Vishay Intertechnology, Inc. (NYSE: VSH) today broadened its optoelectronics portfolio with the introduction of a new generation of 850-nm infrared emitters in 5-mm leaded packages. The TSHG5210 and TSHG6210 are available with ±10° viewing angle while the TSHG5410 and TSHG6×10 devices are available with a ±18° viewing angle. They offer extremely high radiant intensity with the industry’s lowest forward voltage.

The four emitters released today are optimized for infrared illumination for CMOS and CCD cameras used in closed-circuit television (CCTV) security applications; high-speed infrared data transmission in home entertainment surround-sound systems, museums, and concert halls; and for particle detection in smoke detectors.

For security camera illumination, the emitters’ high radiant intensity of 230 mW/sr at 100 mA for the ±10° devices and 90 mW/sr at 100 mA for the ±18° devices provide longer illumination distance and greater resolution. In addition, the emitters show the lowest degradation over time. Where some competing emitters degrade up to 60% in one year, Vishay’s emitter intensity remains virtually unchanged.

For high-modulation operation, the new emitters feature switching times of 20 ns, supporting data transmission rates up to 16 Mbit/sec. For smoke detectors, the higher radiant intensity of the ±10° devices allows for lower current operation to extend battery life.

While many emitters are only suitable for 50-mA operation, Vishay’s TSHG5×10 and TSHG6×10 devices comfortably provide 55-mW optical power at 100 mA. The emitters offer high power output, with a forward voltage of 2.3 V at 1 A and 1.5 V at 100 mA. To control the height of the emitter when inserted into the PCB for soldering, the TSHG5×10 devices feature a standoff. The devices are lead (Pb)-free in accordance with WEEE 2002/96/EC and RoHS 2002/95/EC.

A new in-line connector from Tyco Electronics is designed to make connecting of aluminum-clad printed circuit boards for LED lighting applications that include lighting controls and LED light modules faster and easier. The low-profile surface-mount connector, available in two, four, and six positions, uses a hermaphroditic blade and receptacle design to allow LED printed circuit board strips to be joined with more flexibility than with traditional post-and-receptacle headers. Connections can be made by sliding the two boards together horizontally or vertically. The unique capability to slide the two boards together vertically makes replacement of a board in mid-strip easier by lifting up the strip to be replaced and lowering in the new one.

The new connector features a flexible mating engagement allowance of 2.5 mm horizontally and 1.1 mm vertically to accommodate variations in the mounting of the pc boards. It also permits right-angle mating of the boards.

The hermaphroditic design results in only one part to be inventoried and simplifies design by allowing the same footprint on both ends of the strip. The liquid-crystal polymer housings are available either tape or reel mounted, are compatible with vacuum pick-and-place equipment and reflow soldering, and feature a low, space-saving profile of only 3.2 mm. They have a 5 A current rating. Materials are RoHS compliant.

Sharp adds to its family of white Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) with four products. These High Brightness (HB) LEDs provide brightness levels of 1400 and 2000 mcd at IF = 20 mA, and are specifically designed with a small package (3.2 x 2.8 x 1.9 mm or 2.64 x 1.64 x 0.7 mm) for space-limited applications such as display illumination for hand-held or portable devices. The LEDs offer matched radiation patterns, ensuring consistent color mixing and uniformity. They are well suited for many consumer and commercial lighting applications that have traditionally used conventional incandescent or other technologies, but offer long operating life and low power consumption.

STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM), a world leader in MEMS products, has announced a new 3D orientation sensor, the company’s initial offering in a significant new family of MEMS functional sensors that consolidates multiple conventional sensor functions in an easy-to-use surface-mount package. The new FC30 device embeds both 3D orientation functionality and click/double-click detection allowing developers to integrate mouse-button controls.

“The FC30 is the first product in a new family of functional sensors, a turn-key solution that allows our customers to simplify system complexity and reduce the processing overhead on the system microcontroller,” said Benedetto Vigna, General Manager of ST’s MEMS And Healthcare, RF and Sensor Division.

The FC30 is a 14-pin LGA device measuring 3 x 5 x 0.9mm, imposing a small footprint and low integration effort with no extra programming required. The device’s three external interrupt lines allow developers to quickly build applications, such as automatic portrait/landscape recognition for portable products.

With very low current draw in normal operation, as well as an external Power-down control, the FC30 can be used in systems such as battery-operated devices or consumer products. The 14-pin LGA ECOPACK® surface-mount package also aids compliance with green criteria, meeting the EU RoHS specifications.

Further advantages include freedom from mechanical friction, which reduces wear to enable long-lasting, error-free operation.

The AT86RF212 offers an industry best RF performance with a link budget of up to120 dB in the 800 MHz and 900 MHz ISM bands available in Europe and North America, respectively. The link budget is the result of the -110 dBm sensitivity offered by the device and the maximum output power of +10 dBm. The extremely high link budget combined with the reduced path loss in the 800/900 MHz enables long range wireless communication without the use of costly external LNA or PA.

Designing products with the AT86RF212 chipset enables battery operated devices to run for many years on a single battery because of the AT86RF212’s low current consumption in both active and in sleep mode. The current consumption in receive mode is 9 mA and the consumption in transmit is 17 mA at a power output level of 5 dBm. The sleep mode current consumption is down to 0.2 uA.

“Selecting a 800/900 MHz radio chip for your wireless applications gives you a range benefit of nearly 3 times compared to a 2.4 GHz device due to the reduced path loss on the lower frequencies,” said Magnus Pedersen, Director of Wireless MCU Product Marketing at Atmel. “Adding the benefit of the extremely high link budget of the AT86RF212, the device outperforms most solutions available in the industry today by as much as 10 times the range. This has been confirmed by initial range tests performed by our partner MeshNetics, showing an outdoor range of about 6 km without the use of any external LNA’s or PA’s,” he added.

“Atmel is our long-standing silicon partner, and we are pleased to pair their best-in-class AT86RF212 transceiver with our BitCloud ZigBee PRO Feature Set software on our ZigBit 900 RF module for sub-1 GHz band,” said Alexey Rybakov, Managing Director of MeshNetics’ ZigBit Business Unit. “MeshNetics is a ZigBee House that offers easy-to-integrate RF modules, ZigBee software and engineering services for OEMs and system integrators. By using the industry-leading silicon from Atmel, we can offer our customers high quality ZigBee modules and development tools.”

To support the wide range of wireless applications requested by the market, AT86RF212 handles multiple data rates. The 20/40 Kbit/s and 100/250 Kbit/s supported by the device is compliant to IEEE 802.15.4-2006. High speed data rates such as 200/400/1000 Kbit/s are also supported enabling wireless applications demanding more bandwidth.

Security is handled by an AES 128-bit onboard hardware engine. The security engine improves the overall system power efficiency and timing. The stand-alone 128-bit AES engine can be accessed in parallel to all PHY operational transactions and states using the SPI interface. Atmel wireless solution is made of radio devices and microcontrollers such as AVR® offering the best-in-class combination of performance and low power consumption required for such applications. A set of firmware and applications notes has been prepared for AT86RF212 to shorten time to market for the Atmel customers. This includes low-level drivers for simple wireless applications, IEEE 802.15.4 MAC for standard compliant solutions as well as solutions for ZigBee. Updated firmware and documentation are available from the web pages of Atmel and partners.

Detailed information about AT86RF212 can be retrieved at: http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/product_card.asp?PN=AT86RF212

Melexis adds light-to-voltage sensor to the SensorEyeCTM series.

Melexis announces the launch of the MLX75305 Light-to-Voltage SensorEyeCTM. This is the second member of the SensorEyeCTM series of optical sensors specifically designed for high volume automotive, industrial and consumer applications. The light sensor’s output gives a voltage that varies linearly with incident light.

This MLX75305 is an integrated sensor IC, which means that the photodiode, transimpedance amplifier and linear voltage output stage are all included in the sensor chip. This guarantees stable light responsivity over time and over temperature, and also drastically improves noise behavior when compared to designs that use discrete photodiodes. It simplifies application design, requires fewer external components and improves quality.

The first SensorEyeCTM device - the dirt-robust MLX75303 Optical Switch - was launched in April 2008.

More than 15 Years of Lifetime
Melexis did not wait 15 years before bringing this light sensor to the market. Instead, SensorEyeCTM devices are baked in an oven at 150°C and remain powered-on during a total test run time of more than 500 hours. This test accelerates the aging process of the silicon by a factor of 258 for sensor operations at 55°C, resulting in an equivalent continuous operating lifetime of more than 132000 hours.

Because all sensors performed well after the aging test, their lifetime thus exceeds 15 years.

SensorEyeC series
“The high temperature operating lifetime (HTOL) testing is one of many qualification tests we do on our light sensors,” says Sam Maddalena, Business Unit Manager Opto Sensors. Maddalena continues, “Our automotive customers request this kind of reliability evaluation because repairing defects in cars is very expensive and inconvenient for car owners. Our customers will benefit tremendously from the low PPM, temperature independency of the sensor’s behavior and the 260°C solder reflow capabilities.”

The MLX75305 is suited for measuring ambient light or for controlling LED light in LCD backlight dimming applications. Its unique features include:
- Highly linear voltage output

- Light responsivity that is relatively independent of temperature

- Small DFN open cavity package: 3mm x 3mm x 0.65mm
(also available in SO8 package)

- Very high positional accuracy: the small, symmetrical DFN package provides pin-to-photodiode accuracy better than ±85µm.

- Extended operating temperature range of -40°C to +125°C that meets AEC-Q100 automotive specifications. A consumer version up to +85°C is available also.

- Lead free solder reflow compatible for 260°C peak process temperatures

Applications

The MLX75305 Light-to-Voltage SensorEyeCTM is perfectly fit for a number of applications:

1. LCD backlight dimming of television sets, notebook computers, mobile phones (GSM), GPS receivers and portable multimedia players (MP3, DVD). This enables easier screen reading and helps save battery power on portable devices.

2. Hand presence detection. For instance for automatic activation of water taps and hand dryers.

3. LED lighting: LED monitoring and control of light intensity & colour.

4. Automotive applications include automatic light dimming of instrument panels and displays, headlights on/off control and hand presence detection for opening doors.

www.melexis.com

STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM), a world leader in CMOS imaging technology, has introduced a new high-performance, stand-alone Image Signal Processor with dual-camera support that brings DSC-like performance to mobile imaging applications. Capable of controlling the entire imaging subsystem in a mobile phone, ST’s newest digital image processor supports a wide range of camera modules including SMIA-compatible (Standard Mobile Imaging Architecture) sensors with up to 5-megapixel resolution.

The STv0986 mobile imaging processor implements a fully-featured image correction chain (from noise reduction to smooth digital zoom) and includes a dedicated hardware JPEG encoder with programmable quantization tables and compression factors. Theadvanced processing algorithms enable the STv0986 to deliver images of exceptional quality. The image signal processor supports special image-orientation effects such us mirroring, flip and rotation, as well as color features including sepia (brown-shade) and black & white.

The STv0986 supports continuous video streaming rates of up to 20 (12.5) frames per second at 3 (5) mega-pixel resolution, making the implementation of multi-shot, best picture and anticipation acquisition modes very straightforward. In the anticipation mode, the camera takes snapshots before and after the shutter button is pressed, allowing the user to select their preferred shot from a sequence of pictures.

The STv0986’s unique twin-video-processing pipe architecture eliminates ‘shutter’ delay to ensure that the still image captured matches the current viewfinder frame – what you see is what you get. The dual-pipeline architecture also delivers a true full-frame rate camcorder mode with simultaneous local viewfinder support and video capture through an optional 4x smooth digital true zoom.

The advanced autofocus (AF) control loop enables the STV0986 to provide still and video autofocus with a very fast lock time of 0.6 seconds. The AF system is able to control various actuator technologies including voice-coil, piezo and stepper motors. The STv0986 provides support for image stabilization through a combination of automatic light-sensitivity control (Auto-ISO control) and best-picture identification. ST also offers full system support for LED or Xenon flash solutions.

In addition to mobile phones, the STv0986 is suitable for use in PDAs, mobile games, security cameras and video phones.

The STv0986 can be combined with ST’s camera modules to create a complete mobile imaging system. A possible two-camera configuration includes ST’s newest image signal processor in combination with the VB6851, a SMIA-compliant QXGA auto-focus camera with best-in-class module size (8.5×8.5×5.9mm) and image quality, and the VS6555, an ultra-low power VGA reflowable camera module with the lens design optimized for video conferencing applications.

The STv0986 mobile imaging processor is in volume production now, with samples priced at $4.

Teledyne Relays introduces a new series of DPDT surface mount ultraminiature relays that deliver RF performance over a bandwidth from DC to 8GHz. Signal integrity of the new GRF312 performs up to 12Gbps. The relays are designed to provide a practical surface-mount solution with improved RF signal repeatability over the frequency range.

The GRF312 utilizes unique construction features including all resistive welding techniques and specific manufacturing techniques that provide excellent resistance to environmental extremes that contribute to its overall reliability. The uni-frame motor design provides highly magnetic efficiency as well as mechanical rigidity. Additionally, the use of minimum mass components and welded construction provide maximum resistance to shock and vibration.

Teledyne Relays uses advanced cleaning techniques and gold-plated precious metal alloy contacts to provide superior protection of internal cleanliness which ensures reliable switching and RF insertion loss repeatability. All GRF312 relays are hermetically sealed to maintain the inert contact switching atmosphere.

The GRF312 is designed for use in load-boards, attenuator, RF circuits and signal integrity applications. Its features include high resistance to electrostatic discharge (ESD); various ground pin configurations to improve case grounding and high isolation between control and signal paths.

The new surface mount relays are available with through-hole configurations with the leads available with pre-soldered coating upon request. The relays are available in coil voltages of 5 and 12 Vdc. Special coil voltages are available upon request.

The GRF312 measures .335 inches (8.51 mm) in diameter and .365 inches (9.27) in height (including ground shield). It weighs 0.09 oz. (2.55g).

The GRF312 relay is RoHS compliant.