Your Electronics Open Source

Does the title confuse you? It's very simple...Take a teacher of literature and put her in the middle of the electronics world. I have landed like this at the ST-NEWS2008 Silverstar Seminar. Maybe you ask yourself what do literature and electronics have in common .... well let me tell you: nothing! But we don't know what life can give us and we must always be ready to change the job and, more importantly, to learn news things! I already attende some seminars, but there we talked about the metaphors or the liaison between the human been and the nature and for sure not about... microcontrollers! Luckily working since 2007 on this web site helped me a lot, so I did not feel like an alien!
Immediately after 9 o'clock a.m. Mr. Favato has presented the Seminar Schedule: new microcontrollers:STM8 e STM32 (as ST Microcontrollers Manager told me when I met him last July), MEMS , Analogic Products and Bluetooth. And from now on my article becomes serious thanks to all the notes I wrote down to make you know all these new products.

STM8offers a large variety of essential and sophisticated peripherals to increase STM8S capabilities over its predecessors (ST6, ST7), such as internal high-speed clocks and timers, serial communication channels, interrupt system. STM8 offers a wide choice of memory sizes from 1KB to 128KB and packages from 8-pin to 80-pin with a low EMI level.

STM32 is the first ARM Cortex TM-M3 MCU family from a leading semiconductor supplier. The STM32 family brings new degrees of freedom MCU users. STM32 removes the last obstacles to 32bit wide usage that are: integration, and cost offering on the other hand easy of use, and low consumption. ARM is a UK company that designs 32-bit cores, licensing them to the world’s leading electronics companies. I already knew ARM because I had participated in the development of 100% ARM
STM32F10x has two products: STM32F103 Performance Line and STM32F101 Access Line. The STM32F103 Performance Line has a intern RC and embedded reset. The STM32F101 Access Line has SRAM until 16K and 1xADC. The STM32 means CortexTM-M3core, low power, rich peripherals set, security. Along the quick and detailed presentation the effort to offer class B IEC 60335 / 60730 compliance has been carefully remarked. This certification is now a must for white goods appliances. Support is given in term of a full set of hardware devices such as two watch dog, clock control circuit plus the usual Low Voltage Detector e Brown Out Detector, moreover a class B IEC 60335 / 60730 compliant and royalty free library is available for developers, quite an interesting point for most of the attending technicians.

MEMS means Micro Electro Mechanical Systems and are semiconductor sensors. Micro Electro Mechanical System Technology exploits the mechanical properties of silicon to create movable structures that are able to sense acceleration or vibration in each direction. MEMS can be classified in: MEMS Sensor (is protected by a silicon tap) and Interface Chip (Digital Output 3-Axis Accelerometer). The advantages of ST-MEMS technology are: low size and weight, high volumes, high thermal stability, high reproducibility. MEMS monitors any vibration, accelerations, controls the inclinations. Fields of applications are spreading, the most obvious are anti theft systems, notebook hard disk shock protection, game consoles.

The analogic products they talked about are products for power supply: new Viperxx, solutions for LED's pilotage. The functionalities of Viperxx are: FIXED FREQUENCY, 60kHz or 115kHz with JITTERING feature for LOWER EMI, SOFT START UP: Current Limit increased cycle by cycle, Duty Cycle limited to 70%, etc.

They didn't have time to talk about Bluetooth thanks to a person who had too many questions (silly questions indeed according to people more educated than me...). But we all know that the bluetooth is for HiFi Streaming, joystick, RS232, medical tools, etc.

And, like this my first electronics seminar is finished. With about twenty peoples around me that maybe they asked:"What is this young lady doing here?" , I went home happy because I learned other new things... even if I still miss many things about electronics, I am pretty sure that I'll understand them at the next electronics seminar.

If I wasn't much clear go on Best Arrow