Februari - Maart ‘16 de jaargang - nr. 1 | verschijnt ... · 3. Global web access to configure...
Transcript of Februari - Maart ‘16 de jaargang - nr. 1 | verschijnt ... · 3. Global web access to configure...
1newsletterVerantw. Uitg.: Peter Simkens | DSP Valley vzw., Gaston Geenslaan 9, 3001 Leuven, Belgiumtel. +32 (0) 16 24 14 40 | fax +32 (0) 16 24 14 49 | www.dspvalley.com
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designing smart products
Februari - Maart ‘16 | 17de jaargang - nr. 1 | verschijnt tweemaandelijks | afgiftekantoor: 2800 Mechelen 1 | www.dspvalley.com | P2A6695
Preface 3
Technology Flash 1u KU Leuven – iMinds - μPnP: Plug-and-Play Peripherals for the Internet-of-Things 1
u Intrinsic-ID and Invensense develop the Trusted Sensor for IoT 3
In the spotlights 4u Altran - Strategic collaboration with Jaguar Land Rover & 4
report Telecom & Media sector in Europe
u Imec supports Airobot with the commercialization of a close range flying 5
system for drones
u Imec supports Ghent-based start-up Sensolus with optimization 5
of GPS tracker for Internet-of-Things applications
u Barco Silex validates interoperable VC-2 lightweight video compression 6
solution for ASIC/FPGA – ready for UHD and 4K transport
u University of Antwerp - NEXOR consortium – Next Generation of Heterogeneous 6
Sensor Networks, Internet of Things (IoT) and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS)
u Sofics’ clipping circuit protects wireless interface circuits against excess voltage 8
u Sigasi founder featured in book about entrepreneurs 8
u intoPIX Honored With The Prestigious IABM Peter Wayne Award 9
u Xetal Named One of the 18 Most Promising European Start-Ups 10
u MinDCet supporting STEM education in Belgium 10
Embedded corner 10u KU Leuven ESAT-MICAS at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference 2016 11
Contact Information 12
KU Leuven – iMinds - μPnP: Plug-and-Play Peripherals for the Internet-of-Things
continuation on page 2
Creating, deploying and configuring
applications for the Internet-of-Things
(IoT) still remains complex. Micro Plug-
and-Play (μPnP) tackles this complexity
problem by offering a near-zero con-
figuration approach that empowers non-
expert end-users to quickly take their IoT
infrastructure online.
continuation from page 1
1newsletter
μPnP in a nutshellμPnP offers a coherent hardware & soft-
ware toolkit that enables the automated
configuration of new peripherals into
the IoT. Key differentiators include:
1. Low-cost, low-power peripheral identification. μPnP automatically
identifies connected embedded periph-
erals and installs their corresponding
driver software. Identifying a peripheral
with μPnP consumes 1 million times
less power than USB. Any existing IoT
peripheral can immediately be repack-
aged as a μPnP-peripheral.
2. Remote peripheral discovery, deployment & usage via stand-ard IPv6 Multicast. μPnP connects
IPv6 multicast addresses directly to
physical phenomena to enable low-
overhead peripheral discovery and
remote access. Peripheral services
can be remotely accessed using CoAP
over both unicast and multicast,
allowing for efficient and easy inte-
gration with third-party technologies.
3. Global web access to configure all nodes remotely. Global access to
each μPnP network is provided through
a JavaScript library that establishes a
NAT-proof connection between clients
and the μPnP gateway.
4. Ultra low power and reliable mesh networking. The μPnP software stack
is fully compliant to IEEE, IETF and IPSO
standards, and integrates easily with
third-party solutions. In combination
with Linear Technology’s SmartMesh
IP, μPnP achieves 10 years of battery
lifetime and 99.999% reliability.
μPnP in actionμPnP was awarded third place in the
IPSO Challenge 2015, which evaluat-
ed IoT prototypes on their innovation,
breadth of applicability, marketabil-
ity, and ease of use (http://challenge.
ipso-alliance.org/, http://challenge.ipso-
alliance.org/challenge2015/meet-the-
2015-semi-finalists/micropnp). The ten
semi-finalists presented their prototype
for an industrial jury at the Designers of
Things conference in Silicon Valley.
Beyond the IPSO Challenge, iMinds-Dis-
triNet is taking μPnP out of the lab and
into industrial reality. First step was to
deploy a μPnP enabled temperature and
humidity monitoring application for the
server room at KU Leuven’s Computer
The top figure shows µPnP enabled devices with various peripherals for (tempera-ture, humidity, motion) sensing and actuation (a buzzer or a switch). µPnP enables automated IoT configuration as evaluated in the server room of the Computer Science Department at KU Leuven.
Science Department (see Figure 1).
Currently, iMinds-DistriNet is preparing
prototypes in agricultural automation,
transport & logistics and e-healthcare.
iMinds-DistriNet track record in industry collaborationiMinds-DistriNet is an internation-
al research group at KU Leuven with
extensive expertise in secure and distrib-
uted software, including middleware.
More information: https://distrinet.
cs.kuleuven.be. Currently, iMinds-Dis-
triNet is actively involved in about 35
regional and European projects, often
in close collaboration with industry. The
know-how of iMinds-DistriNet was at
the basis of Ubizen, a spin-off company
specialized in secure e-business and
related security services (now part of
Verizon). n
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T E C H N O L O G Y F L A S H
Internet of Things (IoT) applications are
often driven by data that is gathered
by sensors in the field. Sensors are at
the heart of any IoT application but
until now, sensor security has not been
addressed because of cost and size
restrictions. With the increasing aware-
ness of IoT security this can no longer
be ignored. TrustedSensor is the first
sensor product that integrates security
without compromising on performance
and efficiency.
In order to develop a strong sensor
data security solution that is easy to
integrate into a device and does not
affect the performance of the sensor or
the device, InvenSense partnered with
Intrinsic-ID.
Intrinsic-ID and Invensense develop the Trusted Sensor for IoT
Trusted Sensor Concept
Trusted Sensor booth at CES 2016
Intrinsic-ID CEO Pim Tuyls at Invensense Developer Conference
“Our solution extracts a cryptographic
key from the unique silicon properties
of the sensor chip,” says Pim Tuyls,
President and CEO of Intrinsic-ID. “This
enables secure and reliable authentica-
tion of data from the sensor to a host
processor and prevents anyone from
manipulating the interfaces or replac-
ing the sensor without authorization,
all with minimal impact on the cost and
design of the sensor”.
The TrustedSensor™ solution will
be available in early 2016 for the
InvenSense FireFly platform for motion
sensors and will become a standard
feature in InvenSense’s sensor road-
map. Developers and OEMs will be able
to purchase the complete solution from
InvenSense.
Prototype has been showcased at CES,
January 2016 and at the InvenSense
Developers Conference November
2015. n
key enabling technology for a large
area of smart electronic applications,
ranging from health to automotive or
energy. Therefore, the clus-
ters in the Silicon Europe
Alliance will look for
cooperation with more
application oriented
clusters in Europe.
• Finally, the third level
wants to reach out to
Silicon Europe Alliance starts internationalization with “ESCiP” projectAfter finishing the strategic plan on
how to improve the competitiveness of
the European semiconductor industry,
based on an inter-cluster cooperation
model, the Silicon Europe Alliance has
now started some first implementation
activities of this strategic plan.
An important action line in the strategic
plan is the support to international busi-
ness development for the participating
cluster members. This internationaliza-
tion will happen at 3 different levels:
Pre
fac
e
• A first level focuses on the partnering
and matchmaking in Europe between
businesses and/or research institutes
from different clusters in the Silicon
Europe Alliance. As such, this process
aims at bringing together different
players, often technology providers,
from the semiconductor industry;
• The second level emphasizes on creat-
ing market value, starting from the
available technologies and competen-
cies in the micro/nano-electronics as continuation on page 4
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1newsletter
Jaguar Land Rover partner to develop future software platform for intelligent vehi-cles and machinesAltran, global leader in innovation and
high-tech engineering consulting, and
Jaguar Land Rover announced a strate-
gic collaboration to develop and market
a unique and ground-breaking open
software platform. This platform will
revolutionize traditional Electrical and
Electronic (E/E) automotive architectures
by bringing together cutting-edge indus-
trial and engineering techniques with
the processes, methods and tools found
in the consumer electronics industry.
Altran report on Telecom & Media sector in EuropeThe new Altran report entitled “Value
migration in the Telecom and Media
sector in Europe: a European tragedy?”
analyzes the value migration game over
the last decade, with a global scope. The
report examines the market capitaliza-
tion of 41 companies in 6 key Telecom
& Media segments: Telecom Operators,
Telecom Vendors, Terminal Vendors, IT
Vendors, Internet Companies (OTT’s),
Media Companies.
The analysis highlights how Europe was
sidelined compared with major US and
Asian companies in a market that could
experience its next technological revolu-
tion in the upcoming years. Some inter-
esting points that are raised concern the
exponential data traffic growth for the
years to come which relies on FTTH as in
4G and is the only way to meet demand.
Besides, the development and operation
of FTTH networks provide gains in effi-
ciency due to lower operating costs.
Increases in speed, in both networks,
open a range of new services where
operators must invest if they want to
compete. Among them are TV services
across multiple devices, music, games
and other streaming media content
that operators must make available to
their customers. They must also include
services based on other technologies
such as Cloud, internet of things (IoT)
or M2M where several strategies are
adopted: infrastructure investments, or
partnerships with or purchase of com-
panies that already offer these services.
While in this domain, telecom operators
face intense competition from current
players and new entrants, in particular
from OTTs. Read the full report on the
Altran website or via this link: http://
tinyurl.com/jz56tdr
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Altran - Strategic collaboration with Jaguar Land Rover & report Telecom & Media sector in Europe
-with Minalogic (FR), Silicon Saxony
(DE), mi-cluster (GR), High Tech NL
(NL)and Distretto Green & High Tech
Monza-Brianza (IT), under the lead of
DSP Valley (BE)- has started the prepa-
ration of some first activities, which will
result in a “European Week” in Taiwan
in early June.
Needless to say, these internationaliza-
tion activities are being organized
at the benefit of the Silicon
Europe Alliance cluster
members. We hope to get
a lot of them on board of
our activities!
Best regards,
Peter Simkens
Managing Director
DSP Valley
other regions beyond Europe. In the
internationalization plan which is
part of the Silicon Europe strategic
plan, two target regions already have
been selected: Taiwan and the United
States.
For the third level with the internationali-
Pre
fac
e zation beyond Europe, targeting Taiwan
and the US, a team of six clusters of the
Silicon Europe Alliance, has been grant-
ed financial support by the European
Commission, under the “COSME Go
International” program. The ESCiP team
(“ESCiP”: European Semiconductor
Cluster Internationalization Project)
The ESCiP team at the project kick-off at the Corallia offices in Athens (GR)
continuation from page 3
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I N T H E S P O T L I G H T S
Imec has supported Airobot, a Hasselt-
based start-up that develops profession-
al drone performance equipment, with
the commercialization of its Airobot
Ranger, a drone add-on module for the
safe navigation of drones.
When inspecting or filming objects at
altitude with drones it is very diffi-
cult to judge the distance between the
drone and the object. Airobot solves this
problem by offering a distance meter,
comparable to a parking sensor for cars.
The Airobot Ranger clearly indicates on
a tablet the distance to an object such
that the drone can capture detailed
images of that object in a safe way.
Applications are e.g. drones for inspec-
tion and surveillance, and for profession-
al photography of buildings. Airobot has
Sensolus, a Ghent-based start-up that
develops low power solutions for Internet-
of-Things (IoT) applications, has collabo-
rated with imec for the optimization of its
sticknTrack GPS tracker with integrated
low power SigFox communication chip
(www.stickntrack.com). Imec has thor-
oughly reviewed the current hardware
module of Sensolus and has made sug-
gestions for future optimizations. This
collaboration was enabled by the ESA
Business Incubation Centre Flanders for
which Sensolus has been selected.
Sensolus’ SticknTrack solutions consists
of a gps module for localization and
a state-of-the-art SigFox low power
communication module, combined
with a cloud-based platform on which
Sensolus has built applications and ser-
vices for sensor management. Thanks
to the SticknTrack tracker a customer
can locate his objects during several
the ambition to launch this solution on
the market and has defined the technical
specification for this technology. Thanks
to its successful collaboration with imec
Airobot was able to select the right tech-
nology for the realization of a compact
module for professional drones.
Together with Airobot imec has selected
and measured electronic building blocks
years via tablet, pc or smartphone,
without having to recharge or replace
the battery. Projects are carried out in
e.g. logistics, arts, sailing, and even for
tracking herds of sheep. The tracker has
credit card-size dimensions, and serves
as an install-and-forget solution thanks
the multi-year autonomy of the battery.
The integrated SigFox module enables
long-range low power wireless commu-
for the Airobot Ranger, and suggested
several optimizations. In the next step,
imec supported Airobot with the selec-
tion of a proper low power wireless
communication module and with the
integration of this module together with
ranging sensors and a system proces-
sor on a PCB. Finally imec suggested
improvements for the control of the
sensors. n
nication and is specifically developed for
IoT applications.
Imec has performed a functional review
of the SticknTrack tracker for reliabil-
ity, manufacturability, testability, energy
consumption and the quality of the wire-
less connection (a.o. system architecture
and component selection, antenna solu-
tion and integration). Imec has made
suggestions for future improvements to
the current design.
This collaboration illustrates imec’s
broad range of collaboration opportuni-
ties for the local industry, and for SMEs
and start-up companies in particular. By
providing access to imec’s technology,
knowledge, competences, infrastructure
and ecosystem, imec wants to sup-
port local innovative companies in their
design of smarter, cheaper, more pow-
erful products. n
Imec supports Airobot with the commercialization of a close range flying system for drones
Imec supports Ghent-based start-up Sensolus with optimization of GPS tracker for Internet-of-Things applications
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1newsletter
Barco Silex, leading provider of IP cores
for the audiovisual industry, has vali-
dated its hardware solution for light-
weight, low-complexity video compres-
sion against the SMPTE 2042-3 refer-
ence. The low-footprint core is now
ready to be integrated in both ASIC
and FPGA designs without need for
expensive footprint. This opens up new
possibilities for equipment manufactur-
ers as they get a low-cost, interoperable
compression solution to upgrade video
transport to high-definition formats
such as UHD and 4K.
Barco Silex’ solution implements the
VC-2 Low Delay codec. Originally con-
ceived at the BBC labs, VC-2 LD is a
lightweight, low-cost, patent-free solu-
tion that can either be added to the
existing hardware or run in software.
It compresses video 4:1 visually lossless
and allows for sub-millisecond delays,
which is essential for video applications
Barco Silex validates interoperable VC-2 lightweight video compression solution for ASIC/FPGA – ready for UHD and 4K transport
NEXOR is a consortium of the University
of Antwerp, consisting of the following
research groups: ANSYMO (Flanders Make); CoSys-Lab (Flanders Make); ENM - APL; MOSAIC (iMinds).
Our expertiseThe NEXOR consortium provides for an
integrated approach covering the com-
plete value chain of heterogeneous sensor networks starting from a sin-
gle sensor design, distributed sensor
communication to complete system
modelling, simulation and testing.
Competence areas are:
• Software-intensive Systems (SIS) – Foundations, techniques, methods
and tools for the design, analysis
and maintenance of SIS supporting
increased application complexity (e.g.
computational resources, parallel
computation, interactive behaviour,
hybrid systems supporting interac-
tions of software with physical com-
ponents, software evolution).
• Software reengineering:
Evolution of object-oriented soft-
ware systems supported by quality
assurance and automated testing.
• Model-driven approach: Analysis
of the implications of technical choic-
es during the design phase, i.e. qual-
ity and safety guarantees as required
by the IEC and ISO safety standards.
• Embedded technologies for CPS
– Software, application and system
design complying with constraints
such as limited performance, cost,
safety, energy consumption.
• Methods and tooling: embed-
ded coding, static code analysis
(e.g. MISRA-C), exploiting multicore
and functional safety for embedded
software.
• Model-driven engineering: vali-
dation of embedded software in
the area of control systems support-
ed through modelling in different
formalisms, model transformations,
(co-)simulation, automatic design
space exploration, code generation,
test framework generation.
• IoT - Distributed systems and com-
munication networks with focus on:
• Embedded distributed hetero-geneous systems: combining enti-
ties ranging from low-level embed-
ded devices to high-level cloud
resources, focusing on scheduling,
University of Antwerp - NEXOR consortium – Next Generation of Heterogeneous Sensor Networks, Internet of Things (IoT) and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS)
NEXOR strives towards the next generation of autonomous sensor networks that provide communication, monitoring, and control of physical components and processes. The consortium members offer a unique mix of complementary & interdisciplinary expertise supporting industrial companies during system design and devel-opment through an integrated know-how on heterogeneous sen-sor networks and cyber-physical systems that combines modelling, testing, sensing, data processing, networking, and management.
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I N T H E S P O T L I G H T S
Barco Silex validates interoperable VC-2 lightweight video compression solution for ASIC/FPGA – ready for UHD and 4K transport
that require (near) real-time operation.
Most importantly, VC-2 LD has been
accepted as a standard (SMPTE 2042),
which ensures equipment supplier sup-
port and interoperability. To prove its
solution is ready for the AV market, the
video experts from Barco Silex have now
validated their ASIC/FPGA implementa-
tion against the latest available VC-2
conformance reference software. In
addition, they have proven the interop-
erability between their implementation
and the BBC’s open-source software,
encoding through their IP core and
decoding with the software.
“We kept true to the design goals of
VC-2 LD and created an IP block of
minimal size and complexity,” says Jean-
Marie Cloquet, product manager of
Barco Silex’ video division. “The result
is a core that can be integrated on
any FPGA of choice, even if that is a
mid- or low-range chip. With this core,
adding VC-2 to your hardware toolbox
has become a cost- and time-efficient
way to upgrade your video transport to
the high-definition formats, without the
need to invest heavily in new infrastruc-
ture and storage.”
Barco Silex ships its blocks, with a func-
tional simulation test bench, synthesis
and implementation scripts, and full
documentation. The IP solutions have
been made with easy integration in
mind. In addition, the experts at Barco
Silex are ready to assist customers, be it
to discuss ideas, help draw up efficient
designs, even down to executing full
integration projects. n
University of Antwerp - NEXOR consortium – Next Generation of Heterogeneous Sensor Networks, Internet of Things (IoT) and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS)
resource management and distrib-
uted software paradigms.
• Management and control of IoT networks: novel network control
(e.g., MAC scheduling, routing) and
management (e.g., fault detection,
security, resource allocation, QoS)
for highly dynamic, heterogeneous
and constrained wireless network
environments.
• Low-power communications:
ultra-low power communication,
low power embedded systems, and
RF localization. Specifically investi-
gation of low power physical and
MAC layer protocols of, as well as
localisation using Sub-1Ghz trans-
mission technologies.
• Sensor Processing – Analysis, design
and implementation (hardware, soft-
ware) of the complete information
extraction hierarchy covering
• Low level, real-time signal process-ing on the raw sensor measurements;
• Sensor fusion combining data from
multiple heterogeneous sensors;
• Data mining extracting useful
information from large amounts of
sensor data.
Industrial casesThis expertise is deployed in socially rel-
evant application areas such as mobil-ity, logistics, manufacturing, smart cities, home/building automation, energy efficiency.
Our offerNEXOR targets typical questions that
arise during industrial system design and
development providing added value in
an integrated way.
• Feasibility – acquire necessary know-
how through expertise and infrastruc-
ture to build conceptual prototypes.
• Sustainability – comply with con-
straints such as limited performance,
cost, and energy consumption.
• Safety – ensure strict safety standards.
NEXOR is active in national and inter-national initiatives with partners from
industry and academia focused on EU
programmes such as Horizon 2020, ECSEL, EUREKA, AAL, COST Actions. In addition, we offer a clear focus on
industrial valorisation within the strate-
gic research institutes iMinds (ICT) and
Flanders Make (Manufacturing).
n
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1newsletter
Sigasi founder featured in book about entrepreneurs
Sigasi founder Philippe Faes is one of 21
entrepreneurs being featured in the book
“Hoek Af” from author and startup-
expert Eric Kenis. All people with a story
and an idea – slightly eccentric, diehards,
headstrong – who had ups and downs
and still put their dreams into action.
Philippe Faes and his co-founder Hendrik
Eeckhaut are engineers, and became
entrepreneurs out of necessity. They
were frustrated with existing hardware
design tools like Emacs and Vim, and
felt that there was a need for new and
better options. They thought that the
power of IDEs like Eclipse and Visual
Studio should be available to hardware
designers too.
Nobody else was marketing their idea,
so they decided to do it themselves and
became entrepreneurs. In retrospect,
when they started their company Sigasi
7 years ago, they had little idea what
creating and fostering a company was
all about. So yes, they made mistakes
- and Faes talks freely about them in
the book. “After we gathered enough
funds to start Sigasi, we only focused
on developing our software. Our first
mistake. Almost no one knew what we
were doing. Our product was good.
The problem was that the market didn’t
know that we existed. We should have
gone to the customer much faster. Test
our product, our ideas, determine what
was working and what not.”
Last year, about 40% of new
smartphones included Near Field
Communication (NFC). Analysts predict
that by 2017 there will be 1 billion NFC
enabled phones. Clearly, the use of NFC
is ramping up because it can simplify
aspects as diverse as communication,
secure payments, user authentication,
and retail loyalty programs for instance.
Adding NFC functionality to an inte-
grated circuit involves connecting the
wireless interface pins to an antenna/
coil. The voltage on those pads strongly
depend on the distance between and
alignment of transmit/read devices and
the power of the transmitting device.
Simulations by one of our customers
showed a worst case of almost 10V
between pads, which is rather high for
advanced CMOS technology.
There are basically 2 ways to cope with
this excess voltage.
1. Designers use transistors that can tol-
erate voltage up to 10V. Fortunately,
many NFC applications also require
on-chip non-volatile memory (NVM).
Such NVM circuits typically use a
thicker gate oxide and foundries
provide high voltage transistors for
such embedded flash process flavors.
Several of Sofics’ customers have
used those NVM transistors for the
first stage of the antenna circuit.
The problem is that high voltage
transistors are easily damaged during
electrostatic discharge (ESD) stress. A
parallel on-chip ESD protection cir-
cuit (with 10V tolerance) is the easi-
est solution. Sofics has ESD clamps
on several technology nodes that
are used for the protection of NFC
antenna pads.
2. It is possible to reduce the excess
voltage with a so-called clipping or
limiting circuit. The simple approach
is to use a set of diodes but due
to the large amount of current the
diode perimeter is rather large. This
leads to high leakage current dur-
ing non-clipped operation. Sofics
Sofics’ clipping circuit protects wireless interface circuits against excess voltage
A typical, simplified NFC approach: Near field (max. 10m) communication between 2 devices.
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I N T H E S P O T L I G H T S
intoPIX has been presented with the
prestigious IABM Peter Wayne Award
for Design and Innovation for its TICO
lightweight compression. With this
game changing technology, intoPIX and
broadcast equipment vendors are eas-
ing the transition to IP and UHDTV
4K in Live production workflows while
ensuring interoperability with existing
SDI infrastructures.
The Peter Wayne Award for Design
& Innovation was inaugurated by the
IABM in 1990 in memory of a former
deputy chairman of the association and
recognizes new products and technolo-
gies that offer a significant contribution
to the broadcast and media industry.
Judged by a panel of renowned spe-
cialists, the award has become highly
sought after as recognition of outstand-
ing technical achievement. intoPIX was
selected for this accolade from a lis t of
18 nominated companies.
intoPIX Honored With The Prestigious IABM Peter Wayne Award Award for TICO Lightweight Compression used in 4K Over IP Workflows
Sigasi CEO Philippe Faes (left), with his co-founder Hendrik Eeckhaut
About SigasiSigasi (Ghent, Belgium) is the company behind Sigasi Studio - an intelligent VHDL
hardware design tool that features advanced programming assistance for engi-
neering teams who create microchips for strictly regulated and safety sensitive
environments. Sigasi Studio is sold worldwide to industry leaders in medical, tele-
com, automotive, defense and aerospace. It reduces development times, enhances
design team efficiency and takes the manual labor out of hardware design.
Sofics’ clipping circuit protects wireless interface circuits against excess voltage
Without excess voltage limiting circuits the voltage can get close to 10V. The Sofics’ clipping circuit limits the voltage between the +/- antenna pads to 3.6V during functional operation. The clip-level can be set at 2.2V for compatibility with low power 1.8V interfaces too.
has designed a novel clipping circuit
to solve those issues. The clipping
circuit was used to protect the NFC
antenna pads in an ultra-low power
Bluetooth chip with ‘Touch-to-pair’
functionality. The product, pro-
cessed in TSMC 55nm technology,
is running in mass production and is
used for all kinds of home automa-
tion and IoT applications.
n
“We are honored to have won this
award”, says Gael Rouvroy CTO at
intoPIX. “It is a recognition of our tech-
nology contribution to ease the transi-
tion to UHDTV and IP-based infrastruc-
tures” n
Learning lessons and passing them onAll 21 entrepreneurs featured in “Hoek
Af”, including Davy Kestens (Sparkcentral)
and Maarten Vandenbroucke (Gatewing
and Ticto), talk openly about the lessons
they’ve learned along the way. “I learned
a lot from biographies of famous entre-
preneurs. Steve Jobs, Richard Branson,
… men who have achieved an incredible
things, and whose mistakes can teach
you a lot. An entrepreneur who identi-
fies his own mistakes and puts them on
paper, that’s always interesting to read”,
says Faes.
The book launch comes at a significant
time for Philippe Faes. At the same
time his company Sigasi is taking a next
big step. With a new look & feel and
web site to support them, this group
of dedicated tech enthusiasts have just
released revised versions of their hard-
ware design tools – now called Sigasi
Studio Starter, Sigasi Studio Creator and
Sigasi Studio XL. “We are now catering
to the needs of every VHDL designer
worldwide”, Faes proudly announces.
n
9
1newsletterI N T H E S P O T L I G H T S
Xetal Named One of the 18 Most Promising European Start-UpsOpenAxel is a European project
-launched in October 2013- with the
goal to support ICT companies in accel-
erating their business growth through
internationalisation and cross-border
financing. One of its key activities is to
detect the 18 most promising start-ups
in Europe who will, among other things,
go to Silicon Valley to meet top rated
CEO´s and investors, and participate to
the OpenAxel Showcase at the at the
Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in
2016.
Xetal has been selected as one of the
9 winners of the second (and last)
call among more than 1100 european
start-ups. Making Xetal “one of the
most promising European startups!” to
quote Agustin Moro Cañada (Wayra –
Telefonica) from the OpenAxel team.
“This is an amazing opportunity for
us to be introduced in Silicon Valley”
– says Francesco Pessolano, CEO of
Xetal, – “And it comes at a moment
where we see significant sales growth
especially in Italy thanks to our partner
SeeingSmart“. n
About XetalXetal is innovating the way buildings adapt to people’s needs. Xetal has devel-
oped Kinsei: an innovative indoor people localization technology that does not
require a person wearing or carrying any type of device or phone. Kinsei relies
on proprietary positioning sensors placed on walls, beds or door frames to detect
and track one or more people with an accuracy of about 30cm. When such
an accurate position information is used together with knowledge about the
room itself, it is possible to understand what is happening in the room, what
people are doing and determine, what is likely to happen next. Kinsei does not
use cameras, audio or any other identification technology making it the perfect
technology for cases which require respect for personal privacy.
MinDCet supporting STEM education in BelgiumThe STEM CharterOn November 22th 2015 MinDCet
signed the STEM (Science, Technology,
Engineering, Mathematics) charter
together with other selected organi-
zations, universities and high-tech
companies. With this charter MinDCet
wants to testify from practice how
interesting, useful and socially relevant
Science, Technology, Engineering and
Mathematics are.
The signatories to this charter, the
STEM ambassadors, want to stimulate
the interest and passion for STEM, to
increase STEM -ability and expertise,
and render STEM educations and pro-
fessions more attractive. To tackle the
challenges of tomorrow, we need to
collectively handle science, technology,
engineering and mathematics in a smart
and dynamic way.
The STEM ambassadors will jointly sup-
port the vision “STEM for tomorrow”:
http://stemvoordetoekomst.be/charter.
php
Come & See MinDCet in 2016MinDCet continues to develop new
products and IP also in 2016. As a tradi-
tion these new developments will be
shown and demonstrated at tradefairs
and conferences throughout the world.
Don’t hesitate to visit our booth at one
of the following events:
• APEC (Applied Power Electronics
Conference) - March 20-24: APEC
Long-Beach, California, USA
• PCIM (International Exhibition and
Conference for Power Electronics,
Intelligent Motion, Renewable Energy
and Energy Management) - May 10-12 Nürnberg, Germany
• Electronica - November 14-17:
(Trade Fair) München, Germany
n
10
E M B E D D E D C O R N E R
for engineers working at the cutting
edge of IC design and application to
maintain technical currency, and to
network with leading experts.
KU Leuven ESAT-MICAS has histori-
cally had a large impact on the field
of integrated power management and
continues to do so with paper 12.2
“A 94.6%-Efficiency Fully Integrated
Switched-Capacitor DC-DC Converter
in Baseline 40nm CMOS Using Scalable
The 94.6% Efficiency, Fully Integrated DC-DC converter, designed at ESAT-MICAS, that has been presented at ISSCC2016
Marco Vigilante, part of the mm-Wave
research group, presented paper 20.10
“A 68.1-to-96.4GHz Variable-Gain
Low-Noise Amplifier in 28nm CMOS”.
He added: “We demonstrated with
measurement a low-noise amplifier
that achieves the highest reported gain
over the widest -3dB bandwidth in
the 70/80GHz bands, thanks to the
circuit techniques developed in MICAS.
This results in a record gain-bandwidth
product in excess of 0.8THz”.
KU Leuven ESAT-MICAS at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference 2016
In February 2016, researchers
from the KU Leuven ESAT-MICAS
(Microelectronics And Sensors)
research group have presented 4
papers at the International Solid-State
Circuits Conference (ISSCC), held yearly
in San Francisco. As the foremost glob-
al forum for presentation of advances
in solid-state circuits and systems-on-a-
chip, ISSCC offers a unique opportunity
Parasitic Charge Redistribution”. “We
introduced a novel technique that sig-
nificantly reduces the dominant para-
sitic losses in Switched-Capacitor con-
verters”, commented presenting author
Nicolas Butzen. “This allowed us to
achieve the highest reported fully inte-
grated DC-DC conversion efficiency to
date, without the use of expensive
high-density capacitors.”
KU Leuven ESAT-MICAS also showed
the next step in readout schemes for
X-ray imaging in collaboration with the
Large Area Department (LAE) of Imec
Belgium, with “A flexible thin-film pixel
array with a charge-to-current gain
of 59 µA/pC and 0.33% non-linearity
and a cost-effective readout circuit for
large-area X-ray imaging” (paper 16.5).
“By using active pixels in current-mode
instead of passive pixels, we were able
to demonstrate the highest reported
gain and linearity”, said first author
Florian De Roose.
Paper 22.4 “A 172µW Compressive
Sampling Photoplethysmographic
Readout with Embedded Direct Heart-
Rate and Variability Extraction from
Compressively Sampled Data” was pre-
sented by Pamula Venkata Rajesh. He
commented: “We demonstrated an
ultra-low power PPG readout employ-
ing compressive sampling (CS) with
embedded feature extraction directly
from CS data. The ASIC enables reduc-
tion of LED power consumption by
up to 30 times without significantly
degrading the accuracy of heart rate
estimation.”
Professor Wim Dehaene, head of
MICAS, concludes: “Altogether, these
papers cover a broad spectrum of top-
ics and clearly show how the MICAS
research group at KU Leuven remains
at the highest international level in the
field of analog, digital, mixed-mode, RF
and mm-wave IC design.”
n
11
SAVE THE DATE
This publication has been realized with the support of these organizations.
1newsletterC O N T A C T I N F O R M A T I O N
KU Leuven - iMinds - μPnP: Plug-and-Play Peripherals for the Internet-of-Things • p. 1Mr Sam Michiels, IOF Industrial Research Manager or Prof. Danny Hughes, KU Leuven • Tel. +32 16 32 70 68
www.micropnp.com • [email protected] or [email protected]
Intrinsic-ID and Invensense develop the Trusted Sensor for IoT • p. 3Boris Kennes, Director Product Management Intrinsic-ID • Tel. +31 40 8519 020
www.intrinsic-id.com • [email protected]
Altran - Strategic collaboration with Jaguar Land Rover & report Telecom & Media sector in Europe • p. 4Caroline Nicque, Internal Communication Officer Altran • Tel. + 32 2 739 57 96
www.altran.com • [email protected]
Imec supports Airobot with the commercialization of a close range flying system for drones • p. 5& Imec supports Ghent-based start-up Sensolus with optimization of GPS tracker for Internet-of-Things applications • p. 5Kris Hermus, Innovation Program Manager Flanders, imec • Tel. +32 16 28 15 06 www.imec.be • [email protected]
Barco Silex validates interoperable VC-2 lightweight video compression solution for ASIC/FPGA – ready for UHD and 4K transport • p. 6Mr. Geert Decorte, Sales and Marketing Manager Barco Silex • Tel. +32 10 45 49 04
www.barco-silex.com • [email protected]
University of Antwerp - NEXOR consortium – Next Generation of Heterogeneous Sensor Networks, Internet of Things (IoT) and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) • p. 6Dr. Ir. Anna Hristoskova, Research & Innovation Manager • Tel. +32 3 265 32 14;
https://www.uantwerpen.be/nexor/ • [email protected]
Sofics’ clipping circuit protects wireless interface circuits against excess voltage • p. 8Mr. Bart Keppens, Director Marketing, Sofics • Tel.: +32 59 27 59 15 • http://www.sofics.com • [email protected]
Sigasi founder featured in book about entrepreneurs • p. 8Mr. Philippe Faes, CEO Sigasi • Tel. +32 485 06 18 93 • www.sigasi.com • [email protected]
intoPIX Honored With The Prestigious IABM Peter Wayne Award • p. 9Mrs. Katty Van Mele, Director Business Development intoPIX • Tel. +32 10 23 84 70 www.intopix.com • K.vanmele@intopix.
com
Xetal Named One of the 18 Most Promising European Start-Ups • p. 10Mr. Francesco Pessolano, CEO Xetal • Tel.: +32 15 634 499 • www.xetal.eu • [email protected]
MinDCet supporting STEM education in Belgium • p. 10 Mr. Mike Wens, CEO MinDCet • Tel.: +32 16 40 95 28 www.mindcet.com • [email protected]
KU Leuven ESAT-MICAS at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference 2016 • p. 12Patrick Reynaert, professor ESAT-MICAS KU Leuven • Tel. +32 16 32 18 78
www.esat.kuleuven.be/micas/ • [email protected]
Contact Information
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entioned in this newsletter are the intellectual property of their respective ow
ners.
16-06-2016 Belgium, venue to be confirmed
Business-to-Business Forum 2016
DSP Valley expects you on the yearly
B2B Forum! An entire day filled with
interesting 1-on-1 meetings with some
of the leading executives of the smart
systems industry in the BeNeLux and
Europe, with a pre-screening, guar-
anteeing a high level of relevance for
your business development. This very
efficient format allows you to have 10 to
12 high-quality meetings in just 1 day.
Make sure your company/organization
is part of this must-attend event and
already register by sending an email to
12