NextInput Inc. (Mountain View, CA), developer of MEMS-based force sensors, has increased the sensitivity of its ForceGauge sensor family by a factor of two.
This change paves the way for force-based buttons in smart watches, large touch displays, automotive panels, stainless steel appliances and other applications the company claimed.
The FT-7124/7324/7524 ForceGauge sensors are qualified and released to production.
"I’m excited we continue to increase our leadership by enabling new force sensing use cases and simplifying the manufacturing process with our Just Bond It peel and stick strategy," said Ali Foughi, NextInput CEO and founder, in statement.
Researchers at Nvidia (Santa Clara, CA) have developed a deep learning-based approach that they say has learned to fix grainy or pixelated photos simply by looking at examples of corrupted photos only.
Previous efforts to restore images have focused on training a neural network on example pairs of noisy and clean images, enabling the artificial intelligence (AI) to learn how to make up the difference. The new AI technique however, developed by researchers from NVIDIA, Aalto University, and MIT, only requires two input images with the noise or grain.
The AI, say the researchers, can remove artifacts, noise, grain, and automatically enhance photos without ever being shown what a noise-free image looks like.
"It is possible to learn to restore signals without ever observing clean ones, at performance sometimes exceeding training using clean exemplars," say the researchers in a paper on the research. "[The neural network] is on par with state-of-the-art methods that make use of clean examples — using precisely the same training methodology, and often without appreciable drawbacks in training time or performance."
The researchers trained their system on 50,000 images in the ImageNet validation set using Nvidia Tesla P100 GPUs with the cuDNN-accelerated TensorFlow deep learning framework. To test their system, the researchers validated the neural network on three different datasets.
Potential applications are many, say the researchers. The method can even be used to enhance MRI images, perhaps paving the way to drastically improve medical imaging.
"There are several real-world situations where obtaining clean training data is difficult: low-light photography (e.g., astronomical imaging), physically-based rendering, and magnetic resonance imaging," they say. "Our proof-of-concept demonstrations point the way to significant potential benefits in these applications by removing the need for potentially strenuous collection of clean data. Of course, there is no free lunch – we cannot learn to pick up features that are not there in the input data – but this applies equally to training with clean targets."
Smart home IoT software company People Power (Palo Alto, CA), a provider of white label consumer offerings, has introduced an artificial intelligence-powered location detection microservice aimed at solving geofencing limitations for smart home services.
Designed to address "poorly performing" GPS-based geofencing solutions that require people to carry their phones with them, the new Home Occupancy Status Microservice determines home, away, vacation, and sleep modes of occupants for security, energy, and senior care services. It intelligently detects and understands occupancy conditions of a home based on motion patterns derived from activity sensors.
"A fundamental technical blocker for the next generation smart home is the phone-based geofencing solutions of today, which sadly cannot keep pace with customer needs," says David Moss, CTO of People Power. "With our new AI-powered microservice, residents can now enjoy the convenience of having their smart homes automatically switch occupancy modes for greater levels of convenience, ease of use, and dependability."
According to the company, the microservice makes complex occupancy status decisions quickly and accurately from sensor data using patent pending machine learning algorithms designed to determine the four essential occupancy states - i.e., home, away, vacation, and sleep - along with the transitions between those states. Highly complex algorithms extract several dozen dimensions of occupancy factors in the home from thousands of data points, including the day, time, door activity, motion activity, energy and water use, as well as supporting geofencing data and more.
The microservice, says the company, is capable of knowing when people are asleep to deliver advanced automation, senior care, and wellness solutions from understanding a person's natural sleep patterns. It is able to integrate hundreds of wirelessly connected smart home devices from manufacturers including Bosch, Philips, Centralite, Linkhigh International.
Luxoft Holding has partnered with MBition GmbH, a Daimler subsidiary, to open an R&D Centre in Berlin create solutions and offer software services for future Daimler vehicles.
Alwin Bakkenes, Managing Director of Luxoft Automotive said, “This partnership presents an opportunity for progressive, forward thinking software developers to join the mobility revolution and shape how the next generation of drivers interact with cars. This is an exciting time to work in Berlin and we look forward to working closely with Daimler to co-create the smart technologies of tomorrow.”
The new Centre is based in Berlin’s co-working office, Mindspace, and focuses on mobility services and digital vehicle software. Luxoft has committed over 100 engineering, software, hardware and design specialists to help develop software for next generation vehicles.
The new R&D Center is still looking for QA Automation Engineers with expertise in Python, Manual QA Engineers with DevOps principles knowledge, Software Developers with Linux Embedded Expertise, C++, Qt and Tools and Automation Engineer, with Jenkins, Git and Unix systems knowledge. Employees can expect an attractive social package and options for relocation.
Daimler expands its innovation network with the opening of the "Lab 1886" in Atlanta, Georgia. The facility is designed to drive the company's transformation from a car manufacturer to a provider of mobility services.
In the Lab1886, around 25 employees will contribute to the development of new business ideas and innovative projects by the end of 2018; further personnel expansion will be dynamically geared to current requirements. With excellent universities and colleges in the surrounding area, the new location offers "perfect conditions for innovation", according to the car manufacturer. In addition, more and more companies from the technology and digital industries are settling in Atlanta. The capital of the state of Georgia is one of the upcoming hotspots of the start-up scene.
As part of its CASE strategy (Connected, Autonomous, Shared, Electric), the Lab1886 supports the manufacturer of Mercedes-Benz cars in its transformation into an integrated provider of mobility solutions.
The development of a new business model within the in-house incubator of Lab1886 takes place in a three-step process: In the first phase, Daimler employees and business units can submit their ideas. These should preferably come from the broad spectrum of all areas around the topic of mobility. Instruments from the start-up world, such as crowd voting, funding and pitch in the shark tank, are used to make the selection for the next phase. On the basis of defined criteria it is examined whether an idea has the potential for a new product or business model. The Shark Tank is staffed by members of Daimler's top management and external venture capital experts.
In the incubation phase - the second phase of the innovation process - the selected projects are piloted and developed to market maturity. The idea providers are supported, for example, by professional mentoring, support of specialists in complex work steps, use of co-working spaces and workshops, financial support, an inspiring working atmosphere and the development of new prototypes.
In the third phase - commercialization - the "young" products or new services meet the challenges of the global market. If an idea or product has potential for a future business model, it is rolled out. The innovation process ends with the transfer to the Daimler organization or a spin-off.
The designation "Lab1886" represents a reference to the year 1886 - at that time the automobile inventor and Carl Benz had a vehicle with an internal combustion engine patented. This vehicle is considered the ancestor of today's automobile.
The unlicensed and shared spectrum segment of the wireless market is undergoing rapid change as new tech, spectrum, and growing competition between cable and mobile operators incentivize different service provider groups to stake their claim. Service providers will use both the unlicensed and shared-license bands to offer low-cost wireless services.
In their latest report, Mobile Experts forecasts that the LTE-based carrier unlicensed radio equipment market, including LAA, CBRS, and MulteFire, will grow quickly to over $1.6 billion in 2023, growing from just over 22% share of the overall Carrier Unlicensed Radio market (for mobile and nomadic applications) to over 80% in 2023. The Enterprise market will stay on track with Wi-Fi, but we are now starting to see a shift toward LTE in carrier investments.
Mobile operators, cable and fixed operators, and Over the Top players are all getting involved in this market as free spectrum allows them to deploy new LTE, Wi-Fi, and other options for commercial services.
With mobile operator preference for LTE-based systems, the standalone AP segment of the carrier unlicensed radio infrastructure market previously, solely based on Wi-Fi is expected to trend down in the near term. Cable operators and other OTT providers like fixed wireless ISPs in rural areas will continue to adopt Wi-Fi as they transition to 802.11ax. The mobile operators will use LAA in 'hotspot' locations to increase network capacity for 'Gigabit LTE' services, and almost all of the US players are looking at investments in CBRS/OnGo infrastructure.
According to the report, "Growth in the LTE-based unlicensed and shared spectrum segment—like CBRS and MulteFire—will not meaningfully impact the Enterprise WLAN market. However, the introduction of LTE-based technologies such as LAA and MulteFire, and new approaches that open up spectrum under coordinated sharing like CBRS, will revolutionize the overall carrier wireless infrastructure equipment market and leverage unlicensed and shared spectrum."
Ricoh Electronic Devices' RP124 is a 100mA LDO regulator with a unique integrated battery voltage monitor that makes it possible to measure the remaining charge left in the battery.
Taking an input voltage of 1.7 to 5.5V and available with outputs from 1.2 to 3.6V (11 versions), the RP124 low supply current LDO regulator features an ultra-low current consumption of only 0.3µA (at no-load), extending the lifetime of battery powered devices. Typically, to measure the remaining battery charge, engineers use an external resistor divider + MOSFET connected to an A/D Converter.
However, the input impedance of this solution is typically low, resulting in a considerable current flow to ground, draining the battery and limiting the lifetime of the application. The RP124 provides a simple solution with a built-in resistor divider and voltage follower as a buffer.
This circuit has a much lower current flow to ground and the output is compatible with the input impedance of the A/D converter. In addition, all essential components for this circuit are integrated into the chip, reducing valuable circuit board space and cost.
The device switches automatically between a low power consumption and a fast transient response mode, based on the output current demand of the application. Ripple rejection as well as the response speed to line and load transients demonstrate better results compared to a conventional LDO with low current consumption.
This means the RP124 contributes to optimized output voltage stability and ripple reduction. The Off Mode is controlled by the Chip Enable pin and turns the LDO offline, reducing current consumption to a minimum.
The RP124 features an embedded fold back current limit circuit. When a short circuit occurs at the output, this circuit will decrease the output current to a level of 65mA, thus protecting the LDO and other electronic parts of the application from possible damage. After removing the short, the regulator resumes to normal operation automatically. The chip comes in a standard SOT-23-5 or compact DFN1212-6
Airbus has opened the first production facility for solar powered High Altitude Pseudo-Satellites (HAPS) drones.
The plant will build the Zephyr S and is the first production HAPS system in the world.
The 75kg solar powered Zephyr has a wingspan of 25 m and flies at an average altitude of 70,000 feet / 21 km to monitor the ground with a high resolution camera. Zephyr holds several world records, including the longest flight duration without refuelling at 14 days.
The production plant in Farnborough, UK, is named after the late Chris Kelleher, the inventor of Zephyr. “Today represents a significant milestone in the Zephyr programme," said Dirk Hoke, Chief Executive Officer of Defence and Space. "The facility is home to the world’s leading High-Altitude Pseudo Satellite and will be a showcase location, linking to our operational flight bases around the world."
"The Zephyr S aircraft is demonstrably years ahead of any other comparable system and I am beyond proud of the Airbus team for their unrivalled success. Today we have created a new future for stratospheric flight.”
The production version is currently on its maiden flight in Arizona, USA a few days ago. R&D versions of Zephyr have logged almost 1,000 solid hours of flying time and is currently testing a flight time of 30 days..
Airbus will fly Zephyr S from a new operating site at the Wyndham airfield in Western Australia to provide surveillance around the world. The site, operational from September 2018, was chosen as the first launch and recovery site for the Zephyr UAV due mainly to its largely unrestricted airspace and reliable weather.
Last week Facebook cancelled its Aquila HAPS programme, citing Zephyr as a viable alternative. Williams Advnaced Engineering is also working with Airbus on the battery and power management systems for future versions of the Zephyr.
The TSB712A precision operational amplifier from STMicroelectronics features stable parameters over a wide voltage and temperature range and delivers cost-effective high-end performance for a wide range of applications such as industrial and automotive systems.
The TSB712A is fully specified over a wide voltage range from 2.7 V to 36 V or ±1.35 V to ±18 V. It is recommended for a wide variety of designs as a flexible module that not only simplifies technical decisions, but also purchasing and warehousing. It is specified for an extended temperature range of -40 °C to +125 °C and has a maximum offset drift of 2.8 µV/°C.
With its low input voltage noise of 12 nV/√Hz, the TSB712A can process low signal amplitudes and ensure high resolution. The input offset voltage of only 300 µV also simplifies circuit design in high-precision measurement and monitoring applications. With its gain bandwidth product of 6 MHz and its slew rate of 3 V/µs, the device guarantees accurate signal processing at low to medium frequencies. To increase the bandwidth in circuits requiring higher gain, the decompensated TSB7192A offers a gain-bandwidth product of 22 MHz at comparable current consumption and low noise.
The TSB712A's built-in input filter ensures high EMI rejection ratio (EMIRR) over a wide frequency range, effectively reducing noise sensitivity in industrial or automotive environments with high EMI or near RF equipment.
With its rail-to-rail inputs and outputs, the TSB712A is suitable for tasks such as high or low-side current measurement, data acquisition, Hall sensor interfaces, actuator control and motor control. It is suitable for a wide variety of industrial control and monitoring applications, instruments, test and measurement equipment and more. The automotive-compatible version of the module, which will be available from September 2018, is suitable not only for driver assistance systems but also for the entire body electronics, infotainment systems and the powertrain.
Retail giant Walmart (Bentonville, AR) has announced a strategic partnership with Microsoft (Redmond, WA) with the goal of further accelerating Walmart's digital transformation in retail.
The five-year agreement, says the company, will leverage a broad base of cloud, AI, and IoT solutions for enterprise-wide use, and "make shopping faster and easier for millions of customers around the world." Walmart says that it has chosen Microsoft as its preferred and strategic cloud provider tapping into the full range of Microsoft's cloud solutions, including Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365 for enterprise-wide use to help standardize across the company's family of brands.
"Walmart's commitment to technology is centered around creating incredibly convenient ways for customers to shop and empowering associates to do their best work," says Doug McMillon, Walmart CEO. "We're excited about what this technology partnership will bring for our customers and associates. Whether it's combined with our agile cloud platform or leveraging machine learning and artificial intelligence to work smarter, we believe Microsoft will be a strong partner in driving our ability to innovate even further and faster."
Walmart is already using Microsoft services for critical applications and workloads and, says the company, it is now embarking on a broad set of cloud innovation projects that leverage machine learning, artificial intelligence, and data platform solutions for a wide range of external customer-facing services and internal business applications. According to the company, the technology will significantly accelerate its ability to execute in three key areas: digital transformation, innovation, and "changing how we work."
As part of the partnership, the two companies' engineers will collaborate on the assessment, development, and support phase of moving hundreds of existing applications to cloud native architectures. For example, Walmart will migrate a significant portion of its walmart.com and samsclub.com online sites to Azure, including its cloud-powered check-out - enabling it to grow with rising customer demand and reach more global markets.
The company also sees "massive benefits" to operating at scale as it builds a global IoT platform on Azure – from connected HVAC and refrigeration units to reduce energy usage in thousands of U.S. stores or applying machine learning when routing thousands of trucks in the supply chain.
A range of Power Management ICs (PMICs) from Maxim Integrated Products enable developers to optimize the power supply of Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) functions for high performance, small size, efficiency and electrical protection.
ADAS functions, which are already mandatory today or will soon be mandatory, increase vehicle safety and improve the driving experience. These include intelligent braking functions for collision avoidance, GPS/navigation, adaptive speed control, lane keeping assistants and reversing/environment cameras. Although much attention is paid to these functions in development, the handling of power supply in electrically harsh vehicle environments is a challenge for ADAS system developers that is not so much considered but nevertheless critical.
Maxim's application-optimized ICs regulate, control and protect the power supply. These products solve difficult problems for ADAS system designers by offering a unique combination of package size, high operating efficiency, low quiescent current, integrated ASIL B/D electrical protection and reduced EMI.
The PMIC series introduced by Maxim includes the following components:
The MAX20019 dual-channel synchronous down-converter: it provides the industry's smallest dual-channel 3.2 MHz power supply with a package size of 2 mm × 3 mm (compared to the nearest competitor solutions offering single-channel components in either 2 mm x 2 mm or 3 mm x 3 mm packages).
MAX20087 quad camera power protection: The ASIL B/D camera module protection IC contains an I2C interface for reporting over/undervoltage and fault conditions; it monitors up to four 600 mA coaxial channels and isolates faults from individual camera modules.
MAX20075 and MAX20076 synchronous down-converters: They provide the industry's lowest quiescent current with peak and valley mode current control functions; achieve a high peak efficiency of 91% when used in always-on applications while having a 40 V load-dump tolerance.
The MAX20014 three-output DC/DC converter: It includes one synchronous up-converter and two synchronous down-converters for smaller, simpler and more cost-effective designs (competitive products require two ICs plus discrete components); it has a switching frequency of 2.2 MHz and a spread spectrum function for reduced interference radiation and is available in a 4 mm x 4 mm small package.
Airspace security platform provider Dedrone (San Francisco, CA) has announced a cloud-based platform designed to protect airspace against drone threats.
The platform, called Dedrone Cloud, is offered as an easily deployable, reliable, and cost-effective solution for organizations looking to develop a threat analysis of their airspace. The platform, says the company, streamlines and accelerates drone detection technology installations, without requiring on-site IT infrastructure or maintenance.
"Customers who need airspace security shouldn't have to hassle with maintaining servers to store," says Joerg Lamprecht, CEO and co-founder of Dedrone. "Dedrone Cloud provides the simplest and most cost-effective path for our customers to install an airspace security technology solution, identify and track unauthorized drones, collect data, and protect their infrastructure."
Additional benefits of the solution, says the company, include the elimination of manual updates and maintenance - communication between the company's DroneTracker Software and RF sensor is configured automatically, and all new feature updates are automatically integrated into a customer's DroneTracker software. Dedrone Cloud also has a 99.9% uptime rate, the company says.
The company's software is a machine learning network using information from a proprietary database, called DroneDNA. DroneTracker gathers intelligence from various sensors - including RF and Wi-Fi scanners, microphones, and cameras - and can detect drones over a mile away from a protected site.
It determines the communications protocol of the drone, its flight path, and the location of the pilot. Once a drone is detected, the software alerts security personnel and can be integrated to deploy a passive security measure or defeat technology.
Earlier this year, the company announced its newest RF sensor, the RF-300, which finds unauthorized drones and their pilots. It, along with the company's RF-100 sensor, is supported by Dedrone Cloud.
Foundry SilTerra Malaysia Sdn. Bhd (Kulim, Malaysia) has launched a piezoelectric micromachined ultrasound transducer (PMUT) manufactured in a CMOS process for use in finger print sensing and medical imaging applications.
Silterra's process puts the PMUT on top of CMOS resulting in a single-chip solution. The PMUT is formed using a CMOS compatible piezoelectric material and surface micro-machining techniques.
Engineers are free to build PMUT sensors on top of any of Silterra's CMOS/BCD/RF process platforms at 180nm and 130nm. The design platform is supported by relevant CMOS IP and a physical design kit is available to enable a fully integrated system-on-Chip. The PDK supports a configurable PMUT cell to address different end market applications such as a 20MHz PMUT cell for finger-print sensing or a 5MHz PMUT cell for medical imaging.
The PMUT-on-CMOS platform is currently available for prototyping, Silterra said.
"As this process uses most of the standard CMOS process modules, we are confident to achieve manufacturability and defect density levels similar to the traditional CMOS technologies. By offering a truly monolithic solution, we managed to reduce the parasitics significantly and also offer high fill-factors," quoted Arjun Kumar Kantimahanti, senior vice president of the MEMS and sensors business unit at SilTerra, in a statement.
Mini-Circuits is partnering with 3D imaging sensor company Vayyar Imaging to offer microwave transceiver project kits with broad applicability for students and university programs, spanning topics in electromagnetic theory, RF/microwave engineering, RF systems, and radar technology.
The first project kit, UVNA-63 includes all the elements students need to build a fully functioning vector network analyzer, develop S-Parameter algorithms, and perform real-time measurements of 2-port RF devices.
The kit comprises Vayyar's high-performance transceiver chip with a variety of RF components from Mini-Circuits along with control software, and a development environment for Python and MATLAB. The project addresses a gap in most RF curricula between classroom theory and the sophisticated equipment engineers use in the lab to perform complex measurements with the push of a button.
UVNA-63 vector network analyzer project kits are available now for pre-order and will be delivered in September, toward the onset of the new semester.
ams has updated the functionality of its CCS8xx family of gas sensor ICs to reduce initialisation time and improve performance for indoor air-quality monitoring applications.
The company has implemented major upgrades to the software libraries of the CCS801, an analogue volatile organic compound (VOC) sensor IC, and the device firmware for CCS811, a digital VOC sensor IC. The upgrades have reduced the initialization period from over 48 hours to 60 minutes, which can reduce or even eliminate burn-in time at the factory.
These performance updates to the CCS8xx family also extend the air quality indication range from 8,194ppm to 32,768ppm for eCO2 value and the maximum eTVOC value measurement has been raised from 1,187ppb to 32,768ppb. This improvement means that CCS8xx sensors can operate in devices such as air cleaners and air purifiers in polluted indoor environments.
OEMs can also save and restore their own baseline values when the CCS8xx sensor is powered off and restarted in a polluted environment. In addition, the intervals between automatic baseline correction can be programmed by OEMs. These features ensure that the behaviour of the sensor can be more closely matched with the characteristics of its intended operating environment.
In parallel, ams has completed testing of the CCS8xx product family when exposed to HDMS and D5, the most common siloxanes used in personal care and household cleaning products, to demonstrate long-term reliability and high resistance to contamination by airborne siloxanes.
HMDS testing was performed in accordance with the ISO26142 standard. D5 testing involved exposure to a concentration of 250ppm for 200 hours. The tests indicate that CCS8xx sensors’ performance and relative sensitivity meet the tolerances allowable by all relevant standards.
Researchers at MIT (Cambridge, MA) have developed the first molecular clock on a chip - which keeps time using the constant rotation of molecules as a timing reference - and which, they say, could be a low-power, low-cost alternative to atomic clocks.
Unlike atomic clocks, which rely on the steady resonance of atoms when exposed to a specific frequency, the new chip uses the constant, measurable rotation of molecules — not atoms - when exposed to a certain frequency of electromagnetic radiation to keep time. Such a device, say the researchers, offers the potential of significantly improving the accuracy and performance of navigation on smartphones and other consumer devices.
Today's electronics use much less accurate internal clocks that rely on the "trilateration" of time signals broadcast from GPS satellites to navigate. Errors can be reduced with corrections from additional satellite signals - if available - but at the expense of performance and speed. When signals drop or weaken, a phone primarily relies on its internal clock and an accelerometer to estimate its location and for local navigation.
The on-chip clock developed by the researchers exposes specific molecules to an exact, ultra-high-frequency that causes them to spin at a rate reliably constant enough that it can serve as a precise timing reference. When the molecular rotations cause maximum energy absorption, a periodic output is clocked — in this case, a second.
In experiments, the molecular clock averaged an error of under one microsecond per hour - comparable to miniature atomic clocks and 10,000 times more stable than the crystal oscillator clocks typically used in smartphones. Because the clock is fully electronic and doesn't require the bulky, power-hungry components used to insulate and excite the atoms in atomic clocks, it is manufactured with standard low-cost, CMOS integrated circuit technology.
The chip consumes only 66 milliwatts. In comparison, many common smartphone features — such as GPS, Wi-Fi, and LED lighting — can consume hundreds of milliwatts during use.
The chip-scale molecular clock can, say the researchers, also be used for more efficient time-keeping in operations that require location precision but involve little to no GPS signal, such as underwater sensing or battlefield applications. While the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has previously developed chip-scale atomic clocks, the devices cost about $1,000 each.
"Our vision is, in the future, you don't need to spend a big chunk of money getting atomic clocks in most equipment," says Ruonan Han, an associate professor in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and co-author of a paper describing the clock. "Rather, you just have a little gas cell that you attach to the corner of a chip in a smartphone, and then the whole thing is running at atomic clock-grade accuracy."
Integrated circuits supply the logic and either control the sensors or, to a growing extent, are the sensors. Integrated circuits drive the final elements to achieve a safe state and they are the platform on which the software runs. The level of integration possible within semiconductors can simplify the system-level implementation at the cost of the added complexity within the IC itself. Surprisingly, while there are functional safety standards that address process control, machinery, elevators, variable speed drives, and toxic gas sensors, there is no functional safety standard dedicated to integrated circuits. Instead, bits and pieces of the requirements and knowledge are spread around IEC 61508 and other Level B and C standards. This article gives guidance on interpreting the existing functional safety standards for semiconductors.
Introduction
Typically, integrated circuits are developed to either IEC 61508 or ISO 26262. In addition, there are sometimes additional requirements in the level two and level three standards. Developing and assessment to the functional safety standards are what give the confidence that these sometimes complex integrated circuits are sufficiently safe. When IEC 61508 was written it was targeted at bespoke systems, as opposed to open market mass produced integrated circuits. This article will review and comment on the known functional safety requirements for integrated circuits. While the article concentrates on IEC 61508 and its application in industrial sectors, much of the material is relevant to applications such as automotive, avionics, and medical.
Functional Safety
Functional safety is the part of safety that deals with confidence that a system will carry out its safety related task when required to do so. Functional safety is different from other passive forms of safety such as electrical safety, mechanical safety, or intrinsic safety.
Functional safety is an active form of safety; for example, it gives confidence that a motor will shut down quickly enough to prevent harm to an operator who opens a guard door or that a robot will operate at a reduced speed and force when a human is nearby.
Standards
The key functional safety standard is IEC 61508.1 The first revision of this standard was published in 1998 with revision two published in 2010 and work beginning in 2017 to update to revision three with a probable completion date of 2022. Since the first edition of IEC 61508 was published in 1998, the basic IEC 61508 standard has been adapted to suit fields such as automotive (ISO 26262), process control (IEC 61511), PLC (IEC 61131-6), IEC 62061(machinery), variable speed drives (IEC 61800-5-2), and many other areas. These other standards help interpret the very broad scope of IEC 61508 for these more limited fields.
Some functional safety standards such as ISO 13849 and D0-178/D0-254 have not been derived from IEC 61508. Nevertheless, anybody familiar with IEC 61508 and reading these standards would not be too surprised by the contents.
Within a safety system, it is the safety functions that perform the key functional safety activities when the system is running. A safety function defines an operation that must be carried out to achieve or maintain safety. A typical safety function contains an input subsystem, a logic subsystem, and an output subsystem. Typically, this means that a potentially unsafe state is sensed, and something makes a decision on the sensed values and, if deemed potentially hazardous, instructs an output subsystem to take the system to a defined safe state.
Figure 1. A sample of functional safety standards.
The time between the unsafe state existing to achieving a safe state is critical. A safety function might, for instance, consist of a sensor to detect that a guard on a machine is open, a PLC to process the data, and a variable speed drive with a safe torque off input that kills a motor before a hand inserted in a machine can reach the moving parts.
Safety Integrity Levels
SIL stands for safety integrity level and is a means to express the required risk reduction needed to reduce the risk to an acceptable level. According to IEC 61508, the safety levels are 1, 2, 3, and 4, with an order of magnitude increase in safety as you go from one level to the next. SIL 4 is not seen in machinery and factory automation where generally no more than one person is typically exposed to a hazard.
It is rather reserved for applications like nuclear and rail where hundreds or even thousands of people can be hurt. There are also other functional safety standards such as automotive, which uses ASIL (automotive safety integrity levels) A, B, C, and D and ISO 13849. Its performance levels a, b, c, d, and e can be mapped to the SIL 1 to SIL 3 scale.
Table 1. Rough Correspondence of Safety Levels Across Application Areas
The author is not convinced that a claim of greater than SIL 3 is possible for a single IC. However, it is noted that the tables in Annex F of IEC 61508-2:2010 show a SIL 4 column.
Requirement 3—Be Fault Tolerant
No matter how reliable the product, bad things will sometimes still happen. Fault tolerance accepts this reality and then addresses it. Fault tolerance has two main elements. One is the use of redundancy and the other is the use of diagnostics. Both accept that failures will occur no matter how good the reliability of the ICs or the development process used to develop the IC.
Redundancy can be identical or diverse, and it can be on-chip or off-chip. Annex E of IEC 61508-2:2010 offers a set of techniques to demonstrate that sufficient measures have been taken to support claims for on-chip redundancy in digital circuits using nondiverse redundancy. Annex E appears to have been targeted at dual lock-step microcontrollers and no guidance is given for on-chip independence for
Analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits
Between an item and its on-chip diagnostics
Digital circuits employing diverse redundancy
However, in some cases Annex E can be intelligently interpreted for these cases. An interesting item within Annex E is the βIC calculation, which is a measure of on-chip common cause failures. It allows a judgment of sufficient separation provided the sources of common cause failure represent a β of less than 25%, which is high in comparison to the 1%, 5%, or 10% found in the tables of IEC 61508-6:2010.
Diagnostics are an area in which integrated circuits can really shine. On-chip diagnostics can
Be designed to suit the expected failure modes of the on-chip blocks
Add no PCB space due to the limited requirement for external pins
Operate to a high rate (minimum diagnostic test interval)
Obviate the need for redundant components to implement diagnostics by comparison
This means that on-chip diagnostics can minimize the system cost and area. Generally the diagnostics are diverse (different implementation) to the item they monitor on-chip and so it is unlikely they will fail in the same way and at the same time as the item they are monitoring. When they do, it is likely that they would have the same issues (often related to EMC, power supply issues, and over temperature) even if the diagnostics were implemented in a separate chip. While the standard does not contain the requirement, there are concerns related to using on-chip power supply monitors and watchdog circuits, which are diagnostics of last resort. Some external assessors will insist on such diagnostics being off-chip.
Generally, the diagnostics on simpler integrated circuits will be controlled by a remote microcontroller/DSP with measurements done on-chip but the results shipped off-chip for processing.
IEC 61508 requires minimum levels of diagnostic coverage given as SFF (safe failure fraction), which considers safe and dangerous failures and is related but different from DC (diagnostic coverage), which neglects safe failures. The measure of success of the implemented diagnostics can be measured using a quantified FMEA or FMEDA. However, the diagnostics implemented within an IC can also cover components external to the IC and items within the IC can be covered by system-level diagnostics. When an IC developer performs the FMEDA, the assumption must be given that the IC developer doesn’t generally know the details of the final application. In ISO 26262 terminology, this is known as an SEooC (safety element out of context). For end users to make use of the IC-level FMEDA, they must satisfy themselves that the assumptions still hold for their system.
While Table A.1 (and indeed Tables A.2 to A.14) of IEC 61508-2:2010 give good guidance on the IC faults that should be considered when analyzing an IC, an even better discussion of the topic is given in Annex H of IEC 60730:2010.5
Development Options for an Integrated Circuit
There are several options for developing integrated circuits to be used in functionally safe systems. There is no requirement in the standard to only use compliant integrated circuits, but rather the requirement is that the module or system designers satisfy themselves that the chosen integrated circuit is suitable for use in their system.
The available options include
Developing fully in compliance to IEC 61508 with an external assessment and safety manual
Developing in compliance to IEC 61508 without external assessment and with a safety manual
Developing to the semiconductor companies’ standard development process but publish a safety data sheet
Developing to the semiconductor companies’ standard process
Note—for parts not developed to IEC 61508, the safety manual may be called a safety data sheet or similar to avoid confusion with parts developed in compliance to a safety manual.
Option 1 is the most expensive option for semiconductor manufacturers, but also offers potentially the most beneficial to module or system designers. Having such a component where the application shown in the safety concept for the integrated circuits matches that of the system reduces the risk of running into problems with the external assessment of the module or system. The extra design effort for a SIL 2 safety function can be on the order of 20% or more. The extra effort would probably be higher, except that semiconductor manufacturers typically already imply a rigorous development process even without functional safety.
Option 2 saves the cost of external assessment but otherwise the impact is the same. This option can be suitable where customers are going to get the module/system externally certified anyway and the integrated circuit is a significant part of that system.
Option 3 is most suitable for already released integrated circuits where the provision of the safety data sheet can give the module or system designer access to extra information that they need for the safety design at the higher levels. This includes information such as details of the actual development process used, FIT data for the integrated circuit, details of any diagnostics, and evidence of ISO 9001 certification for the manufacturing sites.
Option 4 will, however, remain the most common way to develop integrated circuits. Use of such components to develop safety modules or systems will require additional components and expense for the module/ system design because the components will not have sufficient diagnostics requiring dual-channel architecture with comparison as opposed to single-channel architectures. Without a safety data sheet, the module/ system designer will also need to make conservative assumptions and treat the integrated circuit as a black box.
In addition, semiconductor companies need to develop their own interpretations of the standards and the author’s own company has developed internal documents ADI61508 and ADI26262 for this purpose. ADI61508 takes the seven parts of IEC 61508:2010 and interprets the requirements in terms of an integrated circuit development.
A SIL 2/3 Development
Sometimes an integrated circuit can be developed to all the systematic requirements per SIL 3. This means all of the relevant items from table F.1 of IEC 61508-2:2010 for SIL 3 are observed and that all of the design reviews and other analyses are done to a SIL 3 level. However, the hardware metrics may only be good enough for SIL 2. Such a circuit could be identified as a SIL 2/3 or more typically SIL M/N, where the M represents the maximum SIL level that can be claimed in terms of the hardware metrics and the N the maximum SIL level that can be claimed in terms of the systematic requirements. Two SIL 2/3 integrated circuits can be used to implement a SIL 3 module or system because having two SIL 2 items in parallel upgrades the combination to SIL 3 in terms of hardware metrics, but each item is already at SIL 3 in terms of the systematic requirements. If instead the integrated circuits were only SIL 2/2, putting two such integrated circuits in parallel would still not make it SIL 3 as it would be SIL 3/2 at the best.
Applying the Hardware Metrics to an Integrated Circuit
Except in cases where almost the entire safety function is implemented by an integrated circuit, it is very hard to specify SFF, DC, or PFH limits to a semiconductor. Taking SFF as an example, while the SFF is required to be greater than 99% for SIL 3, this applies to the entire safety function rather than the integrated circuit. If the integrated circuit comes in at 98%, it can still be used to implement a SIL 3 safety function, but other parts of the system will need to achieve a higher coverage to compensate. The safety manual or safety data sheet for the integrated circuit needs to publish the λDD, λDU, and λ for use in the system-level FMEDA.
Ideally, the IC requirements would be derived for a system-level analysis, but often this is not the case and the development is effectively an SEooC (see ISO 26262) or a safety element out of context. In the case of an SEooC, the IC developer needs to make assumptions about how the IC will be used in systems. The system or module designer must then compare these assumptions to their real system to see if the functional safety of the IC is sufficient for their system. These assumptions can decide whether a diagnostic is implemented on the IC or at the system level and so impact on IC-level features and capabilities.
Security
A system cannot be safe unless it is also secure. Presently the only guidance in IEC 61508 or ISO 26262 related to security is to refer the reader to the IEC 62443 series.6 However, IEC 62443 appears to be more targeted at larger components, such as entire PLC components, rather than to individual ICs. The good news is that most of the requirements in the functional safety standards to eliminate systematic faults also apply to security. The lack of any references is interesting because, in some cases, hardware can supply a hardware root of trust and features like a PUF (physically unclonable function), which is important for safety and security.
Conclusions
The existing IEC 61508 covers everything from developing an integrated circuit to an oil refinery. While there are dedicated sector specific standards for such areas as machinery and process control, and, while there is some guidance in IEC 61508 revision two for integrated circuits, there is no standard specific to integrated circuits. The lack of specific requirements leaves the requirements open to interpretation and therefore conflicts can arise between the expectations of multiple customers and external assessors.
This means that sectors will be inclined to make sector specific requirements for integrated circuits in their higher level standards. Such requirements can already be seen in standards such as EN 50402,7 but most especially in the 2016 draft of ISO 26262,8 where a new part, part 11, deals specifically with integrated circuits.
It is the author’s hope that revision 3 of IEC 61508, due to be published sometime around 2021, will expand and clarify the guidance on integrated circuits. The author is lucky to be part of IEC TC65/SC65A MT61508-1/2 and MT 61508-3, and so will, therefore, get a chance to participate in such endeavors. Perhaps a future revision might have a part 8 dedicated just to semiconductors so that there is consistency across the sectors, allowing integrated circuits to be developed that meet the requirements of all the sectors.
Even then it is unlikely that the standard will contain everything that an IC manufacturer needs to design an IC with functional safety requirements. Requirements related to security, EMC, etc., will still need to be derived from systems application knowledge.
2 IEC 62566:2012: Nuclear Power Plants—Instrumentation and Control Important to Safety—Development of HDL-Programmed Integrated Circuits Performing Category A Functions. International Electrotechnical Commission, 2012.
3 SN 29500-2: Expected Values for Integrated Circuits. Siemens, 2010.
6 ISA/IEC 62443: Industrial Communication Networks—Networks and Systems Security. International Society of Automation and International Electrotechnical Commission.
7 EN 50402:2016: Electrical Apparatus for the Detection and Measurement of Combustible or Toxic Gases or Vapours or Oxygen—Requirements on the Functional Safety of Gas Detection Systems. European Committee for Standards—Electrical, 2016.
Tom is a 30 year veteran of Analog Devices and he holds a B.Eng. first class in electronics and an M.Sc. first class in applied mathematics and computing. Tom is the holder of eight U.S. patents and is a certified TÜV Rheinland functional safety engineer in the area of machinery. Tom is a member of various IEC working groups in the area of functional safety, including those related to IEC 61508-2, IEC 61508-3, and IEC 61800-5-2. He can be reached at tom.meany@analog.com.
Analog Devices (Norwood, MA) has introduced an embedded system for generating engine sound for electric and hybrid electric vehicles (EVs and HEVs).
The ADSP-BF706 digital signal processor and Electric Vehicle Warning Sound System (EVWSS) firmware enables automobile manufacturers to comply with future safety regulations mandating external engine sound for EVs and HEVs traveling at low speeds. Featuring a complete hardware and firmware reference design, the solution can be scaled for high performance with the ADSP-BF706 or entry-level applications with the ADAU1450 Digital Audio Processor.
The ADSP-BF706 can also be used to create in-cabin engine sound to contribute to an improved driving experience. The device uses memory mapped quad SPI memory providing faster and simpler access to the stored audio files used to create the engine sound, and can access up to 24 WAV files simultaneously.
When using the ADAU1450, developers can use the company's Sigma Studio integrated development environment (IDE) to graphically tune the audio sound. A new release of the IDE supporting the ADSP-BF706 is expected later this year. In addition, a low-cost CAN software stack runs on the ADSP-BF706 to help customers quickly build automotive-grade prototypes.
The ADSPP-BF706 is available now in an 88-Lead LFCSP for $8.38/1,000 qty. The ADAU1450 is available now for $4.22/1000 qty and is packaged in a 72-Lead LFCSP.
FPGA vendor Xilinx Inc. (San Jose, CA) has bought up a Chinese startup working on neural network technology called DeePhi Technology Co. Ltd. (Beijing, China).
The amount paid was not disclosed but Xilinx had previously invested in DeePhi Tech in a Series A round of financing in May 2017 said to be worth tens of millions of dollars. Other investors included MediaTek Inc., Samsung Electronics and Tsinghua Holdings Corp. Ltd.
DeePhi Tech was founded in 2016 by researchers from Tsinghua and Stanford universities specializing in deep compression, pruning, and system-level optimization for neural networks. It offers a data compression tool and deep neural network compiler for mapping neural networks into digital processor unit instructions.
DeePhi Tech has been developing its technology on Xilinx FPGAs and its neural network pruning technology has been optimized to run on Xilinx FPGAs and its staff will continue to operate out of offices in Beijing joining more than 200 employees Xilinx has in the Greater China region.
"Xilinx will continue to invest in DeePhi Tech to advance our shared goal of deploying accelerated machine learning applications in the cloud as well as at the edge," said Salil Raje, executive vice president of the software and IP products group at Xilinx, in a statement.
