology,” claimed TomCronk, general manager of ARM’s processor division. “This joint effort ... demonstrates the strongcommitment to provide industry leading technology for customer designs to benefit from our latest 64bit

ARMv8 architecture, big.LITTLE processing and POP IP across a variety of market segments.”The Cortex-A57 processor, ARM’s highest performing processor to date, is targeted at compute intensive

applications such as high end computers, tablets and servers. The processor was taken from RTL to tape out in

six months using ARM Artisan physical IP, TSMC memory macros and eda technologies enabled by the OIPdesign ecosystem.

“Our collaboration with ARM continues to deliver advanced technologies to enable market leading SoCs

across mobile, server and enterprise infrastructure applications,” said Dr Cliff Hou, TSMC’s vice president of R&D. “This achievement demonstrates that next generation ARMv8 processor is FinFET ready for TSMC’sadvanced technology.”



Hybrid ribbons of vanadium oxide and graphenecould represent the best electrode yet for lithium-ion

batteries. A team from Rice University in the US foundthat cathodes made from the material could becharged and discharged in 20s, while retaining more

than 90% of their initial capacity after 1000 cycles.

“This is the direction in which battery research isgoing, not only for high energy density but also for

high power density,” said materials scientist PulickelAjayan. The ribbons’ ability to be dispersed in asolvent might also make them suitable as a

component in paintable batteries.

Hybrid graphene ribbons set to boost battery efficiency

Tektronix makes move into power analysis

Tektronix has launched the PA4000, its first dedicated power analyser. Dave Mehta, the company’stechnical marketing manager, said: “Many customers use our tools, scopes and probes for poweranalysis in the R&D environment, but need to do precompliance testing and take other measurements.They were looking for a power analyser solution from us and, rather than reinventing the wheel, webought the IP from Voltech.”

The PA4000 debuts the ‘Spiral Shunt’ design,which provides a way to take stable, precise currentmeasurements on highly distorted powerwaveforms. There are two Spiral Shunts on each

channel – one for measurements up to 1A, the otherfor up to 30A. This shunt design is then combinedwith dsp algorithms, allowing the PA4000 to trackpower cycles accurately, even in the presence of transients and noise.

Bright lights at Forum

A recent event held at the Williams F1 ConferenceCentre highlighted the growing success of eventsthat bring focused technical presentations to arelevant audience. The event – LED Design andLighting Design – was attended by more than100 delegates, whose spheres of interest rangedfrom automotive and aerospace to electronicsequipment manufacture.

The stand out presentation came from TonyArmstrong, Linear Technology’s director of product marketing (power), who flew in from theUS to open the forum with a presentationhighlighting the protection which LEDs require to

achieve the right temperature and colour.Fortronics’ marketing director Harvey Osborncommented: “Despite local weather issues andother events running on the same day, wedelivered our most successful event to date. Thekey to the event’s success is to carefully selectboth sponsors and attendees – matchmaking, if you like – and it works.”

The next forum – RF and Wireless– takesplace at the Williams F1 Centre on 25 June. Formore about the event, go to www.fortronicuk.com

Developing delays

A team from Georgia Tech has developed an ultra

compact passive true time delay. ResearcherRyan Westafer said: “Most true time delayequipment uses long electromagnetic delay lines– comparable to coaxial cables – that take up alot of space.”

Georgia Tech’s solution uses acoustic delaylines embedded within thin film materials. Thecomponent can, says Westafer, be madethousands of times smaller than an electricaldelay line design and can be readily integratedon top of semiconductor substrates.

Charging lifetime

extended

Scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Materialand Beam Technology IWS have developed atechnology that increases the charging life of alithium-sulphur battery by a factor of seven.

“We have managed to extend the lifespan of lithium-sulphur button cells to 1400 cycles,” saidDr Holger Althues, head of IWS’ chemical surfacetechnology group. The prototype anode is madefrom a silicon-carbon compound, which changesless during each charging process than metalliclithium. This avoids the l iquid electrolytebreaking down as quickly.

In the long term, IWS expects lithium-sulphurbatteries to reach an energy density of 600Wh/kg.


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In the emerging world of the internet of things (IoT),the smartphone looks set to become our generalpurpose person-to-person and person-to-(smart)

machine interface. Yet, according to BenedettoVigna, executive vice president with STMicroelectronics, the smartphone of the future will

be a distributed device; with microphones andspeakers in our glasses or ear wear, displays on oursleeves, accelerometers in our jewellery and solar

rechargeable batteries in our clothing.In his keynote address to last month’s DATE

Conference in Grenoble, Vigna highlighted the

technologies critical to the integration of MEMSbased sensors with traditional microelectronics in3d packaging. He believes that Europe, with its

strength in MEMS, is in a good position to get aheadin this race. He identified four key areas where

MEMS can contributeto the IoT: motion;

acoustic;environmental; andmicroactuation.

“A new acoustic erais coming,” he claimed,“with contextual and

geolocalised audiocontent.” He envisages

augmented sensorbased applications.“Indoor navigation willrely on a combination

of gyroscope,accelerometer,pressure sensors (for

altitude changes) and gps to specify preciselocation, with speech to alert the user.”

However, despite the potential of a range of

smart applications, there are challenges – rf connectivity needs to be better integrated withaugmented sensors and the server infrastructure

needs further development to supportinterconnected ‘smart’ environments.

Vigna asked: “How much of this will happen and

how fast? It depends on us and the technology.”And, with the success of Apple’s iPhone technologyin prompting the mass take up of accelerometers,

he added: “We need the right people in the supplychain to get things going and get them accepted.”

Energy efficiency was a key theme at this year’s

DATE conference. Keynoter Massoud Pedram, fromthe University of Southern California, spoke at the

macro level on how nations can minimiseemissions through information and

communications technology (ICT). He believes ICTcan improve efficiency in a range of market sectorsand reduce energy consumption in data centres by

moving from performance driven design to a focuson adaptive voltage supply levels and near subthreshold computing.

Continuing the theme of energy efficientcomputing was John Goodacre, director of technology and systems at ARM, who made a

keynote on day two of the event. He said ARM hasalways positioned multicore as a power efficiencysolution, not a high performance one. “But the IT

industry has always considered it a performanceplay,” he said. Now, with power efficiency having a

higher priority than server performance, ARMbelieves the time is right for it to make moves intothe server, HPC and IoT markets.

ARM’s move to address 64bit processing via its

v7 compatible v8 core design is said to enable itsconcept of a scalable unified architecture, in whichenergy efficient, multiple clusters of cores can be

used for higher performance applications.Meanwhile, DATE allowed local company Docea

Power to demonstrate its latest power and thermal

analysis tools – Aceplorer 3.1 andAceThermalModeler 2.0 – which can be usedthroughout the design process. Aceplorer 3.1

features a solver for coupled power and thermaltransient simulations, plus a communicationsprotocol to enable cosimulation with virtual

platforms and performance analysis tools.The tools recognise that power optimisation in

SoC, 3d package and system in package design has

become highly specialised. Sales and marketingdirector Ridha Hamza noted: “We used to be indiscussion with the system architect about power

and thermal challenges, but now these samecompanies have teams of power architects.”

News Analysis Conference Report


Little things mean a lotEurope should take advantage of the Internet of Things,

says keynoter. Louise Joselyn reports from Grenoble.

Vigna: “How

much of this

will happen and

how fast? It

depends on us

and the

technology.”


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Most popular news on the web


Magazine contactsNew Electronics Tel: 01322 221144Fax: 01322 221188 [email protected]

Group Editor

Graham Pitcher [email protected]

Deputy Editor

Tim [email protected]

Web Editor

Laura [email protected]

Contributing Editors

David BoothroydChris EdwardsLouise JoselynRoy [email protected]

Art EditorMartin [email protected]

Illustrator

Phil Holmes

Sales Manager

Mason [email protected]

Sales Executive

James Slade [email protected]

Publisher

Peter Ring [email protected]

Executive Director

Ed [email protected]

Production Controller

Nicki [email protected]

Represented in Japan by:

Shinano International: Kazuhiko Tanaka,Akasaka Kyowa Bldg, 1-6-14 Akasaka,Minato-Ku, Tokyo 107-0052Tel: +81(0)3 3584 6420

New Electronics, incorporating ElectronicEquipment News and Electronics News, ispublished twice monthly byFindlay Media Ltd, Hawley Mill, HawleyRoad, Dartford, Kent, DA2 7TJ

Copyright 2013 Findlay Media.

Annual subscription (22 issues)UK £108. Overseas £163. Airmail is £199.

ISSN 0047-9624

Online ISSN 2049-2316

Origination

CCM, London, EC1V 8AR

Printed in the UK

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News

Blogs Technology

White Papers

Videos

IBM says so-long to silicon?An alternative technology to silicon-based devices is beingresearched by IBM 48735

2. SiTime enters smartphonemarket with its first MEMSoscillator 48838

3. Renesas selects ARM’sbig.LITTLE processor for new

automotive SoC 48801

4. Graphene ribbons could boostefficiency of Li-ion batteries 48853

5. Microwave screening materialmay enable non invasive sensingdevices 48770

6. Introducing Fuel, claimed to bethe world’s smallest smartphonecharger 484877

7. TI's bq2419x family of batterycharger ics reduces charge time

of smartphones by 50%. 48794

Flogging a dead horse

Was Didier Lamouche, ST-Ericsson’s former ceo, tired of

flogging a dead horse? 48677

Is Warren East the retiring type?

Is ARM’s leader stepping downinorder to step up somewhere

else? 48621

Is Altera the first of some 'big

name' foundry deals for Intel?

Intel appears to be entering thefoundry business in a meaningfulfashion 48485

Cadence looks to knock

Synopsys off its IP perch

Cadence could offer customerscustomised IP, tailored to theirspecific requirements 48499

Advent of 4G looks set to

disgruntle Freeview users

Will the new 4G multimedia

services impact on those who relyon digital terrestrial TV? 48789

Improvements still needed to

make LEDs more efficient

Two recent developments aim tomake LEDs more efficient 48779

Embedded PMBus simplifies

complex power systems

Managing complex powerrelationships 48784

A new twist to optical comms

An optical component that can

detect twisted light could lead tomuch higher capacity opticaltransmission systems 48776

1Real time challenges andopportunities in SoCsSilicon convergence affectingreal time design 48715

Energy in inductive sensingApplications to show how

these systems work. 48769

Mobile OS trendsIntel looks at OS trends 48435

Adding class D audioSiLabs tells you how to add class Daudio to embedded systems. 48886

How to add a mobile phoneUI to your Raspberry PiInterface options when a screen

and keyboard are not a practicalsolution 48840

Circular placement formulti-channel designsHow to reuse circuit blocks that

repeat in a circular fashion 48649

Ceramic speaker driverwith ALC demoDemo of the LM48560 Class Hboosted speaker driver 48645

NXP unveils smart wirelesscharging demonstratorThe device triggers wake-up, so athe charging pad remains switched

off when not in use 48572

Forum

Connector conundrum

I will be designing a PCB with 30

digital inputs and 6 outputs. What

type of PCB connector can I use to

connect all peripheral I/O to limit

switches?

www.newelectronics.co.uk/forum

8. Cree’s XLamp CXA family breaks10,000lumen barrier withintegrated led arrays 48822

9. Third generation MEMSoscillators offer lowest levels of

jitter 48768

10. Researchers make advancetowards bio-batteries 48771

To read these items online, go to www.newelectronics.co.uk and type in the article number

1


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12/32

Colin Smithers

Colin Smithers, chairman of the Plextek

Group and one of its three cofounders, has

been involved with radio and electronics

projects for more than 30 years. He

maintains an active role in guiding the

de velopment of custom product and system

solutions.

Prior to founding Plextek, he spent four years

with PA Consulting Group and before that he

worked for Philips, where he completed his

PhD in linear power amplifiers.


13/32

Interview Colin Smithers

When is a design consultancy not a design consultancy? That’s the

problem with which Plextek has been wrestling for some years.

Established in 1989, the company has grown to become one of

the leaders in its chosen field. But as it has added more strings to its bow, in

the view of group chairman Colin Smithers, it kept ‘bumping into itself’.

The solution? At the beginning of 2013, it formed the Plextek Group toseparate the consultancy from the various businesses created along the

way. The move is intended to catalyse the growth of the business by giving

each spin-off a greater focus, whilst fostering a culture dedicated to

innovation within the core consultancy business.

“We spent our first 10 years as a consultancy,” Smithers recalled,

“working at every level. But things burst and we had to ask ourselves what to

do next.” A big design win at the time was for the LoJack stolen vehicle

recovery system. “We worked this into a full supply contract,” said Smithers.

“We only needed to add one person to the staff, but it increased our turnover

fourfold. We held the sole contract for seven years, even displacing Motorola,

and saw five million devices enter the market. Few other companies have

managed to do that.”Other ventures followed, including the Blighter radar surveillance

system, RedCloud and Iceni, focusing on cashless money transfer, RedTail

Telematics and Telensa, a street lighting control specialist. And the

establishment of Plextek RF Integration will take advantage of its rf design

expertise.

Plextek experienced a slow period in 2003, when a third of its workforce

was ‘underused’, according to Smithers. This gave the opportunity to

develop Blighter. “We thought of it as a way to use our resources,” Smithers

explained, “but it was part of a longer term plan; it can take a decade to get

a product like that accepted for operational tests.” And only recently has

Blighter begun to match up to earlier expectations.

By 2008, Plextek was navigating the third recession in its history. “It

was just as difficult as the others,” Smithers said, “but it’s lasted longer andhas been challenging for all markets. It has taken a bit of thinking to get

through it.”

Smithers said the new structure is a recognition of the company

‘growing up’. “It’s a fact that we have 100 engineers focused on

communications and there’s only so much going on in that sector. It’s also

an emulation, to a certain extent, of the Cambridge model.

“We needed to simplify the structure of the business,” he reflected.

“Until now, we have been a consulting organisation selling things like radar

systems. Our businesses are now mature enough to be separated out; not

only in structure, but also in their identity. We’ve spent three or four years

getting things ready and now it’s time to move forward.” The result, he

believes, is not only a consulting entity, but also a portfolio business. “To

some extent,” he contended, “you could regard the move as a deliberate

generation of internal customers.”

He asserts the creation of spin-offs has been the right way to go. “We

developed an ultranarrow band (UNB) communication technology,” he

pointed out, “and have applied that to controlling street lights. Setting up

Telensa turned out to be completely the right decision; it’s now winning morethan 50% of all tenders for street lighting control and it’s all based on UNB.

Similarly, the RFIC group has matured to the point where its business is clear.”

As part of the restructuring, Simon Cassia has assumed the chief

executive role for Plextek’s consulting business. He said there’s plenty of

business out there, but added the

nature of the work is changing.

“Plextek Consulting is still the

largest part of the Group; it has

around 70 people and makes

around 55% of the contribution to

the bottom line.”

The fact that consultingrepresents the largest part of the

Plextek Group is not an accident.

Cassia says there is ‘plenty of

business’ out there. “But the

nature of the business is changing. Because the UK consulting base can

only service a certain size of business, we need to develop capabilities in

other technologies, markets and countries.

“We have a solid business in design, build and manufacture,” Cassia

claimed. “The opportunity for us now is to expand into systems and

solutions. To do that, we need to further develop our capabilities and our

new management structure will allow us to expand what we have without

losing our focus on design and manufacture.”

Growth at Plextek remains ‘organic’, said Smithers. “It’s always been thatway.” Skills have also been acquired organically. “When we started, we

didn’t have an antenna engineer,” he said, “now, we have a lot of work in that

area. It’s the same for image processing; we’ve gone from no specialists to a

complete department. One reason for this is that we have a very low

attrition rate; it’s all to do with the intellectual challenge and the working

environment,” he claimed.

Plextek has built a reputation around its communications skills and that

track record remains a useful asset. “Despite the fact that we can be

considered as focusing on niche markets, much of our business comes

from companies recommending us and it’s surprising how much of that is

general engineering,” Smithers concluded. “Our manufacturing experience

is vital in some of these areas and we have the scars.”

Smithers: “Despite the

fact that we can be

considered as focusing

on niche markets, much

of our business ... is general engineering.”


Onwards and upwardsPlextek Group chairman Colin Smithers tells Graham Pitcher how it’s timefor the company to move forward.


14/32


15/32

The microscope is one of science’s oldest tools for examining nature,

going back at least to the late 16th Century, with Galileo being its most

famous pioneer – he called it the ‘little eye’. For hundreds of years since,

optical microscopes have revealed a world beyond our senses, pioneering

huge areas of research and discovery. Today, there are scores of differentforms of optical microscopy and one of the most valuable recent advances –

the digital optical microscope – has been enabled by electronics. This uses a

cmos sensor or ccd to convert light into electronic signals that can be

displayed on a monitor, making eye pieces unnecessary.

But it is the use of particles other than photons – notably electrons –

together with advances in electronics and other technologies, that has

revolutionised microscopy over recent

decades. It began in the 1930s with the

development of the transmission electron

microscope (TEM), which offers far greater

resolution through the use of electrons,

rather than light, and electromagnets,instead of glass lenses. The electron beam

is passed through the sample being

studied and the electrons are reflected or

change direction. From this, an electron

micrograph can be created.

The TEM was quickly followed in 1935

by the development of the scanning

electron microscope (SEM). This

represents another whole family of

microscopes because it examines objects

by scanning the surface with a fine

electron beam as opposed to passing it

through the sample. The beam arereflected and scattered and a 3d image is

built up from this data.

Since then, a range of electron

microscope techniques have been

developed. The hallmark of them all is the extraordinary increase in resolution

they provide – in the case of TEM, down to 0.05nm, for SEM, around 0.4nm,

equivalent to a magnification factor of around 2million, and at least 1000

times greater than optical devices.

Another major branch of the microscope world is scanning force (or probe)

microscopy, which comprises more than 20 different versions. One of the

most widely used is a technology making important advances today, atomic

force microscopy (AFM), capable of resolving to a fraction of a nanometre.

Since the first commercial device was introduced in 1989, AFM has become a

key tool for imaging, measuring and manipulating matter at the nanoscale.

The AFM comprises a cantilever with a probe at its end with a radius

measured in nanometres. This scans the surface of the material being

studied. The cantilever is typically silicon or silicon nitride and piezoelectricelements make it possible to control the precise movements needed.

When the tip touches the sample, forces deflect the cantilever and from

these deflections, read by piezoelectric sensors, an image can be built. AFM

can study a whole range of forces, from basic mechanical contact force, to

van der Waals forces, capillary forces, chemical bonding, electrostatic forces,

magnetic forces and others. Usually, deflections are measured using a laser

spot reflected from the top surface of the

cantilever into an array of photodiodes,

although other methods are used like

optical interferometry or capacitive

sensing.

A variation is non contact AFM (NC-AFM), in which there is no physical contact

with the sample, a technique used by IBM

Research Zurich. Here, a current is passed

through the tip to probe the electrical

conductivity of the underlying surface. The

principles underpinning this go back to the

beginning of the 1990s, when it was

suggested that you could use frequency

modulation (FM) signals, as Leo Gross, an

IBM Research Staff Member, explains.

“You oscillate the cantilever, in our case

a tuning fork, at the resonant frequency

and as it gets close to the surface, butwithout touching it, it starts to get detuned.

In the NC-AFM that IBM uses, the resonant

frequency is around 30kHz and the shift is

of just a few Hz, but this is enough to

create an image by moving the tip of the cantilever – which consists of a

single carbon monoxide (CO) molecule – across the sample.” This makes it

possible to image the atomic structure of the sample.

A recent achievement at IBM, using NC-AFM, has been the ability to

differentiate the chemical bonds in a molecule, which differ in length by only

3picometres (3 x 10–12m), or 1% of an atom’s diameter. Bonds can be imaged

and differentiated because they exhibit different electron densities, which

show up in the images as areas of varying brightness. The results have

Cover Story Microscopy


Focusing on the detailsDigital optical microscopy is set to answer fundamental questions in arange of fields. By David Boothroyd.

Images of a 1.4nm diameter hexabenzocoronene molecule captured

using a non contact atomic force microscope


16/32

advanced the exploration of molecules and

atoms at the smallest scale and could be

important for studying applications such

as graphene, organic solar cells and LEDs.

Despite its achievements, there are

limitations to AFM. One is that it is slow – recording

an AFM image of a molecule with atomic resolution

takes around 30mins.

“We are working on speeding this up, using faster sensors

with a higher resonant frequency; in the region of MHz,” Gross

says. Even real time video is becoming possible.

Another major challenge in any form of microscopy that can image

individual atoms is the need for extraordinarily precise control of the imaging

tip. This is made possible through the use of piezoelectric materials but also

critical is very low temperature operation, down to 4K,

achieved using liquid helium. IBM custom builds itssystems, but makes use of commercially available

components, from companies like SPS CreaTec.

As well as increasing the speed of image capture,

another potential advance for AFM technology is to widen

the range of sensor tips used and the classes of

molecules that are investigated, which could include

biomolecules. And a different form of NC-AFM, called

Kelvin probe force microscopy, is attracting a lot of

attention. This uses electrostatic forces, as Gross explains.

“You apply a bias between tip and sample, sweep the

bias across the sample and analyse how the force

changes. This enables you to see charge differences withinmolecules that are even smaller than electron charges.

This could be valuable to help the work going on with single electron devices,

because it can show how single electron charges are distributed and moved

within molecules.”

For an instrument that we have been using for hundreds of years, the

microscope is still proving to be a remarkable source of innovation. One

recent development that owes its emergence to advanced IT is the digital

holographic microscope. This aims to overcome limitations affecting many

microscope techniques: a tiny field of view and a shallow depth of field. This

makes it difficult to view objects where 3d information can be crucial, like

living cells.

Answer: make a hologram of the sample. This is done in the usual way, by

splitting a laser beam in two, then using one as a reference beam andreflecting the other off the sample to record the pattern of phase shifts that

this produces. A digital sensor records the data. As with any hologram,

recombining the beams produces an interference pattern that can be

analysed by a reconstruction algorithm to build a 3d image of the sample.

The holographic technique not only records variations in the intensity of

light bouncing off a sample, like conventional microscopy, but also phase

information. Thanks to image processing software, this means you can

change the depth of focus – effectively focusing after the image is recorded –

and correct optical aberrations, as well as building the 3d image.

Another surprising advantage is that holographic microscopy can be low

cost. Devices have been built for as little as $1000 and researchers at the

Kisarazu National College of Technology in Japan have gone even further.

Using a web camera, a small solid state laser,

an optical pinhole and free open source

software, they have cut the cost to $250.

What’s more, there are several similar

kinds of techniques, including interferometric

microscopy, optical coherence tomography and

diffraction phase microscopy. Common to all is the

use of a reference wave front to obtain intensity and

phase information.

There is a nice irony to this use of holography, which has so far

mostly been applied to light microscopy. That is because holography

was invented by Dennis Gabor in order to improve the electron

microscope! It did not happen in his day, but there are signs that digital

electron holography may finally work as Gabor hoped.

After photons and electrons, now we are seeing the

emergence of neutrons as data for microscopy. A newneutron microscope called Larmor is to be built at the

Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire. By

monitoring how neutrons are scattered by a sample, high

precision images can be created. Since neutrons have no

electrical charge, the beams can penetrate deeply into

materials. Images with a resolution at the level of

individual atoms should be achieved.

Neutron microscopy is suited to a range of

applications, including observing magnetic materials,

complex liquids, living biological specimens, and

enhancing storage of charge in lithium ion batteries.

Another possibility is studying new molecules that cantransport medication to the exact location of a tumour.

It is not only microscope techniques and technology that are seeing

surprising innovation: so too are their applications. One example is the use

of an AFM by researchers at Zurich’s ETH university to analyse a crystal that

could tell us about the very early days of the cosmos, shortly after the Big

Bang. A crystal of yttrium manganite was analysed by the AFM because of its

‘multiferroic’ behaviour, in which electric charges and magnetic dipoles

arrange themselves spontaneously. The researchers discovered this

arrangement of charges followed the same rules that describe the universe

during its very early expansion.

Meanwhile, at the University of Berkeley and the National University of

Singapore, a TEM is being used to manipulate nanoparticles. The TEM’s

electron beam traps gold nanoparticles and directs their movement, enablingthe researchers to assemble several nanoparticles into a tight cluster. Also,

because the beam is from an electron microscope, they can image the

nanoparticles as they manipulate them.

Even the humble founder of it all, optical, is seeing advances, such as

‘nonlinear’ microscopy. A typical optical microscope is a linear instrument,

meaning the atoms of a sample interact with only one photon at a time. This

limits the ability to look below a surface. With a nonlinear microscope, a

sample is examined using two intersecting, non parallel light rays. This makes

it possible to capture images from beneath the sample’s surface. A further

innovation by Japanese researchers at the Riken Institute has enabled

nonlinear optical techniques to resolve structures in mouse brains down to a

depth of 240µm.


Cover Story Microscopy

Non contact atomic force microscopy

highlights the different lengths and

orders of the carbon-carbon bonds in

this nanographene molecule


17/32

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18/32

P

roving technology in space is not

a cheap business. ‘Heritage’

technology – that which has been

flown successfully in space before – is

essential for companies requiring

guaranteed performance when their own

technology is committed to space. The

nature of space is that you just can’t

afford to get it wrong.

A British venture is hoping to

progress a number of technologies by

giving them the opportunity, at a

relatively low cost, to both prove the

technology and give it valuable flying

time. The project, called TechDemoSat, is

led by Surrey Satellite Technology(SSTL). Its platform will carry eight

payloads, along with a stack of its R&D,

into orbit later this year.

Project manager at SSTL is Victoria

O’Donovan: “It is a really interesting

project because normally a satellite just

has one payload, one aim of what it

wants to be – an imager or GPS or a

science mission. This has everything. It’s

got eight payloads instead of one and all

sorts of product development; from the

onboard computers to techniques forlaying down solar cells.”

The project started when SSTL had its

frustrations trying to test product

developments and suspected others

shared the same frustrations. In 2009, it

approached the Technology Strategy

Board and the now defunct South East

England Development

satellite. SSTL was not part of this

process, it just needed to know the basic

technical requirements – how big, how

much power and data, earth or space

pointing. After this information was

presented to SSTL, it could decide how to

fill the remaining payload capacity. The

payloads selected are:

• SSTL’s Sea State Payload that will

demonstrate how GPS signals reflectedoff the ocean’s surface can be used to

determine ocean roughness and help

shipping plan more efficient routes.

• MuREM, a miniature radiation

environment and effects monitor

supplied by the Surrey Space Centre.

• The Charged Particle Spectrometer, a

radiation detector developed by the

Mullard Space Science Laboratory that

can perform simultaneous electron-ion

detection.

• The Highly Miniaturised Radiation

Monitor from Rutherford AppletonLaboratory and Imperial College.

• The Langton Ultimate Cosmic Ray

Intensity Detector (LUCID). Developed by

the Langton Star Centre, part of a sixth

form college, the detector can

characterise high energy particles.

• A Compact Modular Sounder system,

an infrared remote sensing radiometer

unit, provided by Oxford University’s

Planetary Group and Rutherford

Appleton Laboratory.

• SSBV’s CubeSAT ACS payload, which will

The platform for

TechDemoSat is

Surrey Satellite

Technology’s SSTL

150, used previously

on the Ra pidEye

mission

Agency with a view to developing a

programme that could deliver benefits

across the UK’s aerospace industry.

Grant applications were submitted in

2010 and the project kicked off in

October 2010. In order to keep costs

down, TechDemoSat is an auxiliary load

on the launch vehicle, which means the

launch date will be determined by the

primary load, but it is expected to be inorbit by Q3.

When proposals were invited for

payloads, it was massively

oversubscribed. An independent

consultant VEGA Space (now Telespazio

VEGA) determined the successful bids

and this has evolved to form the list of

eight that will now fly in the


Flying thefunky stuff An all British satellite project featuringexperimental UK technology is nearingcompletion. By Tim Fryer.


19/32

Sector Focus Aerospace

provide three axis attitude

determination and control.

• The Cranfield de-orbit sail, designed by

Cranfield University, will move the

satellite to burn up quickly in the Earth’s

atmosphere at the end of its life.

The satellite itself is the SSTL 150 – a

150kg satellite used on a previous SSTLmission called RapidEye, which was

used as the starting point for

TechDemoSat. O’Donovan explained how

the equipment on the TechdemoSat had

been assembled. “The primary string is

our proven avionics that has flown on

other satellites. You would then have a

redundant, which is your second string.”

Under normal circumstances, this

second string would also have to be

space proven, but this is not the case

with TechDemoSat.

O’Donovan continued: “Thesecondary string for the platform is all

SSTL developments, so there are new

onboard computers, new solid state data

storage, new battery charge modules

and solar cell lay-down techniques – it’s

all on the platform. For data, we have an

S Band rf link as our primary and a

slightly more capable X Band on the

secondary.”

According to O’Donovan, her biggest

technological challenge has dealing with

so many payloads. “We had all these

different technologies arriving and had

to work out how this development talk to

that one, what happens when this draws

power and so on – it is quite challenging

because a typical satellite only has one

payload and we have eight. You might

normally have one piece of new

development which you don’t know

exactly how it will work, and on this we

have 15 to 20 new SSTL developments.So the challenge is to get it all to work

together in this very small system in a

small space of time with a limited

budget.

“We communicate using the CANbus

and that was a specification when we

invited people to submit for a payload.

We couldn’t have lots of different buses

– everyone had to use the same thing. It

is a protocol that I don’t think many

people use, but it is typical in satellites.”

CAN nodes on the spacecraft use an

SSTL proprietary protocol, known as CANSpacecraft Usage, where the most

significant byte in the arbitration field is

used as a destination node address.

Each module connected to the CAN bus

has a unique node address and SSTL

spacecraft may support up to 250 nodes

(certain node addresses are reserved).

In addition, there are two physically

separate CAN buses, primary and

secondary. All units communicate

initially on the primary CAN bus on

power-up, then switch to the redundant

bus if they do not receive CAN messages

within five minutes.

TechDemoSat is scheduled to be in

space for three years. The first month

will be taken up by stabilising the flight

and getting the platform in stable

operation. This will be followed by two

months of commissioning the new

technology, followed by a seven month

period during which the payloads share

resources on an eight day cycle (two

days each) to gather all of the

information required to satisfy their

objectives.

Unlike an ordinary commercial

operation, once that initial phase hasbeen completed, the gloves are off, as

O’Donovan explains: “After the first year,

and until the end of the three years, is

what we call ‘extended operations’. It is

continuing data collection – the eight

day cycle – but when everyone has got

what they want and we know how the

platform is behaving, we might be able

to do something a bit funkier. So they

have their standard operations and there

is scope at the end to try them out in

anger and see what they are reallycapable of!”

At the end of the three years, after

waiting patiently in the sidelines, the

final payload, Cranfield’s de-orbit sail,

will be deployed and bring TechDemoSat

back into the Earth’s atmosphere.

(Below) Testing all the payloads together isthe challenge. SSTL’s

Victoria O’Donovan said:“The challenge is to getit all to work together inthis very small systemin a small space of timewith a limited budget.”



20/32


Security is the keyBuilt in crypto functions help to combat the prevalence of counterfeit components.By G. Richard Newell.

The counterfeiting of electronic

components continues to rise alarmingly.

IHS iSuppli reported that, in the first eight

months of 2012, more than 100 incidents of

counterfeiting were reported each month. In the

past six years, more than 12million par ts havebeen discovered to be fakes.

Counterfeiting is a major risk to everyone in

the electronics supply chain, but the cost of

dealing with an incident is not shared equally.

The US military sector, for example, is now

covered by the National Defense Authorization

Act for Fiscal Year 2012. Section 818, which

deals with the detection and avoidance of

counterfeit electronic parts,

places the

burden of corrective action on the prime

contractor to the Department of Defense. In

other sectors, the burden rests with the end

user. However, subcontractors and suppliers

are still vulnerable to the reputational and

business relationship risk of falling victim toforgery. The ability to prevent counterfeits from

entering your supply chain is clearly critical.

Spotting fake components

Counterfeits are often difficult to spot; they

could be parts from the approved supplier

which failed production testing and were not

destroyed properly or recycled then diverted by

criminals into the supply chain. They

could also be lower grade components

relabelled or repackaged to resemble

more expensive extendedtemperature or endurance

devices.

One approach that can be

used use to cut the risk of

having counterfeit

components make it to the

pcb is to adopt good

business processes in

which all parts are

only sourced from

authorised

distributors. Even

so, there remainsa risk that

counterfeit

components

can still

make it into

the supply chain

through approved

channels if legitimate

shipments are somehow

switched with fakes unknown to the

supplier.

The risk of fake parts entering a high quality

supply chain can be reduced dramatically using

technical means that take advantage of key

characteristics of the semiconductor supply

chain. The design and fabrication of the source

wafers by an original component manufacturer

(OCM) is the most trusted part of the supplychain. The OCM has a high degree of control

over device quality through to component level

test. The key to counterfeit free components is

to extend this trust into the entire supply chain

so counterfeits cannot end up in an electronic

system. By putting electronic tags and markers

into the silicon itself, a device can provide

evidence of its authenticity at any point.

Criminals will attempt to reverse engineer

the markers used to distinguish fake

components from genuine so they can make

their devices appear to be authentic. Therequirement is for a technical solution this is

both tamper resistant and hard to spoof.

Some identification techniques are easier to

forge than others. A simple marker, such as a

device code accessed through a serial port,

may only identify the device as a member of a

broad class, not individually. A major problem

with a class marker is that if the technique used

to embed it within a device becomes available

to counterfeiters, the identification technique

becomes practically worthless. If individual

devices are marked with a public identifier plus

a unique private key, the counterfeiter has todetermine how the markers are applied and

used in order to determine whether a part is

genuine or not. Simply reverse engineering and

copying the public identifier from a genuine

part to a series of fakes will not work, since the

associated private keys a re much harder to

learn and clone.

Physically unclonable functions (PUFs)

provide one way to tie a device to its mark of

authenticity. Each IC is subtly different to its

neighbours on wafer, even though all that make

it through test will operate in the same manner.


21/32

Research & Development Digital Design


For example, internal srams have subtle biases

such that, when they are first powered up, they

contain a pattern of 1s and 0s that is

essentially random from die to die, but which is

consistent from power cycle to power cycle for

that die. Repeatability can be as high as 80%

under different test conditions. This pattern can

be used as an unclonable device ‘fingerprint’

that, together with a digital certificate stored aspart of the manufacturing and test process,

guarantees authenticity.

There are a number of requirements for the

digital certificate. The first is the presence of

embedded non volatile memory to store the

data and a communications interface to allow

the data to be read. The device needs sufficient

computational capability to implement

cryptographic functions in real time such that

the secret value certified is never exposed. The

certification circuitry is used to answer

challenges with responses consistent with a

public key supplied by the manufacturer toallow testing for authenticity.

Hardware level security on top of these

functions ensures criminals cannot probe the

device. Microsemi’s SmartFusion2 SoC fpgas

implement all these functions, making them

suitable for a strong technical anti

counterfeiting solution.

With the necessary hardware in place, a

secret key can be injected into the device at

wafer test. This is followed by injection of a

digital certificate bound to the secret key at the

assembly and binning stage. This process

provides a certificate that has been securely

signed by the OCM and which supports all

downstream anti counterfeiting measures. The

certificate, which can be interrogated at any

point, provides traceability for suppliers and

end users, providing a way of guaranteeing a

counterfeit free supply chain downstream.

The public data in the certificate can contain

not just a unique device number, but also amodel number with grading information and the

assembly date code. Grading data can weed out

valid parts remarked by forgers to resemble

higher grade parts. The date code assists in

identifying older devices that require additional

screening to ensure they are new and have not

been previously used.

The production mechanism ensures only

good devices receive a certificate, which

prevents the representation of failed

components as good ones. The hardware

security module (HSM) at the fab logs each

certificate securely, so the OCM knows exactlyhow many have been issued.

As part of a screening process, such as

checking the delivered device against the order,

SmartFusion2 devices can be authenticated in

a number of ways. The certificate’s integrity and

signature can be checked using the Microsemi

public key. The certificate can be checked for

listing on a certificate revocation list and the

device itself can be checked to ensure that it

knows the correct unique private cryptographic

key and is bound correctly to the certificate.

This proves the certificate belongs to that

particular device and is not a copy of acertificate belonging to another device.

By adopting a strong foundation of

technologies for anti counterfeiting, devices

such as SmartFusion2 provide the assurance of

authenticity that is now needed in the forgery

prone electronics supply chain – not just for the

devices themselves, but also for the

subsystems into which they are assembled.

Author profile:

G. Richard Newell is senior principal product

architect with Microsemi’s SoC products group.

SmartFusion2 SoC fpgas are suitable for use in a

strong technical anticounterfeiting solution.

Fig 1: Extending trust through the supply chain

Wafertest

Fab Certificateinjection

Keyinjection

Assembly Distribution


22/32

Exhibition • Conference • Workshops

Designed for Design Engineers

2 - 3 October 2013 • Jaguar Exhibition Hall • Ricoh Arena • Coventry

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23/32

Last year’s inaugural Engineering Design Show was received so well by exhibitors and

visitors alike that Findlay Media decided to create an event designed specifically for the

electronics sector.

Now, Findlay Media’s market-leading magazine New Electronics is pleased to announce that

the Electronics Design Show will take place alongside this year’s Engineering Design

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Occupying Hall 2 at the Jaguar Exhibition Centre at Coventry’s Ricoh Arena, the Electronics

Design Show will provide exhibitors with a unique opportunity to take part in an event aimed

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products, techniques and technologies, but will also be able to attend informative and free

educational conference and workshop sessions.

“We are delighted to announce the launch of the Electronics Design Show,” said New

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reflect the quality of New Electronics’ editorial, offering visitors practical hands-on content and

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We look forward to seeing you there!

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24/32

I

n the world of progra mmable logic, the

phrase ‘ultra low density’ stands out starkly.

The reason? Over the years, the trend has to

been to create devices with ever more featureson ever smaller manufacturing processes.

While the devices themselves may not be

getting smaller, their density has increased

dramatically.

And yet Lattice Semiconductor is developing

devices which it proudly describes as ‘ultra low

density’. How does the company explain the

use of a phrase which implies a large die with

not much on it? Gordon Hands, dir ector of

marketing for low density solutions, explained.

“When you look at the programmable logic

market, there are low density, and mid and highend products – an example of low density is

Lattice’s ECP3 range. But we didn’t think it was

a good term to use to describe what we’re

doing, which is driving beyond what

programmable logic has delivered in the past in

terms of cost.”

Lattice’s latest announcement – the ice40

LP384 – boasts 384 look up tables (LUTs,

equivalent to 7680 gates) and is supplied in a

package measuring 2.5 x 2.5mm. In its basic

state, the LP384 consumes 25µW. “As you start

to toggle the clock nets and ramp frequency, it

will start a linear power ramp,” Hands noted.“When it’s running at 10MHz, you might see a

power consumption of 5 to 10mW, but it’s

design dependent.”

Yet, despite its size,

the part supports LVDS

interface rates of 525Mbit/s. Small size is

matched by small price:

in high volume, LP384

fpgas will cost 50cents.

Hands believes this is a

significant achievement. “If you

go back to 1995, the price of a similar

device was $50. In 2002, it was $5, but

today, it’s 50cents.”

Why is Lattice pushing towards the other

end of the market than its competitors? Hands

said: “We are forging a different path to that of other companies in the market – and

deliberately so. We believe there is a range of

applications in which designers would like to

use programmable logic, but where the cost

and power consumption of parts have ruled

them out.”

Hands believes this is true for high volume

applications and for handheld and battery

powered products. “We’re seeing designers use

products from the ice40 range for a number of

applications, including devices such as

smartphones and tablets. But we are also

seeing the attributes of these products fittingwell into some handheld industrial devices

where size and power consumption are critical.,

such as point of sale terminals a nd

industrial sensors”

One particular sensor

application of ice40

devices has been in

geophones – devices

used for oil exploration

and to monitor seismic

activity. “They need to be

small and low power,” Hands

asserted. “But because there are thousands of

sensors in a typical geophone system, cost per

unit becomes important.”

Lattice is keen to emphasise the size of the

ice40 LP384, as well as its capabilities. “The

importance of device size varies depending on

who you talk to,” Hands admitted, “but in mobileconsumer apps, it’s absolutely critical.”

The change is being driven by a new

approach to product design. “Historically,

phones were built with the battery underneath

the pcb,” he explained, “and there was a lot of

space for the pcb. Now, phones are being built

with the two elements side by side. Because

designers are looking to maximise operating

time between charges, they are looking to

maximise the space available to the battery

and to minimise the space taken by the pcb.”

Manufacturing technology is another driver.

Small is beautifulThere’s plenty of opportunity for small scaleprogrammable logic devices, claims developer.By Graham Pitcher.


“We are forging a different

path to that of other

companies in the market –

and deliberately so.”

Gordon Hands

Packaging technology

becomes a critical factor

as die size decreases


25/32

Embedded Design Programmable Platforms

“The cost of manufacturing increases with

package size,” Hands suggested. “When we talk

with customers, they tell us that large packages

are not acceptable now. There is a big cost

difference between making a product with a 2.5

x 2.5mm device and with a 4 x 4mm device.

Size is critical and the use of the 40nm

manufacturing process helps us solve this.”

Nevertheless, there are applications where

size is not so critical. “These customers don’t

worry so much about package size,” he

continued. “While they are trying to make their

products smaller, they are looking for a

different balance between cost and size.”

But Hands knows the package can’t be

smaller than the die. “Once we start getting

down to these dimensions, the die takes up a

large percentage of the package area.” And that

opens the door for more radical packaging

techniques, such as wafer level chip scale

packaging (wlcsp). “It’s a useful technique,”

Hands asserted. “Amongst the things we likeabout wlcsp is the smaller package height and

the lower cost of the approach.” But wlcsp isn’t

appropriate for every application. “It’s not a

panacea,” Hands pointed out, “because the

package is the die and that defines how much

I/O is available. As we shrink the die, we get to

the point where it is too small to attach a

reasonable number of balls.”

Take the ‘top off’ an LP384 and you’ll find

the die is just 1 x 1mm. “Even when you use a

0.4mm ball pitch, you can only attach nine

balls,” Hands said. “If more I/O is needed, thenwe offer a low cost wire bonded bga which

features 36 balls.” Other packages include a

32pin qfn measuring 5 x 5mm and a 49 ball

ucbga measuring 3 x 3mm. And it’s likely that

Lattice will offer a 2 x 2mm wlcsp option.

The LP384 ships without any embedded

memory; is this simply because there’s not

enough space on the die? “No,” said Hands, “it’s

more about matching the specifications to the

potential applications. These might be to link

i2c to GPIO or spi to i2c. For the most part,

these actions can be done without block

memory. A lot of applications need I/O

expansion – more uarts, for example – and the

LP384 is a good way to enable thatinexpensively.

Developing such small scale products

requires a new approach. “It used to be a

sequential process,” Hands noted, “but we now

need to engineer silicon and package in

parallel. And, as we architect new parts, we

develop a handful of typical applications and try

to adjust the resources to optimise the part to

those apps.”

One of the benefits of the wlcsp approach is

cost. “There’s no substantial packaging cost; we

take the wafer, attach a redistribution layer and

put the balls on that,” Hands said. “That enablesus to offer the LP384 for 50cents in volume.”

The challenge for Lattice now is to work out

how to reduce the cost further. “We’re finding –

particularly in consumer applications – that

projects have a fixed budget. We can now

address those who have 50cents to spend on

programmable logic; what we would like to do is

address those who have 25cents to spend.”

It’s unlikely that Lattice will add new

members to the ice40 family. “We’re turning our

attention to the next generation,” Hands

concluded, “and investing for the future.”


Fig 1: Sensor management using an ice40 fpga

FIFOi2c

spi

uart

Sensor

Sensor

Sensor

Processorinterface

Applicationprocessor

Sensorinterfacewith autopooling

Datafiltering

Local port orSLIM out

Interrupt

The ice40 LP384 is available for 50cents in volume


26/32


27/32

Communications Design Communications Test

The automotive eCall (emergency call)

system is an emergency cellular

communication service that will become

mandatory in vehicles introduced in Europe after

2014.In the event of an emergency or accident, the

eCall e112 flag system will provide the ability to

call the local emergency services via a Public

Safety Answering Point (PSAP) using any

available cellular network. While eCall will not

prevent accidents, it will speed the arrival of

emergency assistance.

A key requirement is that data and voice calls

must use the same voice channel because SMS

and GPRS do not provide the necessary service

priority or availability. Routing data over the voice

connection will enable eCall to use the e112routing protocol standards deployed in the

existing cellular network.

The minimum set of data (MSD) required to be

transmitted by EN 15722:2011 comprises the

exact vehicle location (from the vehicle’s GPS

device), time and date stamps, number of

occupants and Vehicle Identity Number.

A number of cellular standards have the

potential to manage and deliver the various

protocol control and data required for eCall to

function correctly. But, as high data bandwidth is

not the primary requirement, the initial

deployment of eCall will focus primarily on the 2Gnetwork (GSM/GPRS/EDGE) widely available

within Europe. However, multiple cellular

standards are likely to be supported on future

eCall chipsets.

Typically, eCall devices and modules will be

integrated in the vehicle’s telematics systems

and will play an increasingly prominent role in

automotive electronics design.

The following system blocks are necessary for

eCall to work successfully:

• In Vehicle System (IVS). Alongside the

automotive telematics unit, the module will

include such sub systems as the GPS module,

multiple vehicle sensors, microphone/speakers,

IVS data in-band modem, 2G/3G communications

modem and the vehicle application software. The

eCall voice and data message can be originated

and activated automatically or with driver

intervention.

• Mobile operator network. This is responsible for

transmitting and routing the eCall emergencye112 flag message to the emergency call

response centre (PSAP).

• Public Safety Answering Points (PSAP). Call

centres responsible implementing the

infrastructure required to receive eCalls and for

answering them. The PSAP transmission section

is responsible for sending control messages to

the IVS to initiate transmission of MSD

information and for providing ACK/NACK feedback

for the hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ).

In the event of a collision, an eCall flag is

triggered and two way voice communication is

established between the PSAP and the driver. In

addition, eCall can transfer data from the vehicle

over the same cellular network connection.

IVS in-band data modem

The primary blocks of the in-band transceiver are

cyclic redundancy check (CRC), forward error

correction (FEC) codecs, HARQ, data modem and

a sync/multiplexing block.MSD information is input to the IVS modem

via the CRC section, where cyclic code data bits

are appended. This additional code will be used

by the PSAP’s data modem to determine whether

the original message has been corrupted. If the

verification check reveals errors, the system will

send ACK/NACK feedback messages requesting

repeat transmission (ARQ) of problem data

blocks.

MSD information bits are then subjected to

channel encoding in the HARQ encoder using FEC,

where redundant error detection bits are added to

Ready for the callTesting eCall systems: how to benefit from synergies with existingGSM test platforms. By Lee Roberts.


Fig 1: The eCall system net work architecture

GPS rx module

Car sensors

Vehicleapplication

Microphone andspeaker

IVS datain-band modem

eCallPSAP

display

Microphone andspeaker

PSTN fixednetwork

PLMNcellular network

Data in band

modem

PSAPswitch

MSD: minimum set of data

Public safety answering point (PSAP)

In vehicle system (IVS)

2G/3G/LTEspeech and

radio modemMSD

MSD


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Communications Design Communications Test

the already modified data. The HARQ encoder is a

combination of ARQ and FEC coding and typically

contains a powerful Turbo coding scheme with

incremental redundancy added to each data

retransmission.

The FEC technique reduces the susceptibility

of data to errors during transmission over noisy

or inefficient cellular rf channel links. FEC enables

the receiving PSAP modem to correct errors

without needing to request retransmission of the

original message. However, while HARQ offers

better performance in poorer channel conditions,it has the disadvantage of significantly lower data

throughput in improved channel conditions.

The signal modulator up converts the data

stream by mixing it with a carrier waveform

suitable for it to be applied to a speech codec.

The voice speech encoder and decoder can

support adaptive multirate (AMR) and full and

half rate (FR/HR) GSM audio data compression

schemes. These generate a compacted data bit

stream output representation of the analogue

speech signal, whilst providing an adequate level

of audio quality. These speech coded standards

are commonly employed in GSM and UMTS

systems.

The receiver section demodulates and

monitors the corresponding ACK/NACK message

sent by the PSAP modem. Once MSD

transmission is completed and a successful ACK

message has been received, the IVS and PSAP

modems are placed into idle state by deactivating

the transmitter signal paths.

The equivalent PSAP receiver and transmitter

sections have similar building blocks, but

function in the reverse order. The HARQmechanism block is not used and there is a

different FEC implementation.

Test challenges and limitations

The eCall simulation system overcomes

challenges presented using a deployed live

network system, including emergency services

testing without the need to contact an operator.

This prevents an emergency services response

being triggered accidentally. If emergency

services testing is required, the Anritsu eCall

system can function as a development stage test

and simulation solution in advance of the live

network becoming available.

The IVS DUT contains various functional blocks

which require independent verification and

testing. To verify the raw MSD data, a logic

analyser confirms the transmission of the low

serial data rate defined by its set of requirement

definitions.

eCall test solution

The MD8475A simulates the PLMN and PSAP

sections of the live network whilst providing a

convenient platform for verifying the voice call

connection and the MDS content transmitted by

the IVS device under test (DUT).

When using the eCall test solution, the user isnot restricted to testing on a live cellular network

and PSAP provider. Using a simulated and

controlled test environment means the DUT will

not be subjected to cell and connection link

quality issues; beneficial when testing the higher

layers of the software protocol implementation.

The eCall tester provides functions to test the

MSD and voice call communication sequence

between the IVS DUT and PSAP. Current

communication sequence functions supported

include voice codec (AMR, GSM FR/HR), in-band

modem (push and pull mode), voice operator andloopback calls and voice quality.

The tester displays the current MSD, voice and

in-band modem communication status between

the IVS and PSAP and, as the MD8475A supports

all major technology standards, the platform is

equipped to provide an upgrade path to

supporting all eCall technology implementations.

The Anritsu MD8475A does not verify in-band

modem block functionality in isolation. By

combining the IVS elements, the eCall solution

can verify the system as a whole, enabling end to

end system test and providing the ability to

simulate a complete operational solution. As theMD8475A includes a base station cell emulator,

the radio modem section can also be verified

independently.

The implementation of simple test routines

and integration of future proof cellular standards

allow the tester to be easily upgraded when

enhancements and amendments to the eCall

standards are introduced.

Author profile:

Lee Roberts is business development manager

for Anritsu (UK).


Fig 2: eCall GSM sequence protocol message

Send ACK message(pc audio output to handset)

Start

Off hook

Software processing User operation

a/d convert

MSD analysis/decode

Display message

Voice checks

On hook

MSD analogue voice signal(GSM voice call)

StartStart

Origination response

End (change the state of start)

Release

Origination

On hook

eCall testerIVS MD8475A

Event of origination

MSD analogue voice signal(handset to pc audio input)

Voice callsVoice checks

Off hook


29/32

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Whenever you embark on a design

project, you need to know what it is

you’re creating and who you are

creating it for. You also need to know the

relative importance o

New Electronics - 9 April 2013

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