The Kynix Blog

 As the technology landscape continues to evolve and becomes ever mor complexs,more and more traditional electronic components are having to evolve to support new capabilities expecially connectors. Even emerging technologies, whether that’s artificial intelligence, the use of big data analytics, or smart wearable devices and drones, are being appropriated by the world’s military in order to improve the effectiveness and capabilities of their armed forces. Connectors may not be considered the most technological of products, but they haven’t been immune to the mega trends sweeping through many industries, not least the need to supply components that are smaller but also lighter and smarter.The changes are significant with product performance in the military space and electrical integrity having a huge impact on connector systems and their design, whether in terms of the equipment being used by soldiers, rugged displays, communications equipment or in vehicle electronics. Bob Stanton--technology director at Omnetics said: Today’s newer electronic instruments can neither afford the space or the weight required by older cabling and connector systems.High performance product is required and it needs to offer customers space and weight benefits but without impacting on performance, reliability or functionality.”  A growing list of connector suppliers are working on replacing two or three connectors with one miniature, dense multi-functional connector, for example, and that is having an impact on the kinds of cables people are looking to choose. ODU, a supplier of connector system's, has been working on developing connectors suitable for use with multiple interfaces that will be connecting the soldier of the future with their weapons and communications as well as with military vehicles and, according to the company’s managing director, Nick Harper, has been focused on developing one connector family capable of meeting the requirements for every application. (ODU has been heavily involved with supplying over 100,000 helmet connectors as part of the Ministry of Defence's Bowman programme.) While engineers are looking to supply smaller, more compact, connectors they have to also ensure that they are able to withstand temperature extremes, vibration, and be able to operate in an environment that might be sandy, wet or dirty – all of which could compromise the integrity of the connector. New surface treatments and technologies are being developed specifically to address the extreme environmental conditions expected in the military space. Take an example, connector manufacturer, LEMO, has developed NiCorAl a corrosion resistant conductive surface treatment that offers an alternative to Cadmium. Miniaturisation “New technologies are driving continuous miniaturisation of electronic equipment for communications, computing, surveillance, sensing and navigation,” according to Stanton. “Whether soldier-worn or on-board a UAV or UGV, small size and light weight are demanded – but no performance compromises can ever be accepted.” Many of the older military specification models are becoming outdated in the face of growing demands for micro- and nano-sized connectors that are needed to address the requirements of higher-technology electronics. “Trusted military connectors like MIL-DTL-24308 D-subs are being superseded by smaller, lighter alternatives like 83513 and 32139 Micro- or Nano-Ds,” explains Stanton. “Smaller can never mean weaker, though,” he warns. “Although they have very fine pitch (0.64mm for the Nano-Ds), they must be able to withstand environmental hazards like extremes of heat and cold and exposure to corrosive chemicals.”  In order to address this, Omnetics uses open-ended beryllium-copper pins, which are shaped to maintain four continuous points of contact and are tempered for continuous spring force.  “These have actually exceeded 2000 mate/de-mate cycles in testing, and the design gives extra travel in compression and expansion to ensure continuous electrical contact even during extremely harsh vibration,”  Stanton continues, “Sockets are copper-alloy, and designed to increase contact pressure as they expand at higher ambient temperatures. When cold, the socket contracts without over-stressing the spring. Contacts are nickel/gold plated after forming, meeting ASTM B488 Type II, giving high corrosion resistance.” Soldiers can be under huge pressure in action, so speed and convenience are also critical. Stanton explained that at Omnetics we have designed innovative latching Nano-D families that connect securely without fiddly jackscrews, and which pass the stringent MIL-DTL-32139 shock and vibration specifications. Military connectors are also having to contend with another important trend and that is the dramatic increase in the amount of data that is being routed between devices and people. More data requires more sensors and where data is time critical and where interference is unacceptable connectors that are smaller and more rugged are required. Technological Arms Race “Keeping the technological upper hand is critical to ensure military success,” explained Stanton. “Today's military forces need to maintain their superiority in unfamiliar environments from mountainous deserts to urban areas and, accordingly, soldiers need to be quick on their feet, and unmanned aerial and ground vehicles are increasingly in demand for dangerous missions, close to the enemy.”  Ben Green, Head of New Business at Harwin agree with it .“A key method for protecting frontline troops and ensuring that lives are not placed into unnecessarily dangerous situations is through greater use of smart technology. The interest in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) has grown significantly, as a result.” UAVs and UGVs enable the military to undertake a number of operations - including detailed surveillance, the transportation of vital supplies and even recovery missions - without placing service personnel at risk. “These types of vehicles have to rely on the incorporation of sophisticated electronic circuitry and, in turn, the support of high reliability cabling/interconnects - so that the power needed to drive the motors for propulsion purposes and data from an array of different sensors to allow timely manoeuvring can be delivered,” Green says. “The constituent components all need to be compact and light in order to deal with space and weight constraints, so that less impact is placed on their limited energy reserves and the vehicles can cover longer distances before they have to return.” These trends are combining to drive continuous miniaturisation of electronic equipment for communications, computing, surveillance, sensing and navigation Green says. “Whether soldier-worn or on-board a UAV or UGV, small size and light weight are demanded.” To address these demands, defence agencies and their military contractors need to be able to collaborate with suppliers who can provide them with robust, high performance components in small form factors. “The connectors specified as part of UAV/UGV design and development activity, for example, as with any other military-related application, need to possess elevated levels of reliability, as well as exhibiting high degrees resilience to electro-magnetic interference (EMI),” Green contends. “Dealing with all these different aspects is clearly challenging, so engaging with the right supplier is absolutely critical,” he concludes. But there is another reason why equipment needs to be compact, lightweight, and technically advanced, according to Stanton. “Today's arms races increasingly pit professional armies against militias that are adept at harnessing powerful consumer technologies, whether that’s smartphones, mobile data, GPS or quadcopters. “Overcoming these challenges demands smart thinking about even the finest of details – and that includes the connector.”   

Today,let's talk something about MSP430 interrupts and times.   About "Interrupt"   Do you know what is an "interrupt"? Interrupt is a signal that informs our MCU that a certain event has happened,causing the interruption of the normal flow of the main program and the execution of an "interrupt routine",that handles the event and takes a specified action. Interrupts are essential to avoid wasting the processor's valuable time in polling loops, waiting for external events (in fact they are used in Real-Time Operating Systems, RTOS).   In the MSP430 architecture, there are several types of interrupts: timer interrupts, port interrupts, ADC interrupts and so on. Each one of them needs to be enabled and configured to work, and there is a separate "service routine" for every interrupt.   About code  Now let's see how to use timer and port interrupts to flash some LEDs,we will keep the ADC interrupt for the next turorial. So,let's write some code!   #include "msp430g2231.h" void main(void){  WDTCTL = WDTPW + WDTHOLD;                 // Stop WDT   You should recognize those lines,we used them in the last tutorial to add the definition file for our MCU, declare the main function and stop the watchdog timer.  CCTL0 = CCIE;                             // CCR0 interrupt enabled  TACTL = TASSEL_2 + MC_1 + ID_3;           // SMCLK/8, upmode    CCR0 =  10000;                           // 12.5 Hz   Here's some interesting stuff. These lines configure the timer interrupt. We first enable it by setting the CCIE bit in the CCTL0 register. Then we set the clock for the timer module in the TimerA control register. If you have a look at the msp430g2231.h file, you can see that: TASSEL_2 selects the SMCLK (supplied by an internal DCO which runs at about 1 MHz); MC_1 selects the "UP mode", the timer counts up to the number stored in the CCR0 register; ID_3 selects an internal 8x divider for the supplied clock (in our case we have SMCLK/8).   Finally, we set the CCR0 register. We configured the TimerA module to count up to the number stored in this register before overflowing and triggering the interrupt. By setting it at 10000, we get an overflow-frequency of 12,5 Hz. In fact we have (SMCLK/8)/10000 = 12,5 . You may obtain several frequencies by changing this number (remember that the MSP430 has a 16-bit timer, so the value stored in the CCR0 register must not be higher than 65535), changing the dividers or adding an if-else block with a counter in the interrupt routine. Let's go ahead.    P1OUT &= 0x00;               // Shut down everything  P1DIR &= 0x00;                P1DIR |= BIT0 + BIT6;       // P1.0 and P1.6 pins output the rest are input  P1REN |= BIT3;                 // Enable internal pull-up/down resistors  P1OUT |= BIT3;                 //Select pull-up mode for P1.3     These lines should be familiar too, but there are some additions: firstly, we clear the PORT1 output and direction registers. Then we set the P1.0 and P1.6 pins as outputs and the rest as inputs. The last two lines enable the pull-up resistor on the switch (BIT3) so that the normal state (button not pressed) will be "1".  P1IE |= BIT3;                    // P1.3 interrupt enabled  P1IES |= BIT3;                  // P1.3 Hi/lo edge  P1IFG &= ~BIT3;               // P1.3 IFG cleared With these lines of code, we first tell the MCU to listen to the P1.3 pin for logic-state changes (effectively enabling the interrupt on that particular pin). Then we select the edge when the interrupt is raised (from High to Low or Low to High); remember that the button on the LaunchPad connects the input pin to GND when pushed and to VCC when not. For this reason we seletct Hi/Lo edge. Finally we clear the interrupt flag for that pin. The interrput flag register P1IFG reports when an interrupt is raised, and it should be cleared at the end of the interrupt service routine.  _BIS_SR(CPUOFF + GIE);        // Enter LPM0 w/ interrupt    while(1)                      //Loop forever, we do  everything with interrupts!  {}} With this line, as you can remember, we shut down the CPU to spare some power while keeping the interrupts enabled. Then we enter a loop to be sure the MCU does nothing else, as we do our job with interrupts. // Timer A0 interrupt service routine#pragma vector=TIMERA0_VECTOR__interrupt void Timer_A (void){  P1OUT ^= BIT0;                            // Toggle P1.0} This is the TimerA interrupt service routine. Every time the TimerA overflows, the code inserted in this routine (note the special declaration) is executed. As you can see we only toggle the P1.0 pin (red led on LaunchPad), then we return to normal execution. // Port 1 interrupt service routine#pragma vector=PORT1_VECTOR__interrupt void Port_1(void){       P1OUT ^= BIT6;                        // Toggle P1.6     P1IFG &=~BIT3;                        // P1.3 IFG cleared    } This is the Port1 interrupt service routine. Every time the we push the P1.3 button, the code inserted in this routine (note the special declaration) is executed. We toggle the P1.6 pin (greenled on LaunchPad), clear the P1.3 interrupt flag (very important) and then we return to normal execution. Compile and program the LaunchPad, you should see the red led blink, and the green led toggle when you press the P1.3 button. Here's the full code, enjoy! #include "msp430g2231.h"    void main(void){  WDTCTL = WDTPW + WDTHOLD;     // Stop WDT    CCTL0 = CCIE;                             // CCR0 interrupt enabled  TACTL = TASSEL_2 + MC_1 + ID_3;           // SMCLK/8, upmode  CCR0 =  10000;                     // 12.5 Hz    P1OUT &= 0x00;               // Shut down everything  P1DIR &= 0x00;                P1DIR |= BIT0 + BIT6;            // P1.0 and P1.6 pins output the rest are input  P1REN |= BIT3;                   // Enable internal pull-up/down resistors  P1OUT |= BIT3;                   //Select pull-up mode for P1.3  P1IE |= BIT3;                       // P1.3 interrupt enabled  P1IES |= BIT3;                     // P1.3 Hi/lo edge  P1IFG &= ~BIT3;                  // P1.3 IFG cleared  _BIS_SR(CPUOFF + GIE);          // Enter LPM0 w/ interrupt  while(1)                          //Loop forever, we work with interrupts!  {}}  // Timer A0 interrupt service routine #pragma vector=TIMERA0_VECTOR __interrupt void Timer_A (void) {     P1OUT ^= BIT0;                          // Toggle P1.0 } // Port 1 interrupt service routine#pragma vector=PORT1_VECTOR__interrupt void Port_1(void){       P1OUT ^= BIT6;                      // Toggle P1.6   P1IFG &= ~BIT3;                     // P1.3 IFG cleared }  

  Background Nowadays,more and more people need wifi and they can not leave it.More and more family has connected with wifi even in undeveloping country or area.Today,let's make a wifi based home automation project to realize that controlling home devices by using wifi as wireless communication. In this project,we will using esp8266 wifi module and Arduino Uno R3,We have also posted a similar project using pic microcontroller based home automation over wifi. you may also like to check it.    components we needESP8266 Wifi Module: ESP8266 is a wifi chip that provides Transfer Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP). There are different ESP8266modules available in the market. In this project we are using the first model. It has 6 pins and operates on 3.3v. ESP8266 was initialized via the following commands:ATAT+CWMODE = 3AT+CIFSRAT+CIPMUX = 1ESP8266 was then connected to the mobile hotspot by the following commands:AT+CWLAP (returns the list of the available Wi-Fi networks available)AT+CWJAP = “SSID”, “password”  Example: AT+CWJAP = “PTCL-BB”, “12345467”Arduino Uno: Arduino is development boards build around ATmega 328P. Arduino is perfect for this project as it provides much pins to interface relay module,16×2 LCD and ESP8266 wifi module4 channel Relay Module: Relay is used to switch on and off higher voltages devices by using low dc voltages such as signal from Arduino digital pin. In this project we used 4 channel relay module it is easy to interface with Arduino instead of connecting each relay separately. It can bears up to 250VAC and 10 amps of current.16X2 LCD: 16×2 LCD is used to display 16 characters in two lines. It is easy to interface with Arduino due to its available library. In this project this LCD is used to display the status of the appliances whether it is on or off. Project Circuit Diagram  Connections 16×2 LCD:VSS to ground.VDD to supply voltage.VO to adjust pin of 10k potentiometer.RS to Pin A0.RW to ground.Enable to Pin A1.LCD D4 to Pin A2.LCD D5 to Pin A3.LCD D6 to Pin A4.LCD D7 to Pin A5.Ground one end of potentiometer.5v to other end of potentiometer. 4 Channel Relay modules:External 5 volt to JD VCC.Ground to ground.Ini1 to Pin 3.Ini2 to Pin 4.Ini3 to Pin5.Vcc to Arduino 5v.Connect one terminal of all bulbs to normally open terminal of relays. One end of 220VAC to all common terminals of relay and other end with other terminal of bulbs. ESP8266 wifi module to Arduino:Module Vcc to 3.3v.Module CH_PD to 3.3v.Module Ground to Arduino ground.Module Tx to Arduino Rx.Module Rx to Arduino Tx. Working Download the S Remote application from Google Play Store. Open the application, go to Setting>>Advance>>Layout and select the Button according to your desire. Then select IP and enter the IP address which is get when we initialize ESP8266 wifi module using this command “AT+CIFSR”. IP address is written in third line such as “192.168.10.4”. Then write the port which is “80” in port option. Go to Setting>>Keys and then select key1 and write the label to display on button and then the data which you want to send to Arduino. Click the TCP button. Similarly write the label and data in others keys. If you connect everything correctly then power up the circuit and open serial monitor, it takes few seconds to initialize wifi module. Press the button on application, the data is send by application to Arduino through Wifi and then Arduino performs operations according to instructions and the status on devices are display on LCD.  

Nowadays,almost all the focus in transportation is on self-driving ars with more and more similar initiatives with google car.Trucks, however, could also benefit from extra automation and connectivity to enable preventive maintenance, improve safety, efficiency and cost. Might we therefore one day soon see trucks on our roads with no driver in the front seat?  Jörg Rüger's comment “Not for at least 10 years; I don’t think the public would accept it,” argued Jörg Rüger, president of commercial vehicle and off-road at Bosch Mobility. “If we’re talking autonomous driving for trucks, we’re talking about motorways, not inter-urban traffic. For that, it’s not realistic from today’s point of view because when the truck leaves the motorway, it would need someone to take over.” This is because the current level of technology doesn’t provide for this degree of autonomy – yet. While Europe is in the driver’s seat when it comes to standards for increasing road safety, legislation is lagging behind the level of sophisticated solutions being developed – solutions which could lead to fully autonomous trucks. Legislation is currently being written for stop and go control systems and turn assist systems, which Rüger believes will appear in the next couple of years. Dr Thomas Dieckmann's comment “WABCO has developed its own urban turning assist collision avoidance system,” said Dr Thomas Dieckmann, leader of advanced development at WABCO. “OnCity is a single-sensor solution and the first to use LiDAR (light imaging, detection and ranging) technology.” LiDAR measures distances by illuminating a target with a pulsed laser light and measuring the reflected pulses. “The system alerts the driver visually and acoustically to a potential collision, both right before and during a turning manoeuvre,” Dr Dieckmann added. “In the future, it will be able to apply the brake autonomously to prevent collisions, should the driver fail to take corrective action.” The next level up in terms of automation – though only currently envisioned on motorways – is platoons: convoys of trucks linked and controlled electronically through short range vehicle-to-vehicle communications. Led by the front vehicle, this communication, coupled with technologies such as forward collision avoidance systems, enables the trucks to accelerate or brake simultaneously and to follow each other more closely. Potential benefits include: better fuel economy due to reduced air resistance; reduced congestion; fewer collisions; and less pressure for drivers, who could, instead of driving, plan routes, process shipping documents or simply take a break. Several trial platoon runs have been conducted in Europe – including the European Truck Platooning Challenge – but legislation is still wanting. “Platooning needs legislation to allow trucks to drive at a distance of eight to 10m, much closer together than it is currently legal,” Rüger explained, pictured left, “and to allow drivers to be on standby. “There will eventually be mixed platoons and that needs a standardised protocol. The expectation is to see these platoons on the road between 2023 and 2025.” Not everyone is keen on the idea however. The Road Haulage Association believes platooning is not feasible.  Rod McKenzie's comment “Causing queues for vehicles trying to join and leave the motorway will simply create even more congestion,” cautioned Rod McKenzie. “Of course, the auto-pilot facility has the ability to remove human error and mistake – but what happens if the engine goes wrong?” As drivers won’t be concentrating on the road, they might not be able to react as quickly when there’s a system failure, for example. Another downside is that systems could potentially be hacked. How to resolve these issues To resolve these issues, Volvo Trucks is concentrating on improving human machine interaction to ensure good usability. “We provide training and methods for continuous improvements along with supporting tools to assist planning and driving,” said Michael Gudmunds, product manager, soft products. While the practicality of platoons is open to debate, commercial vehicles are already benefitting from increased connectivity and automation. “Commercial vehicles can already upload data into the cloud and download automated software updates,” said Rüger. “Infotainment is becoming more connected with smartphone integration, voice control and a Bluetooth hands-free system. Navigation systems are being used to optimise engine use and fuel consumption by providing the driver with road and environment mapping information in advance.” Real-time information about road conditions – such as the presence of black ice – can be shared between trucks via data collected by the sensors, then processed and stored in the cloud and retransmitted. Legislation for advanced emergency braking systems (AEBS) and lane departure warning (LDW) has been in place since 2015. Commercial vehicle technology supplier WABCO offers an LDW system called OnLane, which detects road markings and vehicle position, and warn the driver of imminent lane departure via visual, audible and haptic signals. The camera-based solution can distinguish between a deliberate lane change and an unintentional drift by identifying the driver’s turn signal usage.Lane keeping support takes LDW one step further by not only warning the driver but also, if no action is taken, by taking steps to ensure the vehicle stays in its lane. Volvo Trucks’ Dynamic Steering – which combines conventional hydraulic power steering with an electric motor fitted to the steering gear (pictured below) – also provides lane keeping support.  The electrical control unit processes data from multiple sensors and controls the motor at 2000Hz to work out the truck’s direction and the driver’s intentions. A principle called ‘torque overlay’ corrects unintentional steering movements to keep the truck dead on course. Some trucks are already ‘smart’, benefitting from advancements in automation and connectivity, and companies are more than eager to take these capabilities to a higher level. Conclusion But there is a long path to full autonomy and, as Ruger says: “A 40tonne autonomous truck frightens people.” Autonomous commercial vehicles therefore will not appear tomorrow. “Development will be steady,” Dr Dieckmann concluded. “We will see an increase in partial automation, then further developments in the areas of manoeuvring and highway driving.” 

  Do you know Dallas Semiconductor which is owned by Maxim Intergrated now? It's well known for making some excellent real-time clocks(RTCs). Let me take an example: DS1307 is simple,works with essentially any cheap 32,768Hz watch crystal,is easily accessible over I2C,and is extremely power efficient( 500nA current when running the oscillator on battery power). As great as it is, the DS1307 has a major drawback: it relies on an external crystal and lacks any sort of temperature compensation. Thus, any change in temperature will cause the clock to drift. A 20ppm error in the frequency of the crystal adds up to about a minute of error per month. Not so great. Well,it does not matter. It's fortunate that Maxim offers DS3231 which is called as an “Extremely Accurate I2C-Integrated RTC/TCXO/Crystal”.This chip has 32kHz crystaql integratrf into the package itself and uses a built -in temperature sensor to periodically measure  the temperature of the crystal and, by switching different internal capacitors in and out of the crystal circuit, can precisely adjust its frequency so it remains constant. It’s specified to keep time within 2ppm from 0°C to +40°C, and 3.5ppm from -40°C to +85°C, which means the clock would only drift 63 and 110 seconds per year, respectively. So cool. The one (very minor) downside is that it draws about twice the current, a bit less than 1 μA, than the DS1307. Still, a common 220mAh CR2032 battery could power the chip for at least a decade with no problem. Such a circuit would be mostly limited by the CR2032’s self-discharge rate anyway. In my case, I wanted to use such RTCs on several of my Raspberry Pis that are not regularly (read: almost never) connected to the internet, and so cannot always get their time from NTP servers. Some great people have designed a simple board that fits on the Raspberry Pi's pin headers for power,ground and I2c and own the DS3231,pull-up resistors for the I2C bus, and a decoupling capacitor. It even has pads for a backup battery (not included, but adding a battery holder and coin cell is straightforward). Chinese vendors on eBay sell the board for about $1.50, with free shipping. Perfect. The above picture is the board I am using on my Pis,along with the backup battery and holder I added. Well,I think this condition should be considered in that DS3231 is more expensive than a complete board.Well, I am so curious and I wondered if these were counterfeit chips that were pin and function compatible, QC rejects, or somehow otherwise illegitimate chips. For science, I ordered a few extra boards and tested them over the last year, where “tested” means “set the time on the chips with a Pi that was NTP synchronized to a GPS timing receiver, disconnected them from the Pi, and left them on the shelf running on battery power for a year”. The chips would be in direct sunlight in the mornings, and the temperature in the room would range between about 15°C and 30°C throughout the year. Not extreme, but not precisely regulated either. I did not adjust the “aging register” in the chip to trim the oscillator before this test, and the register was set to its default value of “0”. After a year, the chip with the largest drift was only 16 seconds off, which is about 0.5 ppm. That’s well within spec, so I’m happy. If these chips were counterfeit, they were at least good counterfeits that worked as advertised. However, I wanted to look closer so I sacrificed one of the chips for science. Thanks to my friend Jesse for reminding me that I can just snip off the legs of the chip rather than trying to de-solder it. That made things a lot easier. Here’s the top of the package. It claims to be an SN model, which means it is specced for the full -40°C to +85°C temperature range. The date code says it was made in week 33 of 2011, as part of lot 917AC. The # mark means it’s RoHS compliant. The laser markings seemed a bit dodgy and not like the normal high-quality laser markings I see on other Maxim chips. I contacted Maxim, explained the situation, and sent photos of the package and die (see below). After checking their records, they say the style of the markings, the date code, and lot number are all consistent with that particular lot made in 2011, which strongly suggests the chips are legitimate. They also reminded me that they do not warrant or guarantee any products purchased from unauthorized resellers! ! !( Buy DS3231 chip,go to kynix )Good to know, and not unexpected. I zoomed in with my USB microscope to examine the markings in more detail. It’s a bit hard to see in this close-up, but you should be able to see the digits “31”. Obviously, Maxim must have different types of laser marking equipment on their different production lines.  I normally would digest the epoxy packaging of the chip in acid at work, butI was at home that day and didn’t have access to the chemicals and safety equipment I have in the lab at work, plus I didn’t want to dissolve the integrated crystal and its metal can. Instead, I embrittled the packaging by heating it in the flame of a common Bic lighter for several seconds and then quenching it in a glass of cool water. I repeated this process several times. Next, I sanded down the back of the ship (assuming that the interesting parts of the die would face upwards, which they were — if they hadn’t been on the top, I’d sacrifice another chip and sand the top down) with fine sandpaper until I hit metal. It turns out I was a bit too vigorous in my sanding, and accidentally sanded through the crystal’s metal housing and broke one of the forks of the tuning fork oscillating element.Oops. In the photos below, the notch on the chip is to the left, so pin 1 is to the top left. The main die is behind the large copper pad to the left. The fuzzy “hair” at the bottom are strands of the epoxy package that I didn’t clean up.  Let's do a comprehensive observation. This was interesting, but even after Maxim said the packing and exterior markings looked legitimate, I was curious if the die itself was an actual Dallas/Maxim die or if it was a fake. Using tweezers and a fine, sharp knife I was able to crumble away more of the epoxy package and remove the die. Unfortunately, the bond wires were still embedded in the package and so broke off when I removed the die. I also slightly scratched part of the die and cracked off part of the top-right corner. Clearly, acid digestion is the way to go. Here’s the first look at the die itself. I had washed it with isopropanol and both the chip and the microscope slide are a bit wet. The die measures ~3.6 x 2.3 mm, and the images below were taken with my USB microscope.    First, I wanted to check to see if the die was actually made by Maxim or if it was a fake. The die clearly says “DALLAS SEMICONDUCTOR”, as well as “©2004 (M) MAXIM”. Looks legit. That’s refreshing.  In addition to my cheap USB microscope at home, I was later able to take the die into the lab at work and use the (very expensive) Zeiss microscope to take more pictures. I was also able to clean it more thoroughly using the ultrasonic cleaner so the images came out considerably better. Alas, compatibility issues between the camera mounted on the microscope and my computer prevented me from using the camera to get high-quality photos at this time. I’ve ordered an adapter so I can get better photos, but it will be several weeks. At that time I will either update this post or link to a new one. I plan on creating large composite images of the die at various levels of zoom, and with different optical filters. In the interim, here are a few photos I took using my smartphone aimed through the eyepiece of the lab microscope. They are nowhere near as clear or stunning in appearance as they are when viewed directly through the eyepiece or via the on-scope camera.  One days ago.I’ve been able to get the camera on the microscope to cooperate and have gotten several high-quality photos. As the microscope has an extremely short depth of focus, particularly at high magnification, some images have been “focus stacked” by combining several images at different focus depths. Similarly, the large composite images are made from several individual images that may be focused slightly differently from each other. These processes may cause visual artifacts to be present.  In general, images with green and red colored layers use standard reflected microscopy with no filters, while images with blue and gold layers use reflected differential interference contrast (DIC). That's all. Hope you like this observation about DS3231 real-time clock as me. 

There is no doubt that the use of LCD headlamp is a succcessful further step towards digitalizing lighting. LCD headlamp which enables complex functions will also be relevant to autonomous driving. Let's talk something about the following research project about developing a headlamp basics on a LCD (  Full name is Liquid Crystal Display )which made by HELLA and seceral partners.This technology is an good example already known in the home entertainment field.  About The ProjectIn the context of the research project funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) regarding the fully adaptive light distribution for intelligent, efficient and safe vehicle lighting (VoLiFa2020), HELLA has developed a headlamp on the basis of a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) in collaboration with project partners Merck, Institut für Großflächige Mikroelektronik IGM, Stuttgart University, Porsche, Elmos Semiconductor, Schweizer Electronic, and the University of Paderborn. Complex FunctionsIn general,the new LCD headlamp projects 30.000 pixels onto the road. This allows adjusting the light pattern in an intelligent and continuous manner to various driving situations in real time. The use of an LC display is a further step towards digitalizing lighting. This means: the adaptation of the light pattern will increasingly be determined by software. The driver will obtain the best possible view of the road. Individual segments with e.g. other traffic participants or strongly reflecting street signs can be omitted or dimmed in a targeted manner. Highly complex functions are also conceivable: navigation arrows or lines showing the ideal lane can be projected onto the road. LCD technology enables functions that will also be relevant to autonomous driving.  The LC display is the headlamp’s key component. It is situated between the LED light source and the projection lens. The display generates a matrix with 100 x 300 pixels that can be individually controlled and dimmed. A camera installed in the vehicle as well as a sensor optically reading distances and speeds (light detection and ranging sensor, LiDAR), will forward the ambient information to the headlamp control unit via a processor. This will then direct the individual display pixels up to 60 times per second. 25 high-power LED’s arranged in three rows will serve as light source. Each LED’s light intensity will be adjusted to the respective lighting situation. Due to increasing traffic volumes and safety requirements, intelligent lighting systems are of increasing importance. LCD technology enables completely new functionalities and opportunities here. And the use is not limited to passenger cars. Other vehicle categories, such as commercial vehicles or buses also provide meaningful application areas. ThanksgivingThanks to this project's great resolution and sharpness of detail, it opens up a diffirent new paths in automotive lighting technology.