Cypress Semiconductor has introduced a design kit for its PSoC programmable system-on-chip devices incorporating Controller Area Network (CAN) and Local Interconnect Network (LIN) slave communications. The CY8CKIT-026 CAN and LIN Shield Kit features two CAN transceivers for high-accuracy, high-speed transmissions, two LIN transceivers and Arduino compatible headers. Additionally, the kit includes five example projects that …
Arduino writes IoT manifesto
Arduino Day took place in California at the weekend and founder Massimo Banzi unveiled the embedded development board community’s most powerful IoT platform to date. The launch of the MKR1000 joined a new Project Hub and Iot website as the Arduino community looks to embrace IoT in a big way. According to Banzi, the release …
UK firm develops wireless system to monitor tyres
A London-based firm called Silent Sensors has developed a new approach to tyre pressure and temperature measurement which it says will allow transport firms to track, manage and monitor tyres on vehicles. The system uses passive RFID sensor technology and can monitor tyres using drive-over mats, hand held readers or whilst on the road. It …
Lighting industry gets “world-class” test lab
The Lighting Industry Association’s new testing laboratory has been opened in Telford, the LIA Laboratory. The 12,500 sq ft purpose built facility is one of the largest of its type in Europe and will create a national testing asset for the UK’s lighting industry. This is an ISO 17025 test laboratory dedicated to lighting and …
Only Connect: The isse of sub-standard USB-C cables
Welcome to another post in the series by Nick Locke, of Nicab Ltd, who has more than 15 years experience in the electronics manufacturing industry specialising in interconnection cable assembly. For those of us in the cable assembly business, we are faced with low-cost imports being sold in the UK market place enticing unsuspecting consumers to buy …
Bristol University researchers claims record spectrum efficiency for 5G
A wireless antenna technology developed at the Universities of Bristol and Lund, could give 5G mobile basestations a 12-fold increase in spectrum efficiency compared with current 4G cellular technology. Multiple antenna technology, referred to as MIMO, is already used in many Wi-Fi routers and 4G cellular phone systems. Normally this involves up to four antennas …
Bristol University researchers claims record spectrum efficiency for 5G
MPLAB-X success
Having had a bad experience with trying to run an earlier version of Microchip’s MPLAB X integrated development environment on Linux, and following a conversation with Lucio Di Jasio of Microchip, I decided to have another go. He told me that there were issues with early versions of MPLAB-X-for-Linux if the wrong version of Java was …
Horse To Water
Rather taken by this idea that being a coder leads to fame and fortune I ask my grandchildren if they think they should learn how to code. I suggest that a MicroBit or a Raspberry Pi would be a useful start. Zero response. Horse to water sort of thing. In the USA, apparently increasing numbers …
UK researchers make high temperature op amp in SiC
Raytheon UK has collaborated with Newcastle University to produce silicon carbide (SiC) based amplifier circuitry with operational amplifier like characteristics. The research has used the thermal characteristics of SiC not in a high power device, but in small-signal circuitry that can operate in high temperatures. “To date, the focus on Silicon Carbide semiconductors has been …
Chip sales fell 2% in 2015
Chip sales fell 2% in 2015 to $347.5 billion, says IHS. Q1 saw an 8.9% sequential fall – the biggest since Q1 2009. The 2% y-o-y fall follows growth of 8.3% in 2014 and 6.4% in 2013. “Weak results last year signal the beginning of what is expected to be a three-year period of declining …