THE AUTHORITY ON EMERGING SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022

TECHNOLOGIES FOR DESIGN SOLUTIONS [Link]

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ISSUE DATE VOLUME 70, ISSUE 5

IN THIS ISSUE
FEATURES
10 What’s the Difference Between
the Enterprise and Consumer
Metaverses?
The enterprise metaverse is a Fortnite but for digital
twins. Presented is a perspective for developers
on the challenges—and opportunities—ahead.

15 RoHS and Its Impact on the

Resistor Industry
(WNN[NGCFHTGGTGSWKTGOGPVUHQTVJKEMƂNOEJKRTGUKUVQTUYKNN
10
inevitably increase in the next few years. For manufacturers
looking to make the switch, there are options for general-purpose
V[RGUDWVƂPFKPIUVQEMQPCP[QHVJGOYKNNDGFKHƂEWNV

18 Is It Finally Time for Silicon Photonics to Shine?

A new silicon-photonics process developed by GlobalFoundries has

22
the backing of Ayar Labs, Broadcom, Cisco, Marvell, and NVIDIA.

Circuit Editing Evolves to Meet Semiconductor Needs

15
Editor Bill Wong talks with Thermo Fisher’s David Akerson about
circuit edit and the strategic role it plays in advancing semiconductor
product development and manufacturing.

26 Essentials for Effective Protection Against

Overvoltage Events

22
9JKNGVJGTGoUPQQPGUK\GƂVUCNNEKTEWKVRTQVGEVKQPUQNWVKQPTQDWUV
overvoltage protection is a necessity in virtually any application that
connects to a power line.

32 Current Sensing: Past, Present, and Future

This article demonstrates a new, highly integrated, “lossless,” and
localized approach to current sensing that deals with many of the
challenges.

36 Then and Now: Graphics Processing

A graphical look back and forward at display processing technology,
from CRTs to ray tracing.
32
COLUMNS & DEPARTMENTS
FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER
6 EDITORIAL 40 LAB BENCH
Your Metaverse or Mine? Mini-ITX Motherboard Packs (ElectronicDesign)
Two AI Accelerator Chips
39 AD INDEX (@ElectronicDesgn)

EDITORIAL MISSION:
To provide the most current, accurate, and in-depth technical coverage of the key emerging technologies that engineers need to design tomorrow’s products today.

ELECTRONIC DESIGN ISSN 0013-4872 (Print) / 1944-9550 (Digital) is published bi-monthly in Jan/Feb, Mar/Apr, Permission is granted to users registered with the Copyright Clearance Center Inc.
May/June, July/Aug, Sept/Oct and Nov/Dec by Endeavor Business Media, 1233 Janesville Ave., Fort Atkinson, WI (CCC) to photocopy any article, with the exception of those for which separate copyright
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copies, write to Electronic Design, PO Box 3257, Northbrook, IL 60065-3257. POSTMASTER: Send change of address Business Media is prohibited. Requests for special permission or bulk orders should be
to Electronic Design, PO Box 3257, Northbrook, IL 60065-3257. Canadian GST #R126431964. addressed to the editor.

2 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 ELECTRONIC DESIGN

 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022

EDITORIAL Elizabeth Eldridge

Senior Content Director: Bill Wong eeldridge@[Link]
bwong@[Link] CT, DE, MA, MD, ME, NH, NJ, NY, PA, RI, VT,
EASTERN CANADA
Senior Editor: David Maliniak
dmaliniak@[Link] Stuart Bowen
sbowen@[Link]
Managing Editor: Roger Engelke AK, NORTHERN CA, NV, OR, WA,
rengelke@[Link] WESTERN CANADA
AUSTRIA, BELGIUM, FRANCE, GERMANY,
Editor-at-Large: Alix Paultre LUXEMBURG, NETHERLANDS, PORTUGAL,
apaultre@[Link] SCANDINAVIA, SPAIN, SWITZERLAND, UNITED
KINGDOM
Senior Editor: James Morra
jmorra@[Link]
Diego Casiraghi
diego@[Link]
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS ITALY
Louis E. Frenzel
Helen Lai
Lee Goldberg helen@[Link]
Bill Schweber PAN-ASIA
Cabe Atwell Charles Liu
Murray Slovick liu@[Link]
PAN-ASIA
Steve Taranovich

DIGITAL
ART DEPARTMENT VP Digital Innovation Data: Ryan Malec
Group Design Director: Anthony Vitolo rmalec@[Link]
tvitolo@[Link]

Art Director: Jocelyn Hartzog

jhartzog@[Link]

PRODUCTION
Production Manager: Brenda Wiley
bwiley@[Link] ENDEAVOR BUSINESS MEDIA, LLC
331 54th Ave N., Nashville, TN 37209 USA
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SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES Chief Administrative and Legal Officer:

OMEDA Tracy Kane
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EVP Marketing Solutions & Data:

LIST RENTAL Jacquie Niemiec
List Rentals/Smartreach Client Services
Manager: Mary Ralicki DESIGN & ENGINEERING GROUP
mralicki@[Link]
EVP, Design & Engineering Group: Tracy Smith
tsmith@[Link]
SALES & MARKETING
Gregory Montgomery Group Content Director: Michelle Kopier
gmontgomery@[Link] mkopier@[Link]
AZ, NM, TX
Electronic Design, Machine Design,
Jamie Allen Microwaves & RF, Power & Motion, SourceESB,
jallen@[Link] Source Today, 3DX
AL, AR, SOUTHERN CA, CO, FL, GA, HI, IA, ID,
IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MI, MN, MO, MS, MT, NC,
ND, NE, OH, OK, SC, SD, TN, UT, VA, WI, WV,
WY, CENTRAL CANADA

4 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 ELECTRONIC DESIGN

 Editorial
DC-3 Series WILLIAM WONG | Senior Content Director
DC-1 Series
DC-2 Series

Your Metaverse or Mine?

HiQP Series Where will you be collaborating in the future? It will
likely depend on your depth of knowledge of these new
worlds.
DC-DC R E M E M B E R C Y B E R-
238853596 © Pop Nukoonrat | [Link]

CONVERTERS SPACE? It’s now called the

NEW!
metaverse. It can be used to
look through a new house
or building—virtually. Or to
HIGH INPUT VOLTAGES remotely design and debug an

UP TO 1200 VDC assembly line. The possibili-

ties are endless.
The metaverse isn’t the
ubiquitous and all-envelop-
DC-1 Series ing, realistic simulation of The Matrix or a Star Trek holodeck, but hardware and
• 120-370 VDC input voltage range
• 5-300 VDC regulated isolated outputs software have progressed to the point where augmented reality (AR) and virtual
• Up to 300 watts output power reality (VR) are practical tools for collaboration.
• 4.5” X 2.5” X 0.50” encapsulated package
Few of you use these tools for production work at this point. Nonetheless, the number
is growing, and engineers and software developers should be aware of what’s possible
DC-2A/2B so that they can determine when to take advantage of some amazing functionality.
• 350-1200 VDC input voltage range
• 5-300 VDC regulated isolated outputs A lot of parts have been coming together, from high-frame-rate, high-resolution
• Up to 300 watts output power
• 4.5” X 2.5” X 0.50” encapsulated package GPUs to tiny displays that can fit into a pair of glasses without feeling like you’re
wearing an iron mask. Collaboration software has been expanding to take advantage
DC-3 Series of the hardware. We’re almost to the point where software will become the determin-
• 300-900 VDC input voltage range ing factor of success.
• 3.3 -300 VDC regulated isolated outputs The advent of video conferencing due to COVID-19, with almost everyone involved,
• Up to 50 watts, single and dual outputs
• Thru hole and terminal strip models is a good indication of potential adoption and challenges for AR/VR. There are a
dozen different video-conferencing systems in general use, with Zoom and Microsoft
HiQP Series Teams leading the way.
Each of those systems lives within its own walled garden, with most providing a
• 125-475 VDC input voltage range
• 24-200 VDC regulated isolated outputs browser-based interface in addition to dedicated applications. All that’s needed is a
• Up to 50 watts output power sufficiently powerful PC. Microphones, speakers, cameras, and even touchscreens
• 2.50” X 1.55” X 0.50” encapsulated package are optional. All are required for the full effect.
OPTIONS OFFERED FOR EXPANDED
OPERATING TEMPERATURES and Entering a metaverse is more of a challenge, because having the right hardware is
SELECTED MILITARY SCREENING. mandatory. Plus, the level of sophistication of the hardware and matching software
CUSTOM DESIGNS AVAILABLE. can significantly affect the experience. We haven’t reached the point where resolution,
For full characteristics of these and the entire PICO
products, see PICO’s Full line catalog on our
frame-rate differences, etc., are insignificant as they are with something like a car,
NEW Website with Search Wizard where minimum standards are required.
  
  Moving from one metaverse to another is a bit of a hassle these days since it means
at least switching software. The bigger challenge will be differences between the con-
   trol and experiences within the virtual reality of the chosen environment. Unlike a
car’s steering wheel, the way to navigate through a metaverse is often unique to the
PICO ELECTRONICS, Inc.
143 Sparks Ave., Pelham, New York 10803
application or the virtual environment.
Like machine learning, digital twins, and self-driving vehicles, knowing what they
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E Mail: info@[Link]
are, how they can be applied, and when to take advantage of them requires a good
understanding of the technology.

6 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 ELECTRONIC DESIGN

I T ’ S W H AT ’ S O N T H E I N S I D E T H AT C O U N T S
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8 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 ELECTRONIC DESIGN

DESIGNING TEST EQUIPMENT THAT SIMPLIFIES THE ADVANCEMENT OF HUMANITY.
[Link] | [Link]@[Link] | +1-855-339-3669
Cover Story
APURVA SHAH | Founder and CEO, Duality Robotics

What’s the Difference Between

the Enterprise and Consumer
Metaverses?
The enterprise metaverse
is a Fortnite but for digital
twins. Presented is a
perspective for developers
on the challenges—and
opportunities—ahead.

T
he “enterprise metaverse”—the
metaverse for commercial,
industrial infrastructure, and
manufacturing applications—
will be far removed from the social,
gaming, and entertainment ecosystem
that many of us regard today as the
“consumer metaverse,” where entities
like Fortnite and Roblox have staked
Credit: 238554561 @ Irinayeryomina | Dreamstime
an early claim.
We intuitively understand the applica-
tions for a consumer metaverse, where Is it worth double-clicking on what the data itself represents the diversity of
the core mechanics are focused on game we mean by an autonomous system? It’s situations that you want your autonomous
play and socialization. But what are the a mechanical system that knows how to system to respond to.
applications for an enterprise metaverse, respond dynamically to its context. A Collecting this data in the real world
and what are they good for? Today we robot or other mechanical system that’s is often very expensive, time-consuming,
see three main focal points for enterprise not autonomous will do exactly what sometimes dangerous—and in some cases,
metaverse applications emerging from our it’s programmed to do. What makes it virtually impossible. It’s not possible to
engagement with customers: autonomous or semi-autonomous is when order up edge cases on demand, yet they’re
it can make sense of its dynamic envi- exactly what autonomous systems need to
1. Synthetic Data Generation ronment and then act accordingly—and be able to recognize and handle to operate
(Open-Loop Simulation) independently. safely and robustly.
The idea here is to create an environ- But human experience has taught us Thankfully, when driving around town
mental context where virtual sensors are that it can take a long time to learn how to in our vehicles in the real world, traffic
placed either in the environment itself or operate successfully within a new context! accidents seldom happen. Yet that’s exactly
on systems that inhabit it. The goal is to The same is true for machines. The way what you’d want a self-driving car to expe-
collect data—typically, perception data— to accelerate that learning is by expos- rience and learn from. It just doesn’t hap-
for the purpose of training machine- ing autonomous systems to more diverse pen very often.
learning (ML) models, or other forms of information. It’s not enough simply to So how do you go and collect this
autonomous software. generate more data. It’s important that data very intentionally? The enterprise

10 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 ELECTRONIC DESIGN

metaverse holds this promise: The ability
to generate very accurate, scalable, and
intentional data for ML models.

2. Validation of Autonomous
Systems and Processes Automation
(Closed-Loop Simulation)
We can also think of the enterprise
metaverse in terms of validation and opti-
mization. This differs from Open-Loop
Simulation/Synthetic Data Generation
in that you don’t merely have a virtual
context in which a system is operating;
you also have actuation of those systems.
These systems can run their external soft-
ware brain based on input from virtual
sensors and then determine how they Falcon, Duality’s Digital Twin Simulator, utilizes digital-twin counterparts based off of real-
should respond. And you can test this in life appearance, physics, and behaviors. Photos courtesy of Duality Robotics
a real-time closed-loop simulation.
Thus, you can run many thousands a workflow like that from an operations Digital Twin Challenges
of tests before you ever deploy a system perspective. The three dynamics discussed are what
like this in the real world. Whereas with a The enterprise metaverse holds this we’ve seen most frequently with custom-
self-driving car, a change applied to even promise. For the first time, we’re allowed ers, and all of them can drive significant
just one line of code could make the soft- a fully instrumented environment where business value. Some shift the bottom line,
ware—and vehicle—behave unpredictably a complex set of systems can interact and some the top line, but these are firmly
or even crash (think of how common orchestrate, and subsequently analyze all grounded use cases addressing signifi-
software bugs are…). We obviously can’t of the output data in a closed loop to figure cant pain points for companies today.
afford for this to happen when we intro- out what and where to optimize. Then, In other words, the metaverse future is
duce autonomous systems into real-world we can run A/B tests or myriad configu- already here.
operating environments. rations in parallel to find the optimal It’s a paramount concern to ensure that
How do we ensure that these systems workflow. these autonomous “smart” systems aren’t
are robust and validated? It’s not realis- suddenly going to become “dumb” when
tically possible every time you change 3. B2B2C Interaction you simply change a couple of lines of
a line of code to go drive a thousand In some cases, we want to expose code. It’s also important to allow your
miles for validation. The same applies these digital twins to end customers or customers to interact directly with these
in a construction site or a warehouse. consumers. A simple example: a shav- digital twins so as to get a much better
Every time you change a line of code in ing blade. How do you really show off understanding of them.
your mobile robot’s logic, if that robot is the features of that blade? Until recently, Today there are online product configu-
deployed at 40 customer sites, you can’t manufacturers have invested as much as rators for almost every new automobile,
realistically test that robot at all 40 sites 4X more money in the packaging than a simple example of a digital twin. But it
before you release the software. So, how the shaving blade itself, all to influence can cost half a million to a million dollars
do you actually validate these systems the purchase decision. But how might and six months working with a consulting
effectively? you influence consumers’ purchasing agency to develop one of these configura-
Until recently, we’ve been thinking in decisions when over 90% of those pur- tors. How can we practically do this for
terms of single systems. But now imag- chases are made online? an $8 to $12 product?
ine that in a warehouse, or an airport, we One way is to allow them to interact These are among the many meta-
have a broad collection of systems that directly with a digital twin of your prod- verse challenges that enterprises face
are autonomous, semi-autonomous, or uct, or your service, so that they can more today. They’re not solutions in search
human operated, all working together fully understand and appreciate the value of problems, but rather acute problems
in close orchestration. At this point, it proposition. And this is where the lines that enterprises currently grapple with,
becomes increasingly challenging to between the enterprise metaverse and the and frankly don’t have great solutions to
think about how to go about optimizing consumer metaverse begin to blur. overcome them.

GO TO [Link] 11
Comparing Metaverses

Enterprise vs. Consumer Metaverse

With the applications now established,
what are the key differences between the
consumer metaverse and the enterprise
metaverse? There are three main differ-
ences to consider.
Who is in the metaverse? In the con-
sumer metaverse you’ll find avatars—
avatars that often represent the users
who are in that metaverse with their
friends, performing activities, playing
games, etc.
The enterprise metaverse, on the oth-
er hand, consists of digital twins. These
are digital counterparts that accurately
capture the appearance, physics, and To facilitate machine-learning training, hyper-realistic synthetic data is necessary. System
behavior of physical systems, items, and twins can be modeled with a suite of sensors, including depth, segmentation, and LiDAR.
spaces making up the actors and context
of enterprise workflows. meaningful for machine learning or ating data to evaluate how that product
If you have a digital storefront, the validation. will work for them in the real world. The
store is an environment twin. The prod- Now envision a consumer shopping value proposition here isn’t entertainment,
ucts on the shelves are item twins. A re- interaction. If a digital twin of your prod- it’s functional.
shelving robot or a frictionless checkout uct behaves differently than it would in Therefore, the goal of the enterprise
counter would be system twins. The num- the real world—perhaps it’s a garment metaverse is really data generation. In that
ber one difference from the consumer that responds to lighting in a different sense, two things become very important:
metaverse is that the enterprise meta- way as it moves—then the experience is The entire enterprise metaverse must be
verse isn’t predominantly a metaverse largely useless. The consumer can’t make heavily instrumented for efficient, scal-
of humanoid avatars. It’s a metaverse of an informed purchasing decision based able data generation. And, because the
digital twins. on that interaction because the metaverse data doesn’t live on its own, it must have
Permeability of the data between product isn’t representative of the real- a clean way to integrate and flow into and
the real and the virtual: In a consumer world product. coexist with other enterprise data and
metaverse, what matters most is that the Data generated in the enterprise meta- analytics pipelines.
metaverse itself is engaging, whether it verse must therefore be permeable, which
follows real physics or takes creative lib- is a two-way street. The way these digi- Easy, Right?
erties (lighting, shading, physics, etc.). tal twins are created and tuned to work Some major challenges emerge when
Fortnite, Roblox, and Minecraft embrace correctly is typically based on data that’s attempting to make all of this work ele-
a very high degree of creative expres- harvested from the real world. The enter- gantly at scale.
sion and stylization. They’re not meant prise metaverse is created and tuned using
to resemble the real world, and this is real-world data, and the behaviors in that Achieving data permeability
by design. world also produce data that’s meaningful On the face of it, it sounds simple: In
An enterprise metaverse, on the other in the real world. the enterprise metaverse, things should
hand, must be precise, mainly because What is the metaverse for? The enter- behave just like in the real world. But
it must generate data intended to be prise metaverse isn’t an interaction-cen- think of the complexity and diversity and
permeable with the physical world. For tric metaverse. It’s a data-centric meta- variety of what can happen in the real
a simple example, envision the digital verse. The very reason for operating the world—it’s essentially unbounded. One
twin of a dump truck. Whether it’s driv- metaverse is to produce data of some has to be very focused and disciplined
ing through the terrain or dumping its kind. This could be learning data for about what data permeability really
load, the speed and physics must behave ML, or validation data for an autono- means in a given context.
the same way in both the metaverse and mous system. In what domain does the metaverse
the real world. Otherwise, the data Even when consumers are interacting need to operate? Even after that’s defined,
produced by the metaverse just isn’t with the enterprise metaverse, they’re cre- it’s essential to ensure that the digital twins

12 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 ELECTRONIC DESIGN

behave accurately, and virtual sensors fully. Bringing physical assets together promise to fulfill this potential. It repre-
produce data at the desired speed and become massive logistical challenges— sents a brand new way for companies to
fidelity. What’s typically required here is legal friction, logistical friction, protec- think, work, and operate if the friction
lots of deep domain knowledge—knowl- tions that are there for a reason. to collaboration and developing shared
edge of simulation, physical systems, and But different companies, different contexts can be removed.
mechanical systems—to truly make all of teams—sometimes different teams within This, however, requires that the meta-
this work. A diverse range of skills, talents, the same company—can learn a lot by verse itself doesn’t wind up being a walled
and expertise in the team, vendors, and bringing their assets together in a shared garden for each company, or a set of
partners is critical. context. The enterprise metaverse has the walled gardens from different vendors.

Customer learning
Customers are very comfortable today
working with data and analytics, and har-
nessing them to impact how key decisions
are made. It’s how any successful business
operates today.
AI and ML are just starting to achieve
that level of mainstream understanding
and adoption. Oftentimes, even when
we don’t think we’re using ML, it’s there
under the hood and it’s solving practical
challenges in seamless ways within cur-
rent workflows.
When it comes to digital twins, com-
panies today are just beginning that jour-
From
ney. The tools, pipeline, and plumbing
doesn’t really exist. The early adopters
(brave souls!) will forge the way forward
for everyone else. There’s a significant
    

learning curve for companies just start-  
ing to adopt digital twins in their work-
flows, and it’s best to acknowledge and 
  
plan for that.

Standardization and decentralization

The third challenge is perhaps the
trickiest to solve, with major implications
for metaverse technology and commerce
in the future. Thin Film Resistor High Voltage Resistor
for Automotive for Automotive
Today, when we talk about the consum- RN73H HV73V
• Improved moisture Surge & Pulse • Maximum working Anti-Sulfur
er metaverse, you don’t think of a lonely resistance by special Precision Resistors voltages from Resistors - RT
protective coating SG73P/S 350V ~ 800V • Broad family of
place to occupy by yourself. You’ll be with • Pulse withstanding; • Resistance range: resistors with excellent
• High precision down to ±0.5% tolerance
family, friends, colleagues, sometimes tolerances 10K ~ 51MΩ anti-sulfur characteristics
±0.05% ~ ± 1% • Endures the ESD • Tolerances: • Passes ASTM-809
strangers. The metaverse is enriched by • High performance
limiting voltage ±0.5% ~ ±5% anti-sulfuration testing
TCR ±5 ~ ±100ppm/°C • Resistance range: • Excellent heat
these interactions with others. 1 ~ 10MΩ resistance and
From the enterprise view, if companies environmental resistance
want to bring together assets from dif-
ferent teams, other companies—perhaps
To make your design a reality, check out our products!
from their own supply chain—can be
[Link]
incredibly difficult because they under-
standably control their assets very care-

GO TO [Link] 13
Comparing Metaverses

Digital twins in the enterprise metaverse

must be expressed in a standardized and
decentralized way so that they can be
exchanged with others.
Unfortunately, on the consumer side,
the trend is very much aligned toward
walled-garden metaverses where it’s
not possible to exchange assets between
them. Consumer metaverses want that
consumer lock-in.
On the enterprise metaverse side,
there’s significant value for participants
to not be locked in. Our hope is that
the economic value the participants can
potentially gain from having a common
metaverse construct—a standardized
digital-twin format—will result in a
metaverse without walls. The vector we Techniques like photogrammetry allow for digital-twin acquisition that’s based on real-
want to push for is standardization in world data.
terms of formats and interoperability,
and decentralization. ers participating in standardized, interop- be achieved at the expense of locking in
The enterprise metaverse—the Fortnite erable, and decentralized platforms. customers into walled gardens. This only
of digital twins, if you will—presents sig- There will be plenty of opportunity hurts the ecosystem and reduces the over-
nificant challenges, but also a significant to generate revenue in the enterprise all value that enterprises can gain from
opportunity. There’s real value to custom- metaverse, but it won’t and shouldn’t the metaverse.

14 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 ELECTRONIC DESIGN

Industry Trends
KORY SCHROEDER | Director of Marketing and Product Engineering, Stackpole Electronics

Dreamstime | 537587
RoHS
and Its Impact on
the Resistor Industry

R
oHS stands for Restriction of Fully lead-free conditions defined in article 5(1), adapt-
Hazardous Substances. Also ing the Annexes to scientific and techni-
known as Directive 2002/95/
requirements for thick- cal progress. Seven exemption groups have
EC, it originated in the Euro- film chip resistors will been approved for the use of lead in certain
pean Union and restricts the use of specif- inevitably increase in applications under EU RoHS Annex III for
ic hazardous materials found in electrical/ a few more years. Exemption 7c-1 has the
electronic products (known as EEE). All
the next few years. For largest impact on the electric and electronic
applicable products in the EU market after manufacturers looking to components industry, which exempts lead
July 2006 must pass RoHS compliance. make the switch, there in glass or ceramics as stated below:
The substances banned under RoHS “Electrical and electronic components
include lead (Pb), mercury (Hg), cad-
are options for general- containing lead in a glass or ceramic other
mium (Cd), hexavalent chromium (Cr6), purpose types, but finding than dielectric ceramic in capacitors, e.g.,
polybrominated biphenyls (PBB), poly- stock on any of them will piezo electronic devices, or in a glass or
brominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE), ceramic matrix compound.”
and four different phthalates (DEHP,
be difficult. It’s important to understand exemp-
BBP, BBP, DIBP). The restricted mate- tions and their effective duration. Indus-
rials are hazardous to the environment, the limits don’t apply to the weight of the try regularly applies for the renewal of
pollute landfills, and are dangerous in finished product, or even to a component, exemptions or for additional applications
terms of occupational exposure during but to any single material that could (theo- to be exempted from the Directive’s
manufacturing and recycling. Exceptions retically) be separated mechanically—for requirements.
are the maximum permitted concentra- example, the sheath on a cable or the tin- Each request must be evaluated, and
tions in non-exempt products be 0.1% or ning on a component lead. when appropriate, an exemption is grant-
1000 ppm (except for cadmium, which is ed. Historically, lead-based exemptions
limited to 0.01% or 100 ppm) by weight. RoHS Exemption 7c-1 have been extended, but it’s never a guar-
The restrictions are on each homoge- The RoHS Directive allows for exemp- antee and staying vigilant on the RoHS
neous material in the product. That means tions from its restrictions, under certain site is critical.

GO TO [Link] 15
 RoHS Resistor Regulations

RoHS Today
The EU is expected to take the industry recommendations
and extend this exemption for lead containing glass for three
more years from the original expiration date in 2021. In the
past, lead has been an essential element in the dielectric glass
used on nearly all thick-film chip resistors, which comprise the
bulk of the resistors used globally in all markets.
Lead in the dielectric glass is critical to stabilize the laser
calibration trim. It’s worth noting that the lead in this glass
isn’t free lead; it’s chemically bound to the thick-film dielectric
Product Safety Test Equipment material itself. Therefore, the potential for lead contamination
due to the lead content in this material is highly questionable.
ED&D, a world leader in Product Safety Test Equipment However, the worldwide electronics industry has committed
to removing lead from all components and materials used in
manufacturing, offers a full line of equipment for meeting various
manufacturing regardless of the true potential risk in each indi-
UL, IEC, CSA, CE, ASTM, MIL, and other standards. Product line vidual usage case.
covers categories such as hipot, leakage current, ground, force,
Lead-Free Thick-Film Chip Resistor Evolution
impact, burn, temperature, access, ingress (IP code), cord flex,
Some manufacturers have had fully RoHS-compliant chip
voltage, power, plastics, and others. resistors for many years. Some early designs simply removed the
lead-containing dielectric layer completely. Still, these designs
were never successful as they had substantial instability with
ED&D respect to voltage, parasitic capacitance and inductance, and
1-800-806-6236 • [Link] pulse performance.
Later designs utilized more expensive dielectrics or may
have required multiple dielectric layers to be applied prior to
calibration trim. Cost for these early fully compliant series was
typically 5X to 10X the cost of the equivalent general-purpose
chip resistor.

Resistor Options for Completely Lead-Free Design

Requirements
Most reputable manufacturers of thick-film chip resistors
have completely lead-free options for general-purpose thick-
film chip resistors. The current demand for this type of part
is very small, though, which leads to several issues that must
be addressed before a complete market changeover to totally
lead-free thick-film chips.
First, the performance of these lead-free options is simply
not as uniform across all manufacturers as is the case currently
with thick-film chips that have the 7C-1 exemption. Design
engineers and end users can be fairly confident that if they’re
using a reputable manufacturer of these resistors, the perfor-
mance will be consistent and predictable.
For fully lead-free chip resistors, performance differences
still exist between materials from different thick-film suppli-
ers, let alone differing methods on implementation of these
new materials. As volumes increase, the performance differ-
ences will be less noticeable as material suppliers and resistor
manufacturers make the expected continuous improvements
to materials, designs, and processes.
Another major obstacle for fully lead-free thick-film chip

16 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 ELECTRONIC DESIGN

resistors is cost. With low volume, the Summary requirements, very few options are avail-
new lead-free dielectric materials will be Fully lead-free requirements for thick- able from any manufacturer, and finding
far more costly until economies of scale film chip resistors will inevitably increase stock will be next to impossible. Some of
can be reached for current dielectrics. It in the next few years. For electronics these specialty applications may utilize
will take a leap of faith by the electron- manufacturers looking to make the switch other technologies, such as thin-film/met-
ics industry to make the move to these currently, there are options for general- al-film, metal element, and wirewound,
higher-cost components in the short term, purpose types. However, finding stock on as a bridge until fully RoHS-compliant
with the expectation that the cost of these any of them will be difficult. thick-film options are developed and
series will eventually come down. Furthermore, for specialty thick-film stock becomes available.
This short-term cost impact will be
felt in every market. However, it will
obviously be magnified in markets such
as cell phones, laptops, and other con-
sumer handheld electronics, as well as
the automotive industry, as these mar-
kets consume a massive amount of chip
resistors.
For other specialty thick-film resis-
tors, the completely lead-free options
are much more limited. Many manufac-
turers don’t have thick-film, fully RoHS-
compliant options currently available for
anti-surge/pulse withstanding, anti-sulfur,
high-voltage, current-sensing, precision,
or high-frequency requirements.
Although general-purpose thick-film
resistors are the bulk of the global thick-
film chip-resistor market need, many
designs will utilize one or more of these
specialty resistors. It’s critical to have fully
lead-free versions of these specialty thick-
film resistors before the market moves
away from options that require the 7C-1
exemption.
It should be noted that for certain appli-
cations, there are non-thick-film resistor
options available to the design engineer.
General-purpose thin-film chip resis-
tors, with tolerance and TCR similar to
thick-film chip resistors, are an option
at minimal increased cost. Precision
requirements may use thin-film nichrome
or tantalum-nitride chip resistors. Thin-
film resistors don’t require a dielectric
to stabilize the calibration trim area and
therefore are, and have been, fully RoHS-
compliant for some time.
For current-sensing applications, foil
on ceramic carrier, thin-film/metal-film,
and all metal sense resistors offer electri-
cally superior performance options, but
at increased component cost.

GO TO [Link] 17
Industry Trends
JAMES MORRA | Senior Editor Credit: Ayar Labs

Is It Finally Time for

Silicon
Photonics A new silicon-photonics
process developed by

to Shine?
GlobalFoundries has the
backing of Ayar Labs,
Broadcom, Cisco, Marvell,
and NVIDIA.

G
lobalFoundries believes The executive leading this effort is photonics,” said Yu. “But it has been in
there is a bright future Anthony Yu, vice president in its Wired the lab for a long time, and people have
for chips that harvest the and Computing business unit. While it doubted it.”
potential of photons, the could take years for silicon photonics to
building blocks of light, instead of elec- make a serious dent in the data center, he A Long Time Coming
trons to propel data faster at a fraction of said, GF is hoping to get a foot in the door Tech giants have used the power of pho-
the power and cost. with companies betting on the technology tons to send data between geographically
To get there, the U.S.-based foundry to power up artificial intelligence and even distant data centers over fiber optics and
giant is banking on its second-generation quantum computers. even undersea cables for decades. But they
silicon-photonics platform, called GF GlobalFoundries is hoping to hit it are also increasingly using light to move
Fotonix. It has landed design wins with big with GF Fotonix following its IPO data within colossal data centers, haul-
leaders in server networking chips such as last year. It’s pointing to early wins with ing it between tens of thousands of server
Broadcom, Cisco, Marvell, and NVIDIA, companies that plan to use the platform racks. To do so, they are utilizing optical
as well as startups Ayar Labs, Lightmatter, as a sign that silicon photonics is ready networking modules that can be plugged
PsiQuantum, and Ranovus to make chips for mass deployment. directly into switches to convert light into
that move data at the speed of light. Yu said GF Fotonix will open the door electricity and vice versa.
The contract chipmaker is doubling to the next generation of silicon photonics Shorter distances between servers and
down on silicon photonics after falling called co-packaged optics, which prom- various chips inside them are still spanned
behind more generally in the chip sector ise power and cost savings when used in with electrical interconnects that move
when it stepped out of the race with Intel, switch chips that call the shots in data data via copper wires. “The data center
Samsung, and TSMC to make the most centers. Even chip-to-chip interconnects is the foothold for silicon photonics right
advanced processors. will have to use silicon photonics to limit now,” said Yu.
GlobalFoundries has pivoted, with the share of the processor’s power budget Today, moving data at the speed of light
a new focus on feature-rich chips for wasted on I/O. Yu noted some customers means using specialty materials. These
everything from smartphones to cars that want to use GF Fotonix to create chiplets include indium phosphide (InP), the gold
are based on mature technology nodes. that fit the bill. standard in lasers and other technolo-
Business is booming. But it believes sili- “We wanted to announce that silicon gies that can propel photons over opti-
con photonics is its ticket back to the photonics has arrived, and that may sound cal fibers, and silicon germanium (SiGe),
leading edge. strange given all the virtues of silicon which is widely used in the high-speed

18 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 ELECTRONIC DESIGN

mixed-signal electronics that keep the up across the globe. While the industry pluggable optics, which is expected to
light under control. standard for bandwidth was 40 GB/s at surge to $4 billion in 2026.
But bringing all of these building blocks the time, technology giants today are gear-
into inexpensive slabs of silicon that can ing up for data rates of 400 GB/s and 800 Lighting it Up
be mass-produced is a monumental GB/s. In an industry keen to crown winners
challenge that presents a unique set of “Everyone could see that bandwidth and losers based on process technology,
problems compared to cramming more was about to explode, particularly as data GlobalFoundries said GF Fotonix will
transistors on a CPU, according to Yu. centers became more hyperscale,” said Yu. help its customers solve some of the big-
Thousands of different components “We thought the current technology to gest challenges facing the data center in
must be integrated in a silicon-photonics supply that—indium phosphide—would a whole new way.
IC, including the modulator that trans- not be able to scale up.” “I would assert that silicon photonics is
lates data into photons, the waveguide Data movement is also power-hungry. probably as leading edge—or maybe even
that shines light around the IC, and the As data centers move to higher band- more so—than single-digit process nodes.
detector that converts photons to elec- widths, they are expending more power The ability to control light, manage the
trons to be processed. Packaging is also to move data through copper cables, light budget on the chip, and even oper-
important for moving data into and out and as a result, modern data centers run ate at the frequencies of photons requires
of the package, as lasers and fiber optics exceptionally hot. Yu said silicon photon- solving challenges that are totally separate
have to be attached separately, said Yu. ics promises to solve this problem, as it from what companies at single nodes are
GlobalFoundries rolled out its first- burns through only a third of the power contending with,” said Yu. “Leading edge
generation silicon-photonics platform in in terms of picojoules per bit. is not only defined by process nodes in
2016, tapping into the trove of silicon- “We were able to take silicon and get it the single digits.”
photonics technology acquired in its to behave like indium phosphide through “We’re using materials and processing
takeover of IBM’s semiconductor manu- use of differentiated features and unique techniques that no other process out there
facturing arm. materials, so that we could apply scale uses,” he said, adding CEO Tom Caulfield
Yu said the company had the foresight to this problem of supplying enough has been willing to invest “very signifi-
to create a separate silicon-photonics busi- bandwidth.” cant” amounts on R&D related to silicon
ness the same year, in a bet that the world GlobalFoundries said GF Fotonix photonics.
would have to use the power of light to delivers cost-, space-, and power savings GlobalFoundries is not alone in
move enormous amounts of data within that will help shore up its position as a mounting a major offensive. Intel has
and between the data centers popping manufacturing leader in the market for been investing for years to advance the

GlobalFoundries said chips based on GF Fotonix will be

made at Fab 8, its most advanced manufacturing site that's
located in upstate New York. Credit: GlobalFoundries

GO TO [Link] 19
Silicon Photonics

state-of-the-art in silicon photonics to “The principal feature we have that ously manufactured onto separate chips
solve bottlenecks in system bandwidth, no one else can touch is that we are a that then had to be bundled together in
power, and heat dissipation. completely monolithic process, mean- a package, noted Yu.
The company said GF Fotonix stands ing that we can basically put together a Moving to a monolithic architecture has
out as a monolithic platform that unites photonics system-on-a-chip (SoC),” Yu many pros. The company said GF Fotonix
all of the technology’s building blocks for told Electronic Design. can deliver data rates of up to half a terabit
the first time, including 300-mm photon- All major components, including the per second (Tb/s) over a single fiber, the
ics features and 300-GHz RF-CMOS on passive and active photonics, radio fre- fastest data rate of any foundry offering.
a silicon wafer. quency (RF), and CMOS, were previ- That will allow for optical chiplets run-
ning at 1.6 to 3.2 Tb/s, offering faster data
transmission plus better power efficiency
and signal integrity. The platform also
supports 2.5D packaging technology to
glue chiplets together.
Yu said GF Fotonix is based on 45-nm
CMOS technology, a step up from 90
nm in its first-generation node released
in 2016. Customers can get access to its
Process Design Kit (PDK) to start design-
ing chips for GF Fotonix.
GlobalFoundries also pointed out the
high level of integration in GF Fotonix,
which opens the door for customers to
pack more functions into the same silicon-
photonics IC and reduce bill-of-materials
(BOM) costs.

Flipping the Switch

According to GlobalFoundries, it col-
laborated with a long list of “customer-
partners” that plan to use GF Fotonix to
make sure the platform meets their needs
while addressing challenges in packaging,
assembly, and test.
Yu said it worked closely with them
to build out the platform through “the
prism of high-volume manufacturability”
to make sure it will scale to mass produc-
tion. “We have a long list of partners that
are allowing us to drive this forward, and
so we portend a surge of silicon-photon-
ics-based ICs.”
GlobalFoundries said it has partnered
with Cisco on a custom silicon-photonics
solution for networking gear and inter-
connects in data centers. The companies
are also co-developing an “interdependent
PDK” for GF Fotonix.
“Our heavy investment and leadership
in silicon photonics, combined with GF’s
feature-rich manufacturing technology,
allows us to deliver best-in-class prod-

20 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 ELECTRONIC DESIGN

 ways to increase bandwidth and reduce
power using different design and packag-
ing technologies,” said Yu. But they have
basically reached a wall.”
Other executives have cautioned that
co-packaged optics is unlikely to be com-
petitive in the foreseeable future as the
semiconductor industry enters the era of
112-Gb/s SerDes and starts looking ahead
to 224-Gb/s SerDes.
There are no guarantees that the world
can continue to push the envelope in elec-
trical I/O. As a result, Yu said customers
AI chip startup Lightmatter has also signed up to use the new GF Photonix platform. are hedging their bets, with plans to roll
Credit: Lightmatter out prototypes of switches and proces-
sors with in-package optics by the end
ucts,” said Bill Gartner, senior vice pres- Reducing the distance between the of the year.
ident of Optical Systems and Optics at optics and the switch confers several key GF Fotonix supports a wide range of
Cisco, in a statement. advantages, including reducing power chip-packaging technologies, too. Global-
GlobalFoundries is also trying to help dissipation. Heat is also limited, open- Foundries said that it can chisel “cavities”
companies take another step on the road ing the door for higher port density and, into the silicon die, giving customers an
to co-packaged optics, giving them the as a result, bandwidth. open slot to bond lasers directly to the
ability to shift optics out of the pluggable “The innovation of semiconductor die, resulting in cost, power, and space
module and into the same package as the engineers has been able to keep co-pack- savings. The company also is able to carve
switch ASIC. aged optics at bay because they have found (Continued on page 39)

GO TO [Link] 21
Q&A
WILLIAM G. WONG | Senior Content Director

Circuit Editing Evolves to

Meet Semiconductor Needs
I
n this Q&A, Editor Bill Wong talks of integrated-circuit (IC) defects. A pre-
Editor Bill Wong talks with Thermo Fisher’s David Akerson, cisely tuned and placed ion beam with
with Thermo Fisher’s Senior Global Market Development nanoscale resolution, in conjunction
Manager, about circuit edit and the with process gases, selectively uncov-
David Akerson about strategic role it plays in advancing semi- ers internal circuitry, allowing a skilled
circuit edit and the conductor product development and focused-ion-beam (FIB) operator to
strategic role it plays in manufacturing. make functional changes to the device
or the copper wiring pattern. The FIB
advancing semiconductor What is circuit editing? operator then reseals the chip surface to
product development and Circuit editing is a well-established produce a functional device with revised
manufacturing. technique that enables the direct repair circuit logic functions.

22 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 ELECTRONIC DESIGN

 FinFETs was more susceptible to transis-
tor performance alterations.
For circuit editing, this necessitated the
need for circuit-edit solutions with bet-
ter aspect ratios for smaller cuts, higher
resolutions, improved CAD navigation
capabilities, and lower landing energies
to keep the beam from penetrating and
damaging sensitive circuits.
With new architectures, semiconduc-
tors are becoming more three-dimen-
sional with higher aspect ratios, and
more complex with smaller, more frag-
ile features. The combination creates
two new challenges—the need to to go
deeper into the device and to carefully
navigate around more delicate circuits.
This dictates the need to “operate” in a
more sensitive environment with a higher
Removing layers of material to access the region of interest. degree of surgical precision.

Why is FIB circuit editing important Internally, the ability to rapidly pro- How are advances in circuit-editing
for semiconductor device development? totype and deliver functional devices technology helping semiconductor
For IC developers, FIB circuit editing supports the efforts of the software and manufacturers overcome some of the
enables debugging and validating fixes, firmware development; testing, validation, current challenges associated with FIB
exploring design optimization changes, and qualification; manufacturing process; circuit editing?
duplicating and scaling pre-production and sales teams. This allows them to move As semiconductors advance, circuit-
parts, and prototyping new devices projects forward and avoid schedule delays. edit solutions are advancing as well to
without committing to the expense and Externally, functional prototypes can meet the market’s needs. For example,
lengthy delay of a mask spin. For many, support ecosystem enablement for key as semiconductor manufacturers move
circuit editing provides real tangible ben- technologies and end-customer’s design- to gate-all-around (GAA) FET architec-
efits that are quantified in cost savings, in and platform validation efforts. This tures and 3D semiconductor packaging,
productivity, and time-to-market. helps fellow travelers hit their milestones new challenges have been encountered
In terms of cost savings, the ability to and intercept market opportunities. that require advances in circuit-edit tools.
rapidly prototype provides the ability to To expand on this, GAAs feature a more
eliminate unnecessary wafer costs and Logic architectures have evolved and complicated architecture that separates
schedule delays. With a full set of masks increasingly become more complex. the transistor blocks, the interconnects,
costing millions of dollars, the financial What are some common design and and power distribution. The GAA also
savings provided by circuit editing can manufacturing challenges? includes wiring layers above the transis-
be substantial. Each generation of architecture and tors, power rails below, and higher tran-
fabrication process node advancement sistor densities.
There’s lots of pressure on the semicon- brings new challenges for semiconductor With transistor layers, interconnects,
ductor industry right now. How does designers and circuit edit, as design and and power distribution stacked on top of
FIB circuit editing accelerate the time- integration complexity increases. each other, a 3D high-aspect ratio struc-
to-market for a chip? For example, the introduction of Fin- ture is created, making it more challeng-
From a time-to-market perspective, FETs in 2011 on 22-nm processor nodes ing to access the active area at depth for
the ability to quickly prototype enables with new architectural structures, multi- circuit editing. With the higher number
internal and external development teams, patterning, and unique thermal and reli- of transistors in a given area, this makes
or partners, to continue product and plat- ability behaviors brought a fundamental it easier to damage them.
form development without waiting six to change to circuit editing. Where point- As a result, GAA circuit editing requires
eight weeks for wafer-processing time to to-point wiring changes were scalable on a higher degree of precision and higher
get new samples. planar FETs, the thinner, dielectric layer in level of control over the rate of the process.

GO TO [Link] 23
Circuit Editing

Thus, there’s a need for circuit-edit tools remove very small amounts of material instruments, these are areas we will con-
with lower landing energies and beam in a controlled manner. tinue to focus on to meet the semiconduc-
currents than what existed up until today. These characteristics make a circuit- tor market’s needs.
Where many of today’s circuit-edit edit solution attractive for other applica-

F
solutions operate at 1.2 pA, state-of- tions, such as deposition of semiconduc-
the-art circuit-edit solutions, such as the tors containing beam-sensitive transistors
or circuit-edit
new Thermo Scientific Centrios HX, can or materials, or for preparation of a device practitioners,
operate at 0.33 pA. This lower landing for failure analysis investigation. it’s a very exciting
energy and lower beam current reduces
damage to sensitive circuits and allows What do you predict is next for the
time and we expect the
the operator to remove very thin layers industry regarding circuit editing? circuit-edit function
with surgical precision. Going forward, many of the challenges will continue to grow in
encountered by IC designers will be simi-
Aside from semiconductor device devel- lar in nature to those that occurred with
strategic value.
opment, are there any other important previous inflection points. For instance,
applications where FIB circuit editing when semiconductors moved from planar For circuit-edit practitioners, it’s a
can be used? to FinFETs, this created a need for circuit- very exciting time and we expect the
When people hear the term “FIB circuit edit tool improvements. circuit-edit function will continue to
edit,” they tend to focus on the circuit-edit From a circuit-edit instrument perspec- grow in strategic value. As devices and
capabilities and don’t consider the FIB’s tive, as semiconductors evolve again, the manufacturing processes become more
capabilities to go beyond. For example, device complexity places a greater pre- complex with more steps, the probabil-
with an advanced circuit-edit solution, mium on accurate ion-beam positioning, ity of functional defects becomes higher.
the user has the sharpest scalpel in their and the ability to make precise, delicate This makes circuit edit and the ability to
toolbox with the ability to simultane- cuts to access and service regions of inter- deliver a functional device very valuable
ously capture high-resolution images and est. As a leader in providing circuit-edit to an organization.

CHECK OUT THESE RESOURCES FROM LIBRARY

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Visit: [Link]
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© 2019
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All rights

FOCUS ON:
BOB PEASE
ON ANALOG VOL. 1
A compendium of technical articles
from legendary Electronic Design
engineer Bob Pease

Copyright © 2020 by Endeavor Business Media Inc. All rights reserved.

LIBRARY
A compendium of articles from Electronic Design

FOCUS ON

PATH TO SYSTEMS

Copyright © 2020 by Endeavor Media.

All rights reserved.

24 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 ELECTRONIC DESIGN

Engineering Essentials
LEE BOURNS | Director of Marketing, Circuit Protection Division at Bourns

Drea
mstim
e_Kin
ek00
_
2205
8973
6
Essentials for Effective Protection
Against Overvoltage Events
While there’s no one-size-fits-all circuit protection solution, robust overvoltage
protection is a necessity in virtually any application that connects to a power line.
This article explores how to pinpoint the right solution based on app requirements.

P
otentially damaging electri- threaten harm to users through electrical Specifying circuit protection compo-
cal overvoltage threats are an shock or cause a fire. nents is a bit like buying insurance. You
everyday occurrence in today’s To address this wide range of threats, need adequate coverage to prevent dam-
electrical and electronic world. an equally wide range of circuit protec- age, but no one wants to overpay for insur-
Their intensity ranges from very light tion technologies is available. Currently ance they will likely never need.
electrostatic-discharge (ESD) events to available components span from small, Because of the broad selection of cir-
very intense lightning-strike-induced fast PCB-mounted components to large, cuit protection technologies and com-
surges on data lines and power lines. rugged wall-mounted devices. Some of ponents available, it’s helpful first to
These events have the potential to lock up these devices are binary in nature—they categorize the action that an overvoltage
microprocessors, damage sensors, cripple switch on or off. Others are more pro- protection component takes to mitigate
computer communications ports, cause portional or linear in their response to damage. Overvoltage protection devices
severe damage to equipment, and even events. are placed across the line being protected.

26 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 ELECTRONIC DESIGN

Overvoltage Protection

The response to an overvoltage event can

be classified into one of the “3Ds”:
1. Divert excess energy to ground: 2. Shown is a typical voltage
Often referred to as “voltage clamp voltage-current curve.
switches,” these devices switch
their impedance to a very low
level once their terminal voltage
reaches a threshold value chosen
by the designer, sending the excess
current to ground.
2. Dissipate excess energy: Regularly
known as “voltage clamps,” these
devices lower their impedance
across the protected line to attempt
to limit or regulate the voltage to a
level chosen by the designer.
3. Disconnect the load from the line:
This unique technology attempts
to open like a fuse and limit or
block current flow when the line very little leakage current. In the “on” ed—or at least fall below the specified
voltage exceeds a value chosen by state, they have large currents, but low “holding current.”
the designer. terminal voltages. This way they dissipate Due to these limitations caused by this
very little power, which means they can “latching on” action, voltage switches are
Voltage Switches be much smaller devices than similarly usually found only on data lines or lines
Voltage switches have very high resis- rated voltage clamps. with limited power capability, such as
tance when the voltage across them is However, not all circuits can tolerate those used in telecom or HVAC signaling.
below their threshold voltage (Fig. 1). being shorted out by a voltage switch. If Gas discharge tubes (GDTs) are voltage
Once their voltage threshold is exceed- installed on an ac power line, the volt- switches made from ceramic and metal
ed, they transition to very low resistance, age switch could cause a fuse to blow or materials. These are formed as an enclosed
diverting the fault current to ground. breaker to trip every time it was trig- gap between two metal electrodes in a
Voltage switches are binary devices— gered. Also, to reset the voltage switch controlled atmosphere. Such ceramic
they’re either “on” or “off.” In the “off ” to the high resistance state, the current devices are very rugged and relatively
state, they have voltage across them, but through the device must be interrupt- inexpensive. They have very low capaci-
tance, making them ideal for high-speed
data lines—especially those exposed to
1. This diagram illustrates a typical areas where lightning-induced surges can
voltage-current curve of a voltage be very strong.
switch. Photo credits: Bourns Thyristor protection devices are unidi-
rectional or bidirectional 4-layer (PNPN)
silicon structures. They switch faster than
GDT devices but exhibit higher capaci-
tance and lower surge ratings. Thyristors
are often used to protect data ports, sensi-
tive sensors, and other delicate interfaces.
For ESD protection, many suppliers
offer voltage-switching silicon punch-
through diodes and air-gap devices.

Voltage Clamps
Voltage clamps also exhibit very
high resistance at voltages below their
“threshold” voltage (Fig. 2). Once the

28 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 ELECTRONIC DESIGN

 T
voltage across the clamp rises above this
threshold, the current begins to increase he GDT in a hybrid protection device
rapidly—as their resistance decreases.
Metal-oxide varistors (MOVs) are bidi-
effectively removes the MOV from the
rectional voltage clamps fabricated from line voltage. When a surge event occurs, the GDT
sintered ceramics based on zinc oxide.
They come in two basic structures: leaded
reconnects the MOV to the line in less than a
and surface-mount devices. microsecond. Once the surge event is over, the GDT
Leaded devices are typically formed disconnects the MOV from the line.
into discs with leads attached to each
metallized side and covered in an epoxy
powder coat. Surface-mount devices, age current over a long period of time. the MOV is connected to the ac line only
made in thin layers of ceramic “tape,” With increasing leakage current, the when it’s needed.
are commonly referred to as multi-layer MOV begins to dissipate continuous Another type of hybrid protection
varistor (MLV) devices. MLV devices are power, which warms the device and fur- device is constructed by forming the
typically used in low-voltage signal appli- ther increases the leakage current. This MOV from two specially shaped thin
cations, while leaded MOVs are often used can lead to a thermal runaway condition, discs, whereby the GDT function is per-
in ac power protection. resulting in MOV failure. formed by a gap between the two discs.
Moreover, suppliers are developing new The GDT in a hybrid protection device This type of hybrid device is able to bet-
hybrid protection devices that combine effectively removes the MOV from the ter manage the surge current, handling
an MOV and GDT. line voltage. When a surge event occurs, twice the surge current as an MOV of
MOV devices are known to have inher- the GDT reconnects the MOV to the the same diameter. Because it’s not con-
ent weaknesses. Constant exposure to ac line in less than a microsecond. Once structed with an external GDT, it features
line voltages and seemingly insignificant the surge event is over, the GDT discon- the same thickness as the MOV, providing
line noise can increase the MOV’s leak- nects the MOV from the line. This means a significant space-saving advantage.
 Overvoltage Protection

Both hybrid protection solutions also drastically lower the

capacitance when compared to an MOV alone. Thus, they’re
ideal for use on lines where high-speed data is present.
Silicon-based voltage clamps can be either unidirectional
or bidirectional. They’re available in multiple sizes to handle
surges from tiny ESD pulses to near-direct lightning strikes
of 10 kA or more. Such clamps include transient voltage sup-
pressors (TVS), power TVS (PTVS), silicon avalanche diodes
(SAD), and Zener diodes.
The breakdown voltages of silicon devices can be more pre-
cisely controlled than with ceramic devices. Their breakdown
voltage also is more stable over time, making them a premium
choice for very sensitive applications.
In their active state, voltage clamps conduct current while
maintaining a high voltage across the line. This leads to very
high levels of power dissipation. To handle these high-power
levels, voltage clamps tend to be larger per their increased surge
and voltage ratings.

3. By integrating MOV and GDT technologies into a single space-

saving device, hybrid overvoltage surge protectors such as Bourns’
GMOV and IsoMOV are able to boost performance, reliability, and
lifetime operation compared to a traditional MOV.

4. Shown is the circuit arrangement between the TVS diode and the
Bourns TBU HSP device.

30 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 ELECTRONIC DESIGN

Overvoltage protection component solutions.

In this arrangement, the TVS device begins to conduct when

In their active state, voltage clamps the threshold voltage is exceeded. That causes current to flow
conduct current while maintaining a in the TVS device, which in turn trips the device. This action
disconnects the protected circuit from the overvoltage source.
high voltage across the line. Because the ECL limits the current through the TVS device, the
maximum voltage let through to the protected circuit is fixed
Electronic Current Limiters no matter the size of the incoming surge event.
Combining two technologies, electronic current limiters (ECL)
are a form of blocking device that uses a small TVS diode to Continued Design Protection
sense the overvoltage event and trip an ECL such as a Bourns Keeping our electrified world working in the face of over-
Transient Blocking Unit (TBU) High-Speed Protector (HSP) voltage threats from lightning, induced surges, utility power
(Figs. 3 and 4). voltage-regulation problems, or even just ESD is the mission
ECL devices are FET-based two-terminal integrated circuits for overvoltage protection devices (see table above).
that sense their current and react in about a microsecond to There’s a lot to be considered when designing effective pro-
currents that exceed their rated trip current. Once tripped, the tection circuitry. Nonetheless, careful selection and appropriate
internal FET devices are held in the off state using a small quies- testing helps to mitigate the risk of overvoltage threats, thereby
cent current (~1 mA) until the fault is removed. Once the fault increasing the reliability and uptime in today’s modern electronic
is cleared, the ECL will return to its normal low-resistance state. equipment designs.

GO TO [Link] 31
Design Solution
JOHN STEVENS | Director of Business Development, Navitas Semiconductor

Dreamstime | Krwphotographic
112757917

Current Sensing:
Past, Present, and Future
While measuring voltage is often a simple task, measuring current is usually not so
straightforward. This article demonstrates a new, highly integrated, “lossless,” and
localized approach to current sensing that deals with many of the challenges.

F
or any electrical control system, protection (like short-circuit overcurrent ing the relationship of voltage = current
input signals of both voltage and protection), and data-logging purposes. × resistance, (V = I × R), and assuming a
current are critical for the sys- stable, or linear, resistance.
tem to operate according to the Shunt Resistors This popular method is simple and
intended design and in a safe manner. One of the simplest methods for mea- accurate. It can be used for dc or ac current
In power supplies and motor drives, for suring current is to add a shunt series measurements and is flexible for a variety
example, current is measured for control resistor into the current path of interest, of applications. While not intrinsically iso-
(like peak-current mode or average-cur- and then measure the voltage across it as lated, some vendors offer isolated ampli-
rent-mode control in power converters), a representation of that current—know- fiers or isolated ADCs for this approach.

32 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 ELECTRONIC DESIGN

Vendors like Allegro, Broadcom, onsemi,
Skyworks, Texas Instruments, and many
others offer solutions in this area.
However, this current-sense method
does introduce an additional power-
loss element, especially at high current,
which can be a severe limiting factor in
high-power, high-efficiency systems. It
also adds parasitic source inductance in
the power path and gate loop of low-side
switches, where it’s most unwanted, caus-
ing delayed turn-off and voltage spikes.
These resistors aren’t standard off-the- 1. Shown is current transformer operation and various transformer examples. Photo credits:
shelf components either. To carry the full Navitas Semiconductor
rated load current, and meet typical accu-
racy of 1% resistance over temperature,
very low on-resistance (RDS(ON)) FETs
and highly optimized shunt resistors
must be used. To avoid heavy losses, a
variety of low- RDS(ON) FETs with large
thermal package options are available
from current-sense resistor providers
such as Bourns, Ohmite, Susumu, Vishay,
and others.
Pushing for low power loss and low
voltage drop across these resistors then
requires excellent op amps to gain and
condition the signal properly for use.
Further, to meet efficiency and ther-
mal requirements with this added series
resistance, designers also must use lower
RDS(ON) and more expensive components
to reduce the other power loss in the pow- 2. These are the components of a Hall-effect current sensor.
er path to compensate (for example, using
even lower RDS(ON) power MOSFETs). high-side (floating reference) or low-side added to the system (like shunt resistors or
What started out as a simple measure- (ground-referenced) configuration. CT primary windings), and instead rely
ment now requires multiple additional The downsides, though, are that dc on measuring field effects of the system.
components that need to be carefully current can’t be measured; duty-cycle Considered “non-contact,” “lossless”
selected, designed, and powered properly, limitations may prevent transformer satu- sensors, methods like Hall-effect cur-
while also consuming PCB space and cost. ration; and these CTs are usually large rent sensors (Fig. 2) operate under the
components—most typically toroids like principle that for a given conductor (like
Current Transformers those in Figure 1, which may limit their a copper trace on a PCB) with current
Another common method of current adoption in high-density systems. LEM, flowing through it, a proportional mag-
measurement that simplifies the system Renco, Wurth, and many other magnetics netic field is created around the current-
when isolation is needed, or with high- vendors offer dedicated products focused carrying conductor. By measuring such a
power, high-efficiency systems, is using on this approach. magnetic field, information on the value
a current transformer (CT). Gain can of the current that produced it can be
be accomplished with the transformer Hall-Effect Sensors obtained. The sensing element often has
turns ratio, isolation is built in, and For applications at still higher power, or the PCB copper flow through the sensing-
bidirectional current can be measured. when dc current information is required, element package, and some others place
In addition, no bias supply is required for designers often look at sensing methods the sensor above the copper trace and
the CT, regardless of whether it’s used in that minimize the lossy pass elements being sense through proximity only.

GO TO [Link] 33
Current Sensing

Hundreds and thousands of

amps can be measured with
low loss because resistance and
inductance aren’t being added to
the system. However, the method
becomes inaccurate at low current,
can be made inaccurate by external
fields or mechanical orientation,
and often requires a zero-current
offset and a concentrator to mag-
nify the signal for a narrow range
of current of interest. Furthermore,
a dedicated bias power supply is
required for such a measurement
IC. Allegro, Koshin, Melexis, and 3. This is a simplified block diagram of GaNSense technology with lossless current
many other vendors offer products sensing and cycle-by-cycle overcurrent protection as seen in NV6134.
focused on this approach.

Anisotropic Magnetoresistive been able to achieve power densities and power elements of interest. Localized
(AMR) Sensing even 3X higher than best-in-class previ- control and response time allows this
The AMR IC is capable of sensing both ous solutions. But the efforts to extract all method to be fast and effective, while also
ac and dc signals and offering a high- of the capability out of GaN continued, minimizing corruption of the control sig-
bandwidth solution up to 1.5 MHz, with and in late 2021, GaNSense technology nals from system noise, long traces, etc.,
an isolated output. It operates by having offering further integration and expanded compared to other methods. Therefore, it
the current flow into the device through features was released. becomes possible to use this method not
a low-resistance “U-bend” in the lead- In its simplest form, GaNSense is loss- only for overcurrent failsafe and short-
frame, where it generates either a forward less current-sensing in-circuit, removing circuit protection, but also cycle-by-cycle
or reverse magnetic field that’s sensed by the shunt current-sense resistor and its current limit and current-mode control
two differential current sensors. associated headaches (Fig. 3). It improves and regulation.
This approach is attractive in that it’s the overall efficiency of the system with Such a self-governing power block
fairly compact, resistant to external fields lower total series resistance, while also may indeed represent the future of
and noise, and has low offset error while increasing robustness with fast, internal, power-stage sensing and protection,
also responding very quickly (<300 ns). 30- to 100-ns short-circuit protection. enabling higher reliability, pushing
Thus, it can be used in high-frequency This approach is “localized” in that it’s the limits of performance, and freeing
control applications such as power sensed and acted on locally to the current the main system controller to focus on
supplies and motor drives using wide-
bandgap semiconductors such as gallium
nitride (GaN) and silicon carbide (SiC). 4. Shown is a simplified diagram of a
current-sense (CS) current-mirror block
The Future: Introducing in GaNSense technology.
“GaNSense” Technology
With the continued push for higher
efficiency, GaN-based power converters
have become more popular in the market.
In addition, with high levels of integra-
tion used in monolithic GaN power ICs,
power converters could be pushed to
higher frequency with a minimal num-
ber of external components, allowing for
much smaller systems.
Groundbreaking products such as the
latest fast mobile-phone chargers have

34 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 ELECTRONIC DESIGN

more complicated control algorithms and well. By using well-matched devices and much higher RDS(ON) than the main power
responsibilities. This “lossless” current a high on-resistance sense-FET (maybe FET, the loss from this approach is negli-
sensing in the current-sense (CS) block >1000-1500X higher RDS(ON) than the gible, especially compared to alternatives
is implemented through a popular par- main power FET), a small portion of the like shunt current-sense resistors in the
allel current-mirror design technique, load current branches off to the sense main power path. The current limit is still
and further optimized to be used with FET and can be measured accurately adjustable and programmable, with the
high-speed GaN FETs. through a variety of techniques. RDS(ON) Current Sense (CS) pin and program-
As seen in Figure 4, within the CS and temperate affects are cancelled out ming resistor.
block, the main power FET device is naturally, too. All of these benefits translate to system
connected to the common drain and gate Because of the tight matching, the cur- improvements. For example, as seen in
connections. For simplicity’s sake, we will rent is based on the ratio of the resistances Figure 5, designers leveraged GaNSense
show the source connected commonly as of the devices only. As the sense FET has technology to achieve an ac/dc 120-W
mobile-phone charger that was 70%
smaller, 65% lighter, and almost 6% more
efficient than the previous production
solution.

Summary
In motor drives and power supplies, volt-
age and current will continue to be signals
that need to be monitored and measured
for accurate and reliable real-time control,
protection, and data logging. With a variety
of applications and requirements comes
multiple current-sensing approaches to
meet the design goals in the most cost-
effective and size-efficient manner.
A technology and approach has been
discussed here with the advent of near-
ideal, lossless “GaNSense” current sens-
ing fully integrated with the power device
that’s fast, accurate, and can serve the criti-
cal functions of both control and protec-
tion with effectively zero size and cost
impact. While not an exhaustive study,
5. Here, GaNSense technology is leveraged in a some of the most common methods used
real power supply. in industry today have been discussed and
are summarized in the table below.

GO TO [Link] 35
Then and Now
WILLIAM G. WONG | Senior Content Director
Dreamstime | Janybaby 878202

Then and Now:

Graphics Processing The history of graphics processors is an ongoing effort by
Here’s a graphical look back and forward Jon Peddie in our Graphics Chip Chronicles series (go to www.
at display processing technology, from [Link]). It’s up to Volume 7 and covers dozens
of chips. I’m snarfing a significant chunk of this article from
CRTs to ray tracing. this series that provides more in-depth coverage of each chip.

A
lot has happened over the past 70 years in the Rise of the CRTs
electronic and display space. Electronic Design We’ll skip past the individual status lights found on early com-
has been covering the technologies and continues puters to the cathode ray tubes (CRTs), which became ubiquitous
to present the latest that are significantly more with the rise of the television. CRTs were driven by custom control-
powerful than those of the past. In fact, graphics processing lers that usually processed signals based on analog standards like
has exceeded what conventional CPUs can do. those from the National Television System Committee (NTSC).
Displays and printed output have been a way to get informa- The CRT was versatile in that it supported vector and raster
tion that’s been fiddled with by a computer into a form that images (Fig. 1). Actually, the raster image is nothing more than
we poor humans can understand. Printers are still around and a fixed format vector image. The difference is that the encoding
hard copy remains a necessity, but video displays dominate the for a raster image maps to the regular movement of the electron
human machine interface (HMI) these days. It shows up in beam, while a vector display moves the beam based on positions
smartphones, HDTVs, and nav systems in cars. Underlying provided by the display controller. An analog oscilloscope is an
these systems are display processors and typically more robust example of a vector display designed to show analog signals
graphics processing units (GPUs). versus a time frame.

36 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 ELECTRONIC DESIGN

 Enter the Display Controllers
One of the first display controllers listed in the Graphics Chip
Chronicles is the NEC μPD7220 Graphics Display Controller.
According to Jon Peddie, “In 1982, NEC changed the landscape
of the emerging computer graphics market just as the PC was
being introduced, which would be the major change to the here-
tofore specialized and expensive computer graphics industry.”
The μPD7220 was a 5-V dc part that consumed 5 W and
was housed in a 40-pin ceramic package. It had support for a
lightpen and could handle arcs, lines, circles, and special char-
acters. The processor featured a sophisticated instruction set
along with graphics figure drawing support and DMA transfer
capabilities. It could drive up to 4 Mb of bit-mapped graphics
memory, which was a significant amount for the time.
A slew of chips followed with increasing functionality and
performance. One of the most dominant chips was the IBM
1. A cathode ray tube can display vector and raster images depend-
VGA used with the IBM PC, which brought the personal com-
ing on the drive electronics. Credit: Cebas, Dreamstime
puter (PC) to the forefront. Its big brother, the IBM XGA, was
Raster displays are simply a 2D matrix of pixels mapped to a a superset with more resolution and performance.
physical display. The value used to encode a pixel varies depend- A significant feature of the VGA was the use of color lookup
ing on the device and associated controller. A single bit works tables (cLUTs) along with a digital-to-analog converter (DAC)
for a single-level, monochrome display while the latest displays in a single chip. A ROM was used to store three character maps.
use as many as 48 bits to describe a single pixel (16 bits for red, The VGA supported up to 256 kB of video memory and had a
green, and blue). Multiple encoding schemes have RGB (red, 16-color and 256-color palette. Each color had an 18-bit color
green, blue), YUV, HIS (hue, saturation, intensity), and so on. resolution, 6 bits each for red, green, and blue. The VGA offered
CRTs were the basis for analog television and early digital a refresh rate up to 70 Hz. The 15-pin VGA interface also became
displays, and they’ve now been replaced by flat-panel LCD and a ubiquitous connector on PCs and laptops.
LED technology. CRTs also were used in computer display termi-
nals, often referred to as video display terminals (VDTs) (Fig. 2). 3D Displays
Three-dimensional displays have been around for a while,
from movie theaters using 3D glasses to HDTVs. These days
2. The original Apple virtual and augmented reality are likely homes for 3D content.
Macintosh is an There are 3D displays that don’t require glasses for viewing, but
example of a CRT-based they’ve yet to achieve much success at this point.
computer display system. 3Dfx was one of the first companies to deliver 3D support
Credit: Dreamstime- in graphics processors with its Voodoo Graphics chipset intro-
AlenaKravchenko duced in 1996. Originally delivered as an add-on card, 3Dfx
chips eventually found their way into display adapter cards for
graphics adapter companies like STB.
3D presentation on 2D displays is another matter that we’ll
touch on later.

GPUs Take Over

NVIDIA’s GeForce 256 was the first fully integrated GPU—it
was a single-chip processor that incorporated all of the lighting,
transformation, rendering, and triangle setup and clipping. It
delivered 10 Mpolygons/s. The 256-bit pipeline was built from
four 64-bit pixel pipelines.
At this juncture, gaming was a big factor in GPU design.
Other GPUs targeted CAD. These days, there are still GPUs
optimized for one of many applications. In general, though,
they’re all powerful enough to handle any chore, just not

GO TO [Link] 37
Graphics Processing

necessarily as fast or as efficient as a GPU optimized for a executed on the GPU. Data and kernels were copied to the
particular application. GPU’s memory and the resulting data was copied back to the
The industry has seen significant consolidation in the GPU CPU’s memory.
space with AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA now dominating the space. The next step was having the GPU move data around, finally
AMD and NVIDIA sell chips that third parties can incorporate unifying the CPU and GPU space, which put the GPU on the
into their products. Some wind up in embedded systems while same level as a CPU. A CPU is normally required within a
others target consumers. They all sell their own brands as well. system with one or more GPUs. However, in many instances,
the CPU simply handles the initial boot sequence and acts as
GPGPUs Add Computational Chores a traffic cop to manage the overall system. GPUs often deal
Initially, GPUs were an output-only device. They were pro- directly with peripherals and storage.
grammable to a degree and typically connected to a display such One reason for unifying the environment is the dominance
as a CRT, projector, or flat panel. Unfortunately, GPUs started of PCI Express (PCIe) and the standards built on top of it, such
out as closed/proprietary systems that were only accessible via as Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) storage and RDMA
drivers provided by the chip vendors. Nonetheless, engineers over Converted Ethernet (RoCE).
and programmers eyed the parallel programming potential that
often exceeded CPU performance. 2D, 3D, and Ray Tracing
Eventually general-purpose GPU (GPGPU) computing 3D displays are one thing, but these days 2D displays still
became available. Standards like OpenCL and NVIDIA’s propri- dominate this space. Mapping 3D environments to 2D displays
etary CUDA make these platforms suitable for general processing is one of the major chores performed by GPUs, driven greatly
chores. Programming was different from a CPU, but languages by 3D gaming.
like C were augmented to work with the new, exposed hardware. Initially, 3D to 2D mapping was done without taking ray
Part of the challenge was mapping programs to the hardware tracing into account because of the overhead required. Graphic
that started out supporting gaming and graphical displays. Map- artists handle textures and lighting explicitly to mimic how a
ping 3D environments onto a 2D presentation were part of the scene would be rendered in the real world.
driving factors for developing the single-instruction, multiple- Explicit transformations done by artists and designers provide
data (SIMD) and single-instruction, multiple-thread (SIMT) the fastest but least realistic way of turning a 3D gaming world
architectures. The surge of this type of programming is relatively into a 2D presentation. Ray casting is a methodology that’s fast
recent, starting about 2006. and provides more realistic rendering based on a 3D model,
Since then, the scope and chip architectures have changed while ray tracing matches a real-world scenario only limited by
radically, especially with the incorporation of machine-learning the resolution of the system. Check out Jon Peddie’s “What’s the
(ML) and artificial-intelligence (AI) acceleration. The GPG- Difference Between Ray Tracing, Ray Casting, and Ray Charles?”
PUs were ideal for handling AI/ML models compared to CPUs, article on [Link] if you get a chance.
although the GPGPUs are being bested by AI/ML accelerators Ray-tracing hardware, now available from a number of sourc-
optimized for specific tasks. Likewise, CPUs and GPGPUs now es, is found in very-high-end GPGPUs. This includes embedded
implement AI/ML acceleration and AI/ML-optimized opcodes GPGPUs like those intended for mobile devices (e.g., smart-
along with data handling, making them even better for these phones). These provide amazingly realistic and beautiful images.
kinds of applications. Imagination Technologies identified five levels of ray-tracing
Originally, GPGPUs were a compute island with their own support from software through low-level hardware support to full
memory and programming elements (Fig. 3). The original hardware ray-tracing support with a scene hierarchy generator.
split-memory approach was one reason why GPGPU parallel- What makes the ray-tracing support interesting these days
programming object code was delivered in “kernels” that were is that it’s being done in real-time. Ray-tracing support initially
used in movie computer generated imagery (CGI) special effects
often required days and a supercomputer of that time to render
part of a video clip. This is now being accomplished on a single
GPGPU card at 4K resolution in real-time and will eventually
be done on a mobile device.
Not all graphical display applications require this level of
performance or sophistication, but computer image and video
content continue to dazzle users. Expect the future to make
things even more interesting.
3. GPGPUs have moved from a split-memory architecture (left) to a To view more images associated with this article, go to the
unified memory architecture (right). Credit: NVIDIA online version at [Link].

38 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 ELECTRONIC DESIGN

Silicon Photonics
(Continued from page 21)

out “grooves” in the die to support pas- the form of a chiplet that can be pack-
sive attachment of fiber optics—up to 16 aged into everything from CPUs to GPUs
fibers in the case of co-packaged optics— to supply up to 1,000X more bandwidth
increasing bandwidth density. than electrical I/O—using one-tenth of
the power.
AI at Speed of Light CEO Charles Wuischpard said it part-
As the decline of Moore’s Law takes nered closely with GlobalFoundries to
a toll on the technology industry, other integrate its unique requirements into
companies are trying to push silicon pho- GF Fotonix. Ayar Labs was also the first
tonics even deeper into data centers. company to build a prototype on top of
Today, data dashes through optical fiber the platform.
in data centers before it slows to a crawl at GF Fotonix sets the stage for the com-
copper interconnects. These bottlenecks pany, which has also partnered with HPE
occur at copper pins and wires on circuit to design a future generation of its Sling- Xanadu, a startup relying on silicon photon-
boards. As a result, major semiconductor shot interconnect for high-performance ics for quantum computing, has also backed
firms and startups are setting their sights computing, to supply thousands of units GF Fotonix. Credit: Xanadu
on using silicon photonics to transfer data of its chiplet this year.
over shorter distances, such as between impossible today. But prospects for Q1
CPUs, GPUs, and other computer chips in If You Build It, They Will Come and other systems to change the world
a server or even on a circuit board (PCB). Yu said the collaboration with its cur- remains years out.
NVIDIA indicated that it’s designing rent roster of customers helped it to create To lend a helping hand to current and
high-bandwidth, low-latency, power- a silicon-photonics platform for everyone future customers, GlobalFoundries is
efficient optical interconnects based on else to use, even in areas such as telecom, building out a more vibrant ecosystem
GF Fotonix into some of its “leading-edge” aerospace, defense, and automotive. of software tools, support, and services
data-center systems to handle increasingly Lightmatter, a startup using silicon around the GF Fotonix platform. Ansys,
heavy AI workloads. photonics to accelerate AI workloads in Cadence Design Systems, and Synopsys
Yu said one advantage of GF Fotonix is data centers, as well as improve energy are offering suites of electronic design
that the monolithic architecture reduces efficiency, also plans to use the GF Foto- tools that support photonics-based chips
the rate that errors occur in data trans- nix platform for its first accelerator chip and chiplets.
mission, lowering latency by a factor of due out in 2022. Said Lightmatter CEO “I don’t want to say it’s one-size-fits-all,”
10, which in turn translates to higher Nicholas Harris, “Together we’re changing said Yu. “It’s not that simple. But with one
throughput for AI workloads. the way the world thinks about photonics.” foundry platform with differentiated fea-
To make things easier for itself, NVID- PsiQuantum is building out a quantum tures and using unique materials, you can
IA has partnered with Ayar Labs, a startup computer called Q1 with help from Glo- open up photonics to a variety of markets.”
designing optical interconnects that can balFoundries. Photons are used to solve GlobalFoundries plans to complete
be bundled into various processors and problems many millions of times faster, qualification of GF Fotonix to support a
accelerators. The interconnects come in and even carry out computations that are production ramp-up by 2024.

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GO TO [Link] 39
Lab Bench
WILLIAM G. WONG | Senior Content Director

Mini-ITX Motherboard
Packs Two AI Accelerator Chips
Flex Logix’s InferX Hawk motherboard is designed for applications such as machine-
learning-based video systems that handle tasks like object detection.

I
’m looking forward to checking out
the InferX Hawk from Flex Logix (see
figure). The Mini-ITX motherboard
has a quad-core, AMD Zen+ host
processor with a Radeon Vega GPU and
video codec accelerator. However, the
machine-learning (ML) heavy lifting is
done by a pair of Flex Logix InferX X1
artificial-intelligence (AI) accelerators
that can be used individually or in tan-
dem. It brings ML/AI acceleration to the
edge in a complete package.
The InferX X1 chip utilizes multiple
single-dimensional Tensor processors that
can be configured on the fly. It supports
a high-precision Winograd acceleration
option that increases system utilization
The InferX Hawk sports a quad-core, AMD Zen+ processor with a Radeon Vega GPU
and overall efficiency. The reconfigura-
to support twin InferX X1 machine-learning accelerator chips. Credit: Flex Logix
tion feature allows for support of two- and
three-dimensional tensors.

T
The chip also incorporates embedded
FPGA (eFPGA) logic, opening the door he InferX X1 chip utilizes multiple single-
to further customization. With the on-
chip memory and reconfigurable fabric,
dimensional Tensor processors that can be
intermediate results can be kept locally configured on the fly.
instead of bringing off-chip memory into
play. The system is able to handle stan- eration, the AMD processor was paired ports, plus five USB ports for USB 2.0,
dard conv2d models as well as depth-wise with the two InferX X1 chips to balance 3.1, and 3.2 (Type-C) connections. The
conv2d models. Each chip can manage the overall system throughput and take system requires from 25 to 40 W of power
multiple models depending on their size, advantage of AMD’s video-processing depending on the workload.
or the two chips may be combined to deal hardware capabilities. The system is supported by Flex Logix’s
with one large model. The motherboard supports up to EasyVision, which includes pretrained
Almost any ML model works with the 32 GB of DDR4 SO-DIMM memory. and configured models for video applica-
InferX X1 chips, but video processing is There’s an M.2 M key and an M.2 E tions such as face-mask and license-plate
an area where it excels. This includes key socket—the former targets NVMe identification. In addition, it can check
applications such as object recognition SSDs, while the latter supports smaller for PCB defects and perform battery
within a video stream. Video streams are peripherals such as a wireless adapter. inspection. The EasyVision models work
normally provided via USB or gigabit The backplane features a pair of Display- with the InferX Model Development Kit
Ethernet (GbE). Taking this into consid- Port sockets, two GbE sockets, two serial (MDK) and the Run Time Kit (RTK).

40 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 ELECTRONIC DESIGN

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