Analog Bits will demonstrate IPs for LDO, power supply droop detectors, and embedded clock LC PLLs on TSMC’s N3P process during the TSMC 2024 North America Technology Symposium at the Santa Clara Convention Center on 24 April 2024. The N3P process, an advanced version within the 3-nm node family, scheduled for production in 2024, is an optical shrink of the N3E process, a relaxed version with reduced costs. At TSMC’s 2023 North America Technology Symposium, Analog Bits demonstrated silicon data on the TSMC N3E process for IPs encompassing wide-range PLL, PVT sensor, droop detector, bandgap, c ..read more

Let’s face it: every engineer with any hands-on experience has at least one tale of a challenging debug battle fought and eventually won (or at least presumed to have been won). This is the scenario where a misbehaving circuit or system presented puzzling symptoms that were difficult to diagnose, but eventually resulted in that “aha!” moment when the true nature of the problem and its source became clear. But there are many situations where that sort of success doesn’t happen. It’s because the problem is small enough that it’s not worth the effort to solve, or that the time and resources aren ..read more

A new ultrasonic time-of-flight (ToF) sensor incorporates a powerful embedded processor and extended memory space for fitting and running a wide range of application algorithms on-chip, completely offloading the system MCU. The MEMS sensor inside this ToF device also ensures the accuracy required for tasks like obstacle avoidance, soft surface identification, and liquid level measurements. TDK’s InvenSense SmartSonic ICU-10201 integrates a MEMS piezoelectric micromachined ultrasonic transducer (PMUT) with a low-power system-on-chip (SoC) in an ultra-compact reflowable package. Its on-chip pro ..read more

I’ve always regarded debugging as the most difficult of engineering disciplines, whether it’s for still-on-the-bench prototypes or fielded products. It’s a hard skill to teach, takes a lot of experience to do, and involves both the clarity of big picture thinking as well as intense focus on details and relationships. It can be confounding, mystifying, maddening, and frustrating. It’s challenging enough when there’s a single fault or cause leading to a single observable problem. However, in many real-world cases, there’s what I consider as the much-more challenging “double-fault” (there are al ..read more

A new wearable device captures cardiopulmonary measurements for chronic disease management—such as heart failure—in home settings and engages patient care teams only when there are indications of a potential acute event. It’s equipped with a set of physiological indicators to help care teams better manage chronic conditions early and remotely. The Sensinel cardiopulmonary management (CPM) system from Analog Devices Inc. combines wearable vital signs sensing and signal processing technology with cardiologist-inspired algorithms to precisely determine a congestive heart failure in a patient’s d ..read more

MEMS Studio—an all-in-one tool for MEMS sensor evaluation and development—claims to unify the sensor-development workflow from evaluation to configuration and programming for MCU-centric designs serving smart appliances, medical wearables, and technology for digital healthcare, smart buildings and factories, robotics, asset tracking, and smart driving. STMicroelectronics has launched this desktop software solution for its STM32 microcontroller ecosystem, and it’s available for Windows, MacOS, and Linux operating systems. MEMS Studio helps users easily acquire and clearly visualize sensor data ..read more

I was reading a blog on the challenges of small-to-medium electronic-project design and development, and the author cited a book which he said provided useful guidelines and tactical advice. “Thinking in bets: making smarter decisions when you don’t have all the facts” is written by Annie Duke, a high-stakes poker player with millions of dollars in tournament winnings. She is now retired from the game but advises businesses on how to deal with inevitable project and market uncertainties (Figure 1). Figure 1 This book about dealing with uncertainties and unknowns, by a tournament-winning poke ..read more

For many decades, Ethernet has been used in industrial and computing networks. But nowadays it’s increasingly deployed in automotive applications as a replacement for legacy networks like controller area network (CAN). Automotive Ethernet offers the topology flexibility, high bandwidth, and robust communication required for in-vehicle data communications as original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) transition from domain to zonal network architectures. This article discusses various automotive Ethernet standards before considering the stringent electrostatic protection (ESD) and electromagnetic ..read more

Smart devices like wearables and remote monitoring systems increasingly demand always-on IPs that can minimize quiescent current and thus enable ultra-low-power capabilities in system-on-chip (SoC) designs. That, in turn, calls for IP subsystems featuring ultra-low-power sleep mode to remain in a low-power state for extended battery life while maintaining the capability to wake up quickly to perform essential functions. Agile Analog, a supplier of analog IPs, has provided its first always-on IP subsystem to fabless semiconductor company XMOS. The subsystem comprises a comprehensive range of a ..read more

No, this isn’t some kind of joke about how your connectors, if left alone at night, will magically spawn new mini versions of themselves or miraculously grow new contact positions. Instead, it’s a serious issue which is easily overlooked and ignored, until it hits the designer with frustrating consequences during debug, longer-term evaluation, or even in the field. Connectors are meant to be plugged (mated) and unplugged (unmated)—obviously, that’s their role. But how many such mating cycles can the connector pair tolerate before performance degrades with high resistance or intermittent conta ..read more