Featured Product:

www.portabledesign.comDecember 2007

Featured Product: XO-1 $100 Laptop

wireless communications: Waveform Portability/SDR consumer electronics: Toy Story: Cool Applications

portable power: Printed & Thin-Film Batteries High-Power Chargers

An RTC Group Publication

Next Year in Portable Electronics

CEO Interview:Sanjay SrivastavaDenali

www.portabledesign.com

www.rtcgroup.com

Intersil – An industry leader in Switching Regulators and Amplifiers.©2007 Intersil Americas Inc. All rights reserved. The following are trademarks or services marks owned by Intersil Corporation or one of its subsidiaries, and may be registered in the USA and/or other countries: Intersil (and design) and i (and design).

High Performance Analog

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Analog Mixed Signal:AmplifiersDCPsLight SensorsReal-Time ClocksRS-232 InterfaceSub Ohm Analog SwitchesSwitches/MUXesVideo DriversVoltage References

We’ve Solved the Cell Phone Design Puzzle.

Go to www.intersil.com for samples, datasheets and support

Untitled-7 1 11/8/07 10:01:28 AM

www.intersil.com

October 2007 �

contents

3.6

3.4

3.2

3.0

2.8

2.6

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2.0

1A 6A

10A 30A

Note: Data from production cells

0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5Capacity (Ah)

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�4 high-power batteries

42 featured product

�0 consumer electronics

50 sanjay srivastava, denali

departments editorialletter 4 dave’stwocents 7 industrynews 8 analysts’pages 12 productfeature 42 productsfordesigners 44

cover feature PortableHandsets- 16 Small,Thinand“Cool” JohnEast,ActelCorporation

PoweringaWorldofPlenty 17 StephenBailey,MentorGraphics

ConsumerElectronics: 18 TheRoadAhead SteveLeibson,Tensilica,Inc.

HardDrivevs.Flash:Competing 19 orMergingTechnologies? AmitNanda,CypressSemiconductor

wireless communicationsHowMuchCanYouDoInSoftware? 20AMulti-StandardRadioBaseStation JohnChapin,VanuInc.

WaveformPortabilityandReuse 24 JerryBickle,PrismTechCorporation

portable powerHigh-PowerBatteriesandChargers �4 JeffreyVanZwol,MicroPowerElectronics

PrintedandThin-FilmBatteries �8 LawrenceGasman,NanoMarkets,LC

second opinion DesigningEnergy-Efficient 48 ConsumerElectronics DevadasVarma,CalyptoDesignSystems

ceo interview SanjaySrivastava 50 Denali

4 PORTABLE DESIGN

edit

oria

l let

ter

OWhatCan

EngineersDoAboutGlobal

Warming?johndonovan,editor-in-chief

On November 17 the UN released the final re-port of its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the group that won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for their work. Normally un-derstated UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, described climate change as “the defining chal-lenge of our age.” The ministerial meeting in Bali earlier this month resulted in agreement that something needs to be done soon. The dev-il is in the details, of course, which now need to be worked out.

The solution to global warming is both political and technical. Let’s leave the political issues aside for the moment and look at possible technical advances where EEs can contribute to the solution. I don’t mean obvious things like sell the Hummer, buy a Prius; switch from incandescent to mini-florescent light bulbs; and teach your kids to turn off the lights. I mean things you can incorporate into your next designs, or de-sign areas you should con-sider embracing. Al Gore threw down the gauntlet at last April’s ESC, when he challenged embedded de-

signers to come up with innovative solutions to conserve energy. There’s a helluva lot of room for improvement there, with large short-term payoffs.

As John East of Actel pointed out in Por-table Design’s October cover story (“The Elec-tronics Industry: The Power to Change”), more than 50% of the 4,055 billion kWh of electric-ity consumed in the United States each year is used to power electric motors. By simply add-ing intelligent load matching or variable speed control—and, in small appliances, simply switching from AC to brushless DC motors—efficiency can easily approach 95%. According to East, if implemented broadly these measures “could result in an annual reduction of U.S. energy consumption of as much as 300 billion kWh, saving billions of dollars and reducing greenhouse gases by more than 180 million metric tons.” Maybe then we could forgo a few

dozen additional coal-burning power plants.Even large 3-phase motors can benefit from

better engineering. Modern 3-phase motors rely on pulse width modulators (PWMs) and power transistors, under control of MCUs, to adjust the speed and torque of the motors. Re-placing rheostats or tapped switches, electronic drive systems greatly increase motor perfor-mance and power efficiency, often allowing the substitution of a much smaller motor into an existing design. They cost a little more, but the cost can often be recouped in a short time. On a macro level, the public good of the resulting power savings is considerable.

Then there is something as simple as the “wall warts” that power portable electronics devices when they’re not on batteries. I’ve got 14 of these things in my house alone. They re-portedly consume four percent of the electric-ity used by the average U.S. home, or over one percent of total U.S. power consumption. If the energy usage were extrapolated to a national scale, the total would be about 52 billion kilo-watt hours, or the energy produced by 26 aver-age-size (coal-fired) power plants.

Wall warts are simple linear supplies with transformers that suck electricity 24/7 whether anything is connected to them or not. It would be dead-bang simple, and not expensive, to lose the transformers; go to a switching archi-tecture; sense the presence of a load; and de-couple from the mains in the absence of one, using just enough energy to be able to power back up quickly on demand. Portable designers are experts in power management. Just move a little of it closer to the wall.

Next, get on your company to look into al-ternative energy sources. Cypress and Google have led the charge in Silicon Valley to solar, getting them off the grid as far as possible. Aus-tin has become a hotbed of wind power start-ups, since wind is one thing they have plenty of in the Panhandle and along the Gulf Coast.

Speaking of wind power, if only we could harness all the hot air coming out of Washing-ton on the subject of climate change, the politi-cians would finally be able to claim that they were contributing to the solution and not just the problem.

Portable Design blog

For more detailed coverage of this and related topics, check out http://portabledesign.blogspot.com.

http://portabledesign.blogspot.com

Dream of Darkness, Wasteman!

atmel_PDesign_Feb07.indd 1 2/8/2007 9:10:02 AM

www.atmel.com

6 PORTABLE DESIGN

teameditorial team

EditorialDirector Warren Andrews,[email protected]

Editor-in-Chief John Donovan,[email protected]

ManagingEditor Marina Tringali,[email protected]

CopyEditor Rochelle Cohn

art and media team CreativeDirector Jason Van Dorn,[email protected]

ArtDirector Kirsten T. Wyatt,[email protected]

GraphicDesigner Christopher Saucier,[email protected]

DirectorofWebDevelopment Marke Hallowell,[email protected]

WebDeveloper Brian Hubbell,[email protected]

management team AssociatePublisher Marina Tringali,[email protected]

ProductMarketing Aaron Foellmi,[email protected] Manager(acting)

WesternAdvertisingManager Stacy Gandre,[email protected]

WesternAdvertisingManager Lauren Trudeau,[email protected]

EasternAdvertisingManager Nancy Vanderslice,[email protected]

Circulation Shannon McNichols,[email protected]

executive management ChiefExecutiveOfficer John Reardon,[email protected]

VicePresident Cindy Hickson,[email protected]

VicePresidentofFinance Cindy Muir,[email protected]

DirectorofCorporateMarketing Aaron Foellmi,[email protected]

DirectorofArtandMedia Jason Van Dorn,[email protected]

portable design advisory councilRavi Ambatipudi,NationalSemiconductor

Doug Grant,AnalogDevices,Inc.

Dave Heacock,TexasInstruments

Kazuyoshi Yamada,NECAmerica

corporate officeTheRTCGroup

905CalleAmanecer,Suite250SanClemente,CA92673

Phone949.226.2000Fax949.226.2050www.rtcgroup.com

Forreprintscontact:MarinaTringali,[email protected].

PublishedbytheRTCGroup.Copyright2007,theRTCGroup.PrintedintheUnitedStates.Allrightsreserved.AllrelatedgraphicsaretrademarksoftheRTCGroup.Allotherbrandandproductnamesarethepropertyoftheirholders.PeriodicalspostageatSanClemente,CA92673.Postmaster:sendchangesofaddressto:PortableDesign,905CalleAmanecer,Suite250,SanClemente,CA92673.PortableDesign(ISSN1086-1300)ispublishedmonthlybyRTCGroup905CalleAmanecer,Suite250,SanClemente,CA92673.Telephone949-226-2000;949-226-2050;WebAddresswww.rtcgroup.com.

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Icertifythatallinformationfurnishedonthisformistrueandcomplete.Iunderstandthatanyonewhofurnishesfalseormisleadinginformationonthisformorwhoomitsmaterialorinformationrequestedontheformmaybesubjectedtocriminalsanctions(includingfinesandimprisonment)and/orcivilsanctions(includingmultipledamagesandcivilpenalties).

editorial team EditorialDirector Warren Andrews,[email protected]

Editor-in-Chief John Donovan,[email protected]

ManagingEditor Marina Tringali,[email protected]

CopyEditor Rochelle Cohn

art and media team CreativeDirector Jason Van Dorn,[email protected]

ArtDirector Kirsten T. Wyatt,[email protected]

GraphicDesigner Christopher Saucier,[email protected]

DirectorofWebDevelopment Marke Hallowell,[email protected]

WebDeveloper Brian Hubbell,[email protected]

management team AssociatePublisher Marina Tringali,[email protected]

ProductMarketing Aaron Foellmi,[email protected] Manager(acting)

WesternAdvertisingManager Stacy Gandre,[email protected]

WesternAdvertisingManager Lauren Trudeau,[email protected]

EasternAdvertisingManager Nancy Vanderslice,[email protected]

Circulation Shannon McNichols,[email protected]

executive management ChiefExecutiveOfficer John Reardon,[email protected]

VicePresident Cindy Hickson,[email protected]

VicePresidentofFinance Cindy Muir,[email protected]

DirectorofCorporateMarketing Aaron Foellmi,[email protected]

DirectorofArtandMedia Jason Van Dorn,[email protected]

portable design advisory councilRavi Ambatipudi,NationalSemiconductor

Doug Grant,AnalogDevices,Inc.

Dave Heacock,TexasInstruments

Kazuyoshi Yamada,NECAmerica

corporate officeTheRTCGroup

905CalleAmanecer,Suite250SanClemente,CA92673

Phone949.226.2000Fax949.226.2050www.rtcgroup.com

DECEMBER 2007 7

AAs the holidays approach, I am once again as-signed to find “gadgets for gifts.” Actually, I began my quest about a month ago. So far I haven’t seen many new “got to have” portable gadgets. Usually I pick gift gadgets based on some unique function, or a numerically speci-fied performance like pixels or storage size. This started me thinking about the gift gadgets I received in my youth.

In the ’60s I received a six-transistor radio. Back then it was all about the number of tran-sistors in a pocket radio. I remember that when comparing presents, the number of transistors was the measure of excellence. It was impor-tant enough that many models had the transis-tor count cast in the plastic housing. Another thing I remember was that it took a round 9V battery. That was very hard to find and some-what expensive for a kid’s budget.

Yes, in those ancient days gadgets always had numbers attached to them. It helped de-termine its degree of sophistication and value. Another example is the number of jewels used to make a watch. One year I received a nine-jewel watch. The greater the jewel number, the better the time piece – or so the public believed. The standard seemed to be 17 jewels, but as many as 100 jewels were offered according to an Internet search. Even today, jewel bearings are used in electronic watches with dial faces to improve battery life. In the mid ’70s, I received an LED display watch. There was no jewel rat-ing, but it had a luminance rating. To see the time, you had to push a button then shade the watch face to see the display.

Another time my brothers and I received walkie-talkies. Supposedly they transmitted with the maximum “no license required” power of 100 mW. The stated range was half a mile, but miles must have been shorter back then. Another number used to assess technical value was the number of channels. Ours had four from which you could select. We spent most of our time trying to talk to people with citizen band radios and were spurred on with the oc-casional contact.

In December of 2005, PC World published an article listing the top 50 gadgets for the last 50 years [1]. Like any such list, a debate could ensue as to what should and should not be included. About 30 portable gadgets are on this list including the first transistor radio and an LED watch. Two years later, I wonder what would be added or replaced.

Back to my assignment: two digital cameras need replaced. Seems life expectancy is about three years. Purchased at the same time, both cameras developed display problems in chorus. Both recipients value small size and high-qual-ity pictures. These parameters are good for nu-

merical evaluation. The other gift most likely will be a portable media player. It too must have good numbers for size, weight and stor-age, as well as long battery life.

Numbers seem to be more and more a part of life. From food labels to gas prices, they are everywhere. My wife has all but given up se-lecting a gadget gift for me. She says I am just too picky about what gadget numbers are the best value. Instead, she buys me gifts that I am incompetent to buy myself, like clothes. Thank goodness for her observations. Otherwise who knows what color combinations I would wear. For my two cents, colors should be given num-bers, too. Then I could give her a combination of wavelengths and she would just work with that information, or she could ignore my sug-gestion and choose what looks nice. I hope you have a happy holiday season and get some rest for what will be a very interesting 2008.

DaveFreeman,TexasInstruments

[1]“The50GreatestGadgetsofthePast50Years,”DanTynan,PCWorld,Dec.24,2005.

dave’stwocentson...

Numbers…AGiftThatKeepsonGiving!

dave

’s t

wo

cent

s

8 PORTABLE DESIGN

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Mentor Graphics Announces an Optimized FPGA Design Flow

Mentor Graphics Corporation has announced support for hardware description language (HDL) generated by MathWorks Simulink HDL Coder in the Mentor Graphics Precision suite of advanced synthesis products. This capability enables mutual customers to trans-fer VHDL and Verilog generated by Simulink HDL Coder into the Precision Synthesis tool directly to generate an optimized netlist imple-mentation for field programmable gate array (FPGA) designs. All mutual customers using Precision 2006a release or newer with Simu-link HDL Coder can benefit from this flow, which will improve the productivity of FPGA design synthesis.

The MathWorks and Mentor Graphics have collaborated on this flow to ensure interoper-ability. Simulink HDL Coder generates bit-true, cycle-accurate, synthesizable Verilog and VHDL code from Simulink models, Embedded MATLAB code and Stateflow charts.

“Simulink HDL Coder and Precision Synthe-sis provide a rapid path from Simulink models to FPGA implementation,” said Ken Karnof-sky, director of marketing, Signal Processing and Communications for MathWorks. “We are pleased to offer a workflow that leverages the capabilities of Mentor’s advanced FPGA syn-thesis products.”

“This integrated flow with Simulink HDL Coder and Precision Synthesis benefits our mutual customers,” said Daniel Platzker, prod-uct line director of FPGA Synthesis at Mentor Graphics Design Creation and Synthesis divi-sion. “Both are industry-leading tools that sup-port a vendor-independent design methodology, and this integrated flow significantly shortens the time-to-market of FPGA designs.”

The Centerpiece of Mentor Graphics FPGA Flow is the Precision Synthesis tool. It is the industry’s most comprehensive vendor-inde-pendent solution for FPGA design, and it is the only synthesis tool that offers true push button multi-vendor physical synthesis. With compre-hensive language support, including System-Verilog, an advanced ASIC prototyping flow,

and automatic incremental synthesis, the Preci-sion Synthesis tool is uniquely suited to handle today’s high-end FPGA designs. The Precision Synthesis tool features award-winning design analysis, allowing designers to cross-probe be-tween multiple views and perform interactive static timing “what-if” analyses. The Precision Synthesis tool reduces design iterations and enables faster, more predictable completion of designs, while delivering a high quality of results.

Precision Synthesis is available at a starting price of $20,200.MentorGraphicsCorporation,Wilsonville,OR.(503)685-7000.[www.mentor.com].

�G Handsets Surpass Half of U.S. Device Sales in Q� 2007

The Strategy Analytics ProductTRAX pro-gram released its Q3 list of top selling consum-er handsets in the U.S. market. Motorola, with its RAZR and KRZR, and LG, collectively ac-counted for seven of the top best-selling con-sumer handsets.

“Overall the average retail price paid for these top ten handsets was 19 percent higher than the market average; and we continue to see strong upgrade dynamics to supplement U.S. market growth,” stated Barry Gilbert, vice president of the ProductTRAX services at Strategy Analytics. “Motorola, however, de-spite selling four of the top ten models in Q3, realized an ASP of only $80, nearly 40 percent lower than the group average.”

“3G devices accounted for 55 percent of these top selling device volumes. That share will continue to grow during Q4,” states Chris Ambrosio, a director in the Wireless Practice at Strategy Analytics. “While the iPhone gets the headlines, the “Sync” from Samsung and the “Chocolate” from LG quietly stole the show in the category of iconic, 3G feature phones. Samsung, in particular, is well-positioned to dominate 3G sales during the critical Q4 holi-day season.”

U.S. Q3 2007, Best-Selling Consumer Handsets

1. Motorola RAZR V3 2. Motorola RAZR V3m 3. LG VX8300 4. Apple iPhone 5. LG Chocolate VX8550/8500 6. Motorola MOTOKRZR K1m


DECEMBER 2007 9

7. Samsung SGH-A707 8. LG VX5300 9. Sanyo Katana II 10. Motorola V323i/V325i

StrategyAnalytics,Inc.,Newton,MA.(617)614-0700.[www.strategyanalytics.net].

Mobile Operators Must Develop a Robust Business Case for Femtocells, Says Analysys

Mobile operators are considering widespread deployment of indoor base stations—called femtocells—as early as 2008. A large-scale rollout of femtocells carries considerable risk, and many early business cases are not commer-cially viable, according to a new report, “Fem-tocells in the Consumer Market: Business Case and Marketing Plan,” published by Analysys, the global advisers on telecoms, IT and media.

“Femtocells are progressing rapidly from be-ing an interesting emerging technology to be-ing ready for mobile operators to deploy,” says report co-author, Dr. Alastair Brydon. “Engi-neering departments within mobile operators have generally led the evaluation of femtocells, but the next critical step is to define a profitable business case, based on clearly targeted and compelling customer propositions.”

Key findings include: • A number of service and customer scenari-

os in which operators propose to use femto-cells do not make sound commercial sense and may cannibalize existing ARPU.

• Widespread use of femtocells solely to provide low-priced voice telephony in the home, although stimulating fixed-mobile substitution, could lead to disaster, as the revenue benefits are highly uncertain. Mo-bile operators that focus on voice telepho-ny must target key market segments and resist very low pricing. For example, in a multi-person household with poor existing cellular coverage, operators can recoup the cost of femtocells within four months, pro-vided a significant price premium is main-tained over fixed calls.

• A strategy underpinned by a range of mul-timedia service propositions will result in a much stronger business case for fem-tocells, bringing the potential to increase revenue and save substantial costs, and of-fering operators the chance to recoup their investment within one to eight months,

depending upon the scenario modeled. Applications such as mobile TV, video and audio services will significantly broaden the consumer appeal of femtocells.

“Mobile TV could be a critical component of a successful femtocell business case, provid-ing substantial cost savings as well as revenue enhancement,” says co-author Dr. Mark Heath. “Trials have shown heavy usage of mobile TV at home, and mobile operators could save $10 per household per year by avoiding the need to build dense DVB-H networks in order to pro-vide mobile TV services indoors.” Analysys,Cambridge,UK.+441223460600.[www.analysys.com].

Qualcomm Makes First Call with Chips Using TSMC’s 45 nm Technology

Qualcomm Incorporated has announced that it has made the first phone call on a 3G chip manufactured with TSMC’s 45 nanometer (nm) process technology.

Qualcomm recently taped out on its low-power-optimized 45 nm process using advanced immersion lithography and extreme low-k inter-metal dielectric material. This process technol-ogy provides competitive performance, as well as significant cost efficiency, decreased leakage and increased integration. The Company is also developing 40 nm process technology, which should deliver even greater benefits in semicon-ductor performance, cost and efficiency.QualcommIncorporated,SanDiego,CA.(858)587-1121.[www.qualcomm.com].

XMOS Unveils First Software- Defined Silicon

XMOS Semiconductor, the creator of Soft-ware Defined Silicon (SDS), a new class of pro-grammable semiconductor, today announced it has working silicon and beta design tools in the lab. Test chips were produced by TSMC on its 90 nm G process. XMOS’ innovative multi-pro-cessor approach to configurable semiconductor devices brings a new level of flexibility and low cost to a broad range of consumer applications.

Central to the XMOS technology is a com-pact, event-driven, multi-threaded processor called XCore. With up to 500 MIPs to share across up to 8 threads, the XCore engine readily implements a range of complex hardware func-tions. Access to its computational and control capabilities is through a familiar embedded soft-ware design flow. By using C-based behavioral languages, designers can quickly map white-

board functional specifications into silicon. The XCore processor is tightly coupled to

the outside world through a set of event-driven input-output ports, and inter-thread communi-cation is provided by XLink, a channel mecha-nism that allows threads and XCores to interact at the hardware level. These bridges between the physical world and the processor engine provide a stable and simple interface for the software de-signer and the hardware engineer.

Design tools and engineering samples of first-generation XMOS SDS chips will be available in the first half of 2008. Production volumes will follow 1-2 quarters later. These devices will be in the $1-$10 cost range to support cost-sensi-tive, high-volume applications.XMOSSemiconductor,Bristol,UK.

+44(0)1179151271.[www.xmos.com].

AMD Expands R&D Presence in India

AMD has opened a new silicon design and platform research and development (R&D) fa-cility in Bangalore.

Dr. Hector Ruiz, AMD’s Chairman and CEO, traveled to Bangalore to inaugurate the newly built center, which is comprised of

state-of-the-art office space offering a host of modern amenities to improve the overall work experience. Employees will move into the new 52,000 square-foot center upon its comple-tion and continue to focus on development of AMD’s most advanced, next-generation pro-cessing solutions.

Mr. Alok Ohrie, managing director, AMD India said, “In a short span of six years of pres-ence in India, AMD has posted market share gains as well as significant contributions to global R&D efforts. AMD India’s expansion demonstrates the confidence our corporation has in the delivery capabilities of the India R&D teams.”

Engineering staffs in Bangalore are playing the lead role on “Shanghai,” AMD’s first 45 nm quad-core microprocessor, and are currently involved in design testing and optimization of the new chip. Prior to their efforts on Shanghai, teams were responsible for delivering key in-tellectual property (IP) for the first Quad-Core AMD Opteron microprocessor, previously codenamed “Barcelona.”

AMD will continue operating its first facility in the city using the existing office space for administration, sales and marketing staffs. AMD,Sunnyvale,CA.(408)749-4000.[www.amd.com].

OKI Ships World’s First SOI-CMOS Technology-Based UV Sensor ICs

Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd. has started volume shipment of its ultraviolet (UV) sensor ICs, ML8511, starting this month. OKI plans to ship over 100 thousand chips to Hong Kong and the Chinese markets this year.

“As trends toward health and anti-aging grow, many people are protecting their skin by monitoring the UV level they are exposed to. We believe it would be convenient if one could check the UV level more easily on a portable UV monitoring device,” said Takaki Yamada, president of Silicon Microdevice Company at Oki Electric Industry. “OKI suc-ceeded in developing a UV sensor IC based on SOI-CMOS(1) technology, a first in the world.

This IC will enable users to embed UV sensor functions in a variety of portable devices, offer-ing end users the ability to check the UV level wherever they are.”

The ML8511 is the world’s first UV sensor IC to be based on SOI-CMOS technology, and it integrates a UV light-receiving element and an analog output circuit into a single chip. This helps to reduce the number of components, cost and size compared to conventional devices. Be-cause the IC includes an energy-saving standby function, it is perfect for battery-driven por-table mobile devices that require low power consumption.

OKI is also releasing a reference board to support customers’ product development. The board includes the ML8511 IC to measure the light density of incident UV light and display a UV index. Once the UV index is measured, the UV level is displayed using LEDs on the printed circuit board. Starting from April 2008, OKI will provide reference designs with de-tailed guidelines for skin care based on the UV level measured by the ML8511.

Going forward, OKI plans to offer sensors with higher functionality based on SOI-CMOS technology and to increase its product lineup of easy-to-use sensor ICs for skin care. OkiAmerica,Inc.,Sunnyvale,CA.(408)720-1900.[www.oki.com].

10 PORTABLE DESIGN

news




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Enabling the next generation of digital consumer applications

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©2007 Xilinx, Inc. All rights reserved. XILINX, the Xilinx logo, and other designated brands included herein are trademarks of Xilinx, Inc. All

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CES_ad_fullpage 12/3/07 3:57 PM Page 1

www.xilinx.com

12 PORTABLE DESIGN




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Can Google’s Foray into Mobile Phones Succeed?

The promise: ubiquitous, mobile Internet access for millions of users worldwide. The stakes: a market of 324 million units and ad-vertising revenue of $3.8 billion by 2011. The risk: embarking on an ambitious effort to es-tablish a consortium to promote a new platform for mobile computing/communications, an en-deavor that others have tried before—and have achieved only high-profile failure.

The news: Google Inc.’s bold initiative to re-shape the mobile-phone market by establishing a consortium of companies intended to promote a new platform for mobile-handset software that will bring Internet access to smartphone platforms.

For users, Google’s move could mean that Internet access will no longer be limited to the confines of the PC. For Google’s rivals, the establishment of the consortium means the ar-rival of a powerful new competitor—one that could cannibalize their sales. For Google, this initiative could allow it to achieve its goal of dominating the potentially lucrative market for mobile advertising and Location-Based Ser-vices (LBS).

Opening up HandsetsGoogle on Monday announced the formation

of the Open Handset Alliance, a multinational coalition of top technology and mobile com-munications firms. The Open Handset Alliance will focus on developing the Android software stack, a set of programs consisting of an op-erating system, middleware, a user-friendly interface and applications. Platforms based on Android are intended to deliver a superior user experience and improved Internet access com-pared to existing smartphones.

Perhaps the most significant aspect of An-droid is the fact that Google intends to offer the software to mobile-handset OEMs for free, or very close to free. This represents an alterna-tive to existing software solutions like Win-dows Mobile, Symbian and various flavors of Linux, which incur considerable expenses for mobile-handset OEMs.

“The implication of this is that it short cir-cuits an incumbent node in the value chain, potentially decreasing consumer prices for such high-end devices. However, it also can-nibalizes a relatively lucrative revenue stream

for operating system suppliers,” said Francis Sideco, senior analyst, wireless communica-tion, for iSuppli.

The Smartphone MarketGoogle’s announcement comes at a time

when interest in such products has been stim-ulated by the arrival of Apple Inc.’s iPhone, which offers high-quality Internet access. Global shipments of smartphones are expected to rise to 324 million units by 2011, up from 124.3 million in 2007, according to iSuppli. Figure 1 presents iSuppli’s forecast for global smartphone unit shipments. iSuppli defines smartphones as mobile handsets with open operating systems that allow functional expan-sion through sophisticated add-on applications. Thus, Google is addressing a market with high growth potential.

Google’s GoalGoogle’s goal with the establishment of the

Open Handset Alliance is to become the main provider of LBS and mobile advertisements on wireless handsets, replicating its success in PC-based ads and location-oriented services like Google Earth. The stakes in this market are poten-tially huge, since iSuppli forecasts the advertising portion of worldwide mobile video revenue will rise to $3.8 billion in 2011, up from just $135 mil-lion in 2007. Figure 2 presents iSuppli’s forecast of global mobile video-advertising revenue.

Google’s interest in this area is so great that it may consider an acquisition of a provider of map navigation software.

analysts’ pages

figure 1

figure 2


DECEMBER 2007 1�

Prospects for SuccessTo determine the chances for success of the

Google venture, one can examine previous, similar initiatives.

The closest parallel to the Google venture can be found in the venture launched by Go Corp./AT&T Microelectronics to promote sup-port for pen-based mobile computing. Similar to what Google is doing now, Go and AT&T in the early 1990s attempted to create an indus-try ecosystem for a new type of product that combined wireless communications and com-puting. Like Google, it was to usher in a new category of mobile devices, in that case, the Personal Communicator. Go created an oper-ating system and other software for pen-based computing, and the company and AT&T at-tempted to work with other market participants to cultivate an ecosystem for pen-based hard-ware and software.

However, the AT&T/Go venture faced major competition from Microsoft Corp., which an-nounced its own pen-based extensions to the Windows operating system, although it did not bring them to market until a decade later. This pre-emptive strike helped bring an end to the AT&T/Go initiative.

Like AT&T/Go, Google is using a “camp strategy,” which calls for the formulation of supply- chain partnerships with multiple com-panies in order to create required building blocks for its initiative, according to David Carnevale, vice president, multimedia content and distribution for iSuppli. Key to success for this strategy will be getting a mobile-handset company to be first to market with a successful product that uses the Google software.

“Google needs to get someone to be the first to make a phone that really creates the category and quickly results in millions of units sold,” Carnevale said. “Previous efforts at establish-ing standards have largely been failures. Sell-ing a lot of products creates de facto market standards and that’s why the iPhone has at-tracted so much attention.”

Like the AT&T/Go effort, Google’s plans face considerable competitive challenges, with the company’s software vying against solutions from high-powered rivals like Apple, Micro-soft, Nokia, Palm and Research in Motion.

However, Carnevale said the Google ini-tiative stands a better chance of success than the AT&T/Go effort. This is mainly because

Google’s software plays to the company’s strengths in providing Internet information to users. iSuppliCorporation,ElSegundo,CA.(310)524-4000.[www.isuppli.com].

Thin Film/Printable Battery Markets to Reach $5.6 Billion by 2015

According to a newly released report from NanoMarkets, the value of the thin-film and printed battery market will reach $5.6 billion by 2015. The report, “Thin Film and Printed Battery Markets” is the next in NanoMarkets’ ongoing series that covers the emerging mar-kets for thin-film, organic and printable elec-tronics.

According to NanoMarkets’ new report, thin-film and printed batteries with their cus-tomizable shapes, flexible form-factors and ultra-low weight are enabling new functional-ity to be added to a broad range of electronic products, such as smartcards, RFID and sen-sors, both increasing their usefulness and the size of their addressable markets. While many of the players in this space are smaller firms, several big name firms including Air Products, Dow Chemical, Intel and NEC have invested in this, underscoring its strategic importance.

This technology segment is also one where volume is everything both in terms of manu-facturability and sales prospects. Thin-film and printable batteries can be delivered at attractive price points when produced in significant quan-tities and with the right processes. For technol-ogies such as RFID, sensors, smartcards and medical devices that are also high volume and cost-sensitive, the ability for manufacturers to add cheap power sources is crucial. When you also factor in the ability for these batteries to extend these applications beyond their current usage, battery manufacturers can create a win-ning proposition for their customers.

In terms of market potential, NanoMarkets report projects that the thin-film and printed battery markets will be driven primarily by RFID, which by 2015 will generate $4.6 bil-lion revenues, smartcards, which will generate

$346 million in revenues and sensors, which will create $434 million in revenues.

The NanoMarkets study predicts that print-ing will have a growing role in the next genera-tion of smart batteries resulting in the growth in demand for zinc manganese dioxide or carbon zinc inks. The study also predicts that there will be a growing number of alternatives for the dominant LiPON electrolytes, with improved conductivity and thermal properties. While thin-film batteries using conventional lithium-based materials will remain the dominant fac-tor, non-lithium battery revenues will grow to $2.5 billion by 2015.Nanomarkets,GlenAllen,VA.(804)360-2967.[www.nanomarkets.net].

Broadband May Become More Popular Than TV for Many in U.S.

Within the next three years, more than 16 million U.S. TV households may be using their broadband service more than they use their TV sets today, reports In-Stat. This is one of the key

findings of an In-Stat survey of U.S. consumers about TV viewing, media and online habits, the high-tech market research firm says. Respon-dents had a broadband connection, a TV set, and were 18 years of age or older.

“Today’s stable and profitable subscription TV services are facing new competition from online and mobile entertainment services, and from new, high-quality packaged goods, such as HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs,” says Gerry Kaufhold, In-Stat analyst. “The very nature of what consumers call ‘entertainment’ is under-going a profound change in which the ability to instantly share content with friends, family members and those connected on social net-works or buddy lists is creating micro user communities that replace traditional entertain-ment sources such as TV programs. As more high-quality content becomes available online,

NanoMarkets

14 PORTABLE DESIGN




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savvy consumers are considering ways to re-duce their monthly bills by getting everything from the Internet.”

In-Stat’s survey also revealed the following:• Up to 30% of respondents would drop sub-

scription TV and use the Internet for TV.• 42% of respondents said that they are not

getting enough international news and in-formation from their current TV delivery services, even though there are hundreds of channels available.

• Nearly 40% of all respondents said “This is the first I've heard of” the U.S. analog TV cut-off mandate in February 2009.

In-Stat,Scottsdale,AZ.(480)483-4440.[www.in-stat.com].

Hard Disk Drive Market Rebounds in the Second Half

Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) are expressing re-newed optimism that business conditions have turned for the better in the second half of 2007 and will continue to improve into 2008.

In the first half of the year, prices fell by about 20 percent per quarter for select equiva-lent-capacity notebook HDDs, declining from slightly more than $100 in December 2006 to about $65 in early June 2007. The deep price cuts inflicted so much pain upon the suppliers that they decided to back off from the mad rush to gain market share.

“Market share alone does not fill the cof-fers,” said Krishna Chander, senior analyst for storage systems at iSuppli Corp. “Higher profits come from identifying and positioning product lines to address emerging trends, rather than battling it out over established commodi-ties that have little differentiation. These higher profits drive investments in future technolo-gies, keeping suppliers competitive.”

Prices for equivalent-capacity HDDs are ex-pected to decline marginally in the 4 to 6 per-cent range in the fourth quarter.

Demand Comes ThroughHDD shipments will grow in concert with

rising PC sales in the seasonally strong sec-ond half of the year. Global PC unit shipments will rise by 9.8 percent sequentially in the third quarter and by 12.4 percent in the fourth quar-ter. Meanwhile, worldwide HDD shipments

will increase by 15 percent in the third quarter and 11.3 percent in the fourth quarter.

Set-Top Box (STB)/Digital Video Recorder (DVR) systems are expected to generate strong HDD demand in the second half of the year. Sales in this segment are expected to rise to 22.7 million in the second half of the year, up 22 percent from 18.6 million in the first half.

Table 1 presents iSuppli’s unit shipment and quarter-to-quarter growth rate estimates for overall HDDs as well as hard drives in note-book and desktop PCs. iSuppli estimates global HDD shipments grew to 132.5 million units in the third quarter, up 15 percent from 115.3 mil-lion in the second quarter.

Hard Times Over for Hard DrivesIn another sign that the HDD market is re-

bounding, both Seagate Technology LLC and Western Digital Corp. provided optimistic outlooks half way through the third quarter. In mid-October, Seagate validated this outlook with very positive third-quarter results. In early November, Western Digital Corp. also reported strong results, with revenue for HDDs at $1.7 billion up 26 percent from the previous quar-ter.

Seagate’s financials indicate it rebounded smartly from its nadir in the first quarter. The company’s gross margin rose to a respect-able 24.6 percent in the third quarter, up from the low of 21.3 percent in the first quarter. Seagate’s margin is expected to rise by another 1 percentage point in the fourth quarter. Simi-larly, its revenue rose to $3.3 billion in the third quarter, up from $2.8 billion in the first quarter. The company said it expects revenue of about $3.5 billion in the fourth quarter.

Western Digital increased its gross margin from 15 percent in the second quarter to a re-spectable 18.4 percent in the third quarter.

In a similar vein, Hitachi Ltd. reported that

analysts’ pages


DECEMBER 2007 15

it had narrowed its losses in the fourth quar-ter and is looking forward to a small operating profit for its HDD operations.

All three companies mentioned they either sustained or improved on their Average Sell-ing Price (ASP) per HDD unit compared to the previous quarter.

The HDD rebound bodes well for storage products across a broad spectrum of technolo-gies, including flash, optical, tape and finished systems. The strong demand shows applica-tions are continuing to generate more data and content that must be stored in different formats and media. iSuppliCorporation,ElSegundo,CA.(310)524-4000.[www.isuppli.com].

SIP Services Will Generate $150 Billion in Annual Revenue by 2012

IP Networks deployed by fixed and mobile operators will lead to mainstream Voice over IP and SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) services, driven by the increasing popularity of “smart” devices such as PDAs and smartphones.

ABI Research principal analyst Ian Cox ex-plains, “New affordable price points and ease of use will allow consumers to benefit from SIP services such as instant messaging, video shar-ing and conferencing, which will join VoIP as it takes over from circuit-switched voice. We have seen the start of a revolution, as mobile handsets become the product of choice not just for voice and simple text messaging, but also for any task that one can perform on a personal computer. And as networks are replaced by “flat architecture” all-IP with SIP application servers in the core, all forms of communica-tions become possible.”

SIP services will develop into the norm after 2010 and rapidly begin to dominate the world’s telecom markets. By 2012, almost half of all telecom users will be using at least one SIP ser-vice, but likely will have many services from

multiple devices able to communicate with other users and services across the Web and be-tween enterprise and public networks. This will generate over $150 billion in service revenue annually with cumulative infrastructure capital expenditure of over $10 billion by that date.

“Using SIP, telephony becomes another Web application, which can be integrated into other Internet services,” continued Cox. “It enables service providers to build converged voice and multimedia services.”

ABI Research expects that by 2012, almost 1.2 billion VoIP users to be active, with most users also subscribing to several forms of mes-saging and video sharing driven by interest in user-generated content. Additional services supported by SIP will include presence, click to dial, buddy lists, e-mail and Web access, which are assumed to be “core” services and included as standard in any service offering and bundled with broadband access. A portion of the VoIP users will also be connected to an FMC service.ABIResearch,OysterBay,NY.(516)624-2500.[www.abiresearch.com].

Japan’s Portable Media Market Headed for Strong Growth through 2011

Fueled by market drivers, such as inexpen-sive flash-based players available around the world, growing broadband penetration, and the increasing availability of affordable, legitimate music and video online, the market for portable media equipment will see strong growth in Ja-pan over the next several years, reports In-Stat.

Music-enabled cell phones, however, may cut into this market, the high-tech market research firm says.

“While video-capable, dedicated PMP/MP3 players seem safe from multimedia cell phone competition, there is a significant opportunity for cellular operators to capture those consum-ers who are considering audio-only MP3 play-ers” says Alice Zhang, In-Stat analyst.

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:• More than a quarter of the respondents to

an In-Stat survey of Japanese consumers would like to use a multimedia mobile phone as a substitute for a multimedia player.

• Japanese PMP/MP3/PDP player market retail volume is expected to reach nearly 1.5 million units by 2011, up from 760,000 units in 2007.

• Consumer interest in video will constrain the growth of audio-only MP3 players in Japan. As PMP prices drop, more Japa-nese consumers will choose to purchase a PMP.

In-Stat,Scottsdale,AZ.(480)483-4440.[www.in-stat.com].

16 PORTABLE DESIGN

cover feature

Portable Handsets – Small, Thin and “Cool”

by John East, President and CEO, Actel Corporation

WWhere would we be today without our cell phones or portable handsets? By some esti-mates, nearly one billion handsets were sold in 2006 and over one billion will be sold in 2007. Other data points suggest that the consumer electronics sector accounts for more than half of all semiconductor sales worldwide. While most consumers don’t understand the tech-nology that powers these phones, they will certainly benefit from new technology in the coming years.

Power MattersPower matters. Nobody knows this better

than a portable designer. Indeed, designers of portable, battery-powered equipment are faced with a daunting challenge—insatiable consum-er demand for smaller, cheaper, feature-rich portable devices with longer battery lives, low-er cost and short time-to-market. The explosion of battery-operated applications, such as wire-less handhelds, smartphones and multimedia players, and a growing cry for power conserva-tion and longer battery life has created a global demand for low-power semiconductors. As a result, semiconductor designers have begun exploring how to continue to improve perfor-mance, reduce costs and extend battery life.

Field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are traditionally seen as the best vehicle for getting designs to market fast. Yet, use of the technology has been limited to prototyping due to power consumption and cost concerns. Over the past few years, advances in FPGA design, however, enable the devices to now be used in high-volume portable designs, and

new solutions are emerging that enable design-ers to reduce design cost and increase battery life. Flash-based FPGA solutions, for example, eliminate power-hungry configuration memory and the leakage current traditionally associated with FPGAs.

FPGAs are available with static power as low as 5 microwatts and active/dynamic power as low as 25 microwatts—power consumption rivaling custom ASICs and processors. More-over, their inherent programmability enables designers to engage in platform-based design, allowing OEMs to add or strip out features to satisfy multiple price points or to adapt to changing standards. The ability to leverage hardware and software design costs across multiple product models leads to greater econ-omies of scale for portable designers.

Of course, the ultimate goal is to achieve the lowest power possible and to accommodate long system idle times by allowing the system to enter and exit low-power modes quickly. This has become key for displays, storage and control functions, and increasingly, designers are leveraging FPGAs and power-smart intel-lectual property (IP) to provide this functional-ity. For example, LCD displays consume more than 50 percent of the power budget of a sys-tem. Using an FPGA, the system can enter a low power mode when the display is not being used, dramatically reducing the power con-sumption and extending the battery life.

Small, Thin and “Cool”Today, cell phones have to be ultra thin to

be ultra “chic.” Despite the miniaturization

of semiconductor packaging, power consumption and heat dissipation are still a concern. In very small 4 mm packaging, flash-based FP-GAs provide un-precedented low-power advantages while offering de-signers four times the density, three times the I/O and a 36 per-cent reduction in size compared to competi-tive programmable solutions. With 200x less static power and more than 10x the battery life than competitive offerings, these devices are an ideal solution for power-sensitive, space-constrained smartphones and other portable handheld devices.

In 2008 power will continue to matter. The semiconductor industry will continue to ad-dress the unique challenges facing portable designers, particularly relating to power ef-ficiency and battery life. Low-power, flash-based FPGAs, in particular, will enable porta-ble designers to continue to develop smaller, “cooler” portable handsets with longer bat-tery lives.

Actel Corporation

Mountain View, CA.

(650) 318-4200.

[www.actel.com].

DECEMBER 2007 17

Powering a World of Plenty

by Stephen Bailey, Functional Verification Product Marketing, Mentor Graphics; Chair, IEEE P1801 (Low Power) Working Group

DDuring the peak of the dot-com era there was tremendous hype about convergence and what form it would take. Although the popu-larity of the term faded along with so much else from that period, convergence quietly moved forward and is an established real-ity today. The ten top innovations developed over the past 10 or so years are all converged in the common cell phone you carry today: digital camera, flash memory, Bluetooth, e-mail, gaming, video, secure banking, TV, and lest we forget, CDMA/GSM cellular communications. The list of features and functionality on portable devices goes on and on like a child’s wish list for Santa. But don’t worry, there will be more in time for the Holiday season next year and the year after that, including high-quality image pro-jection, 3-D displays, 20 Mbit/s – 1 Gbyte/s LAN data rates, and the ability to seamlessly switch between Bluetooth, LAN and cellular base stations.

Unfortunately, all these wonderful capa-bilities require more power. But consumers are clamoring for longer battery life even as they impatiently await new features. Reducing power consumption and power loss in order to increase functionality and battery life requires the use of new design techniques that fall out-side the capabilities of existing HDLs, which means that verification tools can neither simu-late nor prove that the low-power design intent is correct. Also, implementation tools require proprietary mechanisms so that users can pro-vide the necessary information to create low-power chips.

The EDA industry responded with various ways to augment logic design with low-power formats. However, the lack of a single, stan-dard format resulted in costly inefficiencies and an error-prone process resulting from the need to rewrite the low-power specification for each tool in the design and verification flow, severely impacting productivity, profit margin and design quality. Furthermore, veri-fication of the functional implications of low-power design has been performed late in the process—typically after physical design—as all relevant information was not available sooner in a verifiable format. Thus, low-power design verification has been burdened with all the issues of full-timing, gate-level simulation: slow simulations with long turn-around times, long debug identification and long resolution times.

It is essential to functionally verify power-aware designs at a higher level of abstraction without breaking consistency with the power intent at lower abstraction levels. This requires a standard way of specifying the power intent and then using that same power-intent specifi-cation at all abstraction levels. The Accellera United Power Format (UPF) standard allows the specification of implementation-relevant power information early in the design pro-cess—at the RTL or earlier. Because it is writ-ten as a tcl side file, UPF is independent of the RTL code and can be used to add power-related functionality to the RTL without modifying it. Thus, you do not need to verify the non-pow-er-aware functionality of your RTL when the power specification changes.

Similarly, be-cause it is indepen-dent of the HDL, UPF provides a consistent format for specifying pow-er-aware design in-formation and con-sistent semantics across verification and implementa-tion tools. Using the UPF, you can specify supply networks, sup-ply network behavior and logic functionality characteristics along with extending the exist-ing RTL with power-related functionality, such as retention, isolation and level-shifting.

The realization of convergence in consumer devices is creating an increasing pressure for power-aware design across the entire design flow. Everywhere there is a need to conserve and optimize power. New design requires new verification techniques to ensure performance, quality and competitiveness. The UPF is the key to unlocking powerful verification solutions as early as the RTL, allowing you to detect subtle yet critical functional bugs early in the design cycle. This is the only way to successfully un-leash the power of today and tomorrow’s por-table devices.

Mentor Graphics Corporation

Wilsonville, OR.

(503) 685-7000.

[www.mentor.com].

18 PORTABLE DESIGN

cover feature

Consumer Electronics: The Road Ahead

by Steve Leibson, Technology Evangelist, Tensilica, Inc.

TThis digital transformation in consumer electronics (CE) has been dramatic. CE products now drive industry development. The extreme demands of CE design (es-pecially portable CE design)—high per-formance, low cost and low-power opera-tion—stress every aspect of design from the circuit to system level. Because of CE’s stringent needs, the tallest technological hurdles lie ahead. Radio was the first CE product category. AM radio first invaded the world’s living rooms during the 1920s. FM radio followed in the 1940s and FM stereo appeared in the early 1960s. However, CE radio stayed analog for most of the century until the introduction of Internet “radio” in the 1990s. Wireless digital radio is all the rage in the 21st century.

Telephony entered the CE universe with the commercial introduction of cellular te-lephony, answering machines and cordless phones in the late 1970s. The explosive rise of digital cellular telephony during the 1990s has now cemented the telephone as the larg-est volume portable CE product, shipping roughly 1 billion units per year. The advent of the digital camera during the late 1990s firmly placed photography into the portable CE realm. Disc-based music reproduction became digital with the introduction of CDs in 1982. Vinyl records vanished overnight. Digital audio now is audio.

The three factors driving portable CE design are the quest for smaller form-factor, lighter weight and lower operating power. All three forces buck the need for more processor per-formance from one product generation to the next. SOC integration counters the first two factors, but the path taken to increase process-

ing capability—increased clock rates, which climbed a thousand fold over the decade, from a few MHz to beyond a GHz—caused energy consumption and heat dissipation to rise ac-cordingly. The rapid rise in leakage power caused by the transition to nanometer silicon (90 nm and below) further exacerbates the power problem.

CE design problems that require trillions of operations/second can already be eco-nomically addressed with today’s available silicon fabrication technologies, but the CE industry lacks appropriate design method-ologies to harness large numbers of pro-cessors. It’s critically important for design teams to employ efficient system-design strategies for such complex systems; cur-rent design strategies are obsolete. The way forward leads away from today’s uniproces-sor-centric design universe toward the use of tens and hundreds of processors per chip, all running at lowered clock frequencies to reduce power.

Research has started in earnest to crack the problem of programming large arrays of processors. For example, a multi-university, multi-company effort called RAMP (Research Accelerator for Multiple Processors, http://ramp.eecs.berkeley.edu/RAMP) is investigat-ing large, multiple-processor architectures. To quote the RAMP Web site:

“Processor architectures have crossed a critical threshold. Manufacturers have given up attempting to extract ever more performance from a single core and instead have turned to multi-core designs. However, little is known on how to build, program, or manage systems of 64 to 1024 processors, and the computer architec-ture community lacks the basic infrastructure

tools required to carry out this research.”

Today’s por-table CE de-vices are based on concepts developed in the 19th cen-tury and mimic their century-old predeces-sors, delivering improved versions of the same sight and sound content delivered by phonographs, radios, televisions, cameras and telephones for a very long time. Despite improved content quality and the use of mul-tiple processors, present CE devices display no intelligence and little adaptability. Fu-ture 21st-century portable CE devices must deliver both intelligence and unprecedented adaptability to be competitive in the market. These products will need orders of magni-tude more processing power to deliver new abilities previously only dreamed of by sci-ence-fiction authors.

Tensilica Inc.

Santa Clara, CA.

(408) 986-8000.

[www.tensilica.com].

DECEMBER 2007 19

Hard Drive vs. Flash: Competing or Merging

Technologies?by Amit Nanda, Staff Applications Engineer, Cypress Semiconductor

HHard drives are seemingly everywhere and an increasing number of emerging applications, in-cluding personal media players, video recorders and televisions with built-in time-shifting capa-bilities, continue to push the need for larger stor-age capacities. Flash memory offers significant advantages such as fast access and higher reli-ability and threatens to replace conventional hard drives in a wide range of applications. While hard drives utilize a mechanical system consisting of magnetic storage and a spinning platter, flash relies on solid-state memory with no moving parts to store small amounts of electrical charge in semiconductor transistor structures. From an outside perspective, it appears that hard drive and flash memory technology are in direct competi-tion with each other. Is flash the “DVD” to the hard drive’s “VHS”? For many applications, it appears that a hybrid merger of these technolo-gies may offer the best advantage of all.

The primary factor affecting storage technol-ogy is whether consumer demand for increased storage capacity continues to outpace the “sweet spot” in price/performance for flash. If the past is any indication of the future, the storage require-ments for an OS, applications and multimedia content will continue to consume as much stor-age space as can be permitted on a cost-effective basis. Flash doesn’t seem to be closing the overall capacity gap, so for high-capacity applications it will not conceivably replace rotating storage in the near future. Where flash can be expected to continue to invade and dominate is in low-storage markets where it has already overcome the abil-ity of hard drives to compete, and unless video transforms cell phones into personal video play-ers, hard drives will probably never gain a strong foothold in this market space. The real trouble will start when flash will be able to produce large

enough storage for a mainstream OS and business applications at a reasonable price point. Techni-cally, this feat has already been achieved but at a 10-20x price premium over disk drives, which is currently no real threat to the hard drive market.

Flash has moved into the storage space so quickly because of its successful integration into mobile multimedia devices. Personal media play-ers, for example, have shifted focus onto two main forms of non-volatile storage: NAND Flash and hard disk drives. Hard drives have been the prima-ry storage medium, but the growth in the NAND Flash market has been amazing. NAND density continues to double every year, compared to hard drive density doubling every two years, making it possible for flash to penetrate into applications traditionally served by hard drives alone.

Hard drive technology has made incredible progress over the past few years in order to stay ahead of its game. With recent demonstrations showing densities of 345 Gbits/sq. inch, desk-top drives are expected to reach 2 Terabytes with 400 Gbyte drives in notebooks. Can flash achieve this kind of capacity? Flash manufactur-ers are struggling to overcome current NAND floating gate limits, and by the time flash catches up to these densities, hard drive technology will have moved significantly forward again.

So where does flash win? In terms of perfor-mance, NAND Flash offers fast read access times and better shock resistance than hard drives given their lack of any moving parts. These characteris-tics explain the rise in popularity of NAND Flash devices for mobile devices and other battery-pow-ered applications where speed and robustness are factors that consumers are directly aware of.

Flash’s one drawback is in write performance, which is slower than that of a hard disk. Consider a comparison between Cypress AT2LP with Hi-

tachi hard drive and San Disk Cruzer 512 Mbyte flash drive driven by a Dell D820 Laptop oper-ating Performance Test 6.1 Suite. The read delta between these two drives is significant: reads off NAND Flash occur almost ten times faster than from a hard drive spinning at 5400 rpm. In contrast, the write speed of a flash drive versus a hard drive is significantly different, this time with the hard drive writes about ten times faster than those of the flash drive.

Taking into account the differences in read and write times, it becomes clear why the merging of these technologies to create Hybrid drives makes sense for many applications. For example, having an application boot from flash results in faster start-up time. Then, once the OS is ready, the hard drive would serve as primary storage. Hybrid drives have already been adopted by many PC and drive manufacturers, with more applications to follow.

Both flash memory and hard drive technologies have their advantages. Certainly, hard drives still seem to dominate the market when it comes to stor-ing large media files, like videos, pictures and mu-sic, but even in these applications the use of flash in a hybrid architecture can boost performance. Additionally, hybrid technology can bring advan-tages to many other applications, including com-munications technologies such as SATA and Fibre Channel, where flash/hard drive hybrids promise to increase both performance and reliability.

Cypress Semiconductor

San Jose, CA.

(408) 943-2600.

[www.cypress.com].

20 PORTABLE DESIGN

wireless communicationssoftware radio

How Much Can You Do in Software?A Multi-Standard

Radio Base StationThis article describes the Anywave Base Station Subsystem from Vanu, Inc., which earned the first software defined radio certification ever awarded by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, and is deployed in commercial operation at multiple sites in the U.S. and Canada.

by John Chapin, Chief Technical Officer, Vanu, Inc.

IInnovative software radio technology utilizing industry-standard, commercial-off-the-shelf hardware is now being utilized to deploy the first true multi-standard radio access networks (RANs) for cellular telephone systems. These systems provide unprecedented flexibility and value to cellular operators, and are well suited to both traditional macrocell networks and to non-traditional deployments such as mobile base stations and distributed antenna systems.

Until now, multi-standard RANs have been limited to cellular standards specifically de-signed for compatibility. With recent advances in software design and hardware performance, cel-lular standards can now be implemented entirely in software running on standards-neutral indus-try-standard hardware, enabling arbitrary wave-form combinations such as iDEN/GSM/1xRTT within a single Base Transceiver Station (BTS). The Base Station Controller (BSC) function can also be performed in software on standards-neu-

tral hardware, in some cases allowing BSCs sup-porting different standards to coexist in a single device. This eliminates the costly duplication of hardware and data links previously required to support multiple independent standards.

Because all standards are implemented en-tirely in software, the Anywave BSS can dy-namically change the mix of standards and/or the amount of the carrier’s valuable spectrum allocated to each. This flexibility permits much more effective use of capacity when the number of customers or their usage cannot be predicted in advance. It also enables carriers to allocate valuable spectrum and backhaul resources to broadband data capacity only in those cells where customers using the broadband service are active at any given time.

Standard Hardware PlatformsThe software components of the Anywave

BSS execute on industry-standard, non-pro-

DECEMBER 2007 21

prietary hardware platforms; even the high-speed signal processing for the air interface is a portable software application running on a standard server. Each customer can select the optimal hardware platform to support the de-sired network feature set at a minimum cost. Installed configurations range in scale from a basic laptop to a fully redundant, high-den-sity blade server. Typical installations utilize NEBS-compliant carrier-grade or low-cost IT-grade rackmount servers (an example of a rural deployment is shown in Figure 1).

Size and Power Consumption Savings

Software-only designs such as the Anywave BSS exploit improvements in form-factor and power resulting from ongoing R&D investments by the computing industry. For example, multi-core processors provide a substantial improve-ment in system performance without a corre-sponding increase in size or power consumption. Similarly, multi-carrier radio heads also can re-duce heat dissipation and power requirements when compared to the analog RF combining networks used in competing BTS designs.

Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS)

When Anywave BTS servers are combined into a processing center for a DAS, the process-ing center effectively acts as a server farm, and can be deployed and managed using mature data center technologies.

The Anywave BSS uses a switched RF sample interconnect between the center and the antenna sites, enabling dynamic reallocation of processing capacity; additional processing servers can be allocated to a given antenna site when it has a higher load or more challenging operating conditions. As a result, the center need only include sufficient processing ca-pacity and redundancy for the maximum load across the entire distributed antenna system.

Operations, Administration and Maintenance (OA&M)

Since the Anywave BSS runs on industry-standard servers or blades, it leverages their remote access and maintenance capabilities. Remote “integrated lights-out” management provides cost-effective remote monitoring and management of a variety of hardware and soft-ware parameters. SNMP-based access to all of the software and hardware components enables

integration with a wide range of management tools. Software upgrades, configuration chang-es and log collection can all be performed re-motely, minimizing expensive “truck rolls” to multiple remote antenna sites.

Evolution to Future StandardsAn operator can add new cellular standards

to an existing Vanu Anywave BSS network as a software upgrade. This expandability makes it much easier for carriers to keep up with the rapid evolution of the cellular market. Although hardware upgrades may be necessary if the new standard oper-ates in a frequency band that is not supported by the existing RF head, or if the signal pro-cessing for the new standard exceeds the computational capacity of the installed servers, these upgrades are inexpensive com-pared to the cost of rolling out an entirely new set of single-standard network infrastruc-ture hardware.

table 1

Benefits of Anywave BSS for Cellular Operators

Key Features Configurations CAPEX and OPEX Savings

Multiple cellular standards operating at the same time

Add new standards through software-only change

Smooth upgrade path to 3G and future standards

Traditional macrocell networks

Remote sites with satellite backhaul

Stand-alone networks

Cost-effectively scales from tiny picocells to large high-density deployments

Supports distributed antenna systems (DAS)

Use of industry-standard platforms available from multiple hardware vendors reduces cost

Multicarrier radios and all-IP design reduce footprint, power, on-site maintenance and backhaul requirements

On-demand spectrum and capacity reallocation across standards increases efficiency

Vanu Anywave GSM/GPRS BSS in a rural cellular deployment.

figure 1

DeLeon, TX siteof Mid-Tex Cellular

Operator’sPreviousBase Station

AnywaveServer

Anywave RFHead(enclosure also containspower amplifier)

22 PORTABLE DESIGN

SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE

True Software RadioAll of the Vanu Anywave software is writ-

ten in C/C++ running on the Linux operating system. The entire system, including the signal processing for the air interface, is simply a col-lection of software applications that can run on any general-purpose processor. The software is designed to allow multiple processes to run on the same CPU, enabling a single server or blade to support multiple different air interfac-es at the same time, with capacity dynamically shared among all operating air interfaces.

The software radio technology adopted by the rest of the industry (also called Software Defined Radio, or SDR) allows the supported air interface such as GSM or CDMA to be changed through a software-only upgrade. However, this approach requires specialized processors such as DSPs or FPGAs, and might more properly be termed “firmware radio” to reflect its lack of portability and dependence on specific hardware devices.

Figure 2 compares the BTS architecture of a Vanu Anywave BSS to a conventional SDR.

Multi-Carrier RF HeadsRadio transmission and reception in the

Anywave BSS is performed by advanced multi-carrier radio head units. This design can provide significant heat dissipation and power loss savings compared to the inefficient com-bining networks used in legacy line card BTS architectures (Figure 3).

The analog electronics in the RF head sup-port a variety of cellular standards. As shown in Figure 4, selectable carrier frequency and band-width allows multiple carriers using different standards to operate simultaneously (e.g., the transmission and reception of GSM and CDMA channels at the same time through the same RF head). The carriers in use can even be changed dynamically to match the capacity of each stan-dard to the number of customers currently in the coverage area of the BTS. The transceiver in the RF head performs digital channelization and down-conversion (on receive) and digital up-conversion and summing (on transmit) to reduce the bandwidth requirements on the RF sample interconnect.

Standard RF Sample InterconnectThe RF head exchanges digitized samples

representing the band or channels of opera-tion with the Anywave signal processing server over an RF sample interconnect utilizing fiber

Vanu Software Radio vs. a conventional “firmware radio” SDR for a Base Transceiver Station (BTS).

figure 2

Antenna

DuplexerPower Amp

BTS

Radio Access Network

BackhaulNetwork

BSC

SwitchInterface

Software ongeneral purpose

processorfirmware onFPGA or DSP

Traditional SDR Architecture for a line card in a BTS.

Receiver/Exciter

SignalProcessingSubsystem

Layer 3and up

RFChain

Receiver/Exciter


Layer 3and up

RFChain

RF HeadPortable Vanu Software onIndustry-Standard Server

Vanu Software Radio Architecture for a BTS

RF Sample Interconnect usingStandard network or I/O bus.

(a)

(b)

(c)

Comparison of legacy architecture vs. Anywave architecture for a multi-carrier site.

figure 3

analog RF combining networkwastes power, heat

to power amp,duplexer, andantenna

line card

Legacy Line Card BTS Architecture

Anywave Multi-carrier BTS Architecture

to power amp,duplexer, andantenna

digital sampleinterconnect

industry-standardserver running

multiple carriers

RF Headup to 16 carriers

(a)

(b)

DECEMBER 2007 23

or GigE links (Figure 2). These standard net-working technologies are readily integrated with industry-standard servers, eliminating the need for specialized interface boards. These interconnects can even be extended over long distances into a fronthaul network for distrib-uted antenna systems, as shown in Figure 5. Switching capabilities improve redundancy and permit reallocation of BTS servers across antenna sites in response to changing loads.

Radio Access Network and BSCThe BTS connects to the other components

of the radio access network via an IP connec-tion, which can be transported over a variety of links (e.g., T1/E1, Ethernet). Cost-effective commercial switches, bridges and routers are available, as are tools for network monitoring and maintenance. The burst-like data traffic characteristic of 2.5G and 3G cellular standards can be efficiently multiplexed over IP, allowing for OPEX reductions in backhaul from the BTS not possible with traditional designs.

The Anywave BSC is implemented as a software application whose traffic and con-trol functions are segregated into indepen-dent processes. The BSC is implemented as three processes: a control process, a Trans-coder and Rate Adaption Unit (TRAU) for voice traffic, and a Packet Control Unit (PCU) for data traffic. These software mod-ules can all run on a single processor for low-capacity installations. For scalability, a single BSC can be distributed over a cluster of servers, each with one or more TRAU or PCU process handling the traffic load from one or more BTS units.

The Vanu Anywave BSC connects to the customer’s telecom switch via either SS7 or VoIP links. The BSC’s IP-centric design readily integrates with next-generation network archi-tectures that utilize separate control and traf-fic connections. When connecting to a legacy telecom switch, an external gateway is used to translate between IP over Ethernet and SS7 over T1.

SummaryThe software-based Vanu Anywave Base Sta-

tion Subsystem brings together a suite of tech-nologies that provide an unprecedented level of flexibility, scalability and cost-effectiveness to cellular operators. The core technology en-ables true multi-standard operation and takes advantage of industry-standard, COTS servers, reducing both CAPEX and OPEX, and signifi-cantly reducing requirements for on-site main-

tenance. The use of advanced multi-carrier RF heads supports multi-standard operation and dynamic ca-pacity reallocation. A switched-fabric standard network-ing protocol in the fronthaul makes distributed antenna solutions economi-cal. IP everywhere in the backhaul and switch connection enables the use of commodity equip-ment and multi-plexed network links.

These ben-efits are the direct consequences of Vanu’s unique, software-centric approach to the ra-dio access network. The multi-standard software can run on any of a wide range of server platforms and exploit any of a range of back-haul, fronthaul and RF head equip-ment, all based around industry-standard, commercially avail-able platforms and networking protocols. Con-sequently, network operators can focus infra-structure investments on system configurations that not only meet their specific requirements for features and scalability at minimal cost, but also significantly enhance business model flexibility through enabling software-only up-grades and on-demand spectrum and capacity allocation. Vanu Anywave BSS networks in both macrocell and innovative vehicle picocell, enterprise in-building, and home deployments enjoy significant cost and flexibility advantages over conventional alternatives.

Vanu, Inc.

Cambridge, MA.

(617) 864-1711.

[www.vanu.com].

RF characteristics of a typical RF head for the Vanu Anywave BSS.

figure 4

26 MHz receivetunable anywhere inlegal receive band

26 MHz transmittunable anywhere inlegal transmit band1

850

1910

1930

1990

Different RF headssupport different bands(SMR, cell, PCS, Euro)

Up to 16 carriers within bandIndividually selectable center frequency and bandwidthDynamic retune/hopping

Block diagram of an Anywave BSS Distributed Antenna System.

figure 5

FronthaulNetwork

DigitalSwitchedRedundant

RFHead

Antenna SiteDistributed Antenna System

BTS processing center

Portable Software OnIndustry-Standard Server

Layer 3and up


24 PORTABLE DESIGN

wireless communicationssoftware radio

Waveform Portability and Reuse—Key Enablers on the

Road to Software Defined Radio

SDR radically reshapes the relationship between the application software, the radio hardware and the operating system, leading to increased software portability and reuse across disparate physical radio platforms.

by Jerry Bickle, Chief Scientist, SDR Products, PrismTech Corporation

AAs the development and deployment of Soft-ware Defined Radio (SDR) technologies con-tinue to progress within the industry, software continues to move closer to the antenna across the RF chain. A good measure, and key en-abler of this can be found in waveform por-tability and reuse across radio platforms—a productivity advantage dependent upon the level of separation between the application software and the radio hardware and operat-ing system.

This separation and isolation of the wave-form implementation from the underlying operating environment (OE) is a crucial milestone in the development and rapid adoption of SDR. It leads the way for in-creased portability and reuse of radio soft-ware, and facilitates new dynamic configu-ration and interoperability functions critical to Net-centric operations, first-response and public safety communication require-

ments. The industry is now applying these separation/isolation techniques and tools to achieve software portability and reuse across disparate physical radio platforms using dif-fering OEs designed to either the Software Communications Architecture (SCA) [1,2] or the Object Management Group’s (OMG) SWRadio [3] standard.

In the SCA specification, the basic build-ing block of a waveform application is called a Resource component (Figure 1). A Resource component realizes or supports the Core Framework Resource (CF::Resource) inter-face as described by the SCA standard. This interface provides the generic management operations for configuration, testing, lifecycle management, connectivity and component control. A Resource component, in addition to supporting the CF::Resource interface, can support additional interfaces (functionality) by offering services via its provides ports and can

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26 PORTABLE DESIGN

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use services offered by other components via its uses ports.

These ports allow Resource components to be connected into assemblies of compo-nents. These assemblies of Resource compo-nents, in turn, deliver waveform functional-ity to the SDR.

The implementation of a Resource compo-nent, as shown in Figure 2, can be viewed as having three distinct logical partitions: a Com-ponent Container, a Component Infrastructure and a Component Implementation. A Resource Component Implementation is constrained so as not to violate the SCA’s POSIX-based Ap-plication Environment Profile (AEP). The AEP establishes the functions that an operating sys-tem used by the OE must provide to the Re-source component, and as such, allows the Re-source component implementation to remain portable across operating systems.

The Component Container provides software that supports execution of the Resource com-ponent on the target processor and handles:

• the entry point arguments, • the middleware setup (ORB initialization,

ORB Portable Object Adapter (POA)), • the creation and activation of a Resource

component,• the binding of the Resource component

object reference to a CORBA Naming Ser-vice, and

• a blocking function that waits on operating system signals to terminate the entry point.

The SCA Component Infrastructure itself can deal with all SCA requirements and COR-BA mechanisms associated with the Resource component interface:

• PropertySet – configure and query proper-ties

• LifeCycle – initialize and release object• TestableObject – executing specific test

properties• PortSupplier – get Uses and Provides

Ports.

The SCA Component Infrastructure can also deal with all the SCA requirements and CORBA mechanisms for the CF::Port interface that each uses port implements. The CF::Port interface provides the inter-

faces required to connect and disconnect provides ports.

The Component Implementation contains the implementation of the component (its busi-ness logic such as encode, decode, modulate, demodulate, filter, etc.). The Component Im-plementation processes information coming in at its provides ports, and after processing the information can send the transformed informa-tion via its uses ports to another component for further processing.

The following sections describe how the Component Container, Component Infrastruc-ture and Component Implementation can be made portable across SCA/SDR OEs.

Software ReuseSoftware reuse is defined for the purpose

of this article as the use of previously existing software artifacts to build new software arti-facts. Software that is reusable typically has the following traits: modularity, loose coupling, high cohesion, information hiding and separa-tion of concerns. These traits allow the soft-ware artifact to be isolated and easily repack-aged in future software development activities. Component Implementations must strive to achieve these features if they are expected to be reused in future waveform component as-semblies. Using modern Model Driven Devel-opment (MDD) tools, it is possible to gener-ate a Platform Specific Model (PSM) from a Resource Component Platform Independent Model (PIM).The PSM, in essence, binds the design expressed in the PIM to a set of required deployment technologies. These technologies may include, but are not limited to, coding lan-guages (such as C or C++), middleware tech-nologies and operating systems [4]. Figure 3 illustrates the concept.

The PSMs produced from an MDD tool may vary and some of the outcomes are as follows:

• A Component Implementation may be pro-duced that is unique to an OE implementa-tion and tightly coupled to the Component Container and Infrastructure. This type of implementation would also likely be highly dependent on a particular OE, middleware, or operating system implementation, and since there is a lack of proper separation of concerns maintained between the Compo-

Resource Component Illustration.

figure 1

Provides Port

ResourceComponent

Users Port

ResourceInterface

Component’s Implementation Logical Partitions.

figure 2

Component Infrastructure

Provides Port

ComponentImplementation

Users Port

ResourceInterface

SCA OE(CF, POSIX AEP, CORBA ORB)

Component Container


DECEMBER 2007 27

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nent Container, Infrastructure and Imple-mentation, reuse of the Component Imple-mentation is significantly hampered.

• A Component Implementation may be pro-duced that is decoupled from any particular OE Component Infrastructure. The SCA Component Infrastructure and Component Container in this case are designed to be specific to an OE. However, by having the Component Implementation maintain proper separation from any particular OE, the Component Implementation is allowed to migrate from one OE implementation to another seamlessly (Figure 4).

Other component reusability considerations include:

• Adherence to Language Standards (e.g. C, C++, VHDL) and elimination of non-por-table language features.

• The use of industry accepted design pat-terns in the development of component implementations.

• The development of common operating sys-tem and middleware compilation environ-ments for a specific processing environment.

Software Portability is the ease with which one system or component can be transferred from one hardware or software environment to another [4]. In the case of an SCA-based SDR, porting may refer to the porting of a waveform application onto an SCA/SDR platform or the porting of a Resource Component onto an-other SCA/SDR OE. The goal of some of the SCA/SDR standards [1,2,3] is to provide open system specifications. An open system [6] is a system that implements sufficient open specifi-cations for interfaces, services and supporting formats to enable properly engineered applica-tions software to:

• be ported across a wide range of systems (with minimal changes)

• interoperate with other applications on lo-cal or remote systems

• interact with users in a style which facili-tates user portability

The goal of application or component por-tability is to minimize the cost and effort that are known and economically reasonable to

port an application or component onto another platform. Ideally, one would want to simply recompile their application software for a new platform; however, this is usually not possible for various reasons (including processor, oper-ating system and compilers differences to name a few). As shown in Figure 5, the same compo-nent PSM can be made portable across multiple OEs without significant re-engineering of the entire application.

PIM to PSMs.

figure 3

ComponentInfrastructure


ResourceInterface

ComponentContainer



ResourceInterface

ComponentContainer

ResourceComponent PIM

ResourceInterface



ResourceInterface

ComponentContainer

OE PSM

OE-1 OE-2 OE-3

Software Portability is

the ease with which one

system or component

can be transferred from

one hardware or software

environment to another.

28 PORTABLE DESIGN




Ad Index








There are several dimensions to application portability [6]:

• Program Portability: Will the code run suc-cessfully on all intended platforms?

• Data Portability: Are the data structures or files used in the application portable or available on all platforms?

• End-User Portability: Since re-training of users can be a relatively expensive exer-cise, it is often required that an application have the same look and feel across several platforms.

• Developer Portability: The use of a stan-dard set of interfaces and services across the entire target platform minimizes the re-training of developers.

• Documentation Portability: Users of ap-plications on different platforms often have different expectations regarding the type of documentation they receive especially in the context of on-line help facilities.

Here we will mainly concern ourselves with the first of the above considerations. However, there will frequently be significant overlap with the other aspects.

Program PortabilityProgram Portability for a Resource Compo-

nent’s implementation may be impacted at the Component Container level. Potential impacts on the Component Container related to oper-ating systems and middleware compliancy in-clude:

• The entry point name. Certain operat-ing systems require a fixed name for the application’s entry point, where others do not. This issue can be handled using com-pile time directives for specifying the entry point name. This allows the same source code to be used across a wider range of op-erating systems.

• Entry point arguments. These arguments may not always conform to a fixed standard across all operating systems.

• Middleware transport setup. The setup of the middleware transports may not always conform to a fixed standard and may vary based on processor and bus architecture.

Code development or automatic generation factors that impact the Component Infrastruc-ture and Component Implementation include (by no means a complete list):

• Adherence to coding language standards. Here, elimination of non-portable or com-piler vendor-specific language features is key. For example, avoid “pragmas,” use of bit-fields, use of native types, etc.

• Avoidance of middleware vendor-specific APIs.

• Source code language commonality. For example, striving to make header files compatible with both C and C++ whenever possible.

• Consistent use of operating systems librar-ies across languages. This makes porting code from more resource-constrained en-vironments (DSP) to less resource-con-strained environments (GPP) feasible (Fig-ure 6).

Developer PortabilityDeveloper Portability (also known as Plat-

form Portability) has two aspects: • Common platform service components

that abstract common radio functionality promote waveform application portability. These common services can be standard-ized and offered across radio platforms developed by differing vendors thereby in-creasing the reuse and portability of wave-form applications.

• Platform capability that is offered by the

Component Implementation across Component Frameworks.

figure 4

SWRadio ComponentInfrastructure

ResourceInterface

ComponentContainer

SCA ComponentInfrastructure

ResourceInterface

ComponentContainer

Same Component Implementationacross different component infrastructures

Portable Component PSM.

figure 5



ResourceInterface

ComponentContainer


ResourceInterface

Component PSM

OEOE OE


DECEMBER 2007 29

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OE and the physical communication chan-nels of the radio hardware.

Currently, industry standardized SDR plat-form service components are severely lacking. Some interfaces and service component defini-tions have been defined and offered to industry by the U.S. DoD’s Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) program [7] while some others are in the process of being standardized by the Soft-ware Defined Radio Forum and the Object Management Group (such as smart antenna [8] and digital IF interfaces [9]). Although this handful of common platform service defini-tions goes a long way to increase waveform ap-plication portability, additional standardization in this area is sorely needed.

The degree to which a waveform applica-tion is portable to a particular radio platform is determined by the evaluation of waveform application PIM against the platform service components offered, as well as the mapping of waveform component implementations onto the radio OE and physical radio platform.

As such, in addition to basic software por-tability, a waveform application must also be able to reproduce its intended behavior on the radio platform to which it is being migrated. In order to do this a waveform application must capture as part of its deployment properties:

• the QoS requirements between the wave-form application’s components,

• the QoS requirements between the wave-form application components and platform service components, and

• the component’s processing requirements.

ConclusionIn summary, using the techniques described

in this article in conjunction with modern MDD techniques and tools, such as PrismTech’s Spectra Power Tools, it is currently possible to generate reusable and portable component implementations that are operating system and middleware neutral. This neutrality allows SDR application developers to create imple-mentations that can be used across a wide range of SDR Operating Environments, and allows software to move closer to the antenna across the RF chain.

References[1] Software Communications Architecture 2.2,

http://sca.jpeojtrs.mil/downloads.asp

[2] Software Communications Architecture 2.2.2, http://sca.jpeojtrs.mil/

[3] Platform Independent Model (PIM) & Platform Specific Model (PSM) for Software Radio Components (also referred to as UML Profile for Software Radio) v1.0, OMG formal/2007-03-01, http://www.omg.org/technology/documents/formal/swradio.htm

[4] MDA Presentations and Papers, http://www.omg.org/mda/presentations.htm

[5] Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engi-neers. IEEE Standard Computer Dictionary: A Compilation of IEEE Standard Computer Glossaries. New York, NY: 1990.

[6] ISO/IEC 14252:1996 [IEEE Std 1003.0-1995] Guide to the POSIX Open Systems Environment

[7] Software Communications Architecture (SCA) and JTRS Application Program Inter-faces (APIs), http://sca.jpeojtrs.mil/

[8] PIM and PSM for Smart Antenna RFP, sbc/06-12-10, http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/doc?sbc/2006-12-10

[9] PIM and PSM for Digital Intermediate Fre-quency Interface RFP, OMG sbc/04-08-15, http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/doc?sbc/2004-8-15

[10] PrismTech Spectra SDR Power Tools, http://www.prismtech.com/section-item.asp?id=305&sid=18&sid2=54

PrismTech Corporation

Burlington, MA.

781-270-1177.

[www.prismtech.com].

Different Constraining but Compatible OEs Illustration.

figure 6



ResourceInterface

ComponentContainer


ResourceInterface

Component PSM

MoreConstraining

OE (DSP)

LessConstraining

OE

LessConstraining

OE

30 PORTABLE DESIGN

consumer electronicscool applications

Toy Story: This Year’s Cool Portable

ApplicationsWith the holidays rolling around again, Portable Design declared a temporary halt in tossing away catalogs before first taking a peek at the latest portable gadgets. All year long we offer guidance on how to design portable products. At year’s end we thought it would be fun to take a look at some of the more creative portable products that may have wound up under your tree (or be retrofitted). Batteries not included, of course.

Palm-Size R/C HelicopterOK, this may not be the most sophisticated

design, but it may be the most fun. These in-jection molded, carbon-fiber mini copters can take off from your hand and circle your desk as your co-workers gape in amazement. Full con-

trol allows you to hover and turn left or right as your copter moves slowly forward. Two dif-ferent channels let you fly with a friend. Using IR instead of RF for control, the copters in-clude flashing colored LEDs for “night flying” and can fly for 5-7 minutes after a 15-minute charge. Warning: Don’t fly lower than your cat can jump. ThinkGeek (www.thinkgeek.com). Price: $29.99 - $49.99.

Kindle E-BookIs Amazon’s new wireless e-book reader

really “the future of book reading” as the ads claim? Well, it’s certainly a novel approach. With a built-in connection to a free nationwide wireless network, readers can download and read books, newspapers, magazines and blogs. New e-book releases cost about $10, with old classics going for as little at $1.99. More than 90,000 e-books are available, most of which can be downloaded in less than a minute. Kindle

Rogers Corporation, the manufacturer of PORON®

Urethane for more than 25 years, and its joint ventureRogers Inoac Corp (RIC), have recently seen anincrease in imitation material in the marketplace. Thishas resulted in products that don’t meet high qualitystandards and specifications that can lead to productfailures.

CONSIDER THE RISKS INVOLVED WITH IMITATION MATERIAL

Potential Design FailureProducts can fail due to poor heat resistance,poor compression set resistance and high out-gassing found in low quality substitute material.

Tarnished ReputationWhen products fail, the device manufacturersand material converters put their reputations at risk.

PORON® URETHANES FILL THE GAP INHANDHELD DESIGN APPLICATIONSOne of the mostimportant gasketfunctions in hand-held devices is to seal out harmfuldust and particles.The sealing materi-al’s ability to maintain long-term performance isessential. Becauseof its high compres-sion set resistance, PORON® Urethanes bounce back sothat gaskets hold their shape and seal for prolonged

periods, effectively blockingcontaminants and extendingproduct life. The result is LCDdisplays stay crisp andclear.

The minimal outgassing character-istics of PORON® Urethanes con-tribute to reduced LCD fogging forimproved visibility and clarity overthe life of the product.

Durability is key to the service lifeof handheld products. Unlikecounterfeit materials, real PORON® Urethanes retaintheir physical and mechanical properties, includingexcellent energy absorption, and dimensional stability,even at elevated temperatures.

The unique microcellular structure of PORON® Urethanescontributes to fabrication ease and design stability.Die cuts are clean with never a crushed edge, makingintricate jobs a production reality.

Real PORON® Urethanes from Rogers Corporation andRIC are high quality, high performance materialsspecified worldwide for gasketing, sealingand energy absorption applications. Formore information on how PORON®

Urethanes help to eliminate risks, or to ordera free copy of our ELECTRONICS DESIGNSOLUTIONS BROCHURE, visit our website www.realporon.com.

The Rogers logo andPORON are licensedtrademarks of RogersCorporation.

Don't be fooled by imitation material.The performance of real PORON® Urethanescan't be matched.One of the challenges being faced in today's handheld design market is the risk of inferior materials being used as a replacement for high quality, high performance products.

10080

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PERCENT THICKNESS RETAINED AT HIGH TEMPERATURES

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PORON® Urethane A PORON® Urethane B Imitation

70ºC 90ºC

PORON® Urethanes maintain superior compression set resistance at elevat-ed temperatures for a prolonged period of time, versus imitation materials

Are Your Designs At Risk?

100806040200

PORON® Urethane1.0 mm Thick Gaskets

Imitation

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DUST SEAL PERFORMANCEPercentage Passing After 4 Weeks

Safeguard your critical designs with the outstanding dust sealing performance

of PORON® Urethanes

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features a 6” diagonal E-Ink electronic paper display, 600 x 800 pixel resolution at 167 ppi, 4-level gray scale (read: not color). Put this one on your wish list, it’s as backordered as the Wii. Amazon (www.amazon.com). Price: $399.

FLY Fusion Pen ComputerThe FLY Fusion Pentop Computer from

Leapfrog is able to read your handwriting and turn it into editable text once you upload it to your computer. But that’s just the beginning. It can translate the sentence you just wrote in English and read it to you in French or Span-

ish using a built-in speaker. Kids can touch their pentop computer to FLY Paper and quiz themselves on history, get help with a quadrat-ic equation, or even play their favorite MP3. They—OK, you—can even draw some drums and play them by tapping on the image with the pen. Leapfrog (www.flyworld.com). Price: $79.95

Wi-Fi Detector Tee ShirtLook cool and find wireless hotspots at the

same time. Powered by three AAA batteries,

this tee shirt features a glowing radio tower decal. The animated bars radiating out from it fluctuate depending on 802.11b/g signal strength. The perfect accessory in Silicon Val-ley or Austin, where “formal wear” is a black tee shirt. No word yet if other air interfaces are in the works. Think Geek (www.thinkgeek.com). Price: $29.

Digital Photo KeychainStill haven’t bought a digital picture

frame? Well, skip directly to version 2.0 with the digital photo keychain. With a 1.5-inch OLED display and 8 Mbytes of internal memory, Tao’s keychains can hold up to 31

pictures at 128 x 128-bit resolution. Avail-able in a variety of finishes, you’ll never again be lacking for photos of the kids. Tao Electronics (www.taoelectronics.com). Price: $49.99.


DECEMBER 2007 33

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i-SOBOT Humanoid RobotIf you still haven’t gotten over Sony’s

pulling the plug on Aibo, then check out the i-SOBOT Humanoid Robot. Its custom-de-veloped servo-motors allow i-SOBOT 17 degrees of freedom and more than 200 dis-tinct actions. From his speaker you’ll hear hundreds of preset phrases and 60 kinds of sound effects; two LED eyes glow bright green and blue. You can control i-SOBOT’s actions via a wireless infrared remote with

LCD using dual joysticks and command but-tons for kicks, punches, somersaults, danc-ing, push-ups, you name it. He also responds to voice commands in logical — but unpre-dictable—ways. Recommended for ages 10 and over. Go ahead—you’re over 10! Sharp-er Image (www.sharperimage.com). Price: $299.95.

Eye-Fi Wireless Memory Data Card

Just haven’t gotten around to downloading last Christmas’ photos from your digital cam-era? Eye-Fi is a wireless 2 Gbyte SD memory card that automatically connects to your home wireless network, sending JPEG-format pic-tures to your computer or directly to one of 17 photo sites, including Picassa, Shutterfly,

Flickr, Snapfish and Facebook. Eye-Fi (www.eye.fi). Price: $99.

EyeClops Bionic EyeEyeClops is a handheld “bionic eye” that

plugs into your TV’s video input. Point it at any object and see it magnified 200x on the big

screen. Comes with a viewing tube and dish for checking out bugs, sand, crystals and leaves up close. A lot cheaper and more durable than a 200x microscope—not to mention more fun. For kids ages 6-12. Jaaks Pacific (www.eye-clops.com). Price: $49.99.

34 PORTABLE DESIGN

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The power tool industry’s demand for high-power batteries that are lighter weight, smaller and have a better cycle life than Ni-Cad batter-ies has enticed cell manufacturers to develop high-drain Li-ion cells. The RoHS restrictions on Ni-Cad have greatly improved the market success of high-drain cells. These cells are a derivative of Li-ion products, and are derived from the desire for high capacity, resulting in cells that deliver high power for shorter periods of time. There is a new variety of Li-ion cells available that supports high discharge currents required for many applications, and subse-quently, supports high charge currents for fast charging.

High-Drain CellsWithin the cell, the reduction of the path

length and resistance for the transport of ions and electrons accommodates high discharge and charge rates. Changes start with the bat-

tery active materials. Traditional Li-ion cells are based on a LiCoO2 cathode compound. With traditional Li-ion cells, lithium ions can only be inserted through two-dimensional paths. Shortening the path length is achieved by changing the physical morphology of the battery active material, as well as changing the material’s chemical structure. One solution is physically accelerating the transfer of material by decreasing the particle size of the materials to nanoscale. New chemistries, such as Lithium Manganese Spinel (LiMn2O4), offer three di-mensional pathways for ion insertion. In addi-tion, the resistance of the cells is lowered by us-ing thin materials, increasing the concentration of electrolyte, and reducing its viscosity with solvents. Cell manufacturers have used one or more of these techniques to modify their for-mulations to support high discharges.

E-One Moli energy offers a high-drain cell based on a manganese spinel cathode material.

cool applications

High-Power Batteries and

ChargersThere is a new variety of Li-ion cells available that supports high discharge currents required for many applications.

by Jeffrey VanZwol, Marketing Director, Micro Power Electronics

DECEMBER 2007 35

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In Figure 1, this cylindrical 26700 (26 mm in diameter, 70 mm in length) cell supports 80A pulses for over 10 seconds. Moli has very re-cently introduced a spinel chemistry cell in the traditional 18650 size. The drawback of a high-rate cell is the lower capacity. The 26700 and 18650s have capacities of only about 2.9 Ah and 1.2 Ah, respectively. This cell is targeted toward power tool applications.

A123 Systems offers a cell that supports very high drain rates. This cell was also developed spe-cifically for the power tool market. As presented in Figure 2, the A123 cell exploits nanoscales particles to achieve a performance very similar to the Moli cells The fundamental cathode chemistry is also different from the Moli technology, so the voltage is somewhat lower. The A123 cell has an operating voltage of 3.2 instead of 3.6 because Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4) material is used.

Kokam offers a high-drain polymer option. This Lithium polymer battery is able to draw up to a 20C rate discharge continuously, with a peak discharge rate of 40C.

These high-drain cells have similar charac-teristics. The cell impedance is low, and the dis-charge/charge rates can be high. This enables fast charge, or allows fewer cells per battery pack. Unfortunately, the energy density of these high-drain cells is lower than traditional Li-ion cells. Off-the-shelf safety circuits and fuel gauges are not yet available, so custom circuit boards are usually required within the battery pack. From an economic perspective, the high-drain cells are new to the market, so the volumes and prices have not achieved the levels of traditional Li-ion cells. For any specific cell configuration such as an 18650, it is anticipated that the high-drain cells will always command a premium over traditional Li-ion cells.

Fast ChargingA major benefit of a high-drain cell is the

ability to support fast charge. Traditional cobalt

oxide Li-ion cells appreciate a 3-hour charge cycle using a 0.5 C rate Constant-Current Con-stant-Voltage (CC-CV) charge regimen. One could ask why we cannot fast charge a tradi-tional Li-ion cell? Why not simply increase the current delivered during the constant current phase of the charge cycle? As shown in Table 1, the overall charge time is not significantly in-creased when the current is increased from 1C to higher rates. The difference in charge time with a 2C rate compared to a 3C charge rate is

Comparison of charge times with increasing charge current (time in minutes).

table 1

0.7C Charging 1.0C Charging 2.0 Charging 3.0 Charging

CC TimeCharge Time

Discharge Time

CC TimeCharge Time

Discharge Time

CC TimeCharge Time

Discharge Time

CC TimeCharge Time

Discharge Time

60 152.5 175 37.5 128 175.5 2 118 175.5 0.5 117.5 175.5

60 156 176.5 36.5 135 176 1.5 126 175.5 0.5 125.5 175.5

60 156 176 36.5 135.5 175.5 2 126.5 175 0.5 175 175

Performance of the Moli cell at different currents.

figure 1

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only about one minute, regardless of cell ven-dor. The cells reach the upper voltage cut-off faster, but the duration in the constant voltage mode (of the CC-CV charge regimen) will be much longer. This increases the potential for damage to the battery due to over voltage. The resistance of traditional Li-ion cells will cause them to heat up more during faster charges, so the cells will begin to break down and battery cycle life is significantly reduced.

High-drain cells can be accompanied with a battery charger that can take advantage of the characteristics of a high-drain cell. Since a high-drain cell can support high-current dis-charges, a battery charger can fully charge a cell in an equivalent period of time. The article will review the required modifications to be applied to a conventional charger to take advantage of the unique characteristics of high-drain cells.

Connecting it UpAn initial area that needs to be considered is

interconnects and traces on the PCBA, as well as the contacts between the charger and the bat-tery. With respect to traces, a typical design us-ing 2-oz copper may need to support a continu-

ous/peak current of 2 or 3 amps, and traces on the PCBA could be 1 to 2 mm wide for proper current density. If we need to support a 15-amp continuous charge current, traces would need to be expanded to be 4 to 6 mm wide due to higher current. With interconnects between PCBAs, typical chargers can operate with 1-2 mm diameter Beryllium Copper contacts with Gold or Nickel plating. Increasing the charge current to 15 amps dictates that the intercon-nect material should upgraded appropriately.

Similarly, external contacts between char-ger and battery need to be upgraded to support higher currents. One can utilize off-the-shelf contacts (such as pogo pins), however, most off-the-shelf contacts are limited to 2-amp de-livery. An alternate approach is using multiple low-current contacts in parallel to deliver +/- voltage to the battery. The use of several +/- contacts improves the redundancy of the over-all connection between the charger and battery in the event that one individual contact should fail. For high-current contacts, the recom-mended option is the development of custom contacts, such as a spring loaded or bent wire contact, where the gauge of the metal contact is designed to carry the maximum current. The custom contact can be designed with multiple contact points if heat related contact issues need to be addressed.

Designing a ChargerOne of the most important factors to be

considered in a charger design is how fast the cell needs to be recharged. Typically, a 5-watt power supply could power a battery charger for a traditional Li-ion single cell 18650 pack. For an equivalent size high-drain cell, one could fast charge this cell in 15 minutes with 15-amp power supply. The inclusion of a 15-amp power supply within the battery charger affects many other aspects of the charger.

Thermal management is greatly affected by larger power supplies and high-current charge electronics. Heat generated from the power supply is detrimental to the electronics of the charger, as this heat can 1) put the batteries out of their allowable charging temperature range (typically -20° to 60°C) and 2) deteriorate the cells when they sit in the charger. Many thermal management principles exist to dissipate heat

Performance of the A123 cell at different currents.

figure 2

3.6

3.4

3.2

3.0

2.8

2.6

2.4

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1A 6A

10A 30A

Note: Data from production cells

0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5Capacity (Ah)

Volt

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(V)


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quickly within a charger. The most obvious is the inclusion of a fan and vents. Chargers for traditional cobalt oxide cells do not typically need fans, but fans are usually needed to quick-ly charge high-drain cells. Many manufactures object to fans as they 1) reduce product reli-ability due to their electromechanical nature, 2) provide an ingress point for debris into the charger enclosure, 3) are a primary source of noise, and 4) add cost.

With battery charger designs, there are other thermal management techniques to minimize the negative effect of heat on the cells. Strate-gic placement of the Printed Circuit Board As-sembly (PCBA) in relation to the cells is criti-cal. As presented in Figure 3 (a cross-sectional view of an older charger design), the PCBA is mounted to the cell cup, sits directly under the cells, and incrementally heats them during their charge cycle. The heat from the charger is in addition to the self-heating of the cells dur-ing the charge cycle. A newer charger design, presented in Figure 4, places the PCBA more distant from the cups holding the cells, and has a prominent air gap for insulation. In addition, this newer design utilizes an aluminum enclo-sure that provides a heat sink for the PCBA. This newer enclosure also has aluminum cool-ing fins for better radiance of internal heat.

Thermal management of the cells is required to ensure they do not overheat during charging, as there is a large amount of energy quickly transferred into a relatively small container. The risk of thermal runaway with any cell is much higher in a quick charge cycle. Variable current charging includes the active monitor-ing of the cell temperature during the charge cycle. It is critical that the interior temperature within the pack is monitored. The interior pack temperature is accessed via a thermistor con-tact between the pack and charger, or delivered via a SMBus serial interface. Microcontrollers, embedded within the battery charger, enable the charger to monitor all electrical and envi-ronmental aspects of the cell. These microcon-trollers can administer variable charge currents based on 1) available power, 2) cell temperature conditions, and 3) maximum allowable charge current. Charge current can be maximized un-til the battery approaches its high temperature limit. If the cells hit their high temperature lim-

it, the charger can reduce or suspend the charge current to the cell.

The availability of high-drain cells has pro-vided manufacturers of portable devices with greater variety when addressing high-drain or fast-charge requirements. Along with the excitement of their high-power capability, one must remember that affiliated charging schemes for these cells provide a new set of challenges for both electrical and mechanical engineers tasked with this challenge. We have highlighted some of the primary design chal-lenges affiliated with using these high-power cells, as well as charging these cells.

Micro Power Electronics, Inc. Beaverton, OR (503) 693-7600 [www.micro-power.com]

A cross-sectional view of an older charger design.

figure 3

Newer charger design with air gap and aluminum fins.

figure 4

DECEMBER 2007 37

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Thin-film batteries are solid-state batteries, whose characteristic feature is (not surpris-ingly) that they are very thin. Printed batteries are simply any battery that uses printing in their manufacture. Typically, what are printed in printed batteries are the electrodes and the bat-tery then uses a liquid electrolyte. (Eventually the whole of a printed battery may be printed.) Both types of batteries chase after more or less the same markets.

Thin-film and printed batteries are suited to applications where their small profile and low-cost manufacturing make them economically attractive. These include low-power applica-tions such as smart cards, memory chips, active RFID tags and medical implants (e.g., hearing devices and neurostimulators). Some compa-nies are seeking out niche applications—such as cosmetic patches—where there appears to be a unique need for the special features of-fered by this kind of battery.

Why Thin-Film and Printed?In a recent market study, NanoMarkets LC

predicted that the market for these kinds of bat-teries could reach $5.6 billion by 2015. This large number is based on some major advan-tages that thin-film and printed batteries can bring to the table

Thin-film batteries typically offer long shelf life and robust rechargeability; some of the batteries in this category can be charged thou-sands of times. Small form-factors are also im-portant. There are emerging low-performance electronic applications where conventional bat-teries just won’t fit; powered smart cards for example. And thin-film batteries add negligible bulk to an end-product.

There are also production advantages. If bat-tery manufacture can be integrated on the same production line with the device being powered and on the same substrate, then fixed produc-tion costs can be allocated to both battery and

cool applications

Printed and Thin-Film Batteries

Printed and/or thin-film batteries may be the perfect solution for your next small, ultra-portable design. Some of the applications may surprise you.

by Lawrence Gasman, Principal Analyst, NanoMarkets, LC

DECEMBER 2007 39

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device. Some of these batteries have solid-state electrolytes, which enable high temperatures to be withstood during processing; vacuum depo-sition production methods to be used if neces-sary or batteries can be used laminated smart cards.

The main factor retarding the market for the thin-film/printed batteries at the present time is high cost. Thin-film/printable batteries dis-cussed in this article are currently unable to compete with conventional battery technology on price. This will change as volumes for thin-film/printed batteries ramp up and technology gets better. However, few battery manufactur-ers want to compete on price alone, since this is likely to impact profitability.

Better Batteries through Chemistry

The most widely used batteries for regular mobile communications are Lithium-ion bat-teries. Thin-film Lithium-ion batteries offer advantages in addition to those common to all thin-film batteries. They can withstand heating to as high as 280°C, for example. A variation on the theme is the Lithium-polymer (LiPo) battery. The advantages of LiPo include lower-cost manufacturing and being more resilient to physical damage. In addition, these batter-ies have thin-profile geometry with cell thick-ness measuring as little as one millimeter. But there are challenges to this technology includ-ing internal resistance, longer charge times and slower maximum discharge rates compared to more mature technologies. Lithium-polymer batteries are also more expensive than thin-film Lithium-ion batteries.

Printed batteries tend to use either zinc man-ganese dioxide or carbon zinc chemistries, which are lower-cost materials than those in the Lithium-ion thin-film batteries. These ma-terials can be formulated into inks to be printed by the screen printing process onto a variety of substrates. These batteries are said to be envi-ronmentally friendly and cheap.

The most significant development in the thin-film battery market in terms of materials is the use of Lithium phosphorus oxynitride (Li-PON) as an electrolyte. This enables the battery to be solid-state, reducing safety or environ-mental issues significantly. The technology is

licensed from Oak Ridge National Laboratory and this material platform is currently licensed to five thin-film battery companies. There has also been some work done on providing alter-natives to LiPON. One alternative developed at MIT uses a solid polymer, has improved con-ductivity and supports higher temperature ap-plications.

ApplicationsBy far the largest application for these bat-

teries is likely to be found in active and battery-assisted RFID. There is much talk in the RFID industry about battery-assisted technology as a solution to the cost issue surrounding active tags. If these battery-assisted devices take off, this would obviously be good news for battery

makers. Thin-film battery firms that are heavily targeting this part of the market are emphasiz-ing the following capabilities: ability to in-crease range, power, data transfer speed, useful lifetime and operating temperature range.

Thin-film or printed batteries are also re-garded as highly suitable for other kinds of smart packaging. It is possible that the battery could be printed along with the other packag-ing materials in an in-line process right in the printing/converting plant. However, packaging is almost always a cost-sensitive area. For soft drink and food manufacturers, adding just one cent to the cost of packaging is a big deal. It is hard to imagine how batteries of any kind

table 1

Thin-Film and Printable Batteries Market ($ Millions)

2008 2010 2012 2014

Active RFID 17.5 138.5 886.8 3,329.0

Other smart packaging 0.4 3.7 28.6 129.7

Point-of-purchase displays 2.1 5.2 13.2 33.4

Powered smart cards 7.1 88.7 191.8 295.4

Medical devices 0.0 0.2 0.9 5.1

Sensor networks 3.2 14.8 64.4 250.9

Other 1.4 14.2 40.6 99.4

TOTAL 31.7 265.2 1,226.3 4,143.0

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could be used in this kind of packaging, but there are niche areas where the functionality of packaging is such that additional costs can be comfortably borne. Such niche areas include pharmaceutical compliance packaging, certain temperature/freshness monitoring products embedded in large cartons/palettes, and tam-per-proof courier packages.

The sensor area is yet another market where the potential for this kind of battery appears to be high. Wireless sensor networks and envi-ronmental sensing devices are often located in areas where other forms of electricity are not widely available and batteries are the obvious choice of power source. For very small sensing devices, thin-film batteries may be the obvious choice, although in some cases energy harvest-ing and photovoltaics may prove a better way to power remote sensors than batteries. Or bat-teries may be used to simply store the energy produced by these other sources. A prime target within the sensor segment for thin-film/print-able batteries is where sensors are located in harsh environments. Some examples would be in tire pressure sensors, military sensors and sensors used in oil drilling and mining.

Another type of product that must often be deployed in areas that do not have easy access to grid electricity, and is therefore yet another target market, is a point-of-purchase display used in a retail environment. Also in this envi-ronment, smart cards for financial applications offer significant potential markets for thin-film or printed batteries. However, at present most such cards do not need batteries. Where batter-ies come into the picture is with the latest gen-eration of smart cards, which are called—natu-rally enough—“powered cards.” These have enough features that it is no longer possible to power them from an external source. Pow-ered cards can incorporate displays, dynamic account information, authentication services, light and sound. One product development di-rection for powered cards that is receiving con-siderable attention is the concept of cards with one-time passcode authentication capabilities.

Batteries are needed for certain specialized medical devices and for implants and patches that have therapeutic, diagnostic, or cosmetic functionality. Batteries serving this market vary in their requirements, but key factors are often flexibility (for patches especially), long periods between charges and small form fac-tor. For labs-on-a-chip and diagnostic devices, thin-film/printable batteries considered in this article could enable a smaller form-factor for the device or even lower price points. Thin-film batteries could also provide improved power for implants, limiting the need for bat-

tery replacement and patient surgeries and of-fering smaller, thinner devices, which could be charged through the body. Cosmetic, therapy and stimulation patches can also be driven by printable batteries because of the cost factor and because these batteries can be manufac-tured in customized shapes.

The Business Side of ThingsInvestment levels in the printable and thin-

film battery business have not yet been huge. The amounts invested in individual firms have typically been under $20 million, often just a few million dollars. This would not be enough to build a high-volume plant. But there are a few outliers. In 2006, Infinite Power Solutions raised $34.7 million primarily to build its new facilities. Power Paper has received $72 mil-lion from an international group of investors.

Relatively few of the large electronics, bat-tery and materials firms play in this market directly, but there are exceptions. NEC is a player, but seems to be quite some way from commercializing it. Varta, the leading supplier of nickel, metal hybrid button batteries is also involved with Lithium batteries for smart cards. Ultralife is a public company that supplies many kinds of batteries including some of the type considered here. The involvement of large firms in this sector looks more impressive, if one considers strategic investments. Cymbet, for example, has received finance from the venture arms of Intel and Dow Chemical. Air Products has invested in Solicore.

Military and government sources seem also to have played an important role in the financ-ing of thin-film and printable battery compa-nies. In the U.S. In-Q-Tel, the VC-firm that has a close association with the CIA has invested in this area. In Europe, Enfucell got money from Vera Venture, a Finnish government-backed seed funding company, and from Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation.

The thin-film/printable battery story is not yet completely convincing when it comes to volumes; the applications that could generate large volumes—powered smart cards and ac-tive RFID, for example—have yet to prove themselves. This could make the pitches of thin battery makers a little unconvincing at times. Nonetheless, the underlying economics and the features of these batteries seem to suggest big rewards in the future.Nanomarkets Glen Allen, VA. (804) 360-2967. [www.nanomarkets.net].


TECHNOLOGYINTO

COMING TO A CITY NEAR YOUrtecc.com

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www.rtecc.com

42 PORTABLE DESIGN

product feature

XO-1: The Hundred-Dollar Laptopby John Donovan, Editor-in-Chief

Several years ago, Nicholas Negroponte and some colleagues at MIT’s Media Lab set out on a mission to provide one connected laptop to every child in developing countries. The device had to be rugged, simple and fun to use, and above all, inexpensive. Last month Negropon-te’s group One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) began mass production of the XO-1, the long-promised “hundred-dollar laptop.”

Far from being a cheap toy, the 3-lb. XO has features you could only hope to have in your own notebook. The XO has a built-in video camera (640×480 resolution at 30 FPS); mi-crophone; AC97-compatible audio subsystem; dual capacitance/resistive touchpad; memory-card slot; graphics tablet; game-pad controllers (two sets of four-direction cursor-control keys); and wireless networking (integrated 802.11b/g interface and 802.11s (mesh) networking). It’s also waterproof, dustproof and very rugged.

The XO features a 7.5-inch, 1200×900 pixel, TFT screen that can rotate from laptop mode to a tablet configuration for use as an e-book reader. The self-refreshing display has higher resolution (200 DPI) than 95 percent of the laptops on the market today. Two display modes are available: a transmissive, full-color mode, and a reflective, high-resolution black and white mode that is sunlight readable. Both consume very little power: the transmissive mode consumes one watt—about one seventh of the average LCD power consumption in a laptop; the reflective mode consumes a miserly 0.2 watts.

The XO comes with LiFePO4 or NiMH batter-ies; the LiFePO4 battery pack is rated at 22.8 watt-hours, the NiMH at 16.5 watt-hours. One battery charge will power six hours of heavy ac-tivity or 24 hours of reading. The batteries are rated for 2,000 charge cycles, which is about 4x better than you’re getting on your notebook; and you can replace them, if need be, for a mere $10. In addition, the XO can be powered by an optional solar panel or a crank, a pedal or a pull-cord—important considerations where power is either unreliable or not available.

The XO’s core hardware is unexceptional but capable. The CPU is a 433 MHz AMD Geode LX-700 with 64 Kbyte each L1 I and D cache and at least 128 Kbyte L2 cache. Main memory is 256 Mbyte DDR333 DRAM running at 166 MHz. Main storage is 1024 MiB SLC NAND flash, with an MMC/SD expansion card slot. There is no hard drive, no CD-ROM and no DVD drive. The flash drive was dictated by the need for rugged-ness, but the lack of more storage does limit what you can do.

The XO uses free and open-source software. The OS is built on Red Hat’s Fedora Core 6 version of Linux. Applications include a Web

browser using Firefox’s Xulrunner run-time environment; a simple document viewer based on Evince; the AbiWord word processor, an RSS reader, an e-mail client, chat client, VoIP client; a journal; a multimedia authoring and playback environment; a music composition toolkit, graphics toolkits, games, a shell and a debugger.

The real innovation in XO is the network-ing. The concept here is to always provide the students with a broadband connection to each other, either through the Internet or an ad hoc mesh network. If a Wi-Fi connection is available, the XO automatically connects; if not, it starts or joins a mesh network with neighboring XOs. As far as possible the software avoids being application-oriented, instead the user interface stresses cooperative interaction over the net-work. Applications are largely wiki-based, mean-ing every page on the Internet, for example, can become part of a conversational thread with other XO kids, whether they’re in the next room or the next country. This has got to make learn-ing a lot more fun.

OLPC designed the XO for “the nearly two billion children in the developing world [who] are inadequately educated, or receive no education at all.” It’s a great educational tool that pushes the envelope in portable design. But most of all it’s an outstanding example of using technology to help your fellow man—an inspiring message in this or any other season.

One Laptop Per Child Cambridge, MA. (617) 452-5663. [www.laptop.org].

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44 PORTABLE DESIGN

products for designers900 MHz Frequency Hopping Radio Tar-

gets Wireless Sensor NetworksXecom, Inc. has announced a new

version of the XE900SL10, 900 MHz Fre-quency Hopping radio. The XE900SL10-N

targets remote sensor networks by increas-ing the number of available network nodes,

increasing data throughput and providing addi-tional communications options. The XE900SL10-N

is aimed at monitoring and process control applica-tions that utilize remotely placed sensors.

The first-generation XE900SL10 focused on link reliability and data integrity. The XE900SL10-N simplifies communications for larger sensor networks. The maximum number of nodes supported in a single network increases from 256 to more than 65,000. As before, 256 unique frequen-cy hopping algorithms permit multiple unique networks to coexist, but those networks can now be larger. Link overhead is reduced to increase real data transfer rates up to 3 times. A new broadcast data mode allows a message to be transmitted simultaneously to all other network nodes.

The XE900SL10-N continues many of the special features Xecom in-troduced in the original XE900SL10. These features include SensorOnAir, patent pending, to read remote sensors, multiple power saving modes to prolong battery life, and integrated analog and digital I/O lines for direct connection of sensors.

The XE900SL10-N is priced under $30 in 1000-piece quantities.

Xecom, Inc., Milpitas, CA. (408) 942-2200. [www.xecom.com].

Sub $15 BOM Internet RadioCSR has introduced RadioPro, a Wi-Fi Internet radio example design

based on the company’s UniFi single-chip Wi-Fi platform. RadioPro pro-vides wireless streaming of Internet radio via Wi-Fi without the need for a PC and supports over 10,000 radio stations through a dedicated Internet radio portal. With a bill of materials (BOM) of less than $15, CSR’s Radio-Pro is the lowest-cost Internet radio solution available today, and comes with the added advantage of being software upgradeable. Radios using CSR’s RadioPro design will be in shops for Christmas.

RadioPro uses CSR’s UniFi-1 chip to connect to a dedicated Inter-net radio portal through a Wi-Fi access point. Once a station has been selected, RadioPro’s software ensures smooth, reliable and high-quality streamed audio. CSR’s RadioPro also supports “over-the-air” software upgrades, allowing end users to update their products directly with new capabilities as they are made available.

Offering ODMs a quick route to market, RadioPro is available free of charge and features all the required hardware design information and software to stream live Internet radio stations. RadioPro’s flexible archi-tecture allows full customization of the user interface and menus through a dedicated Software Development Kit (SDK).

RadioPro is based on two low-power chips from CSR: UniFi, CSR’s single-chip Wi-Fi platform and the Multimedia Application Processor (MAP), a highly integrated chip with a RISC processor, a DSP and a stereo codec. The low-power design of RadioPro boasts up to 25 hours of active streaming time running on a 1500 mAH battery, enabling truly portable Internet radio products.

CSR (Cambridge Silicon Radio), Richardson, TX. (214) 540-4300. [www.csr.com].

Tensilica Enhances Xtensa Configurable Processor Families with New Options, Bridges and Software Tools

Tensilica has announced that it has upgraded its two Xtensa con-figurable processor families (the Xtensa 7 and Xtensa LX2) with new hardware options and software tool enhancements that make it appeal to an even wider audience of SoC (system-on-chip) designers.

Highlights of these capabilities include a new, smaller general-purpose register file option, new integer multiplier and divider execution unit options, two new AMBA (Advanced Microcontroller Bus Architecture 3.0) bridge options, as well as an easy-to-use new configuration tool that analyzes source C/C++ code and automatically

suggests VLIW (very long instruction word) instruction extensions that lead to 30-60% improvements in general-purpose code performance. These new capabilities provide designers with the most productive configurable processor design environment, with automated features that ensure that each processor design is correct by construction.

The five most significant new hardware options introduced by Tensilica include: a 16-entry register file, a relocatable exception vector option, a low-area multiplier, an integer divider, and new AMBA-compatible bridges.

All of these enhancements just started shipping with the November 2007 release of Xtensa LX2 and Xtensa 7 processor cores and the Ten-silica software development tools.

Tensilica Inc., Santa Clara, CA. (408) 986-8000. [www.tensilica.com].

Qualcomm Samples UMTS ChipsetQualcomm Incorporated has announced that it will enable a dramatic

reduction in the cost of WCDMA (UMTS) mobile broadband handsets with the introduction of Qualcomm’s new cost-effective Mobile Station Modem (MSM) MSM6246 HSDPA and MSM6290 HSUPA chipsets. The products, sampling now, are designed to enable devices that break new price bar-riers for HSDPA and HSUPA handsets. The two chipsets also feature new power-saving features that will enable better performance and longer battery life, with standby time of more than 37 days.

The MSM6246 chipset will support 3.6 Mbit/s HSDPA for advanced services such as high-resolution video downloads and Web 2.0 browsing. The MSM6290 HSUPA chipset supports speeds up to 7.2 Mbits/s on the downlink and 5.76 Mbits/s on the uplink, tapping into the surge in popularity of applications such as social networking and user-generated multimedia sharing. The two products are drop-in replacements for each other, with power management, software and RF compatibility. Both prod-ucts interface with the RTR6285 single-chip CMOS transceiver.

The MSM6246 HSDPA chipset features: • 3 megapixel camera support • QVGA video playback • Integrated Assisted-GPS and high-speed USB supportThe MSM6290 HSUPA chipset features: • 5 megapixel camera support • WQVGA video playback • Integrated Assisted-GPS, 3D graphics and high-speed USB supportIn addition, the two products both feature 10 mm x 10 mm package

sizes that represent a nearly 50 percent reduction in package footprint from previous-generation baseband solutions. This dramatic size reduc-tion will enable next-generation mobile broadband devices that are fully featured, slim, stylish and powerful in functionality.

Qualcomm Incorporated, San Diego, CA. (858) 587-1121. [www.qualcomm.com].

DECEMBER 2007 45

Altera Zeros Out Power With New MAX IIZ CPLDs for Portable Applications

Expanding its low-power portfolio of pro-grammable logic solutions, Altera Corpora-tion has announced the new, zero-power MAX IIZ CPLD designed specifically to address the power, package and price constraints of the portable applications market.

Offering a resource advantage of up to six times the density and three times the I/Os compared to competing traditional macrocell-based CPLDs, MAX IIZ devices allow designers to meet changing functional re-quirements at the same or lower power while saving board space. Adding zero-power and ultra-small packages to the most popular CPLD series in the industry, the MAX IIZ devices deliver the many benefits of CPLDs—in-cluding flexibility, faster time-to-market, and board-level integration—to handsets and other portable applications.

MAX IIZ devices are available in densities of 240 and 570 logic ele-ments (LEs). The devices are available in ultra-small MBGA packages with up to 160 I/Os. This increased logic density and greater I/O count allow greater integration of existing functions from other devices, substantially reducing board space and power consumption while lowering overall system costs.

Production-qualified MAX IIZ EPM240Z M68 devices will begin shipping in the first quarter of 2008 at $1.25 in high volumes. All MAX IIZ devices will be shipping in production by the second quarter of 2008. Addition-ally, over 20 MAX IIZ design examples, enabling designers to quickly and cost-effectively create and customize their designs, are available at www.altera.com/max2example. The MAX IIZ demo board will be available by the second quarter of 2008.

Altera Corporation, San Jose, CA. (408) 544-7000. [www.altera.com].

New PSoC Evaluation KitCypress Semiconductor Corp. has introduced a new evaluation kit for

its fast-growing PSoC mixed-signal arrays. The new CY3209 ExpressEVK includes four different PSoC devices and gives designers an easy to use platform to try a multitude of designs.

The CY3209 ExpressEVK includes four sections, each of which contains a separate PSoC device. The sections can all be networked together easily via I2C interfaces to test numerous com-binations of functions using the PSoC Express visual embedded design tool. The new kit offers hardware, software and design examples to help

designers implement a variety of functions, including:• PSoC CapSense capacitive touch interfaces • Wireless communication • “Drag and drop” USB programming • LCD and LED control • Accelerometer, tilt or drop sensing • Voltage monitoring Details of the kit are at www.cypress.com/CY3209-ExpressEVK. The kit

is priced at $129.99 and is available for purchase on the “Online Store” at www.cypress.com and through authorized distributor partners, includ-ing Future, Arrow, Avnet, Digikey, Mouser, P&S, and MSC.

Cypress Semiconductor, San Jose, CA. (408) 943-2600. [www.cypress.com].

www.tensilica.com

46 PORTABLE DESIGN

prod

ucts

for

des

igne

rs Freescale Enters the Touch Panel Market

Push buttons are out and touch panels are in for an increasing number of con-sumer, industrial, medical and automo-tive designs. Not one to be left out of a burgeoning market, Freescale Semiconduc-tor has introduced a pair of next-genera-tion capacitive sensor controllers and a proximity-sensing software solution that works with hundreds of Freescale microcontrollers (MCUs).

Freescale is providing designers with two flexible options: • A choice of rotary and touchpad capacitive sensor controllers com-

bined with full-featured touch-sensing algorithms for complex inter-face designs that require calibration and multiplexing capabilities

• Complimentary proximity sensing software derived from the full-fea-tured algorithm designed to enable easy integration of touch sensing technology into cost-sensitive control applications using Freescale’s 8-bit S08 and 32-bit ColdFire V1 MCUs

Complimentary proximity sensing software features include NRE/royal-ty-free software solution, with source code built on CodeWarrior software; eight electrodes implemented in the code base, with the capability of sup-porting up to 32 electrodes; use and configuration of any available GPIO pin as an electrode input; programmable sampling period; and a wide variety of hardware options.

The suggested resale price for the MPR083 and MPR084 touch sensor controllers in 10,000-piece quantities is $1.07.

Freescale Semiconductor, Austin, TX. (800) 521-6274 [www.freescale.com].

I²C Controlled 4-Output Synchronous Step-Down DC/DC Converter Fits 2 x 600 mA & 2 x 400 mA Independent Converter in 3 mm x 3 mm QFN

Linear Technology announces the LTC3562, a quad-channel, high-efficien-cy, 2.25 MHz, synchronous buck converter that can deliver dual 600 mA and dual 400 mA continuous outputs from a 3 mm x 3 mm QFN package.

Using a con-stant frequency current mode architecture, the LTC3562 oper-ates from an in-put voltage range of 2.7V to 5.5V, making it ideal for single cell Li-Ion/polymer, or multicell alka-line/NiCad/NiMH applications. The LTC3562 has two channels (600 mA and 400 mA) that allow the output voltage to be adjusted by programming the feedback voltages between 425 mV and 800 mV in 25 mV increments. The other two channels (600 mA and 400 mA) feature fixed outputs that can be programmed between 600 mV and 3.775V in 25 mV steps programming is done an I2C interface. This level of independent output voltage control makes the LTC3562 ideal for managing multiple supply rails. Its 2.25 MHz switching frequency enables the utilization of tiny, low-cost ceramic capacitors and inductors less than a 1 mm in height. This, combined with a 3 mm x 3 mm QFN package, provides a very compact quad output solu-tion for handheld and other dense board applications.

The LTC3562EUD is available from stock in a 20-lead 3 mm x 3 mm QFN package. Pricing starts at $3.50 each in 1,000-piece quantities.

Linear Technology, Milpitas, CA. (408) 432-1900. [www.linear.com].

Low-Power Microcontroller with Complete Signal Chain for Portable Medical Diagnostic Equipments

Texas Instruments has introduced a system-on-chip (SoC) microcon-troller unit (MCU) that provides a complete signal chain for handheld medical applications, enabling anew level of integration and affordability. The new MSP430FG4270 MCU integrates a comprehensive range of func-tions needed to design low cost portable medical diagnostic equipment. The generous on-chip memory and a full suite of integrated analog periph-erals keep component costs and system space to a minimum in portable applications such as personal blood pressure monitors, spirometers, pulsoximeters and heart rate monitors.

The MCU’s power sav-ings and SoC integration can also benefit other types of applications, in-cluding analog and digital sensor systems, portable medical devices, digital motor control, remote con-trols, thermostats, digital timers and handheld meters.

To speed time-to-mar-ket, MSP430 Development Kits include everything required to complete an

entire project, including the IAR Embedded Workbench and Code Com-poser Studio Essentials Integrated Development Environments (IDEs), a USB debugging and programming interface, and an MSP430-based target board.

The new MSP430FG4270 MCU is now available in volume from TI and TI Authorized Distributors. Customers can select a 48-pin SSOP or 48-pin QFN package. Suggested resale pricing for the MSP430FG4270 is $3.78 per unit in quantities of 10,000.

Texas Instruments Inc., Dallas, TX. (800) 336-5236. [www.ti.com].

Advanced Verification Technologies Added to Cadence Invisive Enterprise

Cadence Design Sys-tems, Inc. has announced that fundamental new technolo-gies have been integrated into the Cadence Incisive Enter-prise verifica-tion family,

which enable engineering teams to address increasingly complex chip design for products such as multi-mode cell phones, gaming consoles and HD-DVD players.

Incisive technologies now offer support for the newly developed Open Verification Methodology (OVM), a powerful new aspect-oriented genera-tion engine, and the second generation of Cadence transaction-based ac-celeration (TBA) with native support of multiple testbench languages and numerous productivity enhancements. The new aspect-oriented genera-tion engine leverages aspect-oriented programming (AOP) architected tes-tbenches to improve performance and scalability. These major enhance-ments to the Cadence Incisive Specman, Incisive Enterprise Simulator, and the Incisive Palladium and Xtreme hardware acceleration/emulation systems are in addition to numerous productivity enhancements.

Incisive Enterprise Simulator 6.2, Incisive Specman 6.2 and TBA 2.0 enabled Incisive Palladium and Incisive Xtreme are currently available.

Cadence Design Systems Inc, San Jose, CA. (408) 943-1234. [www.cadence.com].

DECEMBER 2007 47

More Flash Memory for Tiny Digital Signal ControllersMicrochip Technology Inc. has announced an expansion of its low pin

count 16-bit Digital Signal Controller (DSC) portfolio with the addition of three dsPIC33F General Purpose Family members and three dsPIC33F Motor Control/Power Conversion Family DSCs, which offer increased memory options for a range of applications including smart sensor pro-cessing, advanced motor control, lighting and power inverters.

The new General Purpose DSCs feature 16 or 32 Kbytes of flash memory with 28- or 44-pin packages and provide a pin- and code-compat-ible migration path for PIC24 microcontrollers. The devices also feature an on-chip Analog-to-Digital-Converter (ADC), with up to 1.1 Msps, and se-rial interfaces such as I2C, SPI and UART. These DSCs are expected to be popular for a variety of embedded applications where high performance and small footprint are key requirements.

The three dsPIC33F Motor Control Family DSCs add a motor-control PWM with two independent clock sources for advanced motor control or inverter algorithms—as well as active power factor correction—using a single DSC. This on-chip PWM peripheral is also designed for power-con-

version and lighting applica-tions. They also include a quadrature encoder interface for sensor-based motor ap-plications. These devices provide an excellent platform for advanced motor control algorithms, such as Field-Ori-ented Control (FOC)—bringing the next level of high perfor-mance, low noise and power efficiency to motor control applications. (Microchip’s FOC source code can be down-loaded for free, via Application

Note AN1078, at www.microchip.com.) Both the General Purpose and Motor Control DSCs also feature Periph-

eral Pin Select, which allows designers to remap digital I/O to optimize board layout—enabling smaller boards, less noise and the use of a lower pin count DSC. Additional key features include the following:

Both Families: • 40 MIPS performance in 6x6 mm packages • 32 or 16 Kbytes of flash and 2 Kbytes of RAM • 1 UART, 1 SPI and 1 I2C PortdsPIC33FJ32GP General Purpose Family: • ADC w/ up to 13 channels, and user-selectable 10-bit or 12-bit

mode (10-bit mode enables simultaneous sampling, eliminating lag time between samples)

dsPIC33FJ32MC Motor Control/ Power Conversion Family: • ADC w/ up to 9 channels, and user-selectable 10-bit or 12-bit mode

(10-bit mode enables simultaneous sampling, eliminating lag time between samples)

The dsPIC33FJ32GP and dsPIC33FJ32MC families consist of three members each, which are all available today for general sampling and volume production with prices starting at $2.51 and $2.47 each, respectively, in 10,000-unit quantities. The dsPIC33FJ32GP202 and dsPIC33FJ32MC202 are available in 28-pin SDIP, SOIC and QFN pack-ages. The dsPIC33FJ32GP204, dsPIC33FJ32MC204, dsPIC33FJ16GP304 and dsPIC33FJ16MC304 are all available in 44-pin TQFP and QFN pack-ages.

Microchip Technology Inc., Chandler, AZ. (480) 792-7200. [www.microchip.com].

Untitled-4 1 2/7/07 2:57:41 PM

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WWW.EMBEDDEDCOMMUNITY.COM

embeddedcommad_14v.indd 1 11/13/06 5:55:59 PM

www.linxtechnologies.com

www.embeddedcommunity.com

The migration of electronics from technology centers to consumer mar-kets has undeniably changed the world we live in. But, putting “consumer” into consumer electronics is not just about picking the right application. Take the cell phone, for example. Consumers want mobile phones that are full functioned yet lightweight and small enough to comfortably fit into a pocket. Consumers won’t put up with products that become so hot they cause discomfort when held to the ear or quickly exhaust a battery, leav-ing the user disconnected from the world. Clearly, consumer requirements make energy efficiency the most critical design consideration for today’s mobile products.

Minimizing energy consumption can’t be a second thought. Designers must seek out all opportunities to reduce energy to achieve their design goals. This starts at the beginning of a project with a comprehensive plan and includes optimizing energy consumption early in the design process

where there is great-er potential savings and more flexibility in implementation. However, optimiz-ing energy efficiency presents a unique set of challenges.

Energy consump-tion is the result of a number of factors. The most important factors include: de-vice operating volt-age, clock frequency of processors, nodal capacitances that need to be charged and discharged as well as the rate at which states change-or, the toggle rate. To

understand the effect of voltages and capacitances, the design needs to be at a low level of abstraction, otherwise known as the transistor level. On the other hand, frequencies and toggle rates are best dealt with at a high level of abstractions––register transfer level (RTL) and above.

This presents a dilemma. To meaningfully reduce the energy con-sumption of a device, the design has to be optimized across all relevant parameters, which means that optimizing for energy should be addressed at multiple levels of abstraction. Frequency, voltage and capacitance are hardware artifacts, whereas the toggle rate predominantly results from the application functionality and design implementation. This includes the software driving the device and takes into account that energy-ef-ficient software and hardware have to be well matched.

On the hardware side, most designers optimize power at the RT level, which is a good compromise since it is halfway between the abstraction level seen by the device software and the transistor level that accurately depicts the effect of voltages and capacitances. Power-aware RTL design in combination with logic synthesis can automatically introduce some power optimizations. More so, feedback from initial logic synthesis or power analysis tools can be used to guide engineering design efforts to further reduce power.

However, working at the combinational RT level is not optimal. Greater energy efficiencies are possible by changing sequential behavior of the RTL code. Sequential optimizations include shutting off redundant writes, reducing the frequency of operations while increasing parallelism to maintain throughput and disabling pipeline stages when the results are not being used in subsequent calculations.

Sequential analysis of RTL code is an emerging methodology that identifies micro-architectural optimizations to lower an electronic cir-cuit’s energy consumption. For example, analyzing the reads and writes to memory may reveal a pattern of sequential accesses. In this case, it can be more energy efficient to read multiple locations in a single access and buffer the results locally. Another example of sequential analysis to improve energy efficiency is the identification of unused computations. When it is determined that an output is not used, the logic that calculates that value in the previous cycle can be disabled. This saves the register toggles as well as toggles in the logic driven by those registers.

48 PORTABLE DESIGN

second opinion

Designing Energy-Efficient Consumer Electronics

by Devadas Varma, Chairman and Founder, Calypto Design Systems

Sequential optimizations reduce the toggle rate of the hardware while maintaining func-tionality. While sequential clock gating intro-duces a small amount of additional logic for the enable condition, the energy consumed by this logic is small compared to what’s saved from gating larger regions of logic over multiple cycles.

While experienced engineers intuitively know how and when to implement sequential clock gating, enable conditions can become very complex. As a consequence of being diffi-cult to manually identify and implement, tradi-tional design flows only apply sequential clock gating when absolutely required to meet design power goals.

As consumer requirements continue to push technology, energy consumption rises and the need for sequential clock gating becomes more acute. Moreover, there are now tools that can automatically generate sequential clock gat-ing, providing consistently better results in less time than the error-prone, time-consuming manual methods.

Today’s cell phones have many modes of operations beyond just making and receiving calls. These devices also play video games or music and display video, or just stay in standby. Tradeoffs need to be made between function, the speed at which the device operates and bat-tery life. Many of these “modes” can be char-acterized and optimized in software, increas-ing the importance of software optimizations for energy-efficient systems. By following a methodology and providing software hooks in the hardware, software developers can control

DECEMBER 2007 49

seco

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pini

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not only the function of the design but also the speed and sleep modes within the system.

Energy-efficient software design is much like writing highly optimized compilers. Power efficiency techniques similar to reordering in-structions, exploiting system architectures and application-specific optimization can improve energy efficiency.

The consumer electronics market demands energy-efficient mobile devices. Today, these requirements are met with comprehensive plans that address both software and hardware early in the design process. For hardware, sequential analysis and clock gating give designers a pow-erful tool to improve energy efficiency. Going forward, consumers will require ultra-power-efficient devices. Designers will be challenged to add more functionality in yet smaller pack-ages, with longer battery life.

Devadas Varma is Chairman and founder of Calypto. Previously he was a founder and man-aging director of Caltos Capital and was CTO of Ambit Design Systems, a Cadence Fellow and a vice president and CTO of the Ambit Group of Cadence. Varma received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology India, a M.S. in electrical engineering at the University of Maryland and a Ph.D. in Electri-cal and Computer Engineering at Drexel Uni-versity. He has several patents and published papers in the area of logic synthesis.

Calypto Design Systems, Santa Clara, CA. (408) 850-2300. [www.calpyto.com].

Right after choosing a CPU for a new design, the next thing most designers then turn to is the memory subsystem. With a wide—and rapidly evolving—range of choices between memory types, inter-faces and devices, there is a lot to sort through. Denali Software sits right at this decision point, providing models for simulating and verifying most memory devices; verification IP for validating com-pliance with complex interface protocols; NAND flash management software; and memory controller IP for PCI Express, DDR-SDRAM and flash.

Portable Design sat down with Denali’s CEO Sanjay Srivastava, as well as Brian Gardner, Denali’s VP for IP Products, and Marc Greenberg, Technical Marketing Manager, to discuss the ins and outs of memory modeling and management in portable designs.

Portable Design: You’ve been quoted as saying that the main bottleneck for all electronic system designs is the “growing dis-parity between the data bandwidth needs of processing elements and the ability of the memory elements to deliver that bandwidth.” What can designers of portable products do to address the memory bottleneck issue?

Brian: You can try to put the memory either very close to or in the same package as an SoC. You might also think about putting more types of memory together than you might in a PC. You have a lot more low-power modes than do notebook designers.

Marc: In a PC, memory controllers are actually pretty dumb; they’re not designed for power control. In the portable device, of course, you want to be using the low-power modes that are avail-

able to you, and you need a controller that’s smart enough to do that. At the same time, you want to optimize the bandwidth of the traffic that’s going through the memory con-troller, because anytime you have inefficient traffic conditions coming to the controller, then you have the situation where the memo-ry’s on and you’re burning power but you’re not transferring any data. So having a smart memory controller can actually increase your bandwidth and decrease the overall amount of power used doing data transfers.

Portable Design: Higher speed usually translates to higher power, a major concern in portable products. Are the highest-speed memo-ries such as DDR3 and QDR really applicable in these designs?

Brian: Higher speed does mean higher power. But in a portable device what you care about is conserving energy. If you can move a file in half the time but with 50% more power, you’re still ahead in terms of energy. Generally the faster devices are lower voltage. You can move a file with less energy using DDRII compared to DDRI. It’s all about battery life, and battery life is about energy.

Portable Design: Portable systems are moving to higher-speed serial interfaces. What high-speed memory interfaces do you think are most likely to move into the portable domain, and what will be the challenges in going to higher speeds?

Sanjay: There are at least a couple of different interfaces being promoted. We’re pretty proud of LP-DDRII, but the next generation is starting to see early adoption of high-speed serial interfaces.

Brian: In telco line cards and backplanes, where data has to travel considerable distances, you have to worry about the clock and data getting out of sync with each other. But in cell phones there isn’t as much advantage in serialization, since the distances are small.

Sanjay: In our product roadmap serial isn’t there, but we’re keep-ing an eye on it.

Portable Design: With MMAV (Memory Modeler - Advanced Verification) SOMAs (Specification of Modeling Architecture) you’ve provided a widely used solution for modeling and simulat-ing memory. Do you see a move among other IP providers to stan-dardize modeling for other system components that might bring a smooth ESL design flow closer to fruition?

Sanjay: From a component modeling perspective I think that the CPU vendors have done a pretty good job; ARM, for one, has a sophisticated modeling methodology. But there are a couple of chal-lenges. For a lot of our customers, memory subsystems can be the most critical part of the design. You can do a lot of system-level analysis with a system model that is just the CPU and memory sub-

ceo interview

50 PORTABLE DESIGN

Sanjay Srivastava Denalidecember 2007

system. But if you are integrating 100 pieces of IP and waiting for all of them to supply a model, you can be waiting a very long time.

I believe that the critical path from a modeling perspective will be the memory subsystem and the CPU, and that is more or less of a power problem. But being able to model the entire chip—especially if you’re getting IP from all over the place—well, that’s a ways off.

Portable Design: Databahn provides a configurable, program-mable interface to DDR and NAND flash memories. Can someone who is designing a system with a programmable processor easily interface those design tools with yours to enable easy modeling of a complete system?

Sanjay: There are meaningful integration points—for example, on-chip buses, like AMBA and AHB—where you can generate dif-ferent configurations from both sides and integrate at that point. It’s not very convenient having to generate the RTL from two different environments, but it does come together.

Portable Design: Flash memory technology has been evolving quickly. How do you stay ahead of that?

Marc: There’s a huge amount of innovation going on in the flash area right now. So we try to stay light on our feet and adapt to those changes as quickly as possible and be able to produce models of those parts as soon as they become available as well as IP that hooks up to those parts; we’re doing both.

Sanjay: For us the fascinating thing has been solving issues with multilevel cells through controllers and software. We hide the com-plexity of handling multilevel cells through our technology. We are also tracking other next-generation memory technologies like phase change memory (PCM).

Portable Design: How do you see the market for low-power memories evolving over the next 3-5 years? What applications and technologies will drive those changes?

Marc: I see the next big thing that’s coming as LP-DDRII. This is the consumer memory part that I think we’ve all been waiting for. Everyone who was using DDRI, II and III, which were all designed for use in PCs, now has access to LP-DDRII, which was designed for use in portable consumer applications. I think that’s really excit-ing for anyone who’s designing such a device.

The specs are still under discussion at JEDEC. There is no LP-DDRII part that you can buy today, but I expect that there will be sometime in 2008. That’s the schedule for the SDRAM; the flash parts should be out a little bit later in the year.

One of the great promises of LP-DDRII is being able to have SDRAM and flash on the same bus. You’ll also have lower voltage CMOS-type switching on the I/Os, which saves you huge amounts of power. It’s also lower voltage than DDRII and has a number of

power saving modes.Portable Design: How do you see the semiconductor IP market

evolving over the next few years? What changes are under way, and how will they shake out?

Sanjay: When you compare the semiconductor IP industry with semiconductors and EDA, we have been growing at a much fast-er pace. The first phase was driven by ARM; and then there were physical libraries. But we really started going with interfaces like DDRII and PCI Express. By now the market and the leaders are established.

As for how things might change, I think there is a lot of room for improvement in terms of reducing the total cost of ownership of IP for our customers, which means standards for how you accept IP, how you model IP and how you do performance analysis on it. So overall I think there’s a lot of room for standardization and innova-tion to reduce the friction and really get to the next level of growth for IP.

In terms of reducing the friction, part of the responsibility be-longs to the EDA industry and part of it to the IP industry. The question is, “Do you want to support a standard that may lead to rapid deployment—and possible commoditization farther down the road—or stick with a proprietary implementation to try to get high margins?” You need to find a way to differentiate your product within those standards so that your differentiation doesn’t become a cost to the customer.

In terms of outsourcing, there’s still a big transition that needs to happen. But just about any large semiconductor company you talk to, the question has changed from “if” to “when.”

Denali Software, Inc., Palo Alto, CA. (650) 461-7200. [www.denali.com].

To hear or download the full interview, check out www.portabledesign.blogspot.com.

DECEMBER 2007 51

M

The MOUNTAIN VIEW ALLIANCE

Specifi cation Development Organizations (SDO) and Special Interest Groups (SIG) coordinate efforts to enable COTS environment in telecom and wireless infrastructure

Mountain View Alliance - the name alone may conjure a vision of Silicon Valley executives sitting around an oversized redwood confer-ence table preparing a forward looking state-ment for the upcoming year. Actually, for those unfamiliar with it, the Mountain View Alliance (MVA) is a loose coalition of nine (9) Speci cation Development Organizations (SDO) and Special Interest Groups (SIG) who have a common interest in accelerating the development of modular, commercial-off- the-shelf (COTS) equipment adoption in the communications market.

The MVA announced its formation in June 2005 with a primary objective to pro-mote real-life interoperability. Founded by three representatives from leading open speci cation organizations: PICMG, the Service Availability Forum, and the Op-tical Internetworking Forum - originally called the Network Processing Forum, the alliance members work to coordinate their efforts and facilitate communications aim-ing to avoid gaps, overlaps and inconsis-tencies that may lead to technical con ict. The MVA acts as a clearing house for com-

munication among its members; individual issues are usually resolved by bilateral in-teraction between member organizations. On the marketing side, the MVA‘s role is coordinating efforts and messages between groups to accelerate the growth of the com-mercial off-the-shelf (COTS) ecosystem for open communications platforms.

“This alliance is best understood as a clas-sic example of the whole being stronger than the sum of the parts”, said Russ Dietz in 2005, chairman of the Network Processing Forum. Joe Pavlat, president of PICMG had this to say, “the efforts of the Mountain View Alliance recognize that users are now look-ing at the ‘overall solution’ and this requires closer cooperation between our respective organizations”

Today’s nine member organizations of the MVA represent over 1,000 total companies. The organization’s speci cations and docu-ments address most of the elements of the stack for Telecom equipment.

Tom Williams:How did the Mountain View Alliance form?

The Mountain View Alliance started in 2005 when Henry Turko of the SA Forum contacted other organizations to explore ways of working more closely together. At that time, PICMG and SAForum were already coordinating their ef-forts around the HPI management interface and we felt it was time to explore coordination between other organizations. I think we all felt that this type of coordination was needed

Tom Williams, Editor-in-Chief of RTC interviews Rob Davidson, PICMG

52 PORTABLE DESIGN

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as the COTS market was beginning to ma-ture and those who were building complete systems were using documents from multiple organizations. At the same time these orga-nizations were interested in accelerating the adoption of their documents and felt that the combined story was stronger than the indi-vidual messages. We all agreed that the time was right for this organization.

What type of coordination does it do?

We like to call the MVA a clearing house for information. Members discuss what their organizations are doing and if that generates interest, we nd the relevant contacts in each organization so they can pursue the issue di-rectly. The MVA also provides an excellent en-try point for organizations wanting to establish connections in this space. A good example is the TM Forum that recently joined; they want to extend the work they do in system manage-ment further down the telecom platform stack and the MVA is the perfect place to start.

What organizations constitute the MVA?

Currently, the Mountain View Alliance member organizations are the Communica-tions Platforms Trade Association (CP-TA), the Linux Foundation (LF), Open Communi-cation Architecture Forum (OCAF), Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF), PICMG, Rapi-dIO, SCOPE Alliance, the Service Availability Forum (SA Forum), and the TM Forum..

What are MVA’s main activities?

Aside from the clearing house activities, the MVA has produced white papers, and a coor-dinated calendar of events for the industry on

our web site. The most signi cant activity the group has established, is the the MVA Commu-nications Ecosystem Conference (MVACEC). This event extends the principle that end results are best achieved by bilateral relationships to the individual level; it brings together companies and individuals from the ecosystem of suppliers and customers who are interested in advancing the adoption of open speci cation COTS base products. There are many events that focus on some of the individual technologies such as Ad-vancedTCA, but we felt that we needed to step up and initiate an event that focused on the over-all stack. We began this with a joint meeting of PICMG and the SA Forum in 2006 that grew into the rst MVACEC in 2007.

The MVA agship event brings together members of the entire communications indus-try. Launched in February 2007, this event is a conference and exhibition program that in-cludes CTOs from established and new Net-work Equipment Providers as well as leaders of the vendors, system integrators and service providers. It is open to anyone interested in the development of the COTS ecosystem. It is the one event to get the bigger picture with techni-cal and business developments.

Eric Heikkila, Director of Embedded Hard-ware & Systems at VDC, a research rm that tracks this space recently said: “Adopting ATCA and COTS based systems is such a ma-jor change for the NEPs that it is paramount

that marketing and sales efforts should be aimed at the of ce of the CTO where these de-cisions are ultimately made”.

The MVACEC is the event where these in u-ential people will gather to give their views and gather information on the latest developments.

2008 promises to have an excellent pro-gram which was compiled by the talented technical chairs: Timo Jokiaho from Nokia Siemens Networks, Magnus Karlson from Ericsson, Mark Kent from BT, and Paul Steinberg from Motorola. They are attract-ing top notch keynotes and panelists and have selected technical presentations from a large number of submissions.

Jorge Magalhaes, Motorola’s Director of Marketing, Embedded Communications Computing remarked about the 2007 MVA-CEC, “We were most impressed by the broad spectrum of service providers, network equip-ment providers and communications vendors represented by both the speakers and on the associated panels. There was a high level of engagement in the breakout sessions, which signi cantly contributed to the overall experi-ence.”Mountain View Alliance

www.mountainviewalliance.org

www.cp-ta.org

www.linux-foundation.org

www.itu.int/ITU-T/ocaf/

www.oiforum.com

www.picmg.org

www.rapidio.org

www.scope-alliance.org

www.saforum.org

www.tmforum.org

2008

DECEMBER 2007 53

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54 PORTABLE DESIGN

advertiser indexAltera Corporation 55 www.altera.com

Aptyc 43 www.aptyc.com

Atmel 5 www.atmel.com

EmbeddedCommunity.com 47 www.embeddedcommunity.com

Intersil Corporation 2 www.intersil.com

Linx Technologies, Inc 47 www.linxtechnologies.com

Mouser Electronic 25 www.mouser.com

MVACEC 52,53 www.mvacec.com www.mountainviewalliance.org

National Semiconductor 56 www.national.com

Real-Time & Embedded Computing Conference 41 www.rtecc.com

Rogers Corporation 31 www.realporon.com

Tensilica 45 www.tensilica.com

Xilinx, Inc. 11 www.xilinx.com

The RTC Group is a media services company specializing in bring-ing companies and their products to a focused group of electronic and computer manufacturers. RTC is proud of its track record of blazing new trails in search of marketing value for our clients. Portable Design magazine is the newest addition to RTC Group’s collection of publications.

Event Calendar

01/07-10/08AIAA Aerospace SciencesMeeting & ExhibitReno, NV www.aiaa.org

01/19-24/08SPIE Photonics WestSan Jose, CA www.spie.org

01/22/08Real-Time & EmbeddedComputing ConferenceSanta Clara, CA www.rtecc.com

01/23-25/08Internet Telephony EastConference & ExpoMiami, FL www.tmcnet.com

01/29-31/08Electronics WestAnaheim, CA www.electronicswestshow.com

02/05-07/08AFCEA West 2008San Diego, CA www.afcea.org

02/08-10/08So. California Linux ExpoLos Angeles, CAwww.socallinuxexpo.org

02/12/08Real-Time & EmbeddedComputing ConferenceAtlanta, GA www.rtecc.com

03/11-12/08Mountain View AllianceComms. Ecosystem ConferenceSan Francisco, CA www.mvacec.com

If you wish to have your industry event listed, contact Sally Bixby with The RTC

Group at [email protected]

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