Electronics News February 2014

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ne ws Australia’s Premier Electronics Magazine

www.electronicsnews.com.au INSIDE

FEBRUARY 14

Page 4 News 4 Google’s smart contact lens uses a tiny wireless chip and a miniaturised glucose sensor IT Update 6

Connected control Sydney-based Ninja Blocks is at the cutting edge of the Internet of Things Page 10

Redevelop apps for the cloud As organisations transition to more complex cloud set-ups the process of redesigning applications will be even more complicated Technology 8

2014 Outlook Next year is shaping up to be yet another step in our path to a more humanised computing experience Design 13

Hardware prototyping Requests for small but powerful designs packed with connectivity requirements are challenging PCB design engineers

Post Print Approved PP100007879

New Products 16

A selection of the hottest product releases

Design | Communications | Environmental | Industrial | Research | Medical | Consumer

From the first analyzer with 500 MHz bandwidth to imaging technology that helps the visually impaired

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NEWS

EDITOR’S MESSAGE

Funds and investors follow brilliant ideas

PUBLISHER Martin Sinclair martin.sinclair@cirrusmedia.com.au EDITOR Kevin Gomez Tel: (02) 8484 0976 kevin.gomez@cirrusmedia.com.au KEY ACCOUNT MANAGER Tim Richards Tel: (02) 8484 0829 Fax: (02) 8484 0915 tim.richards@cirrusmedia.com.au QLD SALES MANAGER Sharon R. Amos PO Box 3136, Bracken Ridge QLD 4017 Tel: (07) 3261 8857 Fax: (07) 3261 8347 sharon.amos@cirrusmedia.com.au PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Tracy Engle Tel: (02) 8484 0707 tracy.engle@cirrusmedia.com.au GRAPHIC DESIGNER Louis Santos louis.santos@cirrusmedia.com.au SUBSCRIPTIONS Customer Service Tel: 1300 360 126. Fax: (02) 8484 0633. customerservice@reedbusiness.com.au Subs: Australia $99 incl GST New Zealand A$109.00 Overseas A$119.00

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JAKE Coppinger, a student from Canberra, was a winner at a recent engineering awards Kevin Gomez program in the country.

Editor Jake has come up with The Swirlesque, a wearable glove which allows the user to make natural gestures for human-computer interaction and perform actions. Swirlesque detects hand gestures and acts upon them in intelligent ways such as controlling a music player on a smartphone, control a computer, a TV, a home media centre, or a light bulb.

Another homegrown success Across the ditch, two Kiwi featured in this issue of Electronics entreprenurs have designed a wearable News operates out of the Australian camera. meMINI is a wifi enabled Technology Park’s National Innovation wearable camera that allows the user to Centre in Sydney. Ninja Blocks is riding handpick their favourite moments, after the Internet of Things wave and has they happen. According to the designers, already tasted success in 2011. They Recall gives users the ability to use are now back in Kickstarter seeking hindsight. It allows the user to save funding for a new consumer-focused moments in high definition video, after device. Between the two Kickstarter they happen – because ‘the best moments campaigns, Ninja Blocks raised another in life tend to happen without warning’. $1 million from venture capitalists and To get their concept into production, angel investors in Australia and the US. Sam Lee and Ben Bodley sought $50,000 If there’s a brilliant idea, funding on Kickstarter; their campaign ended up will follow and that should give hope with pledges totalling $94,300.

Next Issue to the large number of makers and It is heartening to see inventors in tinkerers that form part of Australia’s our region taste success and setups like • Medical Electronics small but exciting electronics industry Kickstarter and Indiegogo are putting • Enclosures 1 • Security 2 0 1 3 - 0 5 - 3 0 T 1 1 :success 0 1 : within 4 1 + E 1reach 0 0 : of 0 1 0individual N 2 4 _ 0 0 0 _ M A R . landscape. pdf Pa ge 1 1 6 / 0 5 / 1 3 , entrepreneurs.

• Contract Manufacturing kevin.gomez@cirrusmedia.com.au

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NEWS

IN BRIEF

Reducing coRRosion to impRove Reliability One in five electronic-device failures is a result of corrosion. Bonds are a particular weak point. Understanding what causes this breakdown is important for extending the lifetime of a device. Kewu Bai and co‐workers at the A*STAR Institute of High Performance Computing, Singapore, have charted how moisture can affect the stability of the bonding and developed a scheme for improving the reliability of these connections.

Bai and his team calculated the thermodynamic properties of copper electrical bonds and used this information to construct so-called Pourbaix diagrams – maps of the immunity, passivity and corrosion zones of alloys with different copper and aluminium compositions in the presence of corrosive agents, such as water and chloride at various temperatures.

WoRld’s fastest oRganic tRansistoR Two university research teams have worked together to produce the world’s fastest thin-film organic transistors, proving that this experimental technology has the potential to achieve the performance needed for high-resolution television screens and similar electronic devices.

Engineers from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Stanford University show how they created thin-film organic transistors that could operate more than five times faster than previous examples of this experimental technology. The researchers have shown that they can create highperformance organic electronics that are 90 percent transparent to the naked eye.

mRam technology enables longeR lasting memoRy Researchers have developed a Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory (MRAM) technology that will boost information storage in electronic systems. The team of researchers is from the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Faculty of Engineering.

The technology will increase storage space and enhance memory which will ensure that fresh data stays intact, even in the case of a power failure.

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MEDICAL

Contact lens gets smarter MANAGING one’s diabetes is like having a part-time job. Glucose levels change frequently with normal activity like exercising or eating or even sweating.

Sudden spikes or precipitous drops are dangerous and not uncommon, requiring round-theclock monitoring.

Although some people wear glucose monitors with a glucose sensor embedded under their skin, all people with diabetes must still prick their finger and test drops of blood throughout the day.

It’s disruptive, and it’s painful.

And, as a result, many people with diabetes check their blood glucose less often than they should.

Over the years, many scientists have investigated various body fluids--such as tears--in the hopes of finding an easier way for people to track their glucose levels. But tears are hard to collect and study.

Google is looking at miniaturised electronics -- think: chips and sensors so small they look like bits of glitter, and an antenna thinner than a human hair. They hope this might be a way to crack the mystery of tear glucose and measure it with greater accuracy.

Google is now now testing a smart

The smart contact lens uses a tiny wireless chip and a miniaturised glucose sensor. contact lens that’s built to measure glucose levels in tears using a tiny wireless chip and miniaturised glucose sensor that are embedded between two layers of soft contact lens material.

The company is testing prototypes that can generate a reading once per second. They are also investigating the potential for this to serve as an early warning for the wearer, so we’re exploring integrating tiny LED lights that could light up to indicate that glucose levels have crossed above or below certain thresholds.

It’s still early days for this technology, but Google has completed multiple clinical research studies which are helping to refine our prototype. Hopefully this could someday lead to a new way for people with diabetes to manage their disease.

Google is looking for partners who will use this technology for a smart contact lens and develop apps that would make the measurements available to the wearer and their doctor. googleblog.blogspot.com.au

CONSUMER

Intel unveils charging bowl INTEL has developed a reference design for a smart wireless charging bowl. Simply drop the smart headset into the smart charging bowl and it will begin to wirelessly recharge. The bowl can simultaneously charge multiple devices. Intel CEO Brian Krzanich discussed the bowl during this year’s CES in Las Vegas. His presentation focused on solving problems by making everything smart.

Right now, the Intel charging bowl pairs only with Intel’s newly

announced smart headset.

However, the company plans to expand it to accommodate a wider array of devices, including phones, tablets, and Ultrabooks. For now, Intel’s smart headset will charge automatically as soon as you drop it into the wireless bowl.

The bowl and stand measure approximately 10 inches in diameter and utilise magnetic resonance technology, which is the basis of recent A4WP innovations. It’s a technology that makes it possible to charge multiple devices

simultaneously without precise placement.

Krzanich highlighted wearable reference devices, including smart earbuds that provide biometric and fitness capabilities and a smart headset that is always ready to engage and can integrate with existing personal assistant technologies to make the experience more intuitive.

Intel has also launched a ‘Make it Wearable’ challenge, a global effort aimed at accelerating creativity and innovation with

Drop the smart headset into the smart charging bowl and it will begin to wirelessly recharge. technology. The effort will call upon the smartest and most creative minds to consider factors impacting the proliferation of wearable devices and ubiquitous computing. www.intel.com

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NEWS

INDUSTRIAL

A peek behind Apple’s fortress

“The thing is, it’s very easy to be different, but very difficult to be better.”

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It is indeed fascinating to get such MANY will argue that Sir Jony rare insights into Ive’s thinking, his Ive is the world’s most successful meticulousness and attention to the designer - and this will include smallest detail when developing new those who don’t belong to the devices.

Apple fan club. This book charts Ive’s collaboration with Jobs the rise and rise of Ive who was produced some of the world’s lifeborn in the town of Chingford in changing products, including the the UK and rose to become Apple’s iMac, iPod, iPad, and iPhone. The senior vice president of design. designs made Apple a hugely valuIt would be logical to compare able company, wiped out well-estabthis book to Walter Isaacson’s lished competitors and built a very biography of Steve Jobs, but loyal fan base. the two tomes couldn’t be more Jobs often referred to the shy, different. As are the characters. soft-spoken Ive as his spiritual Isaacson talks about Jobs’ fruipartner. But very little is known tarian diets, LSD trips and well about Ive apart from the fact publicised temper tauntrums. that the dyslexic art student from But Ive is different kettle of fish.

England would go on the change the In many ways, this book compleworld of computing, communications ments Job’s biography and gives the and entertainment. Jobs once said: reader an appreciation behind the “Design is the fundamental soul of a philosophy, care and sheer genius man-made creation.” The person to that went into Apple’s products.

For those into design of any 1 2 0 1 4 - 0 1 - 3 0 T 1 4 : 4 4 : 2 actually 7 + 1 1 do : 0that 0 at Apple, was Ive. Given the typical secretive sort, this book is a valuable read.

culture that defines Apple and Ive’s reticence, journalist Leander Kahney wrote this book based on interviews with Jony Ive’s former colleagues, classmates and teachers. Kahney is something of an authority on Apple, having written three other books on the company as well as a blog.

Given that Kahney is a fan and that Ive did not ‘participate’ in the writing of the book, it does have a slightly detached feel. That said, the world of Apple is a unique one and this book offers yet another glimpse into a company that charts its own course.

One of Ive’s often used quotes sums up the man: “The thing is, it’s very easy to be different, but very difficult to be better.”

Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products

By Leander Kahney Published by Penguin RRP $29.99

www.electronicsnews.com.au February 2014 5

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FEATURE

APPLICATIONS

Redeveloping apps for the cloud Redesigning enterprise apps for the cloud is not the sole domain of the IT department, writes Rob Purdy.

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ONTRARY to conventional wisdom, the push to redesign enterprise apps for the cloud is not solely the domain of the IT department.

Recent trends suggest that as businesses migrate to the cloud, departments outside of IT are increasingly playing a role in cloud app redevelopment.

Recent Forrester research revealed that IT departments are responsible for less than 60% of corporate IT spending, a significant drop from 2010 when IT departments spent nearly 75 cents of every dollar allocated on IT expenditures.

In its 4th Annual Trends in Cloud Computing study, non-profit IT trade association CompTIA noted that 57% of business leaders said their IT departments have become more integrated with other lines of business to develop need-specific cloud solutions.

The traditional dominance of the IT department over IT spending occurred for the simple reason that it was effectively allocating its own funds, as few other departments were heavily invested in IT-centric solutions. Since then, the cloud has taken the enterprise by storm, offering convenience and reliability often at a price below what is needed for traditional remote storage capabilities.

Add in benefits like realtime collaboration capabilities, built-in version history and instant procurement, and it’s easy to see why departments as diverse as marketing and accounting are taking the lead when it comes to choosing their own cloud solutions.

Specialised needs In an age when each line of business is performing highly specific, technical functions that may not translate well across departments or even other companies, it makes less sense for the IT department to control all technology expenditures.

This decentralisation of the IT

budget has understandably led to departments wanting to exert more influence over cloud app redevelopment, to ensure that their specific needs and challenges are met. The process of re-developing applications for the cloud presents particular obstacles, such as deciding which applications are worth the investment to rebuild, and identifying the shortcomings of currently used applications.

None of this can happen in a vacuum, however. It requires increased collaboration and communication between IT departments and the business departments they serve.

IT department While IT gurus are often perceived as lacking communication skills, this move toward increased collaboration will place IT departments at the centre of an intricate communication process.

IT departments will be required to not only fulfill their traditional roles of servicing and advising other lines of business, but must also learn a good deal about the demands of their colleagues’ roles and assist in designing appropriate solutions.

For example, an IT professional working with employees in human resources must develop an innate understanding of company hiring,

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training and policy development processes. Only then can that individual effectively redesign or implement IT solutions tailored to meet the requirements of each task while integrating cloud features.

This democratisation of IT when it comes to the cloud is not a transient affair; CompTIA recently highlighted a similar trend with Big Data in its recent study, 2nd Annual Big Data Insights and Opportunities.

The association similarly found that increasing use of and familiarity with Big Data is driving departments outside of IT to become much more involved in Big Data initiatives.

Given the prevalence of this shift toward a more tightly integrated IT department, CIOs and other IT leaders will be forced to rethink their approach to interdepartmental communication.

Communication IT departments must not only make efforts to understand the needs of departments and the applications they use, but remain open to feedback as they continue to implement applications in the cloud.

As organisations start transitioning to more complex cloud set-ups, such as multi-cloud arrangements utilising both public and private solutions, the process of redesigning applications will be

even more complicated – so IT and lines of business should hone their collaboration skills sooner rather than later.

At the same time, an even bigger challenge businesses will face in transitioning to such an integrated system is how to manage the everyday demands of the IT department (security, MDM, troubleshooting, etc.) as their level of interaction with other departments permanently increases.

One possible solution businesses may consider is appointing a “Chief Digital Officer,” someone internally whose responsibility it is to guide the cloud adoption process as the company (and each department) moves from traditional on premise systems to becoming dynamic, digital consumers.

Bridging the gap between IT’s guidelines and the lines of business’ desire to become more agile will demand a high level of focus over the next few years.

Having this change agent in place can ensure the movement of applications to the cloud is smooth and integrated.

As businesses diversify their cloud consumption, managing the different service levels and interactions with multiple suppliers will become more important than ever before – another role that can be centralised under a new CDO.

New structures As redeveloping applications for the cloud changes the role of the IT department, businesses must be prepared to address the evolving relationship between IT and the departments they service. This shift in responsibilities elevates the IT department from an independent unit tasked with managing ultra-technical tasks to an interdepartmental team designed to assist in tackling the latest tech hurdles, [Rob Purdy is the Director of Cloud and Tools at Datacom.] www.datacom.com.au

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TECHNOLOGY

The Australian IT agenda in 2014 Next year is shaping up to be yet another step in our path to a more humanised computing experience, writes Martin Duursma.

2014 IS shaping up to be a landmark year for Australian and New Zealand businesses as they begin to realise the business benefits of big data, cloud and mobility. As the buzzwords become reality, organisations will look to adapt their IT infrastructures to accommodate these changes, and here’s an outline of what we can expect to see in the coming year: Staff will set the IT agenda: Rather than employees connecting to the enterprise in 2014, the business will have to connect to the workforce. Bring your own device is no longer just a buzz word; it’s here and is a reality that Australian and New Zealand businesses must come to grips with.

Today, staff are joining organisations already equipped with their own devices, which are being used to connect to the enterprise regardless of whether they are approved to do so or not. We are particularly seeing this trend take off in Australia, a country that leads the world in smartphone ownership rates. Workers in Australia are driving the demand for mobility in the enterprise rather than the other way around.

IT teams will need to accommodate this change to ensure the security of the network – in fact, failure to acknowledge devices joining the network “under the radar” can leave businesses exposed.

Aside from simply satisfying worker demand for mobility, in 2014 businesses in the region will start to take advantage of the productivity benefits of mobility – by delivering enterprise mobile apps. Citrix expects to see an increasing number of business mobile applications installed on employees’ smartphones, tablets and laptops across Australia and New Zealand in the New Year.

With users keen to maintain ownership of their personal devices and data it will be critical that the 8 February 2014 www.electronicsnews.com.au

information contained in personal applications does not break out to corporate applications on the device and vice versa. As such, this must be a key consideration for organisations when selecting the relevant mobile device management software.

Allowing consumer IT devices to connect to the network will empower organisations to deliver IT services to all staff, irrelevant of their position or work environment, giving them direct access to corporate information and training materials enhancing their individual skill sets.

For the first time staff in companies that had not been traditionally seen as knowledge workers will have access to the same sets of enterprise content as their peers.

Desktop as a service goes mainstream: Despite the growing rise of mobile devices, the desktop is alive and well and remains a critical component of the IT experience. Australian and New Zealand organisations still want and need the desktop – in some instances rolling out large numbers in a single deployment – they just do not want to install the infrastructures themselves.

As such, businesses will increasingly work with IT service providers who can rapidly and efficiently roll out the desktop services and virtual environments they need to scale and cater toward their individual business needs.

The enterprise will become an Applications Programming Interface: The most successful enterprises in 2014 will be those enabling third party organisations and channel partners to successfully integrate with their internal networks and the information they host, something which is made possible by businesses increasingly using SaaS solutions for CRM, ERP, SCM and HR and the API economy that these types of

applications support.

Providing this level of access ensures all relevant parties can rapidly draw the insight they need to efficiently and seamlessly collaborate with partners on their respective projects to deliver a superior experience.

As more services are hosted in the cloud – enterprise IT will continue to shrink at its core, enabling organisations to commit more time to critical business functions.

Enterprises who adopt this approach will be empowered to enhance the services they are delivering to give them the edge over competitors.

Big data, Big advantage: 2014 is the year Australian and New Zealand organisations of all shapes and sizes realise the business value of the increasing volume of data they have been collecting in recent years. With data storage vastly accessible and a plethora of data mining technologies available, big data has transitioned from buzz to a real world business advantage.

Smart organisations will begin to take advantage of the business intelligence derived through big data to enhance their businesses dramatically.

Activity based working takes its seat in the office: At Citrix we also expect to see Australian and New Zealand businesses experiment with different ways of working tied with an increase in formal mobility strategy implementations. There will be a growing acceptance among businesses that the way we’re working is evolving, with the boundaries between work and life becoming increasingly blurred.

To accommodate this change, businesses will begin to design certain areas of their offices so that they accommodate specific working styles, such as communication

and collaboration areas and quiet concentration spaces. Ultimately, it’s about providing staff with the tools and environment they need to engage with the task at hand and effectively carry it out.

Businesses will increasingly deploy virtualisation solutions and connected devices to take advantage of this shift, with increased employee productivity and reduced office footprint costs two of the many benefits to be had by doing so.

SMBs in cloud residence: Over the next 12 months we anticipate that a large number of Australian SMBs will have moved their IT infrastructures into the cloud, empowering them to realise the plethora of business benefits this delivers. Ahead of this move, SMBs will enhance their knowledge of cloud services and the associated technologies so that they fully understand what they can achieve with them and select the platforms suited to their individual business needs.

To support this change, traditional value added resellers and system integrators will be forced to reposition their business to the cloud – with those failing to make this change doing their clients a disservice.

[Martin Duursma is VP Citrix Labs and CTO Office Chair, Citrix Systems.] www.citrix.com

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TECHNOLOGY

Cooling microprocessors with carbon nanotubes processors. As transistors heat up, chips. The technique is done through “COOL it!” That’s a prime directive their performance can deteriorate to gas vapour or liquid chemistry for microprocessor chips and a promthe point where they no longer funcat low temperatures, making it ising new solution to meeting this tion as transistors. With microprosuitable for the manufacturing of imperative is in the offing. cessor chips becoming more densely computer chips.

Researchers with Berkeley Lab packed and processing speeds contin“We’ve developed covalent have developed a process friendly uing to increase, the overheating bond pathways that work for oxidetechnique that would enable the problem looms ever larger. forming metals, such as aluminium cooling of microprocessor chips The first challenge is to conduct and silicon, and for more noble through carbon nanotubes. heat out of the chip and onto the metals, such as gold and copper,” Frank Ogletree, a physicist with circuit board where fans and other says Ogletree.

Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences techniques can be used for cooling.

“In both cases the mechanical Division, led a study in which organic Carbon nanotubes have demonadhesion improved so that surface molecules were used to form strong strated exceptionally high thermal bonds were strong enough to pull covalent bonds between carbon conductivity but their use for cooling a carbon nanotube array off of its nanotubes and metal surfaces. microprocessor chips and other growth substrate and significantly This improved by six-fold the flow devices has been hampered by high improve the transport of heat across of heat from the metal to the carbon resistances in the interface.” nanotubes, paving the way for faster, EN0 2 1 4 _ 0 0 0 _ HKW 1 2 0 1 4 - 0 1 - 1 4 T 1 0 : 2 0 : 5 thermal 4 + 1 1 interface : 0 0 nanostructured systems.

Overheating is the bane of micromore efficient cooling of computer

Carbon nanotubes demonstrate exceptionally high thermal conductivity.

“The thermal conductivity of carbon nanotubes exceeds that of diamond or any other natural material but because carbon nanotubes are so chemically stable, their chemical interactions with most other materials are relatively weak, which makes for high thermal interface resistance,” Ogletree says.

[Courtesy: Berkley Lab]

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COMMUNICATIONS

Bringing connected control to the crowd Australia-based Ninja Blocks is at the cutting edge of a new wave for the Internet of Things trend. What are the opportunities, and where could it lead?

Isaac Leung writes.

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INJA Blocks’ office resembles an avid tinkerer’s room.

The suite in the Australian Technology Park’s National Innovation Centre is scattered with product casings, development kits, swag from the likes of Google and Yahoo!, and the odd LIFX smart LED bulb prototype.

This Sydney-based company is at the forefront of a new wave of players in the Internet of Things (IoT) space, and looking to make the leap from enthusiast market into the wider consumer and small business markets.

Originally proposed in 2009, the goal of the IoT is to extend connectivity to as much of the physical world as possible. But for more than a decade, growth has been slow.

All this is set to change, as consumer education and maturing technologies now put IoT at the cusp of a new evolution.

Various research sources predict different levels of success for the trend. Cisco and Ericsson think more than 50 billion things will be connected by 2020. ABI Research puts this number at 30 billion, while Morgan Stanley in September extrapolated 75 billion connected things by 2020.

Voting with their wallets In 2011, Ninja Blocks successfully funded its first eponymous device to the tune of nearly $103,000, via

the online crowd-funding platform Kickstarter.

The Ninja Block originally consisted of a BeagleBone board with an Arduino on top, and was housed in a 3D printed case. It aimed to help users connect a variety of devices to the Internet, without requiring a deep level of electronics, networking and coding expertise.

A later version refined the device, basing it off a BeagleBone Black board, and housing it in a moulded case, complete with status indicator lights and RF 433MHz.

The Ninja Block originally consisted of a BeagleBone board with an Arduino on top and was housed in a 3D printed case Once connected through the Ninja Blocks to the Internet, the devices could then listen to and talk to web services, operating via simple “if-the rules.

Scenarios ranged from basic actions like using smartphones to turn lights on and off remotely, to security arrangements like having a camera email a photo of the room if the movement sensor detects activity in the space.

At the end of 2013, Ninja Blocks announced its next project on Kickstarter, building on the basics

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The Ninja Sphere’s Spheramid unit provides a fixed and limited space for the electronics inside. established by the original Ninja Blocks.

The Ninja Sphere platform consists of a main gateway called a Spheramid, at least two additional waypoints, and smart power sockets.

It extends control over the home/ small office environment.

A new direction After nearly a decade of slow growth, critics of consumer-facing IoT see it as a failed experiment, confined to a niche enthusiast market – a view that the success of the first Ninja Block would seem to confirm.

Daniel Friedman, CEO of Ninja Blocks, acknowledged that the first Ninja Block was a product which appealed primarily to hackers, makers, and tinkerers.

For Ninja Blocks to realise its ultimate goal – to connect every device to the Internet, and have it addressable in a secure and authenticated way, it needed to crack the wider consumer market.

“Now we’re targeting [the Ninja Sphere] as a consumer product, which is a completely different thing,” said Friedman.

The shift in market has been brought on by the rise of things like home automation, DIY security, energy monitoring, connected fitness devices, as well as upcoming trends in health and wellbeing connectivity.

IoT platforms promise to provide a central place to control and monitor all these areas.

The journey to wider market acceptance has been made easier by the dropping costs associated with integrating Wi-Fi and other low power meshing technologies into devices.

The smartphone trend, in particular, has encouraged these communications technologies to miniaturise and standardise, allowing smaller and cheaper connected devices to be built.

“We have a slightly crazy idea of what the next step needs to be and what the future needs to look like, and we needed validation of that.

We thought Kickstarter would be a great avenue to get that,” Friedman said.

So far, the market has answered in the affirmative – by the end of its Kickstarter campaign, the Ninja Sphere had raised over $70,000.

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FEATURE

This success on the Kickstarter platform has brought along a heap of attention. But unlike many start-ups caught in the “crowd-funding bubble”, Ninja Blocks is entirely capable of getting the investment it needs from more traditional sources.

Prior to the first Kickstarter campaign, the company went through a startup accelerator called StartMate.

Between the two Kickstarter campaigns, Ninja Blocks raised another $1 million from venture capitalists and angel investors in Australia and the US. So for Friedman, crowd-funding is more about the crowd than the funding.

“Crowd-funding…demonstrates traction. It demonstrates there is market for this idea,” he told Electronics News.

Breaking down the walled gardens The biggest risk for IoT is the proliferation of silos. It seems every smart light bulb, door handle, actuator and climate control system now has their own specific smartphone apps and proprietary communications protocols. Things quickly become too complicated for the average consumer.

Hoping to cut through all the clutter and unify all these different walled gardens in a single interface, EN0 2 1 4 _ 0 0 0 _ T EK the Ninja Sphere’s Spheramid

gateway is akin to a Swiss Army knife of communications, building in 2.4GHz IEEE 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, ZigBee, Bluetooth and Bluetooth Low Energy capabilities.

The team spent two years researching and developing a new architecture which makes it easier to write drivers to work with a variety of different devices.

“It essentially doesn’t matter how many different types of wireless devices we have – we just write one little bit of code that abstracts the nuances of the actual protocol into a standard protocol.”

“Once that connector is up and running, all the other systems are completely agnostic of the underlying protocol.”

The Ninja Sphere platform,

We have a slightly crazy idea of what the next step needs to be and what the future needs to look like

Ninja Blocks is hoping to connect every device to the Internet, and have it addressable in a secure and authenticated way. centres, Philips Hue colour-changing light bulbs, Belkin’s WeMo home automation systems, etc.

And the open source community has yielded a few surprises too – one user retrofitted their air-conditioner control panel with Lego actuators capable of pushing the buttons.

An Arduino controls the actuators, and is connected via Ninja Blocks, allowing remote and automatic rulesbased control of the air conditioner.

Wave and go

The majority of the Ninja Sphere’s functionality is accessed via a web-based control panel and a smartphone app, but the company including the new architecture, is aiming to pack gesture control will be open source. This means capabilities into the device. the community which has built up The Ninja Sphere will also feature around Ninja Blocks can use it to the ability to locate devices and write drivers to extend compatibility tagged objects (or people, or pets) to new devices. via trilateration.

Already, Ninja Sphere is “You are not able to do a lot 1 2 0 1 4 - 0 1 - 2 9 T1 0 : 3 6 : 1 3 + 1 1 : 0 0 compatible with various media of the more complicated and

sophisticated logic until you are able to accurately know who and what is where, within a home or an office,” Friedman explained.

Trilateration works by detecting the received signal strength of a device or tag via the Bluetooth Low Energy protocol.

The Ninja Sphere’s main Spheramid gateway and two way-points are placed at different parts of a given location. During the calibration stage, the system builds a model of the received signal strength from different parts of the space, and in different rooms.

When required to locate a device or a tag, the system combines the signal strength information from the two waypoints and the Spheramid, then queries the model of the space to yield a fairly accurate location.

Packing it in The development of the Ninja Sphere device started with the

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time, your entire product does not industrial design. Ninja Blocks ship,” Friedman explained. worked with another Sydney-based Currently, the design uses the company called cocreators to create TI Cortex A8 AM3352, and off-thethe “Spheramid” shaped enclosure, shelf ICs for gesture control, and which provided a fixed and limited LED modules. These components space for the electronics. are swappable for alternatives, The continuing revision process allowing backup sourcing if any tweaks the shape of the PCB, or particular manufacturer falls splits the design into two boards to through. get it into the available space.

Retaining its roots, the Ninja Opportunity or bubble?

Sphere’s electronics were originally developed by using the BeagleBone The new wave of interest in the board as a prototyping platform.

Internet of Things has been driven The current Spheramid design uses the TI Cortex A8 AM3352, and off-the-shelf ICs To accommodate for the gesture by the perfect storm of widespread for gesture control, and LED modules. control circuits, LED controls, Internet connectivity, reduced Even as big players like Apple, ZigBee power controllers, and a All this has renewed a wider costs associated with integrating Intel, Qualcomm and Cisco Systems board for connectors alongside the interest in the Internet of Things, communications technologies jostle for position, it’s anyone’s embedded Linux board, the design and the technology has taken on a into devices, and component game at this point. evolved to one using a system-onsocial dimension. miniaturisation.

And in their Sydney offices, module approach.

Whether this is another shortOver the years, a diverse set of Ninja Blocks is determined to be “Our original design had well lived bubble, or the next major technologies have emerged in the part of the conversation and the over a couple hundred components, opportunity for semiconductor and market, from smartphones to media plumbing for the connected world. and that is a logistics nightmare, microcontroller players remains to centres, to colour changing light EN0 2 1 4 _ 0 0 0 _ APA 1 2 0 1 4 - 0 1 - 2 3 T1 9 : 0 1 : 2 8 + 1 1 : 0 0 because if one doesn’t arrive on be seen. bulbs to smart fitness wrist bands. www.ninjablocks.com

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Profiting from advanced PCB design solutions Client requests for small but powerful designs, packed with connectivity requirements, are challenging the PCB design engineers of today.

But technology is playing its part to help, Isaac Leung writes.

F

ORGET about the days when PCBs were invariably rectangular, and when you had plenty of room and big components to work with.

The trends towards miniaturisation, integration and complexity means PCB designers are squeezed for board space, not to mention budget and time.

The successful PCB designer of today needs to have expertise across a wider area of topics than ever before -- things like working with enthusiast-level development platforms, working in 3D, designing for flexible and flexi-rigid combination boards, RF, and even the complexities associated with fabrication and industrial design.

Even as demands grow, technology is enabling smaller teams of engineers to grapple with complex designs, ensuring they have access to all the information and help they need, and making testing and prototyping easier than ever.

Small, dense, and connected Luke Dawson is the Solutions Architect at LX Design House, an award-winning electronics product design consultancy.

Over the last 12 months, LX has seen a big surge in projects involving the Internet of Things: that means home automation devices, low-power, small devices packed with connectivity options like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, BLE and 3G.

And while cost-effective integrated modules offering the complete range of connectivity options are helping to lower component count, the challenge is found in balancing power and performance. “Low power, miniature devices have been challenging...People expect to have longer range, better battery life, etc,� said Dawson.

Paul Moutzouris is the founder and director of Ingenuity Electronics Design, a company specialising in the design and commercialisation of electronics products and systems.

According to Moutzouris, with wireless designs becoming commonplace, laying out PCB for low noise, high frequency, RF, and EMI/EMC requirements can

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now be considered a standard task that every PCB design engineer is expected to know. “[PCB designers have] to think about 3D, RF, the more complex fabrication used to make the boards more compact. They need to be more multi-skilled than they used to be,” Moutzouris told Electronics News.

And with the demand for smaller products prompting engineers to pack more into a device, PCB designs are not just restricted to rigid boards.

“We are doing a lot of work where we design circuits on flexible printed circuits (FPCs) and even combinations of rigid and flex PCBs together.”

“There are new technology challenges in combining those rigid and flex PCBs, which were traditionally separate.”

There are new technology challenges in combining rigid and flex PCBs which were traditionally separate And as fabrication technology evolves and renders it more costeffective to manufacture boards with space-saving options like blind, buried and micro vias, future PCB designers will find those features becoming a standard in their toolbox.

Helpful technology While the PCB design engineer today must take on an increased range of complex work which were previously done by other, more specialised engineers, they have a variety of tools to help them navigate the process.

For example, radio chipset manufacturers have worked to provide improved guidance for the average engineer to layout RF boards, with examples, detailed documentation, and walkthroughs.

If more help is needed,

Miniaturisation and increased complexity are just a few of the challenges facing PCB designers today. (Photo courtesy Adam Greig) online communities, such as RS Component’s DesignSpark.com and element14’s forums provide nearinstantaneous technical support and an international perspective, invaluable to local design teams with an international market.

Eric Lee is the head of AP technical marketing at RS Components, a vendor which has also built an online community of engineers and the DesignSpark PCB software.

According to Lee, PCB design software is increasingly integrating automatic capabilities and interfacing online resources to make it easier for engineers to deal with complex projects.

“PCB layout errors can now be checked automatically once the engineer is connected online,” Lee said.

“Signal simulation plug-in abilities are now embedded in many of these PCB design tools to allow engineers to have a quick sense of anticipated behaviour.”

“The PCB design processes of schematic capture, PCB layout, wirerouting, design-rule check, waveform simulation and BOM generation are also easily done within a single design environment. “ Of course, integration also applies to parts lists and component vendors.

Once the PCB layout is complete, engineers can now send pieces of parametric information with a press of a button to PCB manufacturer

14 February 2014 www.electronicsnews.com.au

websites to obtain real-time quotations in local currencies.

With board manufacturing and population becoming cheaper and more accessible, PCB designers today have the option to moving rapidly to hardware prototyping, says LX Design’s Luke Dawson.

“In a couple of weeks we can have a prototype board turned around quite cheaply, whether it’s here in Australia or from overseas or even with our own manufacturing line in the LX offices,” Dawson said.

“It’s fast and cheap, so you don’t need to do as much software modelling of things. Things like custom RF design which might have involved a lot of modelling and a lot of mathematics still do require that work, but we can now easier make something and measure its performance.”

The trickling up of Pi and Arduino With the popular take-up of the Arduino and Raspberry Pi enthusiast development platform, it’s little surprise that they are having an impact on the work of PCB designers.

“We are seeing a lot of enquiries from hobbyists and some companies about products based on the Arduino and the Pi, or to do something similar but with their own design,” Dawson said.

Many clients are starting their

The successful PCB designer of today needs to have expertise across a wider area of topics than ever before.

(Photo courtesy LX) own development work on the Arduino or Raspberry Pi platforms, and then contracting design houses to create the hardware, while they continue writing code.

“They might give us some test stubs to help bring up the hardware, but we are focusing more on those types of projects, where people skilled in code use the development kits and are just after some hardware.”

This means PCB design engineers are working off initial reference designs which include parts of the original development platforms, and need to build final products that provide the same or similar capabilities.

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“We need to be aware of what’s out there, what their capabilities are. Certainly an awareness there is paramount now,” Dawson said.

Ensuring a good fit Many PCB designers today are playing a larger role in ensuring the finished boards fit into the industrial design of the product -- and with the lower mechanical tolerances associated with smaller

Radio chipset manufacturers have worked to provide improved guidance for the average engineer to layo ut RF boards finished products today, and the squeezing of components into tighter spaces, this requires highly accurate measurements and modelling in 3D CAD. According to Ingenuity Electronics Design’s Paul Moutzouris, the 3D features of PCB design software are now an E N 0 2part 1 4of _ the 0 0 process 0 _ N Pto A essential ensure clearances on components.

“After the schematics are done “We now model all our and we’re doing the board layout, components in 3D now including we can quickly run off a 3D print STEP file importing. It’s routine for of the board and the heights of the us to produce a STEP file that we components,” Dawson explained. give to the industrial designers,” “Clients love to see early on Moutzouris said. what the board will look like. It However, because the 3D tools in also helps when dealing with the many PCB design solutions started enclosure design and mechanical off as a way to visually demonstrate fit.” the final board design to clients, there is still plenty of room for Modular design improvements.

“One of the weaknesses in PCB The modular approach to design tools at the moment is that you... has been evolving over the years can’t manipulate stuff in the 3D -- and for good reason. Reusable world,” Moutzouris explained. “It pieces of IP can boost the speed of makes it hard to measure and check development and eliminate hours of stuff in 3D.” repeated work.

While PCB designers can LX, for example, is creating a download 3D STEP models of collection of internally-designed, components supplied by the reusable modules called the manufacturer and integrate them Hardware Compiler. into the final model of the board, When the Hardware Compiler some of these files can have is finished, it will hold around a incorrect geometries. Being able thousand modules, ranging from to check and manipulate the PCB power supplies to audio modules design in 3D would help guarantee to microcontrollers, processors and that there are no mistakes in the sensors, all ready to be used in model. prototypes or commercial projects.

LX also uses 3D renders of the “We’ve got the footprints and board components, but with the the library built around these improved cost effectiveness of 3D modules, so we can just drag and 1 printers, 2 0 1 4is -now 0 1creating - 1 4 T 3D 1 1prints : 2 9 : 4 drop 8 + 1them 1 : in 0 0designs, speeding up of the completed boards. ten-fold the process of getting a

schematic done and a board printed and assembled,” Dawson said.

New possibilities With the continuing trend towards smaller, high performance, connected technology, PCB designers today are required to have an expanded set of knowledge, and have the ability to deal with complex projects and narrow tolerances, all while adhering to a breakneck schedule.

These challenges are here to stay as the trend towards miniaturisation and high performance continues.

Fortunately, technology is also evolving, helping engineers manage complex designs with automatic software features, online data references, as well as rapid prototyping via fast and easy board manufacturing and 3D printing.

Features like 3D modelling in PCB design software, and Cloudbased design tools, meanwhile, continue to mature, promising a slate of new possibilities for PCB design engineers. lx-group.com.au www.ingenuity-design.com.au au.element14.com australia.rs-online.com

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Email your product news to editor@electronicsnews.com.au SPOTLIGHT

Imaging technology helps visually impaired STMicroelectronics has revealed that its 5.1 mega-pixel camera module and low-power digital image processor are being used in the OrCam camera. This small device clips on to eyeglasses and improves the mobility and ability of visually-impaired people to “read” signs, packaging and publications. By pointing to an object, the wearer tells the OrCam camera what they need interpreted. The ST VX6953 camera module and STV0987 image processor work together to analyse and interpret the scene before the eye-glass-mounted device aurally describes it to the user. Using the ST technology and its own algorithms, the OrCam camera reads a scene or text in different lighting conditions and on a variety of surfaces, including newspapers and signs. Moreover, while the camera comes with a pre-stored library of objects, the wearer can continue to teach OrCam new objects as they use it.

STMicroelectronics 02 8338 1172 www.st.com

Designing with today’s faster data rates and tighter timing margins requires an oscilloscope with high signal acquisition performance and analysis capabilities. Tektronix MSO/ DPO5000B Series oscilloscopes provide high signal fidelity, with 2 GHz bandwidth and 10 GS/s sample rate, along with advanced analysis and math capabilities, on the bench and in the lab. It is possible to run Windows-based analysis software right on the oscilloscope. Point and click visual triggers enable the user to capture complex signals.

MSO models include 16 digital timing channels, and all models can be equipped to decode common serial protocols, providing a comprehensive view of the systems.

TekMark Australia 1300 811 355 enquiries@tekmarkgroup.com

ARM-based SBC with touch-screen element14 has launched the EDM6070AR-01 fully-integrated Embedded Display Module (EDM) that integrates an ARM-based single board computer (SBC) with a 7” LCD and touch-screen assembly. The multi-function embedded EDM is based on the ARM9 AT91SAM9X35 industrial processor from Atmel.

The EDM6070AR-01 is designed as an all-in-one solution and is suited for a variety of embedded control HMI (human machine interface) applications including industrial control terminals, intelligent instruments, medical products, network terminals as well as data acquisition and analysis.

The module has a plate with display, connectors and place for the Mini6935 module with ARM

Digital phosphor oscilloscopes

Elite also operates as a handheld asset inspection system by allowing asset photographs to be taken using the in-built camera with flash and users can record any type of test, inspection or risk assessment with their own user defined inspection routines. This eliminates the need for carrying around a separate tablet or laptop for recording the results of non-electrical inspections and risk assessments.

Emona Instruments 02 9519 3933 www.emona.com.au

COM Express goes ultra-low power

Advanced testing and tagging

microcontroller. The module is supplied with a Smart-Home demo application with an intuitive smart-LED controller allowing the user to set independent light levels in each room, smart-climate controller allowing the user to control temperature and humidity throughout the house and smartmultimedia allowing the user to play streamed audio files into any room and manage surveillance cameras.

16 February 2014 www.electronicsnews.com.au

element14 1300 361 005 au.element14.com

The Seaward ProTag Elite System is an advanced testing and tagging and asset inspection management system. It tests portable appliances and RCDs, records asset photographs and inspections, prints Elite UV and harsh environment resistant test tags and downloads all test results, asset photos and inspections to management software. The ProTag Elite System comprises of the Seaward Primetest Elite appliance and RCD tester, ProTag Elite test tag printer, bar code scanner and PATGuard Elite 3 asset management software. The PrimeTest Elite carries out all of the tests required under AS/NZS3760 for appliances and leads, and carries our 30mA RCD tests. The PrimeTest

congatec AG has released the conga-TC87 Type 6 COM Express compact module supporting 4th Generation Intel Core processors.

It is a low-power single-chip solution, codenamed Haswell-ULT, with integrated chipset (PCH) and graphics. Despite increased performance, the maximum thermal design power (TDP) is 15W. The 4th Generation Intel

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Core processors are an optimisation of the existing microarchitecture.

Improvements include new microcode and extended registers, an expansion of the vector processing unit, larger and much more powerful graphics units, as well as standard hardware support for AES encryption in all models.

Unique features of the Intel Core i7-4650U and i5-4300U are revised power management; expanded, individually configurable turboboost modes; extensive TDP configuration management for adapting to the chosen cooling solution. Models of the Haswell U-Series integrate the processor controller hub (PCH) as multi-die in the same package. Compared to previous Core i processor models, such as the i7-3517UE, it is possible to save not only 2W of TDP, but also approximately 4W previously required for the separate PCH solution.

optional 2T2R 802.11b/g/n wireless module is available for greater connectivity. The ECW-281B-D2550 meets the MIL-STD-810F shock and vibration specifications for rugged environments. In addition, the footprint of 229mm x 132mm allows it to be integrated into applications with limited space. The flexible mounting options allow this Embedded System to be DIN-Rail, VESA 100 or Wall-mounted to suit applications such as automation, digital signage and process control.

ICP Electronics Australia 02 9457 6011 www.icp-australia.com.au

DE Series Panel Mount XLR Connectors

congatec Australia 07 5520 0841 www.congatec.com

Embedded computer for rugged applications

The ECW-281B-D2550 features Intel’s Atom D2550 Dual-Core 1.86GHz CPU, Intel NM10 Express Chipset, and includes 2GB DDR3 SO-DIMM system memory. This Compact Fanless Embedded Computer supports 4x COM Ports (3x RS232 and 1x RS422/485), 4x USB2.0 Ports, 2x Gigabit Ethernet Ports, 1x VGA and an Audio jack to simplify connectivity to a variety of external peripheral devices.

The 2.5” SATA Bay can support a Solid State Disk or Hard Disk Drive. Expansion is available via two PCIe Mini slots (one fullsize and one half-size). Plus, an

First analyzer with 500 MHz bandwidth Rohde & Schwarz has expanded the analysis bandwidth for its R&S FSW high-end signal and spectrum analyzers. In the past, 320 MHz was considered an excellent value. Rohde & Schwarz is the first company to offer analysis bandwidth of 500 MHz. The new R&S FSW-B500 hardware option is now available for all analyzers of the R&S FSW family and can therefore be used for measurements in a frequency range up to 67 GHz. This enables new applications for the signal and spectrum analyzer in research and development. The analyzer is well-suited for sophisticated measurement tasks in radar or satellite applications as well as for tests on fast wireless connections such as WLAN or Beyond 4G (5G). The large analysis bandwidth enables users to test pulse rise and fall times from approximately 3 ns or very short pulses from an 8 ns pulse width.

The analyzer can therefore be used in the development of radar systems for automotive applications, for example. Users can fully record and measure radar chirps with up to 500 MHz bandwidth.

Rohde & Schwarz (Australia) 02 8874 5100 www.rohde-schwarz.com.au

Switchcraft have introduced the DE Series Panel Mount XLR Connectors. Both male and female versions utilise the same size housing, simplifying installation and modification. They have a rugged metal construction, available in nickel or black finish and have 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7 contacts, plated in silver or gold. The DE Series are RoHS compliant, have large solder cups and the chassis ground terminal feature comes standard with all versions. Along with the QGPK Series of patch panels and the WP Series of wall plates, these new Panel Mount XLR Connectors have application in making stage boxes, reels and portable pro audio equipment, as well as communications equipment.

Clarke & Severn Electronics 02 9482 1944 www.clarke.com.au/switchcraft

SMARC Module for mobile systems ADLINK Technology’s LEC-3517 is their initial ARM-focused Smart Mobility Architecture (SMARC) form factor computer-on-module (COM). The LEC-3517 is built on a TI AM3517 System on Chip (SoC), using an ARM Cortex-A8 processor at 600MHz and with a power envelope of less than 2W. With a high performance-to-power ratio, the LEC-3517 enables system architects to use a fully passive cooled system design, suitable for portable and stationary embedded devices such as industrial handhelds, control terminals, Human Machine Interfaces, medical devices, and industrial tablets. The LEC-3517 utilises the short version of the SMARC module definition (82 mm x 50 mm) and offers 256MB DRAM, 512MB NAND flash on-board. The

module supports 18/24-bit Parallel LCD displays and 8-bit Camera input. The LEC-3517 also features a USB 2.0 host port and a USB client port, four Serial ports and a CAN bus port, and one 10/100 Ethernet port, as well as 12 GPIO signals. Off module storage can be implemented through either SDIO or eMMC on the carrier. Standard operating systems include Linux, Android, and Windows CE, with corresponding board support package (BSP).

ADLINK Technology service@adlinktech.com www.adlinktech.com

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Up close

A conversation with . . .

Brett Burger

Senior Product Manager, National Instruments BRETT BURGER works on the management and strategies of embedded systems used to measure and control the smart grid. This global role involves constant contact with customers, the field sales team, and R&D to ensure future products continue to help scientists and engineers discover and innovate. He was in Sydney recently to speak at the NI Technical Symposiums to host sessions on ‘Exploring the RIO Architecture and Introducing the Newest Member of the CompactRIO Family’ and ‘Integrating .m, .mdl and Real-Time Hardware for Math, Signal Processing & Control’.

He took time out from the session to speak with Electronics News.

Can you talk us through the cRIO9068 move to Linux and the benefits this brings?

The key benefit that Linux RT operating system is going to bring us is the Linux community. There’s hundreds of thousands of Linux users. A lot of people are writing applications for it because of the open nature of the community.

Customers designing control systems on CompactRIO based on Linux will now be able to leverage or borrow a lot of the existing programmes that are out there.

For example, instead of designing their own database and writing it, users can grab one from the Linux community. It’s the same with network hosting, web services or VPN-type clients, that we do not provide direct out of the box with CompactRIO. But our customers can take those from the Linux community and integrate it within our system. One immediate lift is just the wealth of programmes out there already based on Linux.

The other is using the Eclipse development environment. Our customers can now hook into CompactRIO with C and C++ programming. Customers that have existing code on C and C++ don’t have to rewrite that in LabVIEW. They can bring that into the CompactRIO controller and run that as their core control software.

The ability to now double productivity - is that because of the speed?

That is because of the speed of development. A lot of focus is on the cost of the product we’re building.

But what is the cost of the control system?

If you look at the return on invest18 FEBRUARY 2014 www.electronicsnews.com.au

ment, you absolutely have to include development cost. There’s no point in spending a million dollars developing a project if you’re going to sell one of them for $15,000. That’s not a very good investment.

When we talk about doubling productivity, that is from research that we’ve done from one of our UBM surveys. We found that embedded designers using the LabVIEW architecture are getting their projects done in half the time and with smaller design teams. So the whole do more with less or do more with what you’ve got, that message is really resonating.

Why am I making money? It’s because I have a new idea and I don’t have to spend my programming and DMA transfer mechanism between my FPGA and my processor.

I don’t have to spend time doing glue logic between my analogue to digital converter and my FPGA preprocessing unit.

Instead, I’m spending time on the algorithm, on the methods, on my advanced control scheme which is what I do different to everyone else.

Can you use just C++ for programming a CompactRIO? The answer to that is two parts, similar to the two programming parts on the CompactRIO. There is the core processor and on CompactRIO that could be Intel, Freescale, or ARM9 running on Zynq. Then you have the FPGA fabric. Those are the two processing units and historically you would program LabVIEW for each one of them and target them separately.

With this latest CompactRIO running Linux, you can use C or C++ entirely to program the processor

part. That’s because there are a lot of C programmers out there and there’s a lot of C code that already exists.

Now, having to copy C code into any other programming language including G code from LabVIEW, takes time. We’re trying to speed development, so now you can take that existing C code and target it straight to your processor.

Looking at the FPGA, there’s not nearly as many FPGA programmers out there as C programmers. In fact, there are a lot of C programmers that are self-taught. Hardware design languages for FPGA requires usually university training, experience to get proficient at it and there’s just much fewer of those engineers and scientists.

For the FPGA, there is tremendous value in being able to use this high-level function block to program the FPGA, so CompactRIO still uses LabVIEW to program the FPGA. But then you can generate the dot H files which will communicate with your C code running on your controller.

Is it a fact that NI would give away the source code if requested?

Absolutely. The uses for rebuilding a source code are almost infinite.

Because you’re looking at the kernel level and that’s someone that really has that advanced Linux knowledge that maybe they want to install a different driver for some hardware that they’re connecting over a USB port. So they need a specific driver that will communicate with that.

Maybe they want to change the way network traffic is handled over the Ethernet port.

All of these things are typically handled by the operating system and they come off-the-shelf from NI

with one particular personality. If the customer wants to change that, they have the capability to do that.

The product is fairly new. It’s been out since August and we’re pretty excited to see how our customers are going to add to it and change it with the Linux community.

What are key application areas?

There’s been a lot of interest from heavy machine industry, like power generation for instance. If you walk around a power plant, it’s constantly moving. There’s a whole bunch of motors for fans, for pumps, for conveyer belts, grinders for coal - if it’s a coal-fired plant.

One particularly exciting application is the ability to monitor these high-value assets and take them down for maintenance before they break. This prevents power outages for the utility companies. Today that’s done with a human operator.

With the advanced power and the 4X performance improvement in the 9068, customers can now stream high-speed data, process that into vibration data and flag it when the data goes out of spec.

Another interesting area is further down the smart grid - into applications that monitor the power flowing onto a utility grid. With the growth of renewables, that power is not constant. If you’re solar powered, the sun’s not always shining. If you are wind powered, the wind is not always blowing.

Power companies are transitioning from the hub and spoke model where you have a large power gen facility that just generates power downstream to a more distributed model. australia.ni.com

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Nominations close 11 April 2014 Celebrating its 11th year, the 2014 PACE Zenith Awards ceremony will take place on Thursday 12th June in Melbourne and will bring together some of the biggest names in the industry to celebrate, recognise and award companies and professionals within the Process and Control Engineering industry.

Categories • Manufacturing • Food & Beverage • Machine Builder • Mining & Minerals Processing • Oil & Gas • Power & Energy Management • Lifetime Achievement Award • Transport, Power & Infrastructure • Water & Wastewater • Young Achiever • Best Fieldbus Implementation • Project of the Year All finalists will be profiled in PACE Magazine and on the website. They will also be given two free tickets to the gala dinner where the winners will be announced.

For more information visit www.pacetoday.com.au/awards Proudly sponsored by

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