Analogue / Linear / Mixed Signal ICs

Nexperia has managed to achieve 100fF load capacitance in devices designed to protect USB4 signal lines. “Of special interest to engineers designing USB4 and Thunderbolt interfaces, the new device uses Nexperia’s TrEOS ESD protection technology with active silicon-controlled rectification,” according to the firm. “It delivers a combination capacitance down to 0.1pF), dynamic resistance down to 0.1Ω and 20A 8/20µs surge robustness.” ...

STMicroelectronics has tied up with Japanese audio company Alps Alpine to create an automotive class-D audio amplifier IC. Called FDA901, “the chip aims to contribute to the creation of multi-function, high-fidelity car audio systems that fuse the high efficiency of class-D amplifiers with the high-quality sound of ST’s class-AB amplifiers”, according to ST. According to ST it features low residual noise, ...

Maxim launched two LiDAR ICs at Embedded World this year, the Max400026 comparator and Max40660/Max40661 transimpedance amplifiers. The manufacturer is claiming these ICs represent a twofold increase of bandwidth and, at 128, an additional 32 channels over the nearest competitor in the same size module. The Max40026 is provided in a TDFN package size of 4mm2 while the 40660/1 come ...

New York-based fabless chip firm Ferric has teamed up with TSMC to put magnetic components on the metal layers of integrated circuits. The first product of the collaboration, Fe1038D, has a 2.0 x 3.2mm flip-chip die (<400μm thick) that includes all magnetics and passives needed to deliver 3A at between 0.6V and 1.5V from 1.8V-2.5V, with efficiency peaking above >85%. These chips can ...

Diodes has announced the PI3EQX12904A, a PCIe 3.0 and SATA3 re-driver with linear equalisation that supports PCIe 3.0 up to 8Gbit/s and SATA3 up to 6Gbit/s. It features four 100Ω differential current-mode logic (CML) data signals and is transparent to link training. To reducing inter-symbol interference, receiver equalisation is pin-adjustable, as is output linear swing (to 1Vmax) and flat gain. ...

Microchip has announced what it claims is industry first space-qualified Ethernet transceiver – a radiation-tolerant device based on a COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) chip. Called VSC8541RT, according to Microchip it is a single-port Gigabit Ethernet copper PHY with GMII, RGMII, MII and RMII interfaces. Radiation performances is: latch-up-immune to 78Mev and TID tested up to 100Krad. A second version,VSC8540RT, it bit-rate limited ...

CML Microcircuits has introduced an evaluation board for its low-power voice codec based around a  Raspberry Pi. The codec, the CMX655D, has been built into the EV6550DHAT – a board compliant with Raspberry Pi’s HAT (hardware attached on top) extension board standard. “The Raspberry Pi single board computer is widely recognised by makers, enthusiasts and professional developers as the platform of ...

Diodes has announced the BCR430UW6 linear LED driver with dropout voltage of 115mV and constant current regulation between 5mA and 100mA. This combination makes the BCR430UW6 suitable for applications that require multiple LEDs to operate together, such as signage illumination and architectural lighting for commercial and retail installations. The “ultra-low” dropout voltage and operating current of 285μA provide a greater ...

ProLabs of Cirencester has unveiled a plug-and-play optical fibre transceiver that can add DWDM to existing network infrastructure. Called Clarity Auto-Tuneable DWDM Transceiver, it plugged into the host device and passive mux, and is compatible with any OEM switch platform that supports SFP+ transceivers including switch platforms that do not natively support tuneable transceivers. The transceivers auto-discover and self-tune to individual ...

Texas Instruments is aiming at beam-forming microphones with four-channel ADC that can connect to four analogue microphones or eight digital microphones, or a combination of the two. “Smart home systems face challenges with far-field audio capture,” according to TI. “In today’s systems, a limited number of microphones and restricted signal processing capability make it difficult to capture and understand voice ...