Communications

Wireless wholesaler LightSquared says it will submit to regulators “very soon” a proposal for using a second, or “upper band” to complement its L-band initial operating plan for a “lower” 10MHz band. A government and industry team earlier this year found that LightSquared’s original 4G network rollout plan, which featured two operating frequency bands, an “upper” band closest to the ...

EnOcean has launched the third generation of its finger-push-powered building automation transmitters. The product comes in two parts: the ECO 200 electromechanical generator and the PTM 330 transmitter PCB, which are shaped to make electrical connections through spring contacts without soldering. “This complete ready-to-go system means that OEMs, with just mechanical expertise, can implement their switching solutions,” claimed the firm. ...

Atmel has introduced a microcontroller with an RFID reader block for LF Amplitude Shift Keying (ASK) RFID readers and programmers for access control, industrial automation and animal identification applications. This is claimed to be the first MCU with full LF RFID reader functionality within a single package. Traditonally, the MCU and RFID reader are located in two different packages. It is available in a 5mm x ...

Silicon Labs has announced its most comprehensive car radio tuner family yet. Called the Si476x family, the low-IF design supports all worldwide broadcast radio bands including AM/FM, LW, SW and FM RDS decoding; and then for the US: college FM, NOAA weather band, and AM/FM HD Radio reception. The chips are RF CMOS with a digital processor for the RDS ...

Qualcomm has announced availability of its mobile data platform for both LTE/HSPA+ and LTE/EV-DO designs. The first 4G modules based on the Gobi 4000 platform are available from Novatel Wireless and Sierra Wireless. “To make Gobi 4000 available to as many consumers as possible, Qualcomm has worked hard to ensure that OEMs can use the platform on many commonly used personal computing, tablet and e-reader operating systems, ...

NXP Semiconductors claims to be the first automotive semiconductor supplier to license Broadcom’s BroadR-Reach Ethernet technology for in-vehicle networking. The supplier is bidding to establish BroadR-Reach as an open, de facto standard for in-vehicle Ethernet. Broadcom, NXP, Freescale and Harman have formed an OPEN Alliance Special Interest Group (SIG) to drive the wide adoption of Ethernet in the automotive industry. “Licensing BroadR-Reach to other ...

Smartphones let you do almost everything over Wi-Fi, so why do we still have to use up cellular minutes when making a call? That’s the thinking behind Republic Wireless, a new hybrid phone network that lets you seamlessly make calls using any available Wi-Fi hotspot, falling back to the regular cellular network when you move out of Wi-Fi range. The company ...

Integrated Device Technology is claiming a breakthrough in accuracy for CMOS oscillators with its first device to show ±50 ppm frequency accuracy. The chip firm sees a move away from traditional quartz crystal-based timing circuits driven by the search for power reduction CMOS-based devices can offer power and cost savings in replacing traditional quartz crystal-based oscillators. “The transition away from quartz-based oscillators has begun,” said Fred Zust, ...

Conexant Systems is offering an eight-channel video/audio decoder designed for surveillance camera applications. The CX25828 features eight NTSC/PAL video decoders, nine audio ADCs and one audio digital-to-analogue converter for audio playback or two-way communication applications. The system-on-chip (SoC) is the latest in a line of products from Conexant specifically designed for advanced, high-capacity DVR video surveillance products that capture and ...

Richard Wilson discovers new silicon supporting an emergent industrial communications interface technology which warns of sensor link failures.   IO-Link, the industrial system communications interface with a 230kbit/s data rate and its own in-built diagnostics, has recently seen important chip support from Maxim Integrated Products and Elmos Semiconductor. Maxim Integrated Products has introduced a physical-layer (PHY) transceiver for IO-Link, the industrial ...