February 5, 2012
Heliatek GmbH, a global leader in high-end solar PV technology, has once again set a new world record for organic solar cells after Fraunhofer ISE CalLab certified a cell efficiency of 9.8 % for a 1.1 cm² tandem cell manufactured with a low temperature deposition process. This new record makes the third time in a row that Heliatek has set a world record for efficiency in the field of organic photovoltaic and demonstrates its continuous technology leadership in organic solar.
One year ago, Heliatek GmbH set a world record for efficiency of 8.3 % for an active surface of 1.1 cm². Thanks to its most recent developments, Heliatek has now been able to make a remarkable 1.5 % leap in cell efficiency, to 9.8 %. This new record was measured and certified by the independent Fraunhofer ISE CalLab (Freiburg, Germany) under standard test conditions.
Dr. Martin Pfeiffer, co-founder and CTO of Heliatek, explains: “Heliatek is the only solar company in the world focused on the deposition of small molecules with low temperature processes, a method that has already been widely adopted by the market for use with organic LEDs (OLEDs). Heliatek develops and synthesizes in-house the molecules responsible for capturing light in solar cells and converting this light into electricity. The new world record is a clear indication that Heliatek is headed in the right direction. Organic solar cells from Heliatek have now reached the level of efficiency of conventional solar cells made from
element14, has announced availability of the DK-LM3S9D96 development kit, a low cost, high performance platform for developing systems around the advanced capabilities of the 32-bit Stellaris ARM® Cortex™-M3-based microcontroller. For development, the DK-LM3S9D96 board comes with features commonly used in networking, industrial controls and human machine interface designs. The board is CAN (Controller Area Network) enabled and also comes with an External Peripheral Interface (EPI) with Audio I2S (Integrated Interchip sound).
For communications, the board supports USB, a host of serial IO and Ethernet features. The DK-LM3S9D96 development kit includes a 3.5” TFT LCD display along with the supporting graphics libraries and software. The DK-LM3S9D96 board features the 32-bit ARM® Cortex™-M3-based microcontroller to deliver flexibility for applications that require high-performance processing.
element14
www.element14.com
element14, has announced availability of the SAM9 development kit, a full-featured evaluation board centered on Atmel’s ARM based AT91SAM9G45 processor. The kit provides developers with a feature-rich, development platform for ARM926 based embedded microprocessor design enabling shorter development cycles and significantly reducing time-to-market. The board, available via element14 at a promotional price while supplies last, provides a wide range of peripherals, including a high-speed USB host/device port, an Ethernet 10/100 interface, two high-speed SD/MMC slots and a QVGA 320x240 LCD panel with Resistive touch screen. In addition, the board supports Linux, WinCE and Android OS and offers plenty of example applications under these three OS, enabling engineers to develop their project based on this AT91SAM9G45 processor. The processor is supported by a broad ecosystem of compilers, debuggers and RTOS tools and a large variety of third party IP.
element14
www.element14.com
The Transfer Multisort Elektronik range of products has been extended with chokes manufactured by Italian company – Ducati for capacitive reactive power compensation. These components are used in industrial power supply networks in which there are multiple disturbances in the harmonic form (usually generated by non-linear loads, such as rectifiers and welding equipment).
While selecting the reactive power compensation devices, special attention should be paid to possible resonance effects. Capacities in the network together with transformer’s winding may create resonance effect operating at the frequency equal to one of the harmonic ones, which leads to excessive loads, and even damage of capacitive elements. In order to prevent this, proper inductance connected serially with capacities that help reduce resonant frequency and dampen any resonances at the higher harmonics. Reactive power compensation is also necessary because the transfer in the low voltage network causes active power losses, that is additional load of generators and all elements of the system and increasing the amount of emitted heat.
Available anti-disturbance chokes manufactured by Ducati, depending on the model, are designed for reactive powers from 10 to 50 kilovars, offer inductance from 3,84 to 0,77mH and operate with the current from 16,3 to 81,5 A.
New techniques are pushing embedded power management beyond Sleep mode, as Jason Tollefson of Microchip Technology Inc., explains
With sleep modes no longer able to deliver the energy economies which can support a new generation of products with decade-long battery life-times, or keep pace with the surge in ‘green’ demands, microcontroller manufacturers are turning to new techniques to take embedded power management beyond the conventional Sleep mode.
Recently, for example, microcontroller (MCU) manufacturers have begun to use electronic ‘switches’ to completely remove power from some parts of the chip when they are not in use; voltage supervisory circuits have also advanced so that they can deliver continuous control whilst drawing the most minimal amount of battery power. By exploring these emerging technologies, some insight can be gained into how they can be implemented for maximum effect.
Sleep shows its age
Traditionally, the MCU’s Sleep mode has been the embedded designer’s most useful power-management tool. But Sleep mode has been around for many years and its age is beginning to Figure 1: The PIC24F16KA XLP uses Deep Sleep to reduce power consumptionshow: It can no longer be relied on to reach the continuously moving be
Melexis extends its family of smart LIN slave IC's with a new Generation of reconfigurable LIN switch slave. The LIN bus standard, and it’s SAE version, J2602 experience rapid growth in automotive networking due to the cost effective and robust nature of the protocol and its compatibility to CAN bus. The MLX80105 connects any door, roof, seat, steering wheel, dashboard, HVAC, light control or similar switch module requiring easy access via LIN. The integration of LIN physical layer, voltage regulator and integrated application IO’s result in a reduction in component cost. The integration of LIN controller and approved LIN driver make switch modules speak LIN in no time.
Incorporating the Melexis LIN transceiver physical layer, Melexis LIN ASSPs (Application Specific Standard Products) guarantee world leading integrated ESD protection results. The LIN protocol handler meets all LIN standards like LIN2.0, LIN2.1 as well as SAE J2602.
The MLX80105 is a fully integrated LIN slave on a single chip. All of the necessary components; physical layer LIN transceiver, LIN controller, voltage regulator, application controller are integrated along with the supporting functions ADC, PWM generation and high voltage capable IOs. This high integration level reduces the BOM dramatically and enables the development of very compact a
The level of performance called for in medical imaging and simulation is often so high that even the latest multicore processors find it difficult to keep up. An efficient alternative to the supercomputers otherwise needed to meet the kind of requirements presented by medical diagnostics and therapy can be found in today’s extremely high-performing general purpose graphics processing unit (GPGPU) technology and tools with which the massive parallel computing power of modern graphics cards is easily channeled. AMD now makes this technology available long-term for the embedded market in the form of the ATI Radeon™ HD 5770 and the new AMD Radeon E6760 GPGPU.
The thirst for more performance has been driving processor developments from one extreme to the next — faster clocking, more bit width and ever smaller fabrication volumes are meant to further optimize the performance rewards. The next step in the x86 market was the introduction of multicore technology, consuming about the same power but multiplying performance. Nevertheless, even the new multicore processors are often no match for applications in which you want to process large quantities of data as fast as possible. Because in imaging diagnostics such as MRT and CT, for in-stance, using solutions set up on multicore technology may still mean having to wait severa
Adding bootloading capabilities to embedded applications provides the framework to update firmware running on a microcontroller (MCU) at any time. This capability is beneficial if the final firmware image contains a bug, if the firmware image needs to be programmed into an MCU after the final product is assembled, or if an application’s firmware needs to be updated in the field. Any communication protocol can be used for bootloading as long as the MCU has a means of communicating using the chosen protocol and enough free code space to store the bootloader firmware.
By Evan Schulz, Applications Engineer, Embedded Mixed-Signal Products, Silicon Labs
The Inter-Integrated Circuit (I2C) or System Management Bus (SMBus) protocols are commonly used by MCUs, require only two wires for communication, and can be implemented in a small amount of firmware, making these protocols ideal candidates to use in a bootloader. Updated bootloader-ready firmware images can be sent to the target device by a separate MCU or a fixed-function communication bridge connected to a PC.
Let’s examine general bootloader design considerations, as well as I2C/SMBus-specific implementation techniques for embedded MCU applications. First, we will cover some basic information of the I2C protocol, including hardware and firmware considerations.
The I2C protocol requires two signals – serial data (SDA) and serial clock (SCL) -- for communication with other integrated circuits in
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