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Infineon’s RIC70115 GaN HEMT gate driver provides the radiation hardness and long-term reliability required for satellite and space applications. Supporting both silicon FETs and GaN HEMTs in low-side and high-side configurations, the device helps ease the transition from silicon to GaN.

Operating over a temperature range of -55°C to +125°C, the RIC70115 is characterized for single-event effects up to a linear energy transfer (LET) of 81.9 MeV·cm²/mg and a total ionizing dose (TID) of up to 100 krad(Si). Its independent Miller clamp prevents parasitic-induced turn-on while maintaining switching speed, reducing switching losses. Truly differential input logic rejects common-mode noise and minimizes the effects of EMI and RFI.

An integrated low-dropout regulator generates a tightly regulated 4.8-V drive voltage from a 5-V or 12-V source, supporting a supply voltage range of 4.75 V to 15 V. The RIC70115 provides a 1.5-A source current and a 2.5-A sink current, with propagation delay matching of up to 2.9 ns.

The RIC70115 is offered in a hermetically sealed 16-pin LCC package or in die form. 

RIC70115 product page 

Infineon Technologies  

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Tomocube’s HT-T1D is a desktop holotomography system for high-resolution, non-destructive 3D defect analysis of glass substrates used in semiconductor packaging. It images internal defects and other fine features with a lateral resolution of 161 nm and an axial resolution of 1.298 µm.

Glass core substrates and glass interposers are gaining traction as key enabling materials for AI accelerators, high-bandwidth memory, and other advanced packaging applications. Manufacturers need to identify the root causes of micro-defects and quickly translate inspection data into process improvements.

The HT-T1D system applies visible-light holotomography to visualize the three-dimensional refractive-index distribution inside glass with refractive-index sensitivity down to ~10⁻⁴ Δn. Its non-destructive measurements enable repeated analysis of the same location across successive process stages, allowing users to track when and how defects form, propagate, or enlarge.

When conventional in-line panel inspection tools such as automated optical inspection (AOI) systems flag a potential defect, the HT-T1D uses the corresponding coordinates to reconstruct the interior of the glass substrate in three dimensions. It resolves the defect’s location, morphology, and depth profile that surface inspection alone cannot reveal.

HT-T1D product page 

Tomocube

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Two TVS diode series from Littelfuse, the TP5.0SMD-FL and TP1KSMB-FL, protect 48-V automotive electronics from voltage transients. Based on the FlatSuppressX TVS architecture, the devices exhibit a flatter clamping characteristic with a significantly lower clamping voltage than conventional TVS components. Their foldback/snapback function tightly controls transient response while avoiding latch-up risk.

The TP5.0SMD-FL series has a peak pulse power rating of up to 5 kW in a DO-214AB (SMC) package. The TP1KSMB-FL series has a peak pulse power rating of up to 1 kW in a DO-214AA (SMB) package. Devices in both series are AEC-Q101 qualified, providing scalable protection options for varying system requirements. Their architecture enhances system efficiency, enabling the use of lower-rated downstream components.

Optimized for protecting I/O interfaces, power buses, and other vulnerable circuits in automotive electronics, particularly 48-V architectures, these TVS diodes provide a fast transient response, typically in less than 1 ps.

The TP5.0SMD-FL and TP1KSMB-FL series are available in tape and reel format in quantities of 3,000. Sample requests are accepted through authorized Littelfuse distributors worldwide. 

Littelfuse

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MPLAB XC Pro Compilers and the MPLAB Machine Learning Development Suite from Microchip are now available at no cost. Unlimited installations give users free access to advanced optimization capabilities and integrated embedded machine learning workflows, whether working individually or as part of a development team.

Previously available through paid license tiers, the MPLAB XC Pro Compilers reduce code size, lower memory usage, improve execution speed, and generate architecture-optimized code for embedded applications. These capabilities support software development across Microchip’s 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit MCU and MPU portfolio.

The MPLAB Machine Learning Development Suite includes the Model Builder plug-in for MPLAB X IDE and Microsoft Visual Studio Code. It generates optimized AI and IoT sensor recognition code to support embedded machine learning development on resource-constrained devices.

MPLAB XC Compilers and the MPLAB Machine Learning Development Suite are now available as free, unrestricted-use downloads.

Microchip Technology

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The Rambus DDR5 9600 server RDIMM chipset supports DDR5 RDIMMs operating at up to 9600 MT/s in CPU-based server platforms. The chipset is built around the RCD06 sixth-generation registering clock driver, which increases bandwidth by 20% over the previous generation. As a key control-plane chip, the registering clock driver distributes command/address, chip-select, and clock signals to the DRAM devices on the RDIMM.

In addition to the RCD06, the chipset includes the PMIC5030 power management IC and a serial presence detect (SPD) hub with an integrated temperature sensor. The SPD hub communicates via the I3C bus for system configuration and thermal management. Two dedicated temperature sensors per DIMM provide precision thermal sensing and, in combination with the SPD hub, enable three points of thermal telemetry for the memory module.

By integrating clocking, control, and power management functions, the chipset helps ensure signal and power integrity at high data rates while simplifying the design of DDR5 RDIMMs. This level of integration becomes increasingly important as server architectures scale to support higher processor core counts, larger memory capacities, and the sustained demands of continuously running AI workloads.

Learn more about the DDR5 9600 Server RDIMM chipset here.

Rambus

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Vector Photonics Ltd of the West of Scotland Science Park (which was spun off from the University of Glasgow in 2020, based on research led by professor Richard Hogg) has begun a new program that addresses a critical and growing challenge in advanced photonics manufacturing: the lack of scalable, thermally efficient and resource-effective packaging for photonic crystal surface-emitting lasers (PCSELs)...

NextGO Epi of Berlin, Germany has secured a €2m pre-seed funding round led by Vireo Ventures, with participation from Ultratech Capital Partners, IBB Ventures, and angel investor Boris Habets. Spun off in 2025 from Berlin-based Leibniz-Institut für Kristallzüchtung (IKZ) and supported also by Investitionsbank Berlin, INAM and Siltronic, NextGO Epi produces gallium oxide epitaxial wafers for next-generation power semiconductor devices...

Infineon Technologies AG of Munich, Germany has introduced the RIC70115, a radiation-hardened (rad-hard) gallium nitride (GaN) high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT) driver designed for satellite and high-reliability space applications where power conversion performance and long-term operational integrity are critical requirements...

submitted by /u/holysbit [link] [comments]

I have a couple of these receivers I got in a pile of old stuff and by defuse they're USB but I wanted to use them with my microcontrollers, so I ripped one apart with a simple pry tool then removed the pressed on RF shield to expose the goodies. Looking at the USB to serial transceiver, I see it's a PL-2303HX and looking at the datasheet, pin 1 is serial TX and pin 5 is serial RX, so I traced them to two open solder bridges. Closing those to solder bridges with questionable soldering using an oversized tip resulted in the two unused pins now making connection I decided to use the existing cabling so I used a small pry tool to lift up the plastic tab holding the green and white USB data wires and pulled them out and inserting them into their new homes After snipping off the USB connector, red to +5v, black to negative, and the two serial lines to my ESP32 pins, I started streaming NMEA datagrams over uart ❤️ NOTE: the default speed for this receiver is 4800bps submitted by /u/DangerousDyke [link] [comments]

When doing analog design, especially at higher frequencies ranging into the microwave region, it’s normal to focus on devices and the performance they enable in the specific topology. But there’s another aspect of microwave design that’s important to keep in mind: the role of advanced materials and the atomic-scale physics that allows conception, construction, and test of the advanced devices need to reach toward the multi-gigahertz part of the spectrum.

This is demonstrated by a recent Cornell University-led development related to voltage-tunable capacitors, or varactors, that combine high performance with low loss—and the road to get there. Traditional varactor technologies, while effective, often hit a performance ceiling due to intrinsic material limitations, particularly when it comes to dielectric losses that degrade signal quality.

A federal research program was initiated in 1999 to find materials for varactors that would offer lower dielectric losses at higher frequencies. The “back story” of success here is yet another example of how progress is often not linear, predictable, or obvious, despite the way it’s often portrayed.

The research team’s success here is due to persistence and following a very different path, as the project has been a long journey. While nearly every scientific team in the program focused on using barium strontium titanate, the Cornell team looked at layered crystalline materials, a type of perovskite structure known as Ruddlesden-Popper thin films, characterized by their exceptionally low energy loss at microwave frequencies.

Unfortunately, these films also had a major drawback: according to the accepted understanding of their crystal symmetry, they shouldn’t have been able to provide the tunability needed for practical devices.

A member of the research team was developing a new technique for measuring the dielectric properties of thin films across a wide range of frequencies. One of his measurements of strontium titanium oxide with composition Sr4Ti3O10, a layered Ruddlesden-Popper thin film, suggested something remarkable: the supposedly untunable material might, in fact, be tunable after all.

But there was a problem: the effect only appeared in an in-plane geometry, in which the electric field moved sideways through the material. Real-world devices such as voltage-tunable capacitors used in microwave circuits generally require an out-of-plane design, in which the electric field moves vertically through the film, enabling smaller, more efficient components.

Researchers spent a decade trying to find a way to preserve their low microwave loss while making them more tunable and more practical. They then asked a more radical question: what if they could change the symmetry of the material itself? If so, it might be possible to change the symmetry in a specific family of Ruddlesden-Popper compounds made from barium, strontium, titanium, and oxygen.

In a true multi-institution effort with collaborators at Cornell, the University of Connecticut, Rice University, the University of Maryland, Boise State University and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), they engineered a new version of the material by inserting carefully spaced rock-salt layers. The strategy effectively rewrote the material’s internal rules, allowing it to exhibit the out-of-plane behavior needed for practical devices while preserving the low-loss characteristics that had made the Ruddlesden-Popper thin films attractive in the first place.

By engineering a film structure that introduces a unique rock-salt atomic layer interleaved with every “n” perovskite unit cell, the researchers created a new class of thin films whose symmetry properties could be precisely controlled (Figure 1).

Figure 1 Researchers used advanced microscopy to confirm the atomic structure of an engineered Ruddlesden-Popper material. The diagrams show how alternating layers in the crystal helped produce the material’s unusual combination of tunability and low energy loss. Source: Cornell University

From possible breakthrough to despair, then to a solution

But this success led to another dead-end, as the new out-of-plane devices posed an entirely different metrology problem. The frequencies most relevant for modern communications systems are among the most difficult to measure accurately because at those high frequencies, the signal from the material can be distorted by the test structure itself—the metal electrodes, wiring, and geometries surrounding the dielectric. So, when the researchers first tested the new Ruddlesden-Popper devices at microwave frequencies, the results were confusing.

Addressing this issue, a NIST-based group began to develop a new metrology approach capable of characterizing the material in an out-of-plane, metal-insulator-metal capacitor geometry at frequencies beyond the reach of conventional techniques. They added a “control structure” using a sheet of metal that had the same topology as the device. Measuring that control structure let the team perform an additional round of calibration, subtracting away distortions caused by the test structure itself, and isolating the dielectric’s true microwave response (Figure 2).

Figure 2 The microwave measurement setup used by the NIST team in Boulder, Colorado. Source: NIST via Cornell University

Their custom-tailored composition exhibits a remarkable relative tunability of 51% under an applied electric field of 250 kV/cm, which is almost double the performance of many conventional tunable dielectrics. At the same time, it maintains an impressively low dielectric loss that translates to a material quality factor of about 200. For the best version, the measured dielectric tuning figure of merit (FOM) showed tenfold improvement for out-of-plane tunable dielectrics at 10 GHz.

Figure 3 Various perspectives on microwave characterization are displayed at ambient temperature. Source: Cornell University

Will this lead to new varactors that you can buy? Obviously, it’s too early to say; there are still many potential obstacles on the path to commercialization, if it even happens.

But I do think the right screenwriter could make an exciting story out of this long quest with its advances, insight, contrary thinking, roadblocks, and eventual success. It would be nice to see a true story of science discovery and innovation captured and brought to a more general audience (can you think of any recent ones other than the 2023 blockbuster movie Oppenheimer?).

The work is detailed in their intense paper with a deceptively simple title “Breaking symmetry yields a low-loss out-of-plane tunable microwave dielectric” published in Nature Electronics; while that paper is behind a paywall, a “student” preprint copy is posted at ResearchGate here. In addition, there’s a fairly technical yet very readable description of the work posted at Bioengineer.org (why there—I can’t say).

Bill Schweber is a degreed senior EE who has written three textbooks, hundreds of technical articles, opinion columns, and product features. Prior to becoming an author and editor, he spent his entire hands-on career on the analog side by working on power supplies, sensors, signal conditioning, and wired and wireless communication links. His work experience includes many years at Analog Devices in applications and marketing.

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The post Deep physics, materials science enhance dielectrics, varactors appeared first on EDN.

Сторінки життя Містера Лазера. До 85-річчя від дня народження засновника української лазерної технології Володимира Коваленка Інформація КП ср, 07/15/2026 - 17:00

Ascent Solar Technologies Inc of Thornton, CO, USA – which designs and makes lightweight, flexible copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) thin-film photovoltaic (PV) panels that can be integrated into consumer products, off-grid applications and aerospace applications – has recapped its commercial progress and solar material development in first-half 2026, and outlined its objectives to spur growth and advancement throughout the second half of the year...

➡️ Реєстрація на відбір до ветеранської магістерської програми за спеціальностями «Прикладна механіка» та «Біомедична інженерія» kpi ср, 07/15/2026 - 15:11

The iconic LM2917 tackles frequency-to-current conversion with (very) few externals.

Almost exactly 50 years ago—in June 1976, to be precise—National Semiconductor introduced the LM29x7 series, offering deceptively simple monolithic solutions to a frequently encountered signal processing problem: the flexible and accurate conversion of frequency into an analog signal.  I say “deceptively simple” because actually, these chips are very capable interfaces with versatile inputs, internal active zener voltage references (with the LM2917), and a configurable output that includes an opamp-driven uncommitted Darlington transistor.

Wow the engineering world with your unique design: Design Ideas Submission Guide

Although initially targeted at automotive applications, the LM29x7 series’ flexibility makes them highly handy in other contexts, including industrial applications like monitoring turbine-type flow meter flow rate and small motor tachometry. Figure 1’s facile conversion of a frequency input to a universal 4-20mA current loop format shows how minimalist—it makes do with just nine paltry passives—such a circuit can be when implemented with a LM2917.

Figure 1 A 2917 with internal voltage reference converts a 0-5kHz input to a 4-20mA output.  Single-pass calibration of both ends of the output span is available. First step: input 0Hz and adjust R1 for 4mA output. Second step: input 5kHz and adjust R2 for 20mA. Third step: there is no third step. You’re done.

Here’s how it works.

Incoming pulses are converted by the internal Schmidt trigger comparator and charge pump into constant-current (180uA) pulses delivered to pin 3. Each pulse cycle carries a charge quantum Qp = VzC1 so that the average current out of pin 3 as a function of the Finput frequency is I3 = Fin Qp = Fin Vz C1. For the values shown, that works out to I3 = 7.56uA/kHz = 0 to 38uA as Fin goes from 0 to 5kHz. For calibration stability, C1 should be a temperature-stable type like C0G.

The R1…R4 resistor network hung from pin 3 converts this 0 to 38uA to 0 to 4v which is added to a 1v offset supplied by R3. The resulting 1 to 5v total is converted by the internal output opamp and Darlington via current sense R6 to the final 4 to 20mA output. R7 provides some bias current cancellation, which is useful since the thirsty opamp inputs can draw as much a 500nA. If uncorrected, that could create a 50mV voltage offset error on pin 3. Meanwhile, C2 provides ripple-suppression filtering.

However, none of this explains why R1 and R2 are variable. Here’s why. Although U1’s spec’d linearity and temperature coefficient are good, its initial tolerances aren’t so great: about +/-10%.  See “gain constant K” in Table 7.5 here (PDF). Therefore some post-assembly final calibration is pretty much unavoidable, which is the purpose of R1’s (4mA zero) and R2’s (20mA full-scale 5kHz) tweakability.  But at least if you do the adjustments in the right order (first R1, then R2), they won’t interact and calibration can be completed in s single pass.

So it shouldn’t Hz too much. (No such promises for his jokes, however! Ed.)

Stephen Woodward‘s relationship with EDN’s DI column goes back quite a long way. Over 200 submissions have been accepted since his first contribution back in 1974.  They have included best Design Idea of the year in 1974 and 2001.

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The post Painlessly convert Hz to 4-20mA current loop appeared first on EDN.

Deploying AI inference in powerconstrained and missioncritical environments such
as aerospace and defense systems requires solutions that balance performance, efficiency, reliability and
ease of development. To better manage these challenges, Microchip Technology (Nasdaq: MCHP) has
released the VectorBlox 3.0 Accelerator Software Development Kit (SDK) to help simplify FPGAbased AI
implementation and speed timetomarket. Offered to developers free of charge, VectorBlox 3.0 SDK and
associated CoreVectorBlox IP is designed as an integrated toolchain that streamlines optimization,
compilation and deployment of convolutional neural network (CNN) models on PolarFire FPGA and SoC-
based platforms. Because the accelerator scales efficiently across model sizes and supports multiple AI
workloads on a single device, customers can consolidate various vision or sensorbased AI functions on a
single low power FPGA.

“As AI models continue to grow in complexity, compression is becoming essential for deploying intelligence
at the edge,” said Shakeel Peera, corporate vice president and GM of Microchip’s FPGA business unit.
“With VectorBlox 3.0, we’re leveraging sparsity-based model compression from our Neuronix acquisition to
reduce compute demands while preserving accuracy.”

With support for sparse neural networks, VectorBlox 3.0 helps enable efficient execution of vision-based
CNN models by skipping zerovalued operations. This capability helps developers accelerate inference
performance while reducing power consumption, an important advantage for alwayson edge AI
applications that must balance responsiveness with energy efficiency. Enabling sparsity-based model
compression is designed to reduce compute and memory demands, while preserving accuracy.

“Leveraging VectorBlox acceleration on Microchip’s PolarFire SoC enabled us to efficiently deploy advanced
onboard AI pipelines for low-latency payload operations in orbit,” said Vito Fortunato, SPACEDGE
services line manager at Planetek Italia. “The platform allowed us to validate real-time Earth Observation
processing capabilities including object detection, semantic scene analysis and edge-generated actionable
information products on top of the AI-eXpress-1 satellite, deployed in 2025, while providing the radiation
resilience and operational reliability required for continuous Low Earth Orbit operations.”

Additionally, Spacecraft Pose Network v2 (SPNv2), a neural network designed to estimate position and
orientation using vision data, enables autonomous navigation and proximity operations in space for
applications such as autonomous rendezvous and docking, space debris removal, satellite inspection and
formation flying. Built on mid-range, power-efficient, single-event-upset (SEU) immune PolarFire FPGAs and
SoCs, the solution delivers secure boot, anti-tamper protection and high reliability for harsh environments.
These features are necessary for missioncritical defense, aerospace and industrial deployments where long
operational life, data protection and system resilience are essential.

“The combination of PolarFire SoC and VectorBlox creates a powerful synergy for deploying AI-powered
autonomy solutions directly in orbit,” said Federico Fontana, Head of Hardware Engineering at AIKO. “We
validated this through the deployment of our clear_CHARLES suite, which provides onboard cloud and ship
detection for adaptive and autonomous payload operations on power-efficient platforms, making a further
step toward increasingly autonomous, responsive and software-defined space systems.”

The post Microchip Advances Neural Network Implementation with VectorBlox 3.0 Accelerator SDK appeared first on ELE Times.

Efficient Power Conversion Corp (EPC) of El Segundo, CA, USA — which makes enhancement-mode gallium nitride on silicon (eGaN) power field-effect transistors (FETs) and integrated circuits for power management applications — is participating in the Tech Taipei Power 2026 power electronics conference in Taiwan, which gathers industry experts to discuss the latest advances in power conversion technologies for AI infrastructure, industrial systems, automotive, robotics, and next-generation energy applications...

Aehr Test Systems of Fremont, CA, USA — which provides solutions for testing, burning-in and stabilizing semiconductor devices in wafer-level, singulated die, and packaged-part form — has received more than $8m in new silicon carbide wafer-level burn-in (WLBI) orders...

The governments and industry partners of Australia, Japan and the USA, together with Alcoa Corp (which provides bauxite, alumina and aluminium products), have reached a final investment decision for a gallium production plant to be co‑located at Alcoa’s Wagerup alumina refinery in Western Australia...

Are you an engineer contemplating your next “skillset” move in the AI era? If so, the ‘Mind of the Engineer’ survey is for you. The survey delves into multiple engineering disciplines, the latest technology trends, and emerging design skillsets to formulate empirical observations about where today’s engineering landscape is heading and how engineers should prepare for this AI-powered paradigm shift.

More importantly, this survey touches a hot nerve: AI’s potential to eliminate engineering jobs. Will AI fundamentally change what it means to be an engineer in the next five years? And do engineers trust AI-generated outputs, and do these outputs reflect biases in training data?

The survey also tests grounds for young engineers, where AI and machine learning (ML) skills are hot favorites. Will these disciplines take over computer science and engineering? Should engineers go for self-study efforts through books, papers, blogs, and YouTube videos, or should they opt for education courses or certificates with Coursera, edX, Udemy, and IEEE?

The survey also attempts to gauge where engineers stand in terms of effectively using AI tools in electronics design and manufacturing processes. That includes agentic AI, formal AI, AI certifications, LLMs, and AI-assisted EDA tools. Also, how comfortable engineers are in AI/ML model development and deployment.

The survey also digs deeper into how engineers are using chatbots/assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Copilot Chat. Then there are AI coding assistants like GitHub Copilot, Cursor, and Tabnine. The survey attempts to establish where these tools stand in an engineer’s day-to-day work and what the actual productivity gains are.

That brings us to a sensitive and crucial issue: Will AI tools eliminate more engineering jobs than they create? Are AI tools making engineers significantly more productive overall? Will AI fundamentally change what it means to be an engineer in the coming years?

However, the survey isn’t all about AI; cybersecurity and quantum computing are presented as pressing issues on many engineers’ minds. For instance, where does quantum computing stand in its deployment timeline? And how aware engineers are in terms of quantum-safe products and post-quantum cryptography.

Next, the survey covers quickly emerging technologies such as chiplets and advanced packaging. Likewise, power electronics stars—silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN)—are also there. Not to be discounted, edge AI, a rapidly emerging offshoot of AI technology, is there as well.

AspenCore, publisher of EDN, is conducting the “Voice of the Engineer” survey. Once you complete this survey, you will become eligible to be randomly selected as one of 10 respondents to receive an Amazon.com Gift Card valued at USD 100 (or local equivalent). Results of this survey will be announced at a major industry event with a fanfare. They will also be posted on EE Times, EDN’s sister publication.

Participate in the survey and be part of this timely engineering conversation about the future of AI and the electronics industry at large.

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The post ‘Mind of the Engineer’ survey: A reality check on where EEs stand on AI appeared first on EDN.