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Microchip’s PIC18F ‘K42’ microcontrollers are available with up to 128kbyte (from 16kbyte) of flash memory in packages from 28-48 pins. Max clock speed is 64Mbit/s and there is up to 1kbyte data EEPROM and 8kbyte of SRAM.   The firm has gone big on its ‘core independent peripherals’ (CIP) to allow functions to be implemented in hardware, saving code, validation time, core overhead, and power consumption, said Microchip. Intended for automotive, industrial control, IoT, medical and white goods, they include peripherals for safety critical applications including cyclic redundancy check with memory scan, a windowed watchdog timer, a 24bit signal measurement timer and a hardware limit timer, as well as up to eight hardware PWMs, complementary waveform generation for power bridges, and multiple communications interfaces. Analogue peripherals including a zero crossing detector, constant current I/O (see below), a comparator, and a 12bit ADC with computation – the latter for automating capacitive voltage division (for touch sensing), averaging, filtering, over-sampling, and threshold comparison. Constant current I/O The constant current I/O feature allows the sink and source current of a pin to be set to 1, 2, 5 or 10mA. This has to be used with caution because the pin circuitry cannot dissipate much static power, so an “external resistor must be inserted in series with the load to dissipate most of the power,” said Microchip. It has an example, with a 5V rail and a load which needs 1mA and whose voltage drop can be between 1.0 and 1.5V. The external resistor and pin circuitry has to make up 3.5-4V difference, so the resistor  needs to be chosen to drop 3.5V at of 1 mA, said Microchip, then the pin can make up the 0-500mV variable difference. A ‘memory access partition’ supports data protection and bootloading, and the ‘device information area’ is a dedicated memory space for factory programmed device ID and peripheral calibration values. Building blocks ADC with computation zero crossing detector 10bit PMW complementary waveform generator numerically controlled oscillator data signal modulator hardware limit timer 24bit signal measurement timer configurable logic cell crc/scan module windowed watchdog timer peripheral pin select direct memory access temperature indicator data signal modulator 5bit DAC UART, SPI, and I2C Ref: KY32-PIC18F1220-E/ML KY0-PIC18F1220-E/SO KY0-PIC18F1220-I/ML

The giant chip maker Intel has finally released its 3ed generation chips named Ivy Bridge. They says that the new microprocessor chips used fundamentally different technology. These chips comes with 3D Transistors and are manufactured at 22nm process. The new technology will ensure high processing speed along with power saving. The chip makers keep the pace of Moore’s law by making the new chips using 3d transistor technology along with other advanced capabilities. We can hope that, customers will certainly welcome the new chip, because of the competence of it predecessors including the current Sandy Bridge chips. We know that transistors are the heart of processors and a microprocessor contains millions of it. Until today transistors were 2D (planar) devices, but Intel’s new Ivy Bridge chips comes with sophisticated 3D Tri-Gate Transistors. The new Ivy Bridge chips will power Gaming PC’s, Servers, Super Computers and all-in-one PC’s. We can hope that through this new line of chips, Intel will dominate in chip market with its major rival AMD. Now we will discuss some of the important features of the new Ivy Bridge chips. Ivy Bridge chips are relatively smaller and lighter in weight as it utilizes advanced technologies. The 3D Transistors these chips are lighter compared to transistors used in previous chips of Intel, through this Intel delivers the advantages of Moore’s law to its users. Intel has shrunk the Manufacturing technology of Ivy Bridge chips lower to 22nm because Intel notes that smaller chips are better in providing higher performance and higher efficiency. Intel says that in 2007 their CPU manufacturing process has changed to 45nm with high-k/metal gate, in 2009 to 32nm and now to 22nm with the world’s first 3-D transistor in a high volume logic process. Intel has made the new Ivy Bridge transistors in such a way that it can work efficiently even at lower voltages. Thus through this advanced sophisticated Ivy Bridge chips Intel strengthened its domination in global chip market and the company lifts up challenge not only to AMD but also to ARM holding the mobile chip market. Reference: KY32-NU80579EZ600CT KY32-NU80579ED009C

Chip scale high precision measurements of physical quantities such as temperature, pressure and refractive index have become common with nanophotonics and nanoplasmonics resonance cavities. As excellent transducers to convert small variations in the local refractive index into measurable spectral shifts, resonance cavities are being used extensively in a variety of disciplines ranging from bio-sensing and pressure gauges to atomic and molecular spectroscopy. Chip-scale microring and microdisk resonators (MRRs) are widely used for these purposes owing to their miniaturized size, relative ease of design and fabrication, high quality factor, and versatility in the optimization of their transfer function.The principle of operation of such resonative sensors is based on monitoring the spectrum dependence of the resonator subject to minute variation in its surrounding (e.g., different types of atoms and molecules, gases, pressure, temperature).  Yet despite several important accomplishments, such optical sensors are still limited in their performances, and their miniaturization is highly challenging.Now, a team from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has demonstrated an on-chip sensor capable of detecting unprecedentedly small frequency changes. The approach consists of two cascaded microring resonators, with one serving as the sensing device and the other playing the role of a reference—thus eliminating environmental and system fluctuations such as temperature and laser frequency."Here we demonstrate a record-high sensing precision on a device with a small footprint that can be integrated with standard CMOS technology, paving the way for even more exciting measurements such as single particle detection and high precision chip scale thermometry," said Prof. Uriel Levy, Director of the Harvey M. Krueger Family Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a faculty member at the Department of Applied Physics in the Rachel and Selim Benin School of Computer Science and Engineering.Among the innovations that made this development possible are chip scale integration of reference measurement, and a servo-loop locking scheme that translates the measured effects from the optical domain to the radio frequency domain. These enabled the researchers to quantify their system capabilities using well-established RF technologies, such as frequency counters, spectrum analyzers, and atomic standards.Reference:TCRT1000GP2S60ITR8307/L24/TR8  

While investigating mass transit accidents, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) officials often rely on digital clues left behind in flash memories of any and all electronic devices—both personal and professional—at a crash site. With the physical forces and high-temperature fires associated with many crashes, memory units are often damaged and sometimes unreadable.Researchers at Binghamton University, State University of New York have figured out how much damage memory units can sustain before becoming unreadable and new repair techniques to retrieve clues off of damaged units, which might help prevent future tragedies."The biggest surprise was how much punishment these devices can take before ceasing to function," said Steve Cain, who is the project manager and a senior research support specialist in the Integrated Electronics Engineering Center (IEEC) at Binghamton University. "As part of their post-crash investigations, the NTSB collects anything and everything at the scene, including personal electronic devices. If the device was active during or just before the crash, it is possible that the data stored in the memory can provide clues as to the cause of the crash. Most of the time the device is ruined, but sometimes it is intact."The interdisciplinary Binghamton group of Cain, Preeth Sivakumar, Jack Lombardi, and Mark Poliks along with James Cash, Joseph Gregor, and Michael Budinski from the NTSB, presented "Fire Damage and Repair Techniques for Flash Memory Modules: Implication for Post-Crash Investigations" at the Fall 2016 International Symposium of Microelectronics.Scientists found plastic coverings started to break down after three hours of exposure to temperatures of 300 degrees Celsius, or about 572 degrees Fahrenheit or more, but memory chips were still readable.Researchers pointed out that even with the pressures and forces in play during past crashes, temperatures typically only reach those levels for short periods of time."Data integrity was maintained even in a plasma discharge," Cain said. "Basically, if the device doesn't burn up, there is a reasonable chance of the data being retained in the chip. The only problem is that the connections to the memory chips may be broken, so that the data cannot be read."For the second part of the study, researchers addressed the readability issue. The team purposely damaged memory units and then extracted memory chips using acid, lasers, plasma, or mechanical polishing.Lasers were the most effective extraction method and mechanical extractions was the simplest, but each method still damaged the wire bonds within memory chips and made many unreadable. A specialized metallic ink from a precision printer was used to restore functionality."These results expand the investigative scope for aviation accidents, where the data rather than the device is of paramount importance," the team concluded. "It is possible to repair the interconnections of flash memory modules, provided the chip is intact." Reference:MT16JTF51264AZ-1G6M1SDUS5EB-001GMD2202-D192 

Harvard University researchers have made the first entirely 3D-printed organ-on-a-chip with integrated sensing. Built by a fully automated, digital manufacturing procedure, the 3D-printed heart-on-a-chip can be quickly fabricated in customized form factors allowing researchers to easily collect reliable data for short-term and long-term studies.This new approach to manufacturing may one day allow researchers to rapidly design organs-on-chips, also known as microphysiological systems, that match the properties of a specific disease or even an individual patient's cells.The research is published in Nature Materials."This new programmable approach to building organs-on-chips not only allows us to easily change and customize the design of the system by integrating sensing but also drastically simplifies data acquisition," said Johan Ulrik Lind, first author of the paper and postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). Lind is also a researcher at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University."Our microfabrication approach opens new avenues for in vitro tissue engineering, toxicology and drug screening research," said Kit Parker, Tarr Family Professor of Bioengineering and Applied Physics at SEAS, who coauthored the study. Parker is also a Core Faculty Member of the Wyss Institute.Organs-on-chips mimic the structure and function of native tissue and have emerged as a promising alternative to traditional animal testing. Harvard researchers have developed microphysiological systems that mimic the microarchitecture and functions of lungs, hearts, tongues and intestines.However, the fabrication and data collection process for organs-on-chips is expensive and laborious. Currently, these devices are built in clean rooms using a complex, multi-step lithographic process and collecting data requires microscopy or high-speed cameras."Our approach was to address these two challenges simultaneously via digital manufacturing," said Travis Busbee, coauthor of the paper and graduate student in the Lewis Lab. "By developing new printable inks for multi-material 3D printing, we were able to automate the fabrication process while increasing the complexity of the devices."The researchers developed six different inks that integrated soft strain sensors within the micro-architecture of the tissue. In a single, continuous procedure, the team 3D printed those materials into a cardiac microphysiological device—a heart on a chip—with integrated sensors."We are pushing the boundaries of three-dimensional printing by developing and integrating multiple functional materials within printed devices," said Jennifer Lewis, Hansjorg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering, and coauthor of the study. "This study is a powerful demonstration of how our platform can be used to create fully functional, instrumented chips for drug screening and disease modeling."The chip contains multiple wells, each with separate tissues and integrated sensors, allowing researchers to study many engineered cardiac tissues at once. To demonstrate the efficacy of the device, the team performed drug studies and longer-term studies of gradual changes in the contractile stress of engineered cardiac tissues, which can occur over the course of several weeks."Researchers are often left working in the dark when it comes to gradual changes that occur during cardiac tissue development and maturation because there has been a lack of easy, non-invasive ways to measure the tissue functional performance," said Lind. "These integrated sensors allow researchers to continuously collect data while tissues mature and improve their contractility. Similarly, they will enable studies of gradual effects of chronic exposure to toxins.""Translating microphysiological devices into truly valuable platforms for studying human health and disease requires that we address both data acquisition and manufacturing of our devices," said Parker. "This work offers new potential solutions to both of these central challenges."Reference:KY45-59020-010KY45-59135-020KY45-MK21P-1B90C-500W   

NTT Electronics (NEL), a leading supplier of coherent Digital Signal Processor (DSP) solutions to system and module manufacturers worldwide, announced shipment of industry's first 20nm 100G Long-haul/Metro coherent DSP to customers. Substantial reductions in size and power consumption of the new Low Power DSP (LP-DSP) enhance scalability and flexibility of cost-effective 100-Gbps long-haul and metropolitan networks.The new 100G LP-DSP product NLD0640 has three-chip functions successfully integrated into a single chip consuming 70% less power and footprint as compared to the previous generation 40nm DSP product NLD0629, which additionally required OTN Framer and transmitter MUX chips to achieve the same functionality. This is an important milestone for the industry made possible by NEL's ongoing collaboration with Broadcom Corporation (NASDAQ: BRCM). The new chip leverages Broadcom's industry leading 20nm signal-processing-enhanced mixed-signal technology and integrates the DSP core of the widely deployed NLD0629.The new LP-DSP provides full coverage of operation modes; the lowest power 80km ZR mode, the power-managed metro mode for distances up to 1200km, and the full function long-haul mode for reaches over-2000km. The LP-DSP with less than 20W power dissipation enables smaller size second generation coherent 100G modules, including a family of C Form-factor Pluggable (CFP) and CFP2 analog coherent optics (ACO) modules."We are strongly committed to pioneering innovation in the coherent DSP market through our robust partnership with Broadcom." said Haruhiko Ichino, NEL Executive Vice President and General Manager of Broadband System & Device Business Group. "Our novel LP-DSP has already been shipped to over ten customers, who are designing their product families. We look forward to deployment of our product in early 2015 thereby providing value to the end customers by maximizing the number of 100G ports per system.""The combination of industry-leading coherent DSP technology and Broadcom's industry leading 20nm signal-processing-enhanced mixed-signal technologies provides a compelling solution for the next generation LH and metro coherent platforms," said Lorenzo Longo, Broadcom Vice President and General Manager of Physical Layer Products (PLP). "We are excited to see our collaboration with NEL enabling economies of scale for mass deployment of 100G in metro and long-haul networks."Reference:CHIPI-X10CHIPCAP-R-50-TUBECHIPCAP-D-50-TUBE