Sense it! – Smart Analog Solution Kit for Process Automation
Dusseldorf, November 12, 2014 — Renesas Electronics Europe, a premier provider of advanced semiconductor solutions, today announced the availability of its “Sense it! – Smart Analog Solution Kit”, a complete evaluation platform for the Smart Analog IC101 (“SAIC101”) device. The new kit includes all the hardware, software components and demonstration programs sensor system manufacturers need to start development on their smart industrial sensors.
Renesas’ new “Sense it! – Smart Analog Solution Kit” facilitates the design of intelligent sensors for process instrumentation applications demanding high accuracy and performance, including temperature, pressure, or flow metering. The kit provides customers with a smart, versatile and reconfigurable platform for shorter prototyping cycle time, and accelerated product time to market.
The all-inclusive Solution Kit comes with the following set of components:
- Sense it! Solution Kit main board
- SA Designer, analog design software for PC
- Smart Analog Easy Starter, evaluation tool for SA MCU (Smart Analog Microcontroller)
- Demo firmware
- IO-Link daughter board
- IO-Link v.1.1 device stack for RL78
- E1 debugger
Smart Analog is a unique concept of flexible analog front-end design by Renesas Electronics. This innovative product ensures optimum integration for low footprint solutions with small board space requirements. It significantly reduces the design effort and cost required to design analog front-ends for sensors. With the Smart Analog, system manufacturers no longer need to spend time tuning resistor networks or wiring discrete components to define the signal processing path from the transducer to the microcontroller. Smart Analog provides fully configurable analog function blocks such as AD/DA converters, operational amplifiers (op amp) customisable into various topologies, either in single channel operation mode, or multi-stage configuration such as instrumentation amplifier. With an intuitive SA-Designer analog design software provided by Renesas, or via Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) controlled registers, customers have the freedom to turn ON/OFF, adjust, and interconnect each function block to customise the analog front-ends to their target applications.
The Sense it! main board comes with the SAIC101, Renesas’ Smart Analog IC designed for bridge output type sensors. To complement the SAIC101, a SA MCU (Smart Analog Microcontroller), also referred to as RL78/G1E, is populated on the main board.
The SAIC101 incorporates an exhaustive range of analog features in a compact 4mmx4mm 36-pin FBGA package. It also includes a 16-bit delta-sigma A/D converter with built-in AUTOSCAN sequencer and a SINC3 digital filter, a programmable gain instrumentation amplifier, a temperature sensor, a power supply for external sensor, and an internal reference voltage generator. The SAIC101 also features a selectable SPI or universal asynchronous receiver transmitter (UART) communication interface for system configurations, control of each function block from an external microcontroller and transmission of measured data to the external microcontroller, as well as flash memory for storing system configurations for each function block. Furthermore, it incorporates its own internal system clock.
The RL78/G1E is a multi-chip package (MCP) device that integrates a reconfigurable analog block and a 16-bit ultra-low-power microcontroller block in a single package. The analog block features a range of front-end analog circuits for small sensor signal processing such as a configurable gain amplifier, gain adjustment amplifier, High-pass/Low-pass filter circuit, 8-bit D/A converters, and temperature sensor. The MCU block is based on the RL78/G1A, which incorporates 4KB data flash and high accuracy 12-bit AD converters on-chip.
The analog block of the Smart Analog MCU can be fine-tuned on the fly using the USB port on the main board and the Easy Starter evaluation tool. With this feature, customers can dynamically change gain amplification, adjust offset voltages or op amp working point while the system is in operation. A graphical scope window enables them to visualise the effects and results of the adjustment in the hardware.
The Sense it! kit comes equipped with an IO-Link daughter board to facilitate the integration of the smart sensor platform into industrial fieldbus networks. Renesas has worked in cooperation with TMG GmbH to include in the package a high quality IO-Link stack, which is fully-compliant with the latest IO-Link specification 1.1 and free of charge for evaluation. Customers can use the stack in combination with the IO-Link daughter board to further enhance the configurability and intelligence of the Sense it! platform. They can also gain complete control of the sensor application across the industrial fieldbus network by implementing remote parameterisation and configurability features for the sensor platform.
Additionally, the Solution Kit is equipped with a multi-purpose LCD interface along with multiple connectors and test points. The interfaces provided include UART, SPI, I²C, USB device, AD/DA converters and GPIOs that are configurable for alternative IO functions.
The new Sense it! kit is a powerful part of Renesas Electronics’ business strategy of providing a wide range of innovative solutions comprising both hardware and software. The company’s existing kits have seen considerable success and broad adoption by designers and engineers, for whom they provide cost savings and faster time to market. Renesas will be launching additional kits over the coming months to continue the implementation of this strategy. Many of the kits will be showcased on Renesas’ stand at electronica in November (Hall A6, Stand 243). With the Renesas trade fair theme ‘Connect with Tomorrow’, the Sense it! kit solutions will be previewed at this year’s electronica in Munich.
The official launch of the Renesas “Sense it! – Smart Analog Solution Kit” will take place at the SPS IPC Drives show from November 25th to 27th in Nuremberg. Renesas will be presenting its next-generation solutions and reference platforms for Smart Factory on Stand 560 in Hall 2.
For more product information visit: http://www.renesas/smartanalog
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About Renesas Electronics Europe
Renesas delivers trusted embedded design innovation with complete semiconductor solutions that enable billions of connected, intelligent devices to enhance the way people work and live – securely and safely. As the number one global supplier of microcontrollers, and a leader in A&P and SoC products, Renesas provides the expertise, quality, and comprehensive solutions for a broad range of Automotive, Industrial, Home Electronics (HE), Office Automation (OA) and Information Communication Technology (ICT) applications to help shape a limitless future.
Renesas Electronics Corporation was established in 2010 and is headquartered in Japan. With over 800 hardware and software alliance partners worldwide, it has the industry’s largest local support network. Renesas Electronics’ European structure is comprised of three business units – the Automotive, the Broad-based and the Industrial Solution Business Unit.
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