The Kynix Blog

An infographic has been published by Accutronics, offering guidelines for Original Equipment Manufacturers on what should be considered when specifying a rechargeable smart battery to power their next product. The infographic highlights the importance of considering batteries at the earliest possible stage in the development process. Accutronics believes the most common and most costly mistake a design engineer can make when choosing a power source is leaving specification until it's too late.With smart batteries becoming increasingly common in industries such as medical and military, the demands placed on them are also becoming increasingly challenging. The infographic highlights the key features a design engineer or purchasing team should look for in a smart battery, including fuel gauging which can provide accurate state of charge prediction regardless of temperature, load and age. An accurate fuel gauge provides confidence whilst an inaccurate gauge can result in ‘runtime anxiety’ with the user constantly in fear that their device will run out of power. If the device is being used in a medical or mission-critical military application then the premature depletion of battery power could have severe implications.Other essential features include protection circuitry which prevents the battery cells from being over-charged, over-discharged, or operated at extreme temperatures. Smart power management ensures the battery only receives charge when it is required - this enhances both the life and safety of the battery. The ability for the battery to operate under differing power modes also allows it to hibernate when it is stored, maximising the shelf-life of batteries which may be in the supply chain for prolonged periods.“As the complexity of battery powered applications increases, OEM buyers need to ask themselves how fit for purpose their current design methodology is," explained Michele Windsor, Global Marketing Manager for Accutronics and Ultralife. “By choosing a smart battery, OEMs can rest assured that their device will continue to deliver optimum performance in a variety of applications. Whether it's the reliability and security demanded in the medical industry, or the extreme temperatures and harsh conditions faced in military and defence use, smart batteries can step up to any environment.“Because smart batteries are used in many life-critical situations, we’re also concerned about the rise of counterfeiting in the battery industry. Counterfeit batteries may be built using inferior battery cells and often lack the critical protection electronics which are required to make them operate safely. Also, a lack of quality control during manufacture, or forged regulatory certification means that fake batteries could prove costly for many OEMs."The infographic also highlights the importance of selecting a battery with built in digital algorithmic security, which can be used by a host device or charger to ensure that that the installed battery is the genuine article.”Reference:BHSD-2032-COVERBI-UM-3-4BC2/3AC

Together with his research team, Lars-Erik Wernersson, professor of nanoelectronics at Lund University in Sweden, has developed a technology for smarter transistors which could be used in electronics that operate on low energy, such as sensors for the IoT. Using the new transistors on a large scale could save enormous amounts of energy. Transistors are the smallest building blocks in electronics - a kind of switch.When the amount of energy required to switch the transistors on or off is reduced, major savings can be made overall. Transistors with low-energy consumption are expected to be highly significant for applications within the IoT.With the help of nanotechnology, the material and architecture in the transistors have been optimised so that they consume only a third of the energy required with the current technology when operating at low voltages. They can be used in digital circuits, various sensors and communication.“We have been able to operate the transistors under what is known as the fundamental thermionic limit, which reduces energy consumption. The next step is to continue to study the physics and to understand the components better, so that they can be further optimised. We also want to find new ways of transferring the technology to industry,” says Lars-Erik Wernersson.The researchers’ findings will probably have moved into production processes within five to ten years. According to Lars-Erik Wernersson, the extent of the energy savings will depend on the quality of the components which can be produced in industry.“The dream scenario is that all data servers will consume less energy thanks to the technology we use. In that case, the savings in one year would be comparable to all the energy consumed in Great Britain during the same period.”When his researcher colleagues recently reported data from an experiment conducted within the EU-funded E2SWITCH project, Lars-Erik Wernersson, along with the doctoral students who carried out the test, realised that these were ground-breaking results:“We have repeated the tests many times and succeeded in demonstrating that the performance with this new, energy-saving technology is not only satisfactory, but even better than that based on the traditional technologies.”According to Lars-Erik Wernersson, the new technology is a complement and one of several technologies which can be used to create more energy-efficient transistors – and different types of applications require different solutions.“We are very happy to have found something that many people have been searching for. We have shown that the transistors have high performance and that it is possible to reduce energy consumption. And now we can continue to add pieces to the puzzle,” concludes Lars-Erik Wernersson.Reference:2SA1987C47062sb1647 

In electronics, lower power consumption leads to operation cost savings, environmental benefits and the convenience advantages from longer running devices. While progress in energy efficiencies has been reported with alternative materials such as SiC and GaN, energy-savings in the standard inexpensive and widely used silicon devices are still keenly sought. K Tsutsui at Tokyo Institute of Technology and colleagues in Japan have now shown that by scaling down size parameters in all three dimensions their device they can achieve significant energy savings.Tsutsui and colleagues studied silicon insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs), a fast-operating switch that features in a number of every day appliances. While the efficiency of IGBTs is good, reducing the ON resistance, or the voltage from collector to emitter required for saturation (Vce(sat)), could help increase the energy efficiency of these devices further.Previous investigations have highlighted that increases in the "injection enhancement (IE) effect", which give rise to more charge carriers, leads to a reduction in Vce(sat). Although this has been achieved by reducing the mesa width in the device structure, the mesa resistance was thereby increased as well. Reducing the mesa height could help counter the increased resistance but is prone to impeding the (IE) effect. Instead the researchers reduced the mesa width, gate length, and the oxide thickness in the MOSFET to increase the IE effect and so reduce Vce(sat) from 1.70 to 1.26 V. With these alterations the researchers also used a reduced gate voltage, which has advantages for CMOS integration.They conclude, "It was experimentally confirmed for the first time that significant Vce(sat) reduction can be achieved by scaling the IGBT both in the lateral and vertical dimensions with a decrease in the gate voltage."Reference:2SA1987C4706KSC5024RTU  

A safety monitoring method called On-Site Visualization has been implemented in metro system construction sites in Jakarta, Indonesia as part of a Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) project. On-Site Visualization (OSV), as its name suggests, is a real-time data processing technology used to check safety levels at construction sites. A device with built-in LEDs is attached to walls and pillars at the building site and measures any irregularities or tilting. The LEDs light up like traffic lights to indicate the danger level with different colors: blue for "no irregularities", and yellow and red for "danger of collapse". This clear method of representation is important in countries with low literacy rates.The JICA project, titled Economic and Social Development Support in Developing Countries through Partnerships with the Private Sector, had participants from multiple private organizations in the OSV Consortium (an industry-academic collaborative group that promotes use of OSV technology). Professor Akutagawa oversaw the technology use. The teams monitored safety levels using OSV for a fixed period at three metro system building sites in the center of Jakarta (two stations in the city center and an elevated track in the south). Following this, they held a seminar presenting the results of the implementation. The project was evaluated highly by the head of construction at Jakarta MRT, who stated that "We can now expect higher standards of safety management".In many developing countries, an increase in public works is accompanied by a sharp rise in the number of accidents, and there is a growing need for safety monitoring. "I want to build a human network that combines know-how from different fields to improve levels of safety and security" commented Professor Akutagawa.Reference:LM324MMLM2710LM3080 

Researchers have proposed a design for the first DNA sequencer based on an electronic nanosensor that can detect tiny motions as small as a single atom. The proposed device—a type of capacitor, which stores electric charge—is a tiny ribbon of molybdenum disulfide suspended over a metal electrode and immersed in water. The ribbon is 15.5 nanometers (nm, billionths of a meter) long and 4.5 nm wide. Single-stranded DNA, containing a chain of bases (bits of genetic code), is threaded through a hole 2.5 nm wide in the thin ribbon. The ribbon flexes only when a DNA base pairs up with and then separates from a complementary base affixed to the hole. The membrane motion is detected as an electrical signal. As described in a new paper, the NIST team made numerical simulations and theoretical estimates to show the membrane would be 79 to 86 percent accurate in identifying DNA bases in a single measurement at speeds up to about 70 million bases per second. Integrated circuits would detect and measure electrical signals and identify bases. The results suggest such a device could be a fast, accurate and cost-effective DNA sequencer, according to the paper. Conventional sequencing, developed in the 1970s, involves separating, copying, labeling and reassembling pieces of DNA to read the genetic information. Newer methods include automated sequencing of many DNA fragments at once—still costly—and novel "nanopore sequencing" concepts. For example, the same NIST group recently demonstrated the idea of sequencing DNA by passing it through a graphene nanopore, and measuring how graphene's electronic properties respond to strain. The latest NIST proposal relies on a thin film of molybdenum disulfide—a stable, layered material that conducts electricity and is often used as a lubricant. Among other advantages, this material does not stick to DNA, which can be a problem with graphene. The NIST team suggests the method might even work without a nanopore—a simpler design—by passing DNA across the edge of the membrane. "This approach potentially solves the issue with DNA sticking to graphene if inserted improperly, because this approach does not use graphene, period," NIST theorist and lead author Alex Smolyanitsky said. "Another major difference is that instead of relying on the properties of graphene or any particular material used, we read motions electrically in an easier way by forming a capacitor. This makes any electrically conductive membrane suitable for the application." Nanomaterials expert Boris Yakobson of Rice University, a co-author on the paper, suggested the capacitor idea. Computational support was provided by the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. DNA has four bases. For the simulations, cytosine (C), which naturally pairs up with guanine (G), is attached to the inside of the pore. When a piece of DNA passes through the pore, any G in the strand temporarily attaches to the embedded C, pulling on the nanoribbon and signaling the electrode. The DNA sequence is determined by measuring how and when electrical blips vary over time. To detect all four bases, four nanoribbons, each with a different base attached to the pore, could be stacked vertically to create an integrated DNA sensor. The molybdenum disulfide ribbon is flexible enough to deform measurably in response to the forces required to break up a DNA pair, but rigid enough to have less ongoing, meaningless movement than graphene, potentially reducing unwanted noise in the sequencing signals. The deflection of the ribbon is exceedingly small, on the order of one angstrom, the size of a hydrogen atom. Its pulling force is on the order of 50 piconewtons, or trillionths of a newton, enough to break up the delicate chemical bonds between DNA bases. Researchers estimated how the device would perform in an integrated circuit and found the peak currents through the capacitor were measurable (50 to 70 picoamperes), even for the small nanoribbons studied. The current peaks are expected to be even larger in physical systems. The device size could be tweaked to make it even easier to measure sequencing signals. The NIST authors hope to build a physical version of the device in the future. For practical applications, the chip-sized DNA sequencing microfluidic technology might be combined with electronics into a single device small enough to be handheld. Reference: RFCS04021000BJTT1 RFCS04025000DBTT1 SC02201518    

The availability of the MMC5883MA 3 Axis Magnetic Sensor has been announced by MEMSIC. The newest member of MEMSIC’s Anisotropic Magneto Resistive (AMR) based Magnetic Sensor family, it provides the industry’s highest accuracy, lowest noise and lowest power consumption. All combined in an industry standard small LGA package, and addresses the ever-increasing demands of industrial and drone applications.Dr. Yang Zhao, MEMSIC’s Chairman, President and CEO said: “With more than 300 million units shipped, MEMSIC has a long history of success with its AMR magnetic sensor in a wide range of critical portable and wearable applications. Integrating innovative design architecture and optimised processes, MEMSIC’s new 3-Axis, ± 8 Gauss Full Scale Range (FSR) MMC5883MA provides a reliable, high performance solution for industrial and drone system design and development engineers who need to provide stability and direction sensing for their designs.”The MEMSIC MMC5883MA 3-Axis Magnetic Sensor provides 16-bit operation over a wide ± 8 Gauss operating range with linearity of ±0.2 % FSR, hysteresis of 0.2 % FSR and repeatability of 0.2 % FSR on each of its 3-axis. Its exceptionally high performance enables faster algorithms for hard and soft iron interference correction delivering more precise and faster heading determination. The small, low profile LGA package measures 3.0x3.0x1.0 mm. and operates over the -40 to +85°C temperature range from a supply voltage of 2.16-3.6V. It exhibits extremely low current consumption of only 20uA at seven samples per second data rate and extremely low noise level of only 0.4mGauss total RMS noise making it ideal for drone and industrial markets.The MC5883MA is complete system incorporating on-chip signal processing and an integrated I2C 400kHz FAST mode operation digital interface for direct connectivity to the system microprocessor.The MEMSIC MMC5883MA 3-Axis Magnetic Sensor is available immediately and in production now. Devices pre-mounted on prototyping boards can be purchased directly from MEMSIC. Designers can evaluate and log data using MEMSIC's Universal Evaluation Board.Reference:TLE4976-2KAH180-WG-7AH1801-WG-7