With our GreenPAK™ Designer Software and Development Kit, Dialog empowers innovative engineers and designers to create their own custom circuits – integrating as many functions as they can fit, all while minimizing the power consumption, number of components, and overall board space that can drag down otherwise cutting-edge designs. By clearing that all away, GreenPAK’s cost- and space-effective measures allow designers to create their ideal integrated circuits, all in a matter of minutes.
But, what does that actually look like?
It’s one thing to talk about GreenPAK ICs in the abstract but to really get the point across of how our designer software and development kit are opening new doors and creating new opportunities for engineers, we wanted to highlight just a few of our favorite examples of the GreenPAK chip in action.
Analog Clock Motor Driver
The Analog Clock Motor Driver application note covers a more retro – or maybe we should say timeless? – GreenPAK use case: an analog clock. Between components like the crystal oscillator and the motor driver, there are a lot of active electronics going on in the back of an analog clock… all of which can be stripped out and replaced with a dual-rail GreenPAK CMIC, for a more cost-effective and smaller-form-factor alternative. Best of all, only a fraction of the chip’s resources are being used to power the clock, leaving plenty more power and board space for designers to customize as they see fit.
Basketball Arcade Machine
Remember those classic basketball machines you’d pump quarters into at arcades or places like Chuck E. Cheese’s? You were probably more focused on how many tickets you could get out of the game than what was actually making that machine work in the first place. But, for those curious, these machines need a short-distance proximity sensor to detect when the ball has gone through the hoop, a display for showing the player their scores, a buzzer to provide gameplay sounds, and a ticket dispenser to reward the winner. The Basketball Arcade Machine application note explains how we were able to easily and affordably create our own homemade basketball arcade machine – and power all of these functions – with a pair of GreenPAK SLG46537 chips, via the GreenPAK Designer Software.
Bike Speedometer
Finally, our Creating a Bike Speedometer with GreenPAK and a Magnetic Sensor application note explores how the GreenPAK SLG46536V can be paired with a magnetic sensor to create your very own bike speedometer. Not only does GreenPAK provide a smaller, simpler, low-cost, and easy-to-develop alternative to other solutions, but it’s also extremely flexible – this speedometer function can be used for even more intensive biking applications, like mopeds and electric bikes. And, did we mention that the speedometer is accurate to within 1 m/s?
Of course, these three applications are just the tip of the iceberg of what GreenPAK can do. Hopefully, these ideas spur your imagination and creativity as developers – and if so, we’ve got just the thing for you to try out some ideas of your own.
Make sure to check out our free GreenPAK Designer Software to create your own custom designs in minutes. Or, take a look through the GreenPAK offerings to find some existing chip designs that can provide the tools you need to reduce power, components, and board space on your integrated circuits.