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Dear Sir/Madam
Nowadays it´s possible to communicate anywhere you are and to any time you like – thanks to the wireless communications infrastructure. Industrial and M2M applications taking advantage of mobile communication more and more, too. In this newsletter you´ll find some information about the latest development in wireless communication. Enjoy!
Wolfgang Patelay
Technical Editor, EPN
GPS Semiconductor Solution (Air Semiconductor)
The Airwave-1 chip consumes only 1% of the power required by current GPS solutions on the market. The device aims to transform how location technology is used in portable devices by continuously tracking the user's location and consequently providing instant location updates with negligible power drain (consuming only 1mA when tracking).
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Wireless Engine IC (Infineon)
Infineon Technologies announced what the company claims to be the world's first single-chip CAT-iq/DECT wireless engine for basestations, dubbed COSIC (Cordless Single Chip)-Modem. The IC integrates the baseband processor, transceiver and power amplifier in a monolithic CMOS single chip for high-quality cordless IP telephony.
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Single-Chip Wireless Sensor (ChipSensors)
ChipSensors has unveiled a breakthrough in semiconductor technology that enables the surface of the chip itself to sense parameters such as temperature, humidity, as well as certain gases and pathogens. The patent-pending technology exploits the fact that the dielectric material in standard sub-micron CMOS comprises porous oxides and polymers; by selectively admitting or blocking ingress of the agent to be sensed, any resulting changes in electrical characteristics can be accurately detected and measured.
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3.3V Satellite Tuner IC (Maxim)
The MAX2112 is a low-cost, zero-IF, direct-conversion tuner IC for satellite TV. The chip receives QPSK and 8PSK signals in the 925 to 2175MHz range and downconverts them to baseband for demodulation.
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Integrated Receiver Enables 16-bit Signal Path
Achieving 16-bit performance in high-speed signal paths such as leading-edge instrumentation or high-sensitivity wireless basestations requires attention to every detail. Precious decibels are often lost in the translation from the RF domain to the digital domain interfacing to the ADCs. This article by Todd Nelson from Linear Technology describes a solution to address this issue.
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Advanced Signal Conditioning Drives Down System Cost
For analogue applications, it is often worth looking at the entire signal chain to figure out how to achieve the best overall performance for the lowest system cost. The highest performance systems require both the most accurate sensors and signal-processing components that only introduce minimal additional errors. System performance is only as good as the least accurate piece of the signal chain: precision amplifier and converter circuits were developed for exactly this reason. Eric Nolan from Analog Devices shows in his article that even with lower cost sensors that lead to what may initially seem to be unacceptably high levels of error, excellent results can be achieved by improving the performance of the signal-conditioning components.
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8-bit Microcontroller implements Digital Lowpass Filter
Filtering occurs frequently in the analogue world. Unfortunately, in the digital world, engineers apply it mainly to the DSPs and not to the small 8-bit microcontrollers that designers commonly use. This situation occurs because the math for the filter design is more complicated than most engineers are willing to deal with. Moreover, digital filtering requires calculations on integers instead of on floating-point numbers. This scenario causes two problems. First, the rounding-off error from the limited number of bits can degrade the filter response or even make it unstable. Second, you must handle the fractional values with integer math. This Design Idea by Abel Raynus from Armatron International shows a solution.
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Active-filter Circuit and Oscilloscope inspect a Class D Amplifier’s Output
The increasing acceptance of Class D amplifiers has helped them gain market share from their linear Class AB brethren. That acceptance is no surprise; the advantages of Class D amplifiers are legion, but such amplifiers also require new techniques for evaluation. This Design Idea by John Guy from Maxim Integrated Products describes one of these techniques.
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4| Market Research |
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Worldwide Demand for Wi-Fi/Cellular Combo Phones
Cellphones have been available now for over 20 years, and as more and more competitors enter the cellphone market, manufacturers of phones have been involved in a quest to differentiate themselves from the others and include as much technology in their handsets as possible. Several years ago, after handsets started adopting cameras and Bluetooth, the first handsets incorporating Wi-Fi started to appear. Most of these Wi-Fi/cellular handsets were either GSM or WCDMA phones, and most still are today, but a few CDMA phones have taken on Wi-Fi as well. This report by Instat examines the market for Wi-Fi/Cellular combo phones.
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5| Book of the Month |
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3G Evolution HSPA and LTE for Mobile Broadband, By Erik Dahlman, Stefan Parkvall, Johan Skold and Per Beming
This very up-to-date and practical book, written by engineers working closely in 3GPP, gives insight into the newest technologies and standards adopted by 3GPP, with detailed explanations of the specific solutions chosen and their implementation in HSPA and LTE.
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