All items in category Electronics Corner
Knowles Announces First Amazon-Qualified Development Kit for Wake-on-Voice Alexa Headsets
by audioXpress Staff

Knowles Announces First Amazon-Qualified Development Kit for Wake-on-Voice Alexa Headsets

Knowles announced that it has developed a new hands-free reference solution to enable OEMs and ODMs to build headphones, headsets and wireless earbuds that allow users to talk directly to Alexa. The new AISonic SmartMic Headset Development Kit for Amazon AVS supports Alexa with the lowest power voice activation, eliminating the need for Push-to-Talk activation. This Development Kit includes the Knowles AISonic IA611 SmartMic, which integrates a low power audio edge processor inside a tiny microphone.
Read more...
Keysight Technologies Launches New N5511A Phase Noise Test System
by audioXpress Staff

Keysight Technologies Launches New N5511A Phase Noise Test System

Keysight Technologies introduced a new phase noise measurement system to optimize and prove performance of new designs and meet operational requirements. The N5511A Phase Noise Test System (PNTS) is the foundation of test setups that can measure down to kT (-177 dBm/Hz). The N5511A’s flexible architecture solves specific challenges faster, accepts any reference source that is electronically frequency tunable, and suppresses excess noise from the system itself or from reference sources and test accessories (amplifiers, attenuators etc.).
Read more...
Lattice Semiconductor Introduces New Development Kit for Low Power, Embedded AI Applications
by Cristina Costa

Lattice Semiconductor Introduces New Development Kit for Low Power, Embedded AI Applications

Lattice Semiconductor announced the availability of the HM01B0 UPduino Shield, a comprehensive development kit for implementing Artificial Intelligence (AI) computing in devices using vision and sound as sensory inputs. This rapid prototyping board, in the Arduino form factor, includes components designers need to quickly develop always-on, low power smart IoT and connected devices. This new development kit consists of a Lattice iCE40 UltraPlus FPGA-based Upduino 2.0 board and a Himax HM01B0 image sensor module.
Read more...
Dialog Semiconductor Launches Family of Audio Codecs Delivering Superior Active Noise Cancellation
by audioXpress Staff

Dialog Semiconductor Launches Family of Audio Codecs Delivering Superior Active Noise Cancellation

Dialog Semiconductor announced the DA740x, a family of highly-integrated audio codec chips that deliver best-in-class active noise cancellation (ANC), providing optimal audio performance in any environment to the rapidly-growing wireless headphones market. According to the British semiconductor company, the DA740x chips are able to deliver superior active noise cancellation – no matter how noisy the environment – with twice the audio quality and half the power consumption as competitive solutions.
Read more...
USound Piezoelectric MEMS Will Boost Battery Life of Wireless Earbuds up to 12 Hours
by audioXpress Staff

USound Piezoelectric MEMS Will Boost Battery Life of Wireless Earbuds up to 12 Hours

Austrian microspeaker company USound has just received an additional equity tranche increasing the last financing round to $30 million. According to the company, these added funds will accelerate the evolution of the next MEMS microspeaker generation, with the potential to boost the battery life of wireless earbuds and other wearable devices up to 12 hours. USound hopes to enable a market transition from electrodynamic drivers to solid-state technology with the next-generation of its Ganymede piezoelectric MEMS.
Read more...
Cypress Introduces Fully Integrated USB-C Charger Solution for Power Adapter OEMs
by audioXpress Staff

Cypress Introduces Fully Integrated USB-C Charger Solution for Power Adapter OEMs

Cypress Semiconductor announced the newest member of its USB-C Power Delivery family, the EZ-PD Power Adapter Generation 1 (PAG1) solution. The PAG1 is a complete AC-DC power solution with an integrated USB Power Delivery (PD) controller that enables OEMs to build reliable, efficient, and cost-effective power adapters for the growing USB-C charger market. The programmable EZ-PD PAG1 family delivers increased efficiency and reliability for USB-C charging applications.
Read more...
Renesas Electronics Simplifies Development of USB PD and USB-C Battery Charging Applications with New Reference Designs
by Cristina Costa

Renesas Electronics Simplifies Development of USB PD and USB-C Battery Charging Applications with New Reference Designs

Renesas Electronics Corporation announced two new reference designs that simplify and speed the development of USB Power Delivery (PD3.0) and USB-C battery charging applications such as USB-C computing hubs, power banks, car chargers, SSD enclosures, point of sale (POS) printers, and desktop displays. The RTK-251-1PowerBank3 and RTK-251-BuckBoostConverter2 are USB-IF PD3.0 certified design kits, and represent the first in a new series of reference designs for applications implementing the USB Type-C power and data connection standard.
Read more...
Need a Dedicated Spectrum Analyzer? B&K Precision Just Announced its Slim 2680 Series
by audioXpress Staff

Need a Dedicated Spectrum Analyzer? B&K Precision Just Announced its Slim 2680 Series

B&K Precision, the manufacturer of reliable, cost-effective test and measurement instruments announced its evolution of RF test equipment with the New 2680 Series of Spectrum Analyzers. This series includes a pre-amplifier, 2D spectrum monitor and advanced measurements such as channel power, adjacent channel power and occupied bandwidth, which are options on most competing models. It also includes advanced measurement options and pre-amp for RF design and verification.
Read more...
Cypress Low-Power Bluetooth MCUs Extend Range and Battery Life in Voice and Audio Applications
by audioXpress Staff

Cypress Low-Power Bluetooth MCUs Extend Range and Battery Life in Voice and Audio Applications

Cypress Semiconductor announced two low-power, dual-mode Bluetooth 5.0 and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) microcontrollers (MCUs) that include support for Bluetooth mesh networking, and provide simultaneous Bluetooth 5.0 audio and BLE connections, delivering low-power wireless solutions that enable music and voice commands for battery-powered personal devices. With the new CYW20819 and CYW20820 MCUs, designers can also develop low-cost, low-power Bluetooth mesh network devices.
Read more...
Maxim Announces Highly Integrated USB-C Buck Charger Reducing Size by 30%
by Cristina Costa

Maxim Announces Highly Integrated USB-C Buck Charger Reducing Size by 30%

Maxim Integrated Products has announced the MAX77860 3A switch-mode charger. This USB-C buck charger provides the industry’s first integrated USB-C port controller and charger to eliminate the need for a separate host controller, according to Maxim. This simplifies software development and reduce overall bill-of-materials (BOM) costs for multiple applications, from power banks to medical devices, charging cradles and portable Li-ion battery-powered electronics in general.
Read more...