| Dear Sir/Madam
The
78. International Autosalon in Geneva prove with its 715.000
visitors that automobiles are still of great interest for everybody.
The various highlights and concept cars of this event features
the latest developments in electronics. Maybe some of the products
in this newsletter were “hidden” in the exhibits of the Autosalon.
Enjoy the newsletter!
Wolfgang
Patelay
Technical Editor, EPN
Automotive
Interconnect System (JAE EUROPE))
The
MX38 and MX39 interconnect systems are optimised for high-speed
data in automotive driver-information and passenger-entertainment
systems. The two-conductor MX38 system incorporates features
for the distribution of high-speed data at LVDS levels and is
suited for carrying serial data from externally mounted cameras,
fulfilling parking and vehicle-guidance functions. The MX39
system explicitly addresses the challenges of in-car USB and
IEEE1394 FireWire interconnects.
Click
here
Digital
Terrestrial Radio in Cars (NXP)
NXP
Semiconductors introduced a multi-standard digital-terrestrial-radio
solution for high-quality analogue and digital radio for in-car
entertainment. The system uses NXP’s newest AM/FM Car DSP, the
Nexperia PNX9525 - which includes proprietary DRM and DAB software
- as well as the SAF355x, which comprises the IBOC technology
from iBiquity Digital, the developer of digital HD radio technology.
Click
here
Automotive
Navigation Processor (STMicroelectronics)
The
Cartesio STA2062 automotive-grade application processor with
embedded GPS for navigation and telematics couples with the
GPS RF chip (STA5620), thus significantly reducing the form
factor and bill-of-materials with no compromise in performance.
It integrates a 32-bit ARM CPU core with a high-sensitivity
32-channel GPS subsystem and a large set of connectivity peripherals,
including CAN, USB, UARTs, and SPI.
Click
here
FlexRay
Platform (Atmel)
The
core of the AVR FlexRay evaluation environment is a 32-bit microcontroller
based on Atmel's AVR32 proprietary architecture with FlexRay
IP licensed from Bosch. In addition, the environment includes
hardware LIN IP, a dual CAN IP, an Ethernet MAC and a set of
general-purpose peripherals.
Click
here
Mixing
Individual Software and AUTOSAR Components in Vehicle Electronics
ECU
development in the motor vehicle is evolving rapidly. This article
by Peter Schiekofer sheds light on one important aspect: the
introduction of standardised basic software defined by the AUTOSAR
development partnership.
Click
here
Specialised
Automotive Graphics System
Infotainment
applications require increasingly complex graphics-processing
capabilities. This processing can be implemented in high-end
processors and DSPs, but at a significant cost, complexity and
power consumption. A flexible and scalable solution based on
automotive-grade FPGAs and structured ASICs can be used in the
system to lower the overall cost, complexity, and performance
needs in a multimedia and driver-information system while meeting
stringent quality demands. This article by Axel Zimmermann,
Altera, shows that these designs can also be easily demonstrated
in hardware using a fully scalable infotainment platform.
Click
here
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Automotive
switching regulators get input-transient-voltage protection
Engineers
often face difficult trade-offs in cases where voltage regulators
might encounter high voltage transients that are well above
normal input-supply operating ranges. This situation is common
in automotive applications in which high-voltage transients
from an alternator load dump can produce transients of 36 to
75V for durations as long as 400 msec. The simple circuit in
this Design Idea by Kevin Daugherty from National Semiconductor
provides a highly cost-effective method for clamping an input
voltage from a battery input with transients as high as 50V
to take advantage of a 20V, 3-MHz regulator.
Click
here
Microcontroller
drives LCD with just one wire
HD44780
LCDs are the most popular alphanumeric displays in embedded
systems. The only downside is that they use six I/O pins in
4-bit nibble mode and as many as 11 pins in 8-bit mode. The
circuit in this Design Idea by Noureddine Benabadji, University
of Sciences and Technology, Oran, Algeria, proves useful for
any pinlimited embedded system that must interface with an HD44780-compatible
display through a one-wire serial link using an asynchronous,
simplified RS-232 protocol at 9600 baud.
Click
here
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4|
Market Research |
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Worldwide
Mobile Video Infrastructure
Mobile
Video Services are the “hot topic” in the cellular telephone
industry, its technology ecosystem, and with partners who wish
to deliver video Content. This market is very complicated, and
it will take quite a few more years to completely sort itself
out. In-Stat expects that the worldwide value of the equipment
used by the transmission sites for Broadcast-Specific Overlay
Networks will have a worldwide value of about US$216 million
during 2011.
Click
here
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5|
Book of the Month |
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Processor
Description Languages, Edited by Prabhat Mishra and Nikil Dutt
Efficient
design of embedded processors plays a critical role in embedded
systems design. Processor description languages and their associated
specification, exploration and rapid prototyping methodologies
are used to find the best possible design for a given set of
applications under various design constraints, such as area,
power and performance. This book is the first, comprehensive
survey of modern architecture description languages and will
be an invaluable reference for embedded system architects, designers,
developers, and validation engineers.
Click
here
Copyright 2008, Reed
Business Information.
EPN and EDN Europe are members of the Reed Electronics Group
Reed Business France - 2 rue Maurice Hartmann, 92133 Issy-les-Moulineaux,
France
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