Новини світу мікро- та наноелектроніки

• Significantly reduced carbon footprint
• No impact on product quality or performance
• Distribution of more sustainable version starts in October, 2023

Specialty chemicals company LANXESS has reached an important step towards more sustainability in its plasticizer portfolio: The Polymer Additives (PLA) business unit now offers a more sustainable solution for its plasticizer Mesamoll. The phthalate-free, well-gelling and exceptionally saponification-resistant plasticizer can be applied for a wide range of polymers, such as PVC, PUR and rubber.

“The switch to a more sustainable raw material base in the production of Mesamoll is a testament to LANXESS’s commitment to sustainability,” says Karsten Job, Head of the Polymer Additives business. “Helping our customers to reduce their carbon footprint while meeting the demands of our customers for phthalate-free, reliable, and performing solutions makes us a frontrunner in the market.”

In the future, more than 30 percent of the input materials for Mesamoll will come from fully sustainable sources resulting in a reduction in the product carbon footprint (PCF) of around 20 percent. As this is calculated via the mass balance approach by the supplier of the respective raw materials, there is no impact on the product quality or performance of Mesamoll.

“We want to actively shape the transformation of our industry,” says Stefan Tiebach, Head of Global Marketing at PLA. “At LANXESS, we firmly believe in leading by example and that is why we decided to stop the distribution of our conventional Mesamoll and are solely distributing the more sustainable version starting on October 1, 2023. Our customers will continue to receive the usual product quality with the additional benefit of an improved sustainability profile.”

LANXESS is committed to further reduce the PCF for its plasticizer Mesamoll in the future, even though the current, reduced PCF is significantly lower than most alternative plasticizers on the market.

The post Mesamoll plasticizer from LANXESS now even more sustainable appeared first on ELE Times.

From the genesis of a simple electronic transaction to widespread adoption of smartphones, the evolution of online banking, mobile banking and mobile transactions has propelled the financial services industry to unparalleled heights. Demonetisation and the advent of covid-19, were the triggers that pushed everyone to adopt digital payment methods. As a result, the inclusion of modern technology is reshaping traditional business models and ultimately paving the way to new pathways of growth.

In recent years, India’s financial landscape has undergone a remarkable transformation with the integration of cutting-edge technologies. Artificial intelligence, machine learning, cloud computing, block chain, data analytics, have revolutionized the way financial services are being delivered and experienced. Today Fintechs represent the full range of services from digital payments, KYC, loan underwriting, data analysis, credit management, credit investment, debt collection & recovery process and so on.

The emergence of new-age technologies especially Artificial Intelligence (AI) has undoubtedly made great strides in the finance industry. As a matter of fact, digital lending has become one of the areas where AI has made strong inroads and at the same time has increased the participation by those who have until recently been under-or-un served. AI is a powerful boost to the lending and loan management sector through Fintech.

The projected total addressable market for fintech in India is estimated to reach $2.1 trillion (174 lakh crores) by 2030, demonstrating a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18% starting from 2022. Indeed, the focus is on a rapidly expanding B2B lending market, which is poised to reform conventional lending models and reshape the financial landscape.

There are significant opportunities that have emerged rapidly in evolving fintech landscape in India. First is, bridging the credit gap where the lack of capital is one of the biggest threats to MSME’s existence. With several Fintech start-ups offering easier and quicker access to loans, MSMEs are no longer required to go through the tedious process of providing documentation, filling in the paperwork and making multiple visits to a bank. According to the IFC Report, the total addressable credit gap in the MSME segment is estimated to USD 397.5 billion(33 lakh crores). This is where financial technology comes into the picture and has the potential to solve the credit availability issues.

Secondly, driving financial inclusion in India by leveraging data analytics, financial institutes can assess creditworthiness and offer financial products to individuals and businesses that were previously excluded from traditional banking systems.

Third, cost efficiency, as Fintech start-ups often have lower operating costs compared to traditional financial institutions. They do not require extensive physical infrastructure, allowing them to offer more competitive rates and reduced fees to customers.

Fourth, revolutionizing the collection process have allowed banks to evolve their conventional debt collection methods which often involve letters, phone calls and uncomfortable in-person visits from debt collectors. Using SaaS-based platforms provide cutting-edge digital, data-driven, and customer-centric loan collections, optimizing efficiencies to unprecedented levels.

Fifth, identification of fraud is made possible by artificial intelligence and machine learning, enabling fintech companies to identify fraudulent activities and repeated defaulters, a lot more successfully ahead of the credit approval. Today, these functions are backed with underwriting models that prevent an increase of automatically approved defaulting customers.

Fintech companies are constantly innovating by using AI-ML to design products suiting their customer’s evolving needs. With this continued drive and the expedited growth, the digital lending market cap is expected to grow and reach $350 billion (28 lakh crores) by 2025 in India.

Artificial intelligence has already begun reshaping the banking and online lending industries, and its transformative impact is expected to persist. It can be seen in other industries as well like Medicine & Heath care, Media & Entertainment, Insurance, Education and many more. Digital technology is allowing Microfinance Institutions to efficiently reach and serve the “unbanked”, through their customer-centric approach. It also has streamlined loan processes and improved customer experiences, making the lending process safer and more accessible for lenders and providing a competitive advantage to banks. As AI technology continues to advance, its impact on the financial industry will likely to be more profound, leading to further advancements and optimizations in banking and lending services.

Mukund Kulkarni – CEO, Pepper Advantage India

The post Fintech Revolution: Transforming the Financial Landscape appeared first on ELE Times.

Teledyne e2v HiRel Electronics of Milpitas, CA, USA (part of the Teledyne Defense Electronics Group that provides solutions, sub-systems and components to the space, transportation, defense and industrial markets) has announced the availability of the TDLNA002093SEP rad-tolerant L- and S-band low-noise amplifier, suitable for demanding high-reliability space and radar applications where low noise figure, minimal power consumption and small package footprint are mission-critical...

Plasma-Therm LLC of St Petersburg, FL, USA (which makes plasma-process equipment for the semiconductor and compound semiconductor markets) has acquired Thin Film Equipment SrL (TFE) of Binasco, Milan, Italy, which supplies physical vapor deposition (PVD) sputtering and evaporation process equipment and high-purity materials for thin-film applications...

AXT Inc of Fremont, CA, USA – which makes gallium arsenide (GaAs), indium phosphide (InP) and germanium (Ge) substrates and raw materials – says that its China-based manufacturing subsidiary Beijing Tongmei Xtal Technology Co Ltd has met the applicable legal and commercial requirements and has received its initial export permits from China’s Central Ministry of Commerce to resume shipping gallium arsenide and germanium substrates to certain customers...

Courtesy: Qualcomm

From revolutionizing industries to reshaping our daily routines, there is no denying the profound impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI), making it one of the most disruptive technologies on the horizon. Thanks to the recent surge in media attention surrounding ChatGPT, the momentum for cutting-edge AI research is reaching unprecedented heights, propelling us towards innovations that can open new possibilities. Our mission with AI is to responsibly bring its benefits to more people around the world, elevate everyday mobile experiences, and enable new efficiencies for a wide range of consumer, enterprise and industrial applications.

However, scaling AI to reach its full potential is no trivial undertaking. To do so efficiently, it’s imperative for AI processing to be intelligently distributed between the cloud and edge devices.

That’s why we believe the future of AI is hybrid. AI computation is split where and when appropriate, to provide enhanced experiences and ensure efficient use of resources.

To realize this vision, not only do we need to foster AI advances through cutting-edge research but also drive the continued wireless technology evolution. Wireless and AI are two synergistic ingredients that will fuel future innovations.

AI benefits the end-to-end wireless system

Today, 5G is propelling the rapid proliferation of intelligent devices and services, with more than 1.5B connections globally1. The rise of AI not only transforms our mobile experiences (e.g., improved camera quality, predictive texting), but also brings a unique opportunity to revolutionize the future of wireless communications.

AI’s immense potential can be harnessed to solve complex challenges in wireless system design. A testament to this is our Snapdragon Modem-RF platforms; now for two generations, we have adopted AI to enhance modem-RF system performance.

AI’s role in wireless will continue to expand. For instance, it can help optimize system energy saving, network load balancing and device mobility management. In fact, AI will touch every part of the end-to-end wireless system design. Here is a brief summary of AI’s role in each key part of the system.

• Optimized distributed clouds: AI can enable fully autonomous networks, make predictive and preventive operational optimizations on a continuous basis, and improve efficiency by reducing network loading.
• Intelligent disaggregated network: AI powers the radio access network (RAN) intelligent controller, which can more effectively manage interference, schedule transmission, and facilitate coordinate multipoint (CoMP) operations.
• AI-enabled air interface design: AI is fundamentally transforming the design and evolution of the air interface (i.e., waveform, coding), bringing new capabilities like dynamic channel adaptation, and more.
• Smart edge devices: AI can optimize device experiences with more efficient beam management and channel feedback computation, as well as enhanced capabilities like positioning and RF sensing.

Demo: Adaptive RAN operation for 5G

To showcase the benefits of wireless AI in real systems, earlier this year, we demonstrated wireless AI using our 5G test networks at our headquarters in San Diego. Watch the demos above.

AI for network deployment optimization

Additionally, AI can also be utilized to facilitate a more optimized network deployment strategy. To illustrate, we have developed:

• An intelligent network planning tool that leverages AI to first create a digital twin of the targeted deployment area, run it through a trained machine learning model, and
• Output an optimized network deployment plan based on design requirements (e.g., capacity, speed) and constraints (e.g., cost, type of infrastructure).

Our demonstration showcased how a 5G network can be flexibly designed to add mmWave extreme capacity that complements sub-7 gigahertz (GHz) wide-area coverage.

The wireless AI era starts with 5G Advanced

To get the most benefits from wireless AI, technology standardization is essential. It can define how AI is best utilized while ensuring seamless interoperability across multiple vendors in the end-to-end wireless system. 3GPP officially began the work on 5G Advanced in late 2021, setting out to study a standardized wireless AI framework and potential applications. The figure below illustrates the focus on initial use cases.

These wireless AI capabilities not only make new system efficiencies and user experiences possible, but also lay the foundation for future wireless AI innovations. At Qualcomm Technologies, we are not only actively researching wireless AI and contributing our work to technology standards, but also prototyping all use cases in our test networks. Three of our most recent wireless AI demonstrations are summarized below.

• Multi-vendor channel state feedback: We prototyped with the Qualcomm Cloud AI 100 platform and Snapdragon Modem-RF system in our 3.5 GHz massive MIMO testbed. It highlights the capacity gain in a multi-vendor system, enabled by sequential learning that prevents proprietary knowledge sharing.
• Advanced mmWave beam management: We enabled predictive beam management for both the base station and device in our 28 GHz mmWave testbed in San Diego. The implementation reduces signaling overhead resulting in increased usable capacity and extended device battery life.
• Intelligent industrial positioning: We demonstrated centimeter-level accuracy in our indoor industrial IoT testbed, overcoming the complex challenges of multipath reflections. Downlink RF fingerprinting with AI outperforms other positioning techniques, such as downlink time difference of arrival, in this challenging environment.

Onward to 6G: An AI-native communications system design

Looking beyond 5G Advanced, our vision is for 6G to be an AI-native innovation platform. 6G is expected to have a data-driven design that distributes AI throughout all protocols and layers, allowing it to continuously improve as more data is collected. Today, our research focus is on enabling efficient joint training, model sharing, and distributed inference across networks and devices, including federated learning that scales fully with 6G.

The journey with wireless AI is just beginning

We’re very excited by the potential impact that AI will have for the future of wireless communications. As 5G Advanced officially kicks start the era of wireless AI, we’ll be sharing periodic updates on the work we’re doing, whether it’s on advanced research, technology standardization, or bringing wireless AI to fruition with product support. So, stay tuned for more.

The post Wireless AI: Igniting the 5G Advanced technology revolution appeared first on ELE Times.

The concept of transferring energy without wires has always been a desire of mankind. Numerous experiments have been conducted in this field, with Nikola Tesla’s experiments being among the most famous. Thanks to these research efforts, we can now wirelessly charge our mobile phones and other devices. For those who wish to continue experimenting, there […]

The post Wireless Power Transfer appeared first on Open Electronics. The author is Boris Landoni

In the world of system-on-chip (SoC) devices, architects encounter many options when configuring the processor subsystem. Choices range from single processor cores to clusters to multiple core clusters that are predominantly heterogeneous but occasionally homogeneous.

A recent trend is the widespread adoption of RISC-V cores, which are built upon open standard RISC-V instruction set architecture (ISA). This system is available through royalty-free open-source licenses.

Here, the utilization of network-on-chip (NoC) technologies’ plug-and-play capabilities has emerged as an effective strategy to accelerate the integration of RISC-V-based systems. This approach facilitates seamless connections between processor cores or clusters and intellectual property (IP) blocks from multiple vendors.

 

Network-on-chip basics

Using a NoC interconnect IP offers several advantages. The NoC can extend across the whole device, with each IP having one or more interfaces that span the entire SoC. These interfaces have their own data widths, operate at varying clock frequencies, and utilize diverse protocols such as OCP, APB, AHB, AXI, STBus, and DTL commonly adopted by SoC designers. Each of these interfaces links to a corresponding network interface unit (NIU), also referred to as a socket.

The NIU’s role is to receive data from a transmitting IP and then organize and serialize this data into a standardized format suitable for network transmission. Multiple packets can be in transit simultaneously. Upon arrival at its destination, the associated socket performs the reverse action by deserializing and undoing the packetization before presenting the data to the relevant IP. This process is done in accordance with the protocol and interface specifications linked to that particular IP.

A straightforward illustration of IP blocks could be visualized as solid logic blocks. Additionally, an SoC usually utilizes a single NoC. Figure 1 illustrates a basic NoC configuration.

Figure 1 A very simple NoC representation shows basic design configuration. Source: Arteris

The NoC itself can be implemented using a variety of topologies, including 1D star, 1D ring, 1D tree, 2D mesh, 2D torus and full mesh, as illustrated in Figure 2.

Figure 2 The above examples show a variety of NoC topologies. Source: Arteris

Some SoC design teams may want to develop their own proprietary NoCs, a process that is resource- and time-intensive. This approach requires teams of several specialized engineers to work for two or more years. To make matters more challenging, designers often invest nearly as much time debugging and verifying an in-house developed NoC as they do for the rest of the entire design.

As design cycles shorten and time-to-revenue pressures increase, SoC development teams are considering commercially available NoC IP. This IP enables the customization required in an internally developed NoC IP but is available from third-party vendors.

Another challenge of the growing SoC complexity is the practice of utilizing multiple NoCs and various NoC topologies within a single device (Figure 3). For instance, one section of the chip might adopt a hierarchical tree topology, while another area could opt for a 2D mesh configuration.

Figure 3 The illustration highlights sub-system blocks with internal NoCs. Source: Arteris

In many cases, the IP blocks in today’s SoCs are the equivalent of entire SoCs of only a few years ago, making them sub-systems. Thus, the creators of these sub-system blocks will often choose to employ industry-standard NoC IP provided by a third-party vendor.

In instances requiring high levels of customizability and co-optimization of compute and data transport, such as a processor cluster or a neural network accelerator, the IP development team may opt for a custom implementation of the transport mechanisms. Alternatively, they might decide to utilize one of the lesser adopted, highly specialized protocols to achieve their design goals.

RISC-V and NoC integration

For a standalone RISC-V processor core, these IPs are available with AXI interfaces for designers who don’t need coherency and CHI interfaces for those who do. This allows these cores to plug-and-play with an industry-standard NoC at the SoC level.

Likewise, if design teams select one of the less commonly adopted protocols for inter-cluster communication in a RISC-V design, that cluster can also feature ACE, AXI or CHI interfaces toward external connections. This method allows for quick connection to the SoC’s NoC.

Figure 4 below features both non-coherent and cache coherent options. Besides their usage in IPs and SoCs, these NoCs can also function as super NoCs within multi-die systems.

Figure 4 A NoC interconnect IP is shown in the context of a multi-die system. Source: Arteris

NoC IP in RISC-V processors

The industry is experiencing a dramatic upsurge in SoC designs featuring processor cores and clusters based on the open standard RISC-V instruction set architecture.

The development and adoption of RISC-V-based systems, including multi-die systems, can be accelerated by leveraging the plug-and-play capabilities offered by NoC technologies. This enables quick, seamless and efficient connections between RISC-V processor cores or clusters and IP functional blocks provided by multiple vendors.

Frank Schirrmeister, VP solutions and business development at Arteris, leads activities in the automotive, data center, 5G/6G communications, mobile, aerospace and data center industry verticals. Before Arteris, Frank held various senior leadership positions at Cadence Design Systems, Synopsys and Imperas, focusing on product marketing and management, solutions, strategic ecosystem partner initiatives and customer engagement.

Related Content

• A Big Week for RISC-V
• SoC Interconnect: Don’t DIY!
• Network on chip eases IP connect
• What is the future for Network-on-Chip?
• Startups Help RISC-V Reshape Computer Architecture

The post Accelerating RISC-V development with network-on-chip IP appeared first on EDN.

New power MOSFETs are aiding industrial power electronics with their high efficiency and power density.

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Learn about the inverting buck-boost converter, a switching voltage regulator designed to handle unstable input voltages.

Inspection and 3D metrology equipment maker Camtek Ltd of Migdal Haemek, Israel has agreed to acquire for $100m (subject to customary purchase price adjustments), the FRT Metrology business of FormFactor Inc of Livermore, CA, USA (a provider of test & measurement technologies along the full IC life-cycle – from metrology and inspection, characterization, modeling, reliability, and design de-bug, to qualification and production test)...

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In recent years, applications such as video conferences, ultra high-definition streaming services, cloud services, gaming, and advanced industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) have significantly raised the bar for wireless technology. Wi-Fi 6 (including Wi-Fi 6E) and dual-band Wi-Fi were promising solutions to the rising wireless demands. However, the real-world improvements and noticeable benefits of Wi-Fi 6 have been underwhelming.

Now, we have a new standard on the horizon, bringing significant technical changes to the Wi-Fi industry. Wi-Fi 7 will be a giant leap forward for residential and enterprise users. This article will provide readers with insights into the latest progress of Wi-Fi 7. It will help engineers to better understand the full capabilities of Wi-Fi 7 and all the technical challenges that come with these new features. It will assist engineers to work on smooth Wi-Fi 7 adoption and develop potential applications regarding advanced wireless technologies.

Expected Wi-Fi 7 performance vs Wi-Fi 6, 6E and 5

From the last column of Table 1, you can clearly see some performance numbers that Wi-Fi 7 will be able to deliver. As you can see, we are looking at a 4.8 fold connection speed gain from Wi-Fi 6 to Wi-Fi 7, making the maximum theoretical data rate 46 Gbps. That is a considerable speed improvement from Wi-Fi 5 to Wi-Fi 6, which was only 2.8 times.

	Wi-Fi 5	Wi-Fi 6	Wi-Fi 6E	Wi-Fi 7
Launch time	2013	2019	2021	2024 (Expected)
IEEE standard	802.11ac	802.11ax	802.11ac	802.11be
Max data rate	3.5 Gbps	9.6 Gbps	9.6 Gbps	46 Gbps
Bands	5 GHz	2.4 GHz, 5 GHz	2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, 6 GHz	2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, 6 GHz
Channel size	20, 40, 80, 80+80, 160 MHz	20, 40, 80, 80+80, 160 MHz	20, 40, 80, 80+80, 160 MHz	Up to 320 MHz
Modulation	256-QAM OFDM	1024-QAM OFDMA	1024-QAM sOFDMA	4096-QAM OFDMA(with Extensions)
MIMO	4×4 MIMO DL MIMO	8×8 UL/DL MU-MIMO	8×8 UL/DL MU-MIMO	16×16 UL/DL MU-MIMO
RU	/	RU	RU	Multi-RUs
MAC	/	/	/	MLO

Table 1 A specification comparison between Wi-Fi 5, Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 6E, and Wi-Fi 7.

That much speed improvement is due to the channel size increasing up to 320 MHz. From Table 1, channel size has stayed the same for over ten years. Another key reason Wi-Fi 7 could deliver much higher speed is that it supports three frequency bands (2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, 6 GHz) and multi-link operations. Figure 1 shows the bands, spectrum, channels, and channel width that are available to Wi-Fi 7. This feature not only improves connection speed but also improves network capacity by five times compared to Wi-Fi 6. In a later section, we will explore these new technical features in more detail.

Figure 1 A description of bands, spectrum, channels, and channel width available to Wi-Fi 7. Source: Keysight

Based on the specifications of Wi-Fi 7, besides the 46 Gbps speed, we expect Wi-Fi 7 to deliver less than five milliseconds of latency. This is over one hundred times better than Wi-Fi 6. With this performance, we could expect 15x better AR/VR performance.

Maximum channel bandwidth increase

As mentioned in Table 1, one of the most significant changes coming to Wi-Fi 7 is the maximum channel bandwidth. It allows the 6 GHz band to double its bandwidth from 160 MHz to 320 MHz, this change will enable many more simultaneous data transmissions. As illustrated in Figure 2, with twice the bandwidth resources, you can easily expect the base speed to double.

Figure 2 Wi-Fi 7’s maximum channel bandwidth in the 6 GHz bad versus the 5 GHz band of Wi-Fi 6. Source: Keysight

Currently, two main challenges will make adopting 320 MHz slower. First, from a regulatory standpoint, certain regions support three channels of the 320 MHz contiguous spectrum while others only support one channel, and some regions do not support any channel. That is why this bandwidth is exclusive to the 6 GHz band. It requires policymakers in different regions to work closely with the Wi-Fi industry to find feasible solutions to allow additional bandwidth for Wi-Fi applications. Despite these challenges, several chipset/module vendors have already certified Wi-Fi 7 modules, and several device manufacturers will be releasing Wi-Fi 7 access points (APs) in 2023.

Another challenge is that we need compatible clients to support this feature. Currently, all client devices only support 160 MHz at best. Device makers must consider factors like interference or power consumption when designing and developing their new products. Higher bandwidth support usually means higher power usage and a higher chance of interference. It usually takes time for device makers to find a balance between performance and other factors. Therefore, it will take time until the industry can take full advantage of this channel bandwidth increase.

Multi-link operation

There is another important feature coming to Wi-Fi 7. This feature is multi-link operation or MLO. Currently, as shown on the left of Figure 3, Wi-Fi technology only supports single-link operation, which means Wi-Fi devices can only transmit data using either the 2.4 GHz band or the 5 GHz band. With Wi-Fi 7 and MLO, shown on the right of Figure 3, Wi-Fi devices can transmit data using all available bands and channels to transmit data simultaneously. There are usually two schemes for MLO to work. Devices could either choose among different bands for each transfer cycle, or they could just aggregate more than one band. Either way, MLO avoids congestion on the links, lowering latency. This feature will improve reliability for applications like VR/AR, gaming, video conferencing, and cloud computing.

Figure 3 Single-link operation of Wi-Fi 6 versus MLO of Wi-Fi 7. Source: Keysight

As mentioned in the previous section, Wi-Fi 7 now supports wider maximum channel bandwidth of up to 320 MHz. To support high band aggregation, it will cause an increase in peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) in wider channels. Therefore, this MLO feature will introduce more power consumption, which device makers must find ways to compensate for. Besides additional power usage, having more subchannels will make managing interference more difficult at the same time.

Channel puncturing

The following important feature is channel puncturing or, preamble puncturing. This feature allows APs to establish transmissions with more than one companion device at the same time and be able to monitor for interference on the channel. If they detect interference in the channel, they can ‘puncture’ the channel and notch out that 20 MHz sub-channel to continue the transmission in the rest of the channel. The overall bandwidth is lower because of the punctured amount, but we still enable a decent channel than not using it at all.

Channel puncturing already existed in Wi-Fi 6 as an optional feature. However, because of its technical complexity, this feature requires both compatible APs and clients to work properly. There has yet to be a manufacturer taking advantage of this feature. With the new Wi-Fi 7 standards, this channel puncturing could become a standard feature.

For measurement requirements, this feature has presented more challenges from the regulatory side. The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) has already given the standards for preamble puncturing testing, but for 160 MHz bandwidths. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), however, needs to provide clear guidelines for the measurement limits for preamble puncturing. The existing measurement limits were not designed for the Wi-Fi 7 preamble puncturing feature, and they are too restrictive. For example, there are discussions in presentations on how to manage channel puncturing for dynamic frequency selection (DFS) testing, but no formal definition in FCC guidance documents (KDBs). Also, there are possible changes coming to the in-band emission limits for channel puncturing.

Other important new features of Wi-Fi 7 and IoT support

To support more IoT devices on one Wi-Fi network, Wi-Fi 7 brought 16×16 multi-user multiple-input and multiple-output (MU-MIMO). This feature will easily double the network capacity of Wi-Fi 6. While this improves the transmission efficiency, it also greatly increases the amount of testing required, as several tests are required for each antenna output.

Wi-Fi 7 adopts a higher-order modulation scheme, 4096-QAM, to further enhance peak rates. As shown in Figure 4. This allows Wi-Fi 7 to carry 12 bits at a time rather than 10 bits. That means the new modulation scheme alone can improve theoretical transmission rates by 20% compared to Wi-Fi 6’s 1024-QAM. Besides faster data rate improvement, when it comes to streaming, gaming, and VR/AR applications, 4K-QAM means flawless 4K/8K image quality, higher colour accuracy, and minimum lag.

Figure 4 Wi-Fi 7 adopts a higher-order modulation scheme, 4096-QAM, to further enhance peak rates; here is an example of 1024 QAM vs. 4096 QAM. Source: Keysight

With Wi-Fi 6, each user only has one resource unit (RU) assigned to transmit frames, which makes the spectrum resource less flexible. Wi-Fi 7, however, allows multiple RUs combinations to serve one single user, which increases transmission efficiency. See Figure 5.

Figure 5 An example of single RU versus multi-RU. Source: Keysight

Understanding Wi-Fi 7

Wireless connectivity has become increasingly vital in our lives. Wi-Fi technology plays a crucial role in meeting our growing demands for higher speed, low latency, high capacity, and high efficiency for household and enterprise users. Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be) will bring improvements in all these major aspects compared to Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) and will open more doors to more and better IoT applications and services.

Wi-Fi 7 leverages the increased channel width, multi-channel operation, and channel puncturing to improve speed and efficiency. Other features like multi-user capabilities enhancements, 4K-QAM, and multi-RU support will further optimize the user experience.

Wi-Fi 7 also comes with several tough challenges. The most important one is finding a balance between wider feature support and power consumption. Of course, there is always an element of interference in the subchannels. To support all these new features, we need compatible APs and clients, which is not possible if we do not have all the regulatory guidelines in place for all regions in the world. This requires regulatory bodies to work closely with industry leaders to define these guidelines so that Wi-Fi 7 evolves to reality from theory.

 

Xiang Li is an experienced wireless network engineer with a master’s degree in electrical engineering. Currently, Xiang is an Industry Solution Marketing Engineer at Keysight Technologies.

 

Related Content

• Keysight’s technology predictions for 2023—company-wide insights
• What’s new in Wi-Fi 6E networks? More interference testing
• What has changed in the design journey from Wi-Fi 5 to Wi-Fi 7
• Designing and testing industrial devices for 5G private networks

The post Exploring the superior capabilities of Wi-Fi 7 over Wi-Fi 6 appeared first on EDN.

Mouser Electronics Inc., the industry’s leading New Product Introduction (NPI) distributor with the widest selection of semiconductors and electronic components, unveils the next installment of its award-winning Empowering Innovation Together series today, spotlighting the need for environmental sensors. Mouser examines the technology and applications behind environmental sensors and how they are used in creating indoor air quality monitoring solutions through a technical content stream of articles, blogs, videos, and the latest podcast episode of The Tech Between Us.

Environmental sensors have become more popular among employers looking to improve air quality inside the workplace, bolstered at least in part by the pandemic and the demand for clean indoor air, and the sensors to track potential hazards By monitoring pollutants, particulates, and hazardous gasses in real time, employers can more easily address potential threats to employee health and productivity. Poor indoor air quality has been linked to a variety of short-term ailments, such as headaches, fatigue and difficulty concentrating. With no federal standards regarding indoor air quality, employers are taking responsibility for monitoring their environments and providing clean air to employees. Mouser explores how environmental sensors offer an efficient way of doing so, allowing accurate readings that can be easily monitored over time to provide the data companies need.

“Environmental sensors can play an important role in keeping the air we breathe in our workplace clean. That’s why Mouser is excited to share this informative EIT installment centered around this topic,” says Raymond Yin, Technical Content Director at Mouser Electronics. “Through this initiative, we aim to empower engineers with the knowledge they need to find solutions for improving indoor air quality.”

This series includes the latest installment of The Tech Between Us podcast, hosted by Yin. He is joined by Ronan Cooney, Head of Product at Ambisense, to discuss the current landscape of indoor air quality compared to outdoor air quality. They also review the major contributors to poor air quality, regulations, and design considerations for air quality measurement devices. Additionally, the episode maps out Mouser’s environmental sensor selections and the considerations needed when designing for specific applications.

Mouser’s variety of articles, infographics and videos offer an in-depth overview of environmental sensors, the risks associated with poor indoor air quality, the exploration of sensor selection for improving indoor air quality (IAQ) and choosing the right volatile organic compound (VOC) sensors. This EIT installment is sponsored by Mouser’s valued partners Amphenol, TE Connectivity, Honeywell, Renesas, Sensirion, and Bosch.

Established in 2015, Mouser’s Empowering Innovation Together program is one of the industry’s most recognized electronic component programs. To learn more, visit https://www.mouser.com/empowering-innovation/ and follow Mouser on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube.

As a global authorized distributor, Mouser offers the world’s widest selection of the newest semiconductors and electronic components — in stock and ready to ship. Mouser’s customers can expect 100% certified, genuine products that are fully traceable from each of its manufacturer partners. To help speed customers’ designs, Mouser’s website hosts an extensive library of technical resources, including a Technical Resource Center, along with product data sheets, supplier-specific reference designs, application notes, technical design information, engineering tools and other helpful information.

Engineers can stay abreast of today’s exciting product, technology and application news through Mouser’s complimentary e-newsletter. Mouser’s email news and reference subscriptions are customizable to the unique and changing project needs of customers and subscribers. No other distributor gives engineers this much customization and control over the information they receive. Learn about emerging technologies, product trends and more by signing up today at https://sub.info.mouser.com/subscriber.

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Mouser Electronics, Inc., the authorized global distributor with the newest electronic components and industrial automation products, now offers design engineers, pro makers, and hobbyists around the world the latest products from Raspberry Pi. Sourced directly from Raspberry Pi, the entire catalog of single-board computers (SBC), embedded devices, and peripherals is available from Mouser, with full traceability/authenticity from the manufacturer.

“Mouser is excited about this expanded partnership with Raspberry Pi,” said Andy Kerr, Mouser Electronics Vice President of Supplier Marketing. “With their line of industrial-ready products, customers across the globe now have access to an expanded offering of innovative, scalable products that are certified, low-cost, powerful and production ready.”

“Mouser’s global reach enables us to extend our customer base to offer powerful and easy-to-use products to people of all skill levels,” said Mike Buffham, Chief Commercial Officer of Raspberry Pi. “Known for their best-in-class distribution, outstanding service and exceptional customer reach, Mouser is a valued strategic partner for us. We look forward to this expansion opportunity.”

Robust and affordable, Raspberry Pi technology has been deployed in tens of thousands of applications in a variety of industries across the world. The compact form factor, ease of use, and availability of expansion options make Raspberry Pi’s devices ideal for simple educational projects, complex maker designs, and industrial applications. With solutions built using Raspberry Pi’s technology, users can access an enterprise-class system without the cost and complexity of traditional hardware products.

Raspberry Pi products now offered by Mouser include: Compute Module 4

The Compute Module 4 is a system-on-module (SoM) that harnesses the power of the popular Raspberry Pi 4 Model B SBC in a smaller form factor suitable for product integration. The optional dual-band 2.4/5.0GHz Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0 have modular compliance certification. This allows the board to be designed into end products with significantly reduced compliance testing, improving both cost and time to market.

RP2040 microcontroller

The RP2040 is a powerful, cost-effective microcontroller based on dual Arm® Cortex®-M0+ processors. This device offers maximum performance at low power, which can be crucial for deeply embedded applications, enabling long-duration operation with relatively small batteries. RP2040 is also ideal for endpoint AI, thanks to the built-in TensorFlow Lite Micro library. This allows the microcontroller to run machine learning (ML) models for sensor-based analysis, such as voice and image recognition and accelerometer-based gesture recognition.

Pico, Pico H, and Pico W

The Pico series is a range of tiny, fast, versatile boards built around RP2040. From light displays and IoT devices to signage and manufacturing processes, the Pico boards can provide the power to control countless home, hobby, and industrial operations. Pico W also includes fully certified 2.4GHz 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.2, making it the perfect solution for IoT applications and projects requiring wireless communication.

Camera Module 3

The Camera Module 3 is a compact add-on camera for Raspberry Pi applications, featuring a 12MP sensor, and offered with standard and wide-angle lenses; with or without an infrared filter.

As a global authorized distributor, Mouser offers the widest selection of the newest semiconductors, electronic components and industrial automation products. Mouser’s customers can expect 100% certified, genuine products that are fully traceable from each of its manufacturer partners. To help speed customers’ designs, Mouser’s website hosts an extensive library of technical resources, including a Technical Resource Center, along with product data sheets, supplier-specific reference designs, application notes, technical design information, engineering tools and other helpful information.

Engineers can stay abreast of today’s exciting product, technology and application news through Mouser’s complimentary e-newsletter. Mouser’s email news and reference subscriptions are customizable to the unique and changing project needs of customers and subscribers. No other distributor gives engineers this much customization and control over the information they receive. Learn about emerging technologies, product trends and more by signing up today at https://sub.info.mouser.com/subscriber.

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With the rapid growth of IoT value reaching $12.6 trillion in 2030, it calls for smarter solutions to manage onboarding processes in various IoT devices across industrial applications. ASRock Industrial, in collaboration with Intel, is set to usher in a new era of IoT onboarding with the development of FIDO Device Onboarding (FDO)-enabled devices, including the iEP-5000G Industrial IoT Controller powered by Intel Atom x6000E Series Processor. FIDO Alliance is leading the way in scaling a new standard in the industry by releasing the FIDO Device Onboarding (FDO) specification as a groundbreaking solution to address the existing challenges of slow, expensive, and unsecure manual onboarding processes in the IoT domain. ASRock Industrial’s FDO-enabled device can empower users to harness the full potential of improved IoT security and enhanced efficiency through seamless automated onboarding capabilities.

In streamlined steps, the Ownership Voucher (OV) is registered for the target platform, and the device is sent to a retailer or customer. Once powered up and connected to the network, the device auto-provisions itself, enabling a zero-touch onboarding experience. The benefits of ASRock Industrial FDO-enabled devices include zero-touch onboarding past power-ON, ensuring a fast and secure process at lower costs. Furthermore, the FDO-enabled devices offer hardware flexibility and reduce SKU complexity by late binding the device to the cloud.

“Our collaboration with Intel to help ASRock Industrial build FDO-enabled devices such as the iEP-5000G has opened up new marvels that will revolutionize the way devices are provisioned in the IoT landscape,” said James Lee, President of ASRock Industrial. “With the cutting-edge FDO technology, the iEP-5000G sets a new standard for automated secure and seamless device onboarding. We are proud to empower businesses with a solution that simplifies and strengthens the process of connecting and managing devices, a true milestone in ASRock Industrial’s commitment to delivering innovative and future-proof solutions!”

In response to this exciting joint initiative, ExxonMobil’s Open Process Automation Program Manager, Ryan W. Smeltzer, also expressed his thoughts. He stated, “As ExxonMobil progresses our Open Process Automation program towards field deployment, FIDO Device Onboarding has become a central capability for the deployment of our Distributed Control Nodes. Working with ASRock Industrial to securely onboard, load and manage these devices has further unlocked software innovation, within our automation systems and solution. We thank ASRock Industrial for their continued work, support, and innovation in this space.”

Customers can now have convenient, secure, and automated IoT devices onboarding by choosing ASRock Industrial’s iEP-5000G with the FDO-specification. ASRock Industrial has successful experience in implementing and adopting the FDO onboarding process from the manufacturer to the owner’s side. Customers interested in the FDO implementation can delve into our Solution Brief, explore the iEP-5000G Series, or contact us at www.asrockind.com. We are eager to discuss and share our implementation experiences to accelerate your FDO adoption.

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Nicolas Dufourcq, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of STMicroelectronics N.V. (NYSE: STM), and Maurizio Tamagnini, Vice-Chairman, have asked Jean-Marc Chery, ST’s President and CEO, to be available for a reappointment in his current role. Mr. Chery has accepted the proposal.

Therefore, the Supervisory Board has decided to propose for shareholder approval at the Company’s 2024 Annual General Meeting of Shareholders, the reappointment for a three-year mandate of Jean-Marc Chery as the sole member of the Managing Board and the Company’s President and Chief Executive Officer.

The decision recognizes the importance of the continuity of ST’s strategy, execution and value proposition under Mr. Chery’s leadership.

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