Electronics For You

contents
electronics for you Plus | August 2015 | Vol. 04 No. 04 | ISSN-2454-4426
Tech Focus
32
Buyers Guide
Would You Like

Some Smarts
in Your Home?
60
Latest MCU
Development Boards
Make Prototyping Easier
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Futuristic
Bionic Lenses Adding

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Tech Focus
50
Chips
Basic Guide to Radio-Controlled

Boat Modelling.....................................................97
Arduino Based Audio VU Meter.........................100
AVR Based Programmable Object Counter.......102
Device for Maintaining Car Batteries.................105
Door-Opening Alarm Using Hall Sensor............107
Solar-Powered Kennel Light..............................108
Motion Detector Using NE555 Timer................. 110
Design and Analysis of A Single-Stage
Transistor Amplifier Using C++.......................... 112
Controlling a Stepper Motor
Using a Rotary Encoder..................................... 115
Simulation of 7-Segment Display
Using LabVIEW.................................................. 117
54
Embedded
EFY Plus DVD
68
Mobiles
40
44
79
Innovation
More Power to Your Phone

With XS Powercard
Test & Measurement
Developments in Mixed-Signal
Oscilloscopes Accelerate Embedded
Design Development
FPGAs for The Internet of Things
Engineers Need Tools That

Solve More Than Just Immediate
Hardware Problems
Operating Systems for Mobiles
Interview
Surveillance and Access Control:

What is finally happening is adaptive
streaming of surveillance video
Kaushal Kadakia, product manager,

video surveillance solutions, Matrix ComSec
82
Power System Design:

Whiteboard... would give them time
to work on multiple projects
Phil Davies, global marketing and
sales vice president, Vicor Corp.
next issue
4
FreeRTOS: A Real-Time Operating System.............................I

GMIC: A Pleasant Image-Processing Framework.................IV
Meep for Electromagnetic Simulations................................... VII
84
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EFY Plus DVD
This Months DVD Contents
Make in India
Market Survey: An Outlook for

the PCB Industry in 2015-16:
The Indian Perspective
121
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eStyle
DIY: Eight Things You Did Not Know
You Could Do with an iPhone Camera
Buyers Guide: How to Buy
the Best DSLR Camera
Medical Electronics
Aerospace &
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Defence Electronics Desoldering Stations
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Feedback
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Useful Websites
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Product Categories Index +
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FEEDBACK
Barcode for EFY Article
I am an engineer by profession and
keep myself updated on new technologies, circuits, components and much
more by reading EFY magazines.
However, when I need some actual
information, I cannot remember the
issue. I am sure many readers are
facing this problem. I would like to
suggest a possible solution for this
problem.
A 2D barcode could be provided
for each article and a barcode scanner could be added to EFY app.
Then, readers could simply scan the
barcode of the article they want to
save using the app and add it to a
folder on their phone.
Abhimanyu G.
Through email
EFY: Thanks for the feedback and
suggestion! We will discuss this with
our technical and management teams
for feasibility and implementation.
Things You Wanted to Know

Please provide the source codes of
Remote Control for Controlling the
Direction of a DC Motor project
given under Things You Wanted to
Know section of June issue.
M. Hyder Hossain, proprietor,
Sonolite Display, Kolkata
Errata
In Solar Emergency Lamp published
in June issue, please note the following
corrections:
1. In parts list, C3 should be read as
470nF, ceramic disk.
2. The sentence 15V AC connected
across connector CON2 under Circuit
and Working should be read as 12V AC
connected across connector CON2.
3. On page 81, in the second column,
the sentence IC CA4130 is high should
be read as IC CA3140 is high.
4. In the PCB layout, Fig.4, IRF2
should be read as IRF840, instead of
IRF530.
6
August 2015 | Electronics For You
From Facebook: EFYs Electronics Design Community

Please include projects for third-year diploma students.
Suraj Shitre
EFY: We have many projects available for students on electronicsforu.com under Circuits.
Complete kits (including components, PCBs, circuit diagrams and descriptions) of
some projects are available with our associates KitsnSpares. Please visit their website
kitsnspares.com for details.
Hi, I am from Vietnam. I have Electronics Projects Volume books (Vol. 21 and Vol. 22) for
the years 2000 and 2001, respectively. May I know if you have the latest series, particularly
from 2002 onwards?
Duy Anh
EFY: Yes, we have Electronics Projects Vol. 23 through Vol. 26 available in digital format.
You could get these from online stores such as pothi.com, rockstand.in, getscoop.com,
amazon.com and others.
Spot An Error Award Winners

In Table II of GPS Master-Slave Clocks with RF Link DIY circuit published in June issue, for
character p, dp value is printed as 0, which is wrong. It should be 1.
Gopiraja
In circuit given on page 8, under Q&A of June issue, connections for switches S1 and S2
connecting to the ground line are wrong. Enable pin 9 should not be used if output pins 11
and 14 of L293D are not used.
Vijay Kakul
In Radio Frequency Detector circuit in June issue, in the first paragraph, it is wrongly
mentioned as UV meter instead of VU meter. A UV (ultraviolet) meter is used to measure UV
light levels. Here, we have to use volume unit (VU) meter to measure the RF signal level.
Arunjo Maliekkal
EFY: The complete

source codes including the hex codes for
both transmitter and
receiver units have
been included in the
DVD of this months
EFY issue.
From Twitter: EFY Group@EFYIndia

Kerala to be the first Indian state to have Electronics@School
Ajay Kumar @drajaykumar_ias
EFY magazine has put electronics in schools for decades!
Sankhya Technologies @teraptor
RF Detector
In Radio Frequency Detector circuit
published in June issue, how can I
use it to detect a radio frequency (RF)
signal? I do not have an RF meter.
Ruban Ponniah
Through email
The author D. Mohan Kumar replies:
The circuit uses a VU meter (such as
the one used in old tape recorders)
to measure the intensity of RF in a
room. A sensitive milliampere meter
can also be used. Brightness of the

LED also gives an indication of the
presence of an RF signal.
Electromagnetic Relay
This is regarding my circuit AC 230V
Electromagnetic Relay published in
June issue. I found that the overall
circuit efficacy could be improved by
interchanging zener diode ZD1 (12V,
1W) and rectifier diode D2 (1N4007).
T.K. Hareendran
The author
www.efymag.com
Q&A
Things You
Wanted to Know!
does
Q1.What
would like
mAh mean? I
to know how
many hours will Mircomax A120,
which features a battery of 2000mAh,
work for before it drains out? How
can I calculate hours of working on
the basis of mAh?
Ismail Taibani
on email
The capacity of a battery
is rated as amp-hour current (expressed as Ah). This is the
amount of power, in amps, a battery
can deliver over a specific period of
time. If a battery has a rating of five
amp-hours, it can provide up to 5A
continuously for one hour, or 1A for
five hours.
The current rating of a battery is
as important as its voltage rating. It
specifies the maximum current that
could be drawn at the rated voltage. Ah is a large unit, therefore for
capacity of a smaller battery, mAh is
used. mAh means milliamp-hours.
As milliamp is 1/1000th of an amp,
1000mAh can deliver 1000 milliamps for one hour, or 1-amp-hour.
2000mAh means it can deliver 2
amps for an hour.
The drain current of the battery
depends on mobile as the load. If
the mobile consumes maximum load
current of 200mA, it will work up to
2000mAh/200mA=10 hours.
A1.
do some mobile phone

Q2.Why
batteries have four terminals
and others have only three? What
are the functions of third and fourth
terminal pins?
Manash Jyoti Chetia,
North Guwahati, Assam
Nearly all mobile phone batteries have three terminals
and sometimes four terminals.
Battery pin descriptions are given
below:
GND or negative terminal. A ref-
A2.
erence point for measuring the other

voltage or returning point for electric
current. It is the same as a negative
battery terminal.
BAT+ or positive terminal. A
positive terminal is also known as a
positive battery terminal.
Both positive and negative terminals are duly-marked on a battery.
Battery temperature (BTemp).
This terminal is used for sensing.
Batteries are charged by applying controlled current through the
charging circuit. While charging a
battery, some chemical and electric
energy is converted into heat, so a
battery tends to overheat while getting charged. Overheating and overcharging may damage the battery
permanently, shorten its life or lead
to explosion. Thus, we need to control the heating of the battery during
charging.
BTemp terminal of the battery is
used to sense the temperature of the
battery, and accordingly, the charging
circuit of the mobile phone changes
the voltage levels of the output. This
change in voltage by the charger circuit controls the charging current to
the battery. The battery-charging circuit continuously senses this terminal, thus temperature of the battery
while charging, and accordingly, varies the current or the charging rate.
Battery site indicator or battery
system indicator (BSI). There are
some mobile phones that have shorter BSI pins. This is because when a
battery is removed and the phone is
switched on, the BSI circuit interrupts first, which tells the processor
to shut down all communication to
prevent damage.
The battery block contains BSI
resistors for battery identification.
BSI fixed resistor value indicates the
chemistry and default capacity of a
battery. Temperature and capacity
information is needed for charge control (charging current and voltage). It
is connected to the resistor to GND.
The phone measures the resistance of
BSI-GND connectors and determines
what kind of battery is in the phone.
For example, Nokia NiMH batteries

have BMC-2 640mAH 3.3k, BMC-3
900mAH 5.6k.
have two questions. First,
Q3.Iwhat
is the difference between ARM processor and ARM
Cortex? What is Arduino Uno R3
processor?
Prof. Pamarthi Kanakaraja
Usha Rama College of Engineering
& Technology (Andhra Pradesh)
ARM and ARM Cortex. These
are both processor cores on
which microcontrollers (MCUs) are
made. ARM Cortex-M3 is an implementation of ARM7v architecture. A
number of manufacturers are producing MCUs based on Cortex-M3 and
ARM7 cores. ARM Holdings licenses
the design to manufacturers that produce their own implementation.
While ARM7 implements both
ARM and Thumb instruction sets,
Cortex-M3 supports only Thumb-2
instruction set. Cortex-M3 is aimed at
the deeply embedded market. It is designed to be low-cost and low-power
and provides good performance
for the cost and power, particularly
suited to automotive and wireless
communication applications.
The other ARM core is ARM7TDMI (and ARM7TDMIS). MCUs based
on this core are, in many ways, the
workhorse of the embedded world.
Arduino Uno R3 processor.
This is a MCU board based on ATmega328. It has 14 digital input/
output pins (of which six can be
used as pulse-width modulation outputs), six analogue inputs, 16MHz
ceramic resonator, USB connection,
power jack, ICSP header and a reset button. It contains everything
that is needed to support the MCU;
simply connect it to a computer
with a USB cable, or power it with
an AC-to-DC adaptor or battery, to
get started.
A3.
Answers compiled by EFY joint director (training), Col.

N.C. Pande (Retd). Letters and questions for publication may be addressed to Editor, Electronics For You,
D-87/1, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase 1, New Delhi
110020 (e-mail: editsec@efy.in) and should include
name and address of the sender
www.efymag.com
useful websites
Do-It-Yourself
Trying out different experiments has always been fun and satisfying for a hobbyist.
This month we have listed out some websites that could help you try your hands on
different do-it-yourself (DIY) projects
niraj sahay
doityourself.com
doityourself.com, founded in 1995, is an independent home improvement and repair website. It is

divided into three sections: How-Tos, Forums and Did It Myself. Did It Myself section has projects
on various topics. The website also includes a section called Electrical & Electronics. You may
access this site freely and use it for non-commercial purposes, subject to terms and conditions.
Today, doityourself.com averages over five million unique visitors per month.
www.doityourself.com/did-it-myself/electrical-and-electronics
fixya.com
This site has a solution for nearly everything. In 2005, many product manufacturers were neglecting
post-purchase customer support. Frustrated by the lack of practical post-purchase information,
entrepreneur Yaniv Bensadon set out to build a community resource capable of providing relevant
and up-to-date data for troubleshooting. Today, fixya continues to empower individuals to repair and
improve upon their already-purchased possessions. From fixing cars to cameras and iPhones, fixyans
are part of a DIY revolution that helps empower techies, tinkerers and hobbyists across the globe.
www.fixya.com
diy-electronic-projects.com
This website has a good collection of DIY projects on electronics. diy-electronic-projects.com

has more than 300 projects, which are sorted in several categories, to try your hands on.
www.diy-electronic-projects.com
fastrepairguide.com
This is the place where you can find online computer and electronics repair guides. The site
provides repair and troubleshooting information for devices ranging from LCD monitors and
computer motherboards to inverters and printers. It also provides links to electronics projects
and components datasheets. fastrepairguide.com has about 13,215 users in its online
community and is one of the most popular websites in the city of Ipoh, Malaysia, according
to alexa.com, with maximum search queries related to LCD and plasma TV repair.
www.fastrepairguide.com
electronics-diy.com
The site allows you to contribute DIY electronics projects. It has many projects spread across
different sections, namely, Electronic Store, Electronic Blog, Electronic Schematics and Tutorials.
The last section contains tutorials on PIC microcontrollers, EAGLE printed circuit boards (PCBs) and
on how to make PCBs, among others. Overall, it is a great place for a hobbyist to learn and contribute.
electronics-diy.com/index.php
10
www.efymag.com
Tech News
Technology at your Service

Chineseuniversity unveils
mind-controlled car
mind-controlled car that would do away with

the use of steering wheel or accelerator has been
unveiled in China. It has been developed by a research
Mind-controlled car by Nankai University in Tianjin

(Image courtesy: www.huffingtonpost.co.uk)
team from Nankai University in Tianjin in collaboration

with Chinese car maker Great Wall Motor.
The car is controlled via a headset with 16 sensors
that send impulses from the users brain to the cars
processing system. Sensors capture brain signals and the
recognition system analyses these, translates these into
driving instructions and sends these to the car.
Plant-inspired solar cells

revolutionise energy storage
technology developed by scientists at University of

California, Los Angeles (UCLA), could store solar
energy for up to several weeks.
Most current residential rooftop solar panels can
store energy from the sun for only a few microseconds
at a time. The new design is inspired by the way plants
generate energy through photosynthesis.
The two components include a polymer donor and
a nano-scale fullerene acceptor. The polymer donor
absorbs sunlight and passes electrons to the fullerene
acceptor. The process generates electrical energy.
UCLA technology arranges the elements neatly like
small bundles of uncooked spaghetti with precisely
placed meatballs. Some meatballs are designed to sit
inside the spaghetti bundles, but others are forced
to stay on the outside. Meatballs inside the structure
take electrons from the polymers and toss these to the
outside, which can effectively keep electrons away from
the polymer for weeks. The materials self-assemble just
by being placed in close proximity.
14
Technology by University of California, Los Angeles, could allow storage of

solar energy up to several weeks (Image courtesy: http://newsroom.ucla.edu)
Memcomputer mimics human brain
s the need for computing grows, researchers are

faced with the problem of creating more computing power from existing electronics. Enter memcomputers. Dr Massimiliano Di Ventra, computer scientist at
University of California, and his team, is developing a
memcomputer, which is a special computer that derives
inspiration from human brain.
Basic computers store data in one location and
process it at some other (central processing unit, or
CPU). The data travels to and fro between these locations
for every computing cycle.
Memcomputers would take only a few seconds to
solve complex mathematical problems that the current
generation of supercomputers takes decades to solve.
Di Ventra explains this with an example. The human
brain consumes about 20W to perform about 1016
operations per second. A supercomputer, on the other
hand, would need 10 million times more power to do so.
Memcomputers would be able to do this with the
help of memprocessors, which function like transistors,
and are the basic building blocks of modern electronics.
But with additional function, these will also store charge,
which would allow these to store and process data
simultaneously, just like the human brain.
Software to detect eye diseases
martphones can detect heart rate and blood-oxygen

content. Soon, these would be able to detect common
health-related issues. Researchers at Medical and Surgiwww.efymag.com
Tech News
cal Center for Retina (MSCR), along with biomedical
engineers from ITESM, Mexico, have developed special
software for smartphones that can detect eye diseases
like diabetic macular edema. The software relies on
the camera of a smartphone to perform tests that could
detect any abnormality in the thickness of retina.
Dr Juan Carlos Altamirano Vallejo, medical director
at MSCR, says that the technology will not replace
the specialist but will help detect the disease early so
that it could be treated. The software will help general
physicians who may not have in-depth knowledge of
ophthalmology for detection of eye diseases, so they
could refer the patients to specialists.
Flexible electronics now a reality
magine that you could stretch or fold your smartphone, laptop or television like a piece of paper and
carry it around in your pocket! Researchers from North
Carolina State University, the USA, were able to create
a transparent, flexible conductor that may make completely flexible electronics a reality.
Inspired by the flexible design of a spring,
researchers first created a 3D polymer mould on a
silicon surface. They then coated the mould (shaped
like a series of identical, evenly-spaced rectangles) with
a layer of aluminium-doped zinc oxide, which served as
the conducting material. After that, an elastic polymer
was applied to the zinc oxide.
Researchers then removed the silicon and the mould,
and what they obtained was a transparent material with
series of symmetrical, zinc-oxide ridges on an elastic
surface. The resultant material was transparent because
both zinc oxide and the polymer are transparent. Ridges
of zinc oxide allow the structure to expand and contract,
making it stretchable.
Kirigami stretchable batteries

for flexible electronics
rizona State University and Chinas Jinan University have teamed up to create what could become
An ASU research team has used a variation of origami, called kirigami, as

a design template for batteries that can be stretched to more than 150 per
cent of their original size and still maintain full functionality
(Image courtesy: fullcircle.asu.edu)
16
www.efymag.com
Tech News
thefirst flexible batteries inside wearable electronics.
The secret to these batteries is a traditional Japanese
fold-and-cut practice of kirigami (which derives from
origami). Kirigami is a compound word made of two
words, kiru (to cut) and kami (paper). The Japanese
practice involves making small slits or paper crease
cuts and folding the paper remnants to create some
form of design.
In this case, the ASU team, led by ASU mechanical
and aerospace engineering associate professor
Hanqing Jiang, created cut-and-twist patterns in the
creases of Reynolds Wrap aluminium foil, coated the
foil with electrode-laden, conductive material and
then replaced the 300mAh battery inside Samsungs
Gear 2 smartwatch with the coated kirigami-cut
aluminium foil.
Material with magnetoresistance

for better electronics
esearchers in Germany have found a material that

could be used to build smaller and faster electronics. Known as niobium-phosphide, the materials elec-
Niobium-phosphide for building smaller and faster electronics

(Image courtesy: www.sciencealert.com)
tronic resistance increases dramatically when exposed

to a magnetic field.
The property called giant magnetoresistance is
crucial to achieving large storage capacities that we
have come to enjoy in our hard drives.
The material has an incredible magnetoresistance
because its electrons are superfast, with a top speed of
around 300km/s. In a magnetic field, this makes them
vulnerable to a phenomenon known as Lorentz force,
which causes an increasing percentage of electrons
to flow in the wrong direction as the magnetic field
becomes stronger.
Because of this force, extremely large
magnetoresistance of 250 per cent was observed at
room temperature. In comparison, materials that
are currently used in hard drives usually exhibit
magnetoresistance of between 40 per cent and 110
per cent at room temperature.
www.efymag.com
Electronics For You | August 2015
17
Tech News
Now, print electronic circuits
esearchers from University of Tokyo have created a

mechanism that puts electronics on apparels with
a new type of conductive ink. The ink will allow printing of electronic circuits for a wide range of biomedical
Quantum dots, a type of nanocrystals discovered

in early 1980s, are made by combining metals such as
lead or cadmium with other elements including sulphur,
selenium or arsenic. By controlling the ratio of these
materials, temperature and reaction time, scientists
can generate a nearly unlimited number of dots with
differences in an electronic property known as bandgap,
which determines the wavelengths of light that each dot
will absorb.
The spectrometer deploys hundreds of quantum dot
materials that each filter a specific set of wavelengths
of light. Quantum-dot filters are printed into a thin film
and placed on top of a photodetector such as the chargecoupled devices (CCDs) found in smartphone cameras.
Robot that can be controlled

by thoughts and brain signals
Electronics on apparels with a new conductive ink

(Image courtesy: www.sciencedaily.com)
sensors directly on the textile. This means that a shirt

would also function as a heart rate monitor.
So far the ink could only be printed directly on
clothes to function as electronic circuits. Prof. Takao
Someya and his team at Graduate School of Engineering,
Tokyo, have succeeded in producing an ink that is
elastic and can conduct electricity. It can be printed on
textile in just one step. The team used flakes of silver,
organic solvents, fluorine rubber and fluorine surfactant
in the ink to achieve desirable properties. The end result
is the ink that can stretch to 2.5 times its original length.
Spectrometer that fits inside smartphones
cientists at MIT have created a spectrometer that could

enable the devices to diagnose diseases, especially
skin conditions, or detect environmental pollutants.
Spectrometers measure the properties of light and
are widely used in physical, chemical and biological
research. These new spectrometers can fit inside
a smartphone camera, using tiny semiconductor
nanoparticles called quantum dots.
esearchers at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology

(EPFL), Switzerland, have developed a robot that
can be controlled with thoughts and brain signals. It can
perform various tasks, too. The team, headed by Prof.
Jose del R. Millain, particularly had disabled people in
mind while working on the concept to give them a sense
of independence.
Nine disabled and ten healthy people in Italy,
Germany and Switzerland took part in the task of
piloting a robot with their thoughts. For several weeks,
each subject put on an electrode-studded hat capable
of analysing his brain signals. They then instructed the
robot to move, transmitting their instructions in realtime via the Internet from their home country. By virtue
of a video camera, screen and wheels, the robot, located
in an EPFL laboratory in Switzerland, was able to film
as it moved while displaying the face of the remote pilot
via Skype.
In the second part of the tests, disabled people with
residual mobility were asked to pilot the robot with
movements they were still capable of doing.
Samsung screen shows the road ahead
The quantum dot spectrometer can be printed onto a smartphone camera

(Image courtesy: www.wired.co.uk)
arge vehicles are often too hard to pass on a narrow

two-lane road. Samsung has come up with a clever
solution to this problem. Argentinean arm of the South
Korean tech giant has launched what it calls a Safety
Truck, a semi truck with a wireless camera mounted on
the front, displaying the road ahead on a screen tacked
on to the back of the truck. The move is a part of an effort to reduce head-on collisions while passing.
The front-mounted camera broadcasts its signal to
four monitors on the back of the truck to give drivers
behind the truck a good view ahead. In addition to
making passing safer, Samsung says that this would let
drivers see any obstacles on the road ahead, preventing
the need for sudden emergency braking.
Check efytimes.com for more news, daily

18
www.efymag.com
FUTURISTIC
Bionic Lenses Adding

Capabilities to Human Vision
B
Vishnu Gautam is a
regular contributor to
EFY magazine
Fig. 1: Prototype of the

lens on a rabbits eye
(Courtesy: University
of Washington)
Fig. 2: Prototype of the

bionic lens (later version)
(Courtesy: University of
Washington)
ionic means utilising electrical and

mechanical devices for assisting human
beings. A bionic lens is a transmissive,
optical, micro-electrical device constructed on
a polymer-type material. The lens resembles a
regular contact lens.
Researchers at University of Washington
have created a prototype of such a lens. It has
been tested on a rabbit for 20 minutes and no
signs of any irregular behaviour by the rabbit
were observed.
Babak Parvez, one of the inventors, says,
When we look through the lens, a display
is generated, which is superimposed on the
world outside.
Although the device can have a number
of applications, construction of this device
involves a very high level of expertise in
nanotechnology. This is because, typically,
a lens thickness is about 250m, which
limits the choice of materials to be used and
also imposes various regulatory restrictions,
as electronics components operate on radio
frequencies (RFs) that may be internal or
external to the device. This also imposes the
risk of heating effects of radiation on the eye.
Another problem associated with the lens
is selection of battery source. Although nanotechnology enables us to use micro-electronic
methods, this does not relate to batteries. Battery sizes have been the most limiting factor
in deciding the size of electronics devices.
Therefore researchers have used the concept of a wireless battery. They used a wireless source to power the lens with the help of
antennae embedded on the lens.
Manufacturing and structure

While designing the lens, the researchers faced
three challenges. First, they had to maintain
the mechanical strength of the lens so that it
would not easily break and damage the eye.
For this, they used special organic polymer
material as base. The polymer also worked as
a substrate for the electronics network.
20
Second, they had to ensure that the lens

was bio-compatible.
Last, circuits had to be embedded to be
250m thick, so that the lenses would be comfortable to wear.
The basic structure of the device comprises:
Sensor readout and display control unit.
The initial experiment used one blue LED, as
with blue LEDs all colours can be generated.
They used a micro-led structure to display
the image (floating text and a single-pixel
display).
Fresnel lens. As the image formed by the
LED cannot align with the focal distance of the
eye to form an image on the retina, a Fresnel
lens was used. This lens has different reflection, diffraction and focal length properties,
thus altering the overall focal length, creating
an image on the retina.
Antenna structure. Dimensions of the antenna were so tiny that its efficiency was very
low. This antenna was used to collect the RF
energy projected by the wireless battery.
Integrated circuit (IC). A special RF-IC was
used to convert the collected energy into voltage and to store it for image generation.
Interconnection network. Voltage-efficient
interconnections were laid down that were
electromagnetic compatible with the rest of the
electronics in the lens.
Applications
The practical applications of such lenses can
be infinite. This technology comes under
brain-computer interface category that could
revolutionise the way humans interact with
computers. Such devices find application in the
following areas:
1. Faster object recognition in daily life
2. Monitor live health status of individuals
3. Provide new dimensions to surf the
Internet (virtual displays) when coupled with
brain interfaces
4. Provide an entirely different gaming
experience (virtual players)
www.efymag.com
VIDEO
The Future of High Resolution
Tom Coughlin is senior

IEEE member
Picture perfect: The case for pixels

All of the heavy-hitting technology companies have one thing in common when
releasing new devicesresolution, which
is a focal point as one of the selling features. And why should it not be? One of
22
the main attractions of laptops and mobile

devices is for entertainment purposes, such
as watching shows or movies on Netflix.
As a result, video streaming has become a standard activity for consumers.
For example, within the last couple of
years, the concept of TV Everywhere has
exploded. This has caused service providers to upgrade network capabilities to offer
the best possible viewing experience for
their customers. High-definition viewing
is no longer a benefit but a standard for
consumers.
Higher-resolution content may be useful in smaller screens where a user may
expand the viewed content to see smaller
features. Thus, high-resolution content can
lead to new games and other entertainment
experiences where small features may be
important. This feature is also valuable for
amateur and professional video makers and
for who may need to make modifications to
images close to the pixel level.
Image courtesy: www.taringa.net/posts/noticias/
odays viewers watch a variety

of different video content on a
number of devices. With the
proliferation of mobile devices, we continue to push boundaries of how we view
content, specifically in video quality. In
fact, the recent introduction of 4K tablet
computers and an iMac computer with
a 5K retina display is an indication of
interest in high-resolution images, even
in smaller-screen environments. With the
introduction of these higher-resolution
formats for a variety of devices, are we
at the point or will we ever get to a place
where our vision deems all these extra
pixels unnecessary?
www.efymag.com
VIDEO
4K and 8K: Is it pixel overload
4K technology is steadily making its way into our entertainment channels, but it is not the limit for highresolution videos. There is work going on to develop the
infrastructure for 8K4K videos, particularly by NHK in
Japan. These 8K videos will have about 4x as many pixels
as 4K videos, since pixel dimensions are roughly doubled
in each dimension.
In addition, as the resolution increases, the frame rate
of the captured (and displayed video) should go up to
avoid certain video artifacts. Thus, the total size of an 8K
video movie could be 100x larger than todays HD (about
2K1K video).
As a result, this will impact storage-capacity sizes
of future consumer devices. This is already becoming
evident with the launch of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus
smartphones, which offer up to 128 gigabytes of storage.
We will see this in other products also as the demand for
space continues to rise.
8K video demonstrations with large-screen displays
at trade shows provide amazing details that are lost or
blurred in lower-resolution videos. Today, 8K videos are
experimental and very expensive but there are 8K video
projects now, with more being planned. Japanese developers plan to start 8K TV broadcasts by the start of the next
decade. In another four to five years, 8K4K displays
may be the next big thing, like 4K displays are today.
Putting it together: What the future holds

But, what is the limit of video resolution that we could
want? Well, what this higher resolution is all about is
creating a more immersive user experience. Ultimately,
we want an all-encompassing display that is hard to distinguish from reality itself; what we want is a holodeck
(for all you Star Trek fans).
A totally immersive artificial reality will require at
least 8K video content, and possibly 16K8K video
resolution. This video content would be projected in an
area rather than a surface. Essentially, the viewer will be
surrounded by images, creating a very great sense of being there.
This immersive content would be captured by multiple
synchronised cameras surrounding a field-of-view or generated by 3D-rendering equipment and then projected in a
free-floating format. The technology required to make such
immersive experiences is likely more than ten years away,
and when it is ready consumers will want to have it.
As a result of these continuous technological advancements and video format qualities, I do not believe the
current concept of TV and the use of single displays for
experiencing content will remain for long. A single fixed
display can only hold so much resolution. Therefore new
and innovative devices will need to be created until we
reach the point of commercialising free-floating holographic display technology.
24
www.efymag.com
Tech Focus
Would You Feel at Home in a Smarthome?
Mitsubishi Electrics smarthome concept
L
Janani Gopalakrishnan
Vikram is a technicallyqualified freelance writer,
editor and hands-on mom
based in Chennai
26
ike smartphones, smarthomes will

also simply creep into your life. When
you buy appliances a few years down
the line, you will find that they do not make
these dumb any more. When buying a
doorbell, you will be faced with a choice of
surveillance kits. To paint your house, you
will find electronics dissolved in the paint,
to maintain the temperature. To renovate
your house, you will find that doors and
windows are no longer simple wooden
structures but electronically-reinforced super-smart security personnel. In short, you
will no longer find devices that you have to
operate, but will end up with a house full
of devices that talk to each other, manage
themselves and, ultimately, keep you safe
and comfortable, too.
The phenomenon has already started
setting in with assorted products like smart
thermostats, smart power sockets, energymanagement systems, connected home
monitors, automatic garden sprinklers,
connected slow cookers, drones that check
who is at the door and more. While another of this months stories (page 32) deals
with the smarthome framework, popular
products and components, here we look
at some futuristic research, products and
applications.
Not just smarthomes, but a smart

neighbourhood, too
In March this year, Google was granted
a patent for Security Scoring in a SmartSensored Home, which mainly deals with
communication and collaboration between
sensors embedded in a smarthome. Some of
the applications detailed in the patent are
really interesting.
You know what best you can do with todays alarm clocks. In the future, a smarter
alternative could automatically judge how
long it takes you to get ready for work and
wake you up accordingly. It would wake
you up earlier if it observed traffic on your
route or when you have set up a meeting
for earlier than usual. Or, it might let you
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Tech Focus
Kephart of Yuneec suggested that
drones for home surveillance were a
practical but unexplored area.
Drones are stealthy; these can
hover about and can be controlled
by smartphones. Todays drones are
capable of continuously streaming
audio and video, too. So why cannot a combination of drones and
software be used to watch a house?
This could be an interesting twist to
future smarthomes.
Wearables that turn

into authenticators
MITs heart rate and breathing monitor at work
sleep a little longer if you arrived late

from office the previous night and do
not have a meeting till noon that day.
Another interesting scenario detailed in the patent is that of multiple
homes connected together to form a
smart neighbourhood that will have
improved security, cooperation for
energy management, the ability to
alert one another in case of events
like fire and accidents and so on.
This door has no

handle or lock to break
Mitsubishi Electrics model smarthome in Tokyo shows off some
wonderful futuristic technologies,
starting right from the door handle.
When you arrive at the house, all you
can see in front of you is a snazzy
metallic sheet with a small peephole.
There is no handle or lock visible on
the door. But as soon as the biometric camera (yes, what you thought
was a peephole) has scanned you
and recognises you as an authorised
inhabitant, a door handle pops out
of the sheet.
As soon as you touch the handle
to pull, it quickly and unobtrusively
checks your temperature and heart
rate to ensure you are okay. If there
are any updates for you, you will get
those right awayit will tell you if
your parcel has arrived or your child
is yet to return from school and so
on. You can also check the wherea28
bouts of other family members and

when they are expected home (as the
door syncs to their schedules, too).
If that sounds too futuristic, let us
step into the kitchen. But before you
do that, your vital statistics and that
of your family members have already
reached your fridge. Based on the
stock inside the fridge and depending
on the health parameters collected by
the door handle and other connected
devices being used by the rest of your
family, this smartdevice gives you
suggestions on what to cook.
Once you decide on the menu,
step-by-step cooking instructions
and estimated preparation times are
displayed on the kitchen countertop. The countertop has movable,
ultra-thin induction heaters that can
slide from end-to-end, as well as
outlet-free, non-contact power for
blenders, steamers and other kitchen
appliances.
According to news reports, the
company has no immediate plans
to launch these devices. It wants to
take time to design the products carefully so that these can gel with users
lives, to help without overwhelming
them.
A drone to guard your house

This years CES saw interesting
drones being demonstrated by companies like Yuneec, Hexo+ and Hobbico. In a post-event interview, Ryan
In a Wired article, Kevin Foreman,

director of product vision at Vectorform, explains that, wearables will
play a significant role in the future
smarthome. These would be like
your key to the smarthome.
Nymi, for example, is a wristband that continuously monitors
your heartbeat and uses it as your
signature to authenticate you to
several other systems. It eliminates
the overhead of having to manually
identify yourself to other systems
and devices using passwords or
fingerprints. Plus, your heartbeat
is inimitable, so it is a very secure
technique, too.
Over time, Nymi could also be
improved to track the users body
temperature to adjust air-conditioning, accordingly.
Smarthome tech
for a healthy heart
While many people think of smarthomes only from the perspective of
energy management, comfort and
entertainment, among other things,
there are some for whom a smarthome could be a life-support system.
Here is where MITs new wireless sensing technology, Vital-Radio,
can be of help. The device, when
built into the walls of a home, can
monitor the occupants heart rate
and breathing without requiring
them to wear even a single sensor.
According to the results published in a research paper, the technology boasts a median accuracy of
www.efymag.com
Tech Focus
99 per cent from up to eight metres away. The system
as a whole can track more than one occupant, at all
times, whichever room he or she might be in, whether
sitting, sleeping or moving.
Researchers came up with this device based on
the fact that wireless signals are impacted by even the
smallest motion in the environment, even something as
mild as our chest heaving during inhalation or exhalation and vibrations caused on our skin when the heart
beats.
The monitor first identifies the persons presence,
focuses on him or her and then measures the heart rate
and breathing pattern by transmitting a low-power wireless signal and measuring the time it takes for the signal
to be reflected back to the device. The patterns are then
analysed by the device.
The key benefit of this device is that it is totally
non-intrusive. You do not need to wear anything at all.
So the device can constantly watch the occupants of a
house and, over time, apps can be used to study patterns, identify increase in stress levels, abnormal health
conditions and so on. Now, that sounds even more useful than energy saving, right?
Love them abundantly, but watch only silently

A real-life story covered by Heather Kelly in CNNs Tomorrow Transformed shows how two daughters used a
highly-customisable, do-it-yourself (DIY) home automation system from SmartThings to unobtrusively keep an
eye on their 77-year-old mom, Mary Lou, who was in
the middle stages of Alzheimers.
When Lou leaves home at an odd hour, a silent
sensor on her front door alerts her daughters on their
respective phones. Sensors on her keychains help find
out if she leaves her condo premises, while some in the
kitchen keep an eye on her eating habits. More sensors
in the bedroom track when she sleeps, how she sleeps
and when she wakes up, while flood sensors in the
laundry room and smoke sensors in the kitchen assure
her daughters that Lou is safe.
The sensors are connected to a local wireless hub
and together with a smartapp, these help Lous daughters give her the satisfaction of living independently and
safely in her own home, while they remain assured of
her safety.
There are other companies like Lively, BeClose
and GrandCare that offer connected accessories such
as beds, toilets, pillbox sensors and blood-pressure-,
weight- and glucose-monitoring devices. Most of these
work silently without invading senior citizens privacy,
which is most important to let them live with dignity.
Tech gives the gift of independence

Not just senior citizens, there are also many youngsters
with disabilities who are beginning to use technology to
www.efymag.com
29
Tech Focus
Look, what you are in for...
You would surely have read of smartappliances, smart thermostats, smart lighting
systems and so on. But do you know that smart, autonomous gadgets are available for
many more purposes such as the following?
To water plants, depending on soil moisture, weather reports, etc
To take orders and mix cocktails
To monitor the condition of water in pools and autonomously initiate cleaning and

refilling operations
To automatically start cooking food as soon as you leave office
help them live independently. In the

case of Eric Pebbles, an active college professor, who also suffers from
spastic cerebral palsy due to oxygen
deprivation at birth, a smarthome is
a boon.
He roped in smart technology
provider Smart Solutions to build an
independent living space for him.
After assessing his requirements, they
came up with a detailed plan for the
house, which included automated
doors, lights, thermostats, shades
and security cameras, which could
be controlled through an app on his
smartphone. This enabled Pebbles to
control these equipment from anywhere in the house.
Smartlogic built into the system
executes commands based on the situation without being explicitly given
each instruction. When Eric is ready
to go out, a one-touch command executes multiple tasks like unlocking
and opening the door, switching off
the air-conditioner and lights, opening the garage door and closing all
these after he leaves.
In a Web report, Pebbles said,
You do not know how good it feels
to be able to open my own front door
and enjoy the view. Thanks to technology, I can. The best part is that
all this magic has been worked into a
normal apartment and not a specially-constructed one, so it is something
anybody can try and implement for
themselves.
Avoiding bugs
It is evident that as smarthome technologies gain momentum, these will
serve a mixed purpose of convenience, comfort and necessity. In the
30
case of such critical applications,

say, where a persons parameters
or whereabouts are monitored for
healthcare reasons, it is also important that the system should work
without faults.
Understandably, researchers
around the world are attempting to
identify and overcome bugs in smart
technologies. In one such research
published by Juan Ye and team at
School of Computer Science, University of St Andrews, Scotland, they
observe that abnormal sensor events
hamper the correct identification of
critical (and potentially life-threatening) situations, and that existing
learning, estimation and time based
approaches are inaccurate and inflexible when applied to multiple people
sharing a living space.
They also point out that sensor
anomaly, which might be caused by
people accidentally moving or dislodging sensors, can be even more
problematic than broken sensors.
This is because dislodged sensors
could report values that are within a
reasonable range but not accurate, so
it would be difficult to find out that
these are malfunctioning. Addressing
this is, according to the team, more
difficult than straightforward damage
of sensors.
To solve this problem, the researchers have developed CLEAN,
a knowledge-driven technique to
detect anomalies in event-driven
binary sensors. According to the
authors, CLEAN combines knowledge and statistical models by using
well-defined knowledge as part of
a clustering based outlier-detection
technique.
The system does not rely on any

training data or annotated data and is
therefore not affected by any change
in the occupants routine activities. A
flexible and dynamic mechanism is
used to configure and adjust thresholds at runtime, which reduce the
engineering effort. It can work with
any number of sensors and users,
and can be scaled up, too.
The concept has been tested using several third-party real-world
datasets with different sensor deployments, user profiles, etc, and has
been found to be effective.
Hopefully, we will see this and
other research findings deployed in
future smarthomes.
Smart, no doubt, but

should be used smartly, too
The first reaction to these products
and projects is amazement, followed
by a sense of satisfaction, albeit peppered with a little fear. It is good to
know that smarthome technologies
enable people with disabilities to live
on their own terms.
It is comforting that these technologies let mothers be at peace at
their workplaces, while getting constant updates about the whereabouts
and safety of their kids.
It is also nice that these technologies free up some of peoples time
and mindshare. Fortunately, these
also save them a bundle by reducing
energy consumption.
But, at what cost? When you find
a free hour, you should listen to this
National Public Radio debate on
whether smart technology is making us dumb. It is available on www.
npr.org/2015/05/20/407956931/
debate-is-smart-technology-makingus-dumb
Hard to believe, but it could be
true that too much of technology
could reduce our ability to think and
make decisions for ourselves. It is a
boon for those who really need it,
but others must exercise their discretion. You cannot have too much of
a chocolate cake just because it is
delectable.
www.efymag.com
Tech Focus
Would You Like Some Smarts

in Your Home?
Dilin Anand is a senior
assistant editor at EFY
(TNT). It is not every day that you can watch your

house get attacked by terrorists, as you relax in a
warm bubble bath in your temperature-controlled
bathtub, while catching up on the action unravelling outside.
A display in the panic bathroom lets you
watch security footage and control your house
from a bathtub using a waterproof remote. There
are 24 audio zones and 16 cameras spread across
the house that can be used to single-handedly run
things like awesome parties, while making sure
nothing gets out of hand.
The house also comes with a temperaturecontrolled cellar for storing red wines and a special humidor for cigars. To prevent your teenager
from consuming the wine, the cellar comes with
biometric access points. The cellar can also be
programmed to send across a text to you if someone tries to get in.
There is also a ballroom with a dance floor
that almost magically lowers itself into a swimming pool with just the press of a button.
But, how do we build something at least close
to this?
Connection 1: The living room

and the bedroom
n automated stacking car lift packs your

car into a garage, while you proceed to
enter Kensington House at 16 South End,
London W8. It has more than a couple of floors
and, so, comes with its very own lift to take you
up. Touchpanels give you control of the ` 25 million worth of electronics in the house connected
via 30 kilometres of wiring and controlled by a
computer server rack that by itself costs approximately ` 6 million.
For the kind of clients who would look for a
place like this, there are special panic rooms inside
the house protected by bomb-proof doors that can
withstand the blast of 10 kilograms of trinitrotoluene
32
Crestron is introducing the next version of their

DigitalMedia AV distribution technology with
the new DM 3.0 standard that was introduced
at InfoComm in Orlando, the USA, in June 2015.
This means, you can create a movie experience
through your living space without worrying about
connectivity problems.
Just like Kensington House, you can have
wireless touchscreens placed around your house
to directly control various automations in it. You
can connect these devices using standard technologies like Wi-Fi and Z-wave or go for specialised
technology like Smartlabs Insteon technology
that uses power lines and radio frequency (RF) or
Crestrons Extended Range (ER) RF technologies.
Often, there are equipment vendors who force
you onto specific communication technologies but
the above seem to be among the most popular.
www.efymag.com
Tech Focus
Control4 Simple Device Discovery Protocol (SDDP) is a bit of software built into products to ensure
seamless integration between the
50+ supporting manufacturers and
partners. With SDDP, the system
automatically finds and adds SDDPenabled devices, thus making it far
easier to add new elements of automation to your home.
Dimmers. It is the first thing that
comes to mind when we talk about
lighting. Controlling the brightness
of your LED bulb is pretty simple
and there are many low-cost drivers
that can do it. But if you are really in
it for quality, drivers like EcySystem
LED driver from Lutron lets you continuously dim the brightness without
any unsightly step-like dimming.
Moreover, the driver lets you select
from two types of dimming, namely,
constant current reduction (CCR) or
pulse width modulation (PWM).
Hue lighting system from Philips
is a high-tech light bulb that lets you
control colour, timing and brightness
through a phone. You can go so far
as to get it to simulate a sunrise in
the morning.
Of course, just controlling the
dimmer on an LED is not worthy
of the home automation title. That
is where light-management systems
come into play.
Quantum Total Light Management
System blends LED drivers, digital
ballasts, motorised window shades
and other lighting controls within
one system.
Other systems like Lutrons EnergiSavr Node Solutions lets a smart
system control light and save energy
by controlling third-party ballasts,
drivers, wired and wireless occupan-
Designed in India
THE-BUTTON. We are working on an interesting futuristic device
that would be a small Wi-Fi based device called THE-BUTTON. It is a
single-button-assignable action device that can be fitted in the house
on prominent/specific places and would do the job when pressed. For
example, if it is placed near a washing machine, it could be used to order
a new batch of washing powder when you see that it is getting over. The
same could be used as a distress-signal generator (to call for support), if placed near the
main door or in the den.
T. Anand, managing director, Knewron
Home automation smart plug (HASP). We have come up with
HASP, a device that lets you transform your gadgets to achieve home
automation. Paired with Bluetooth, an Android application is used to
enter data to HASP, which is then monitored by an inbuilt timer-controlled
electronic switch that switches the device on or off according to the
instruction given by the user via Android user interface.
Edwin Andrews, co-founder, SPATEZ
cy sensors, daylight sensors and wall

stations to efficiently manage light.
A motor controller like QS Motor
Module can also be used to control
natural lighting through AC blinds,
shades and louvers.
Onset HOBO occupancy and lightdata loggers provide time-stamped
occupancy and on/off light data.
These can be used free of charge
on qualifying projects. This should
provide project managers and contractors with a competitive advantage
and make the case for adding lighting
controls to a project based on actual
occupancy data.
Connection 2: The kitchen

and the garden
Firms like Grahams Hi-Fi have been
setting up lighting systems that
connect with Web interfaces, time
locks and even integrate with smoke
detectors. So, if your beef steak just
went from medium-rare to on-fire,
the lighting system will show you the
quickest way out of the room without
I automated my apartment and it kind of creeped me out

A few weeks after I gave my apartment a home automation makeover, I found myself
in a strictly 21st-century pickle. I was naked and shivering, stranded post-shower in my
bathroom, trying to plot a route past a motion-activated camera to the freshly-laundered
towels I had left by the bed. The camera was only meant to shoot pictures of trespassers,
but the trigger that shuts off the system when I am home is my smartphone and I had
allowed the battery to run down. From technologys point of view, I was an intruder in my
own apartment.
An excerpt from an article by Alexis SobelFitts at www.popularmechanics.com
34
you getting suffocated, while the

fire-control system takes care of the
charred meat.
Systems from Honeywell will also
have real people monitoring data
from your home so that they can
act in time in case of fire, a carbonmonoxide-related event or some
other emergency.
Smart appliances. There is probably nothing cooler than Brewie, the
worlds first fully-automated home
brewery. The system takes of everything from milling and mashing to
adding hops and storing craft beer
in kegs. It even lets you know when
the brew is done as well as when it
is ready for you to drink the brew
or share it with your friends. It even
cleans up after itself.
You can control your environment by using devices like Honeywell
Lyric thermostat that let you adjust
the temperature and control energy
usage through the Internet or your
smartphone. While Nest thermostat
needs no specific mention, there are
some new ones like iT500 by SALUS
Controls for the European market and
Ecobee 3.
For all those not-so-smart devices
that you already have, you can use
Incipios series of smartplugs to give
you complete smartphone control
over these. You can use its fancy
proximity-detection feature to turn
on the PlayStation when you get
www.efymag.com
Tech Focus
The Internet of things and the household of the future
close to it. That way, you can always

escape by bending the rules if your
significant other has imposed martial
law forbidding you from switching on
the PlayStation.
Voice commands. In places like
the kitchen, you probably have your
hands full with dough or raw meat,
and a touchscreen would not be the
best way to interact with your home.
In such cases, voice-command-recognition devices can come to your rescue. While some require a gesture to
activate a command, others are smart
enough to listen to the sounds in the
kitchen and figure out when you are
speaking to your mother and when
you are speaking to the computer
controlling your house.
Crestron TST-602 comes with a
touchscreen and tactile push-buttons.
Alternatively, Honeywell has their
Tuxedo Touch system that works as a
hands-free home-control system. Arm
it by saying, Hello Tuxedo, and it
will let you do a variety of things like
36
controlling lighting, heating, television and locks, among others.
Connection 3: Physically
accessing your home
Physical access to your home has to
do with main doors, windows, garage
doors and other access points to gain
entry into your house.
The new smart Control4 Garage
Door package gives you a system
where mere motion of your garage
door can activate specific routines.
For example, imagine coming home
from work. As the garage door lifts,
and before you have even parked
your car, a sensor communicates
with Control4 system, which begins
prepping your house for your arrivalselect lights go on, thermostats kick up the heat, coffee starts
brewing, Brewie gets ready to make
some craft beer and your favourite
music plays through the living room
speakers.
You can now lock/unlock doors
using your smart device, without
making your door look like a robot
that came out of the series Doctor
Who. Bladwin wirelessly-controlled
access-control systems give you remote control over your locks (along
with manual key access) and include
locks that can work together with
systems like Crestron Connected to
create a system that can understand
other events and connect these together. As an example, if you lock
your door on the way out, the system
will begin switching off the lights,
lowering the shades, adjusting the
air-conditioning system and activating the burglar alarm.
Schlage Sense lock system is another alternative that is also designed
to play nice with Apples HomeKit.
Sensors like glass-break detectors are able to listen for the sound
of breaking glass to guard against
intruders. While it is also possible
to use window sensors, these only
work if the thief opens the window
like a normal person. If he is of the
aggressive variety, then you would
need a glass-break detector to catch
the sound and let the house know
that there is an intruder in the house.
If you are really tech-savvy, you
could even try programming in some
Home Alone style action. Some popular glass-break detectors are Bosch
DS1108i, Honeywell Flexguard FG-730
and Reliance THP213.
Devices like MyQ are a mix of a
simple Wi-Fi hub and a door sensor
A device that learns about and adapts to you

Canary absorbs and analyses what is happening at home to keep you safer and connected.
Its algorithm based motion detection learns over time to send you smarter notifications.
When Canary senses anything out of the ordinary, you receive a notification with recorded
HD video of the event, as well as the option to watch live. The longer you have it, the more
effective it becomes.
www.efymag.com
Tech Focus
that can be rigged to control a garage
door using the existing locking or
motor-driving mechanism. It also
notifies the owner when the door
opens.
Another interesting automateddoor lock system is August Smart
Lock that works with the deadlock
already on the door.
Connection 4: Monitoring
your home virtually
One much talked about solution here
is Eve home monitoring system by
Elgato. It offers a huge set of sensors
that let you measure weather, water,
energy, smoke and other elements,
and provide statistics of how these
have been varying. It can also be
connected to systems like HomeKit.
Merging home automation with
wearable technology. With devices
like Apple Watch and smartpendants
arriving on the scene, you do not
need to dig through your pockets for
a smartphone or take your laptop out
www.efymag.com
Smarthome solutions by tech giants

Apples HAP Kit. Apple with its HomeKit framework has made a strategic
move to enter the smarthome market. The large installed base of its
smartphones and tablets with the powerful voice assistant, Siri, provides
a platform for a basic, easy-to-use plug-and-play-type smarthome
solution.
Google Nest Lab Solution. Nest thermostats automatically create a
heating or cooling schedule based on the daily routines of residents. Initially, residents are
required to set the target room temperature by turning Nest thermostat wheel several times
a day. Once these settings are stored, the thermostat is capable of building a temperature
schedule and profile. Nest thermostats are Internet-connected and get updated through the
Internet. Nest acquired streaming video camera maker Dropcam and integrated its products
with Dropcams surveillance capabilities.
Samsung SmartThings. Samsung is another vendor that has created a set of
SmartThings automation devices, which can be used in smarthomes. Samsung mobile
phones can control all these devices. In addition to this, Samsung supports IFTTT, a Web
based service that allows users to create a chain of conditional statements. Its expanded
form is If This Then That, conveying what it actually stands for.
S.A. Srinivasa Moorthy, director, D4X Technologies Pvt Ltd
to connect or monitor your home.

Two-way communication between
your wearable device and your home
allows you to not only monitor your
home but also control it.
Firms like Creston have started
to bring out apps that run on your
watch that let you turn on lights, adjust the air-conditioner, stream music
or open the garage door using your
watch. Using Symbol Intensive Master Programming Language (SIMPL),
other developers can support their
own devices through Crestron app.
37
Tech Focus
Sensing the environment. Environmental sensors are ideal for detection of floods, leaks and extreme
heat. Air Quality Egg is an environmental sensor kit that gathers highresolution readings of NO2 and CO
concentrations.
Another technology is one that is
developed by University of California
Riverside and is called electronic
nose. It is a multi-sensor device
that can detect small amounts of
hazardous airborne chemicals like
pesticides, combustion emissions, gas
leaks and chemical warfare agents.
Designers see the device being used
in three different platforms, namely,
handheld devices, wearable devices
and smartphones.
Withings Home device is equipped
with an HD camera that has up to
1080p, 135-degree wide angle, as well
as night vision and general motion
detection via a motion sensor, two
microphones and air-quality tracking.
The device also has a sound sensor
and an environment sensor that can
measure temperature, humidity and
detect levels of harmful chemicals.
Tempo by Blue Maestro is a lightweight device designed to track environmental conditions in a number of
personal and commercial situations.
Utilising either HomeKit or a Bluetooth connection via a dedicated app,
Tempo allows you to track humidity,
barometric pressure, temperature and
other metrics for a wide range of environments, from your pets habitat
to your humidor or wine cellar, just
like at Kensington House.
Connection : Your home

is aware of you
Companies like Control4 have built
some really impressive software for
home automation. Even Cisco has
teamed up with Control4 and the
company was also the lead investor
in a recent round of private funding
for Control4.
Control4 software is believed to
be like an operating system (OS) for
connected devices in a home and
includes consumer electronics, home
38
What next-gen technologies drive their smart features

Low-power RF technologies. Zigbee, WPAN are examples of
technologies that are being used for wireless interaction between the
users smartphone/laptop and the various devices/gadgets present
inside the house.
Connectivity protocols. The world is moving from IPv4 to IPv6 as
the insatiable demand for Internet-connected smart devices can be easily
accommodated via IPv6. IPv6 also adds enhancements for security, multimedia traffic
management and simplified network configuration.
Low-power application processors/microcontrollers. For performing complex
computations and a convenient user interface, low-power application processors/
embedded processors acts as the main engine.
Gesture control. A user can initiate various actions like turning on the television,
lights, fans or air-conditioners using just hand movements.
Integration of energy management into home gateways. Once energy
consumption details are calculated and shared, the home gateway can detect and
suggest various options through which the user can reduce the overall energy
consumption and billing.
High-definition video capturing/encoding/streaming. High-resolution surveillance
video is captured, encoded and transmitted over the Internet without lag/latency.
Smartphone integration. Smart software technology has to be integrated into
smartphones to interact with various devices/gadgets present in the smarthome. There
are already various standards introduced by big players such as Apple, Google and other
home automation vendors in this area.
Ravindra B.S., senior project manager, Mistral Solutions
What is up in India with respect to smarthomes

With an increase in smartphone and tablet usage, smart technologies are
becoming easier to use and are becoming more affordable and prevalent.
Additionally, the governments recent initiative on building smartcities, the
core of which is formed by the Internet of Things, has provided a boost
to the establishment of home automation systems. According to Allied
Market Research, the home automation market globally is expected to
grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 29.5 per cent from 2013 to 2020, with
Asia Pacific as the fastest growing market with nearly 38 per cent CAGR.
Manjul Trehan, director sales - India, Lutron GL Sales & Services Pvt Ltd
appliances, lighting and thermostats.

You could connect it with modern
motion sensors like the ones from
Honeywell to make your system
aware enough to be able to differentiate between a cat and a cat burglar.
This means no more false alarms
when your dog jumps on the sofa.
Apples HomeKit, Googles Nest
Lab Solution and Samsungs Smarthings have a lot of potential in simplifying the current state of home
automation. HomeKit is like any
other OS for your house that any
manufacturer can support through
its devices. It can leverage the existing Apple ecosystem like Macs, iOS
devices, Apple TV and Siri to make
the process of control and monitoring
that much easier.
HomeKit is also believed to work

with non-HomeKit devices that use
competing protocols and standards
like ZigBee or Z-wave.
Newer updates have allowed
systems to be able to do their magic
without any input from you. These
can track your fitness band (like
Jawbone UP series band) and use the
information from it to control your
home. It can detect that you have
fallen asleep by the lowered pulse
rate and then activate the alarms in
your home, turn down the lights to
save power, lock all doors and set the
alarm to wake you up the next morning. You can also tell Siri to do stuff
for you, and it will understand what
exactly you mean when you say,
Brew me a latte, please!
www.efymag.com
Innovation
More Power to Your Phone

With XS Powercard
W
Anagha P. is
a technical
correspondent
at EFY
ith smartphones getting smarter,

their battery consumption is
also increasing. Normally, a
person has to charge a phone at least twice
daily. But this becomes a headache when
travelling, as the user may not find charging points everywhere, or have the time to
wait till the phone is completely charged.
That is why power banks got introduced,
to charge the device on-the-go. However,
many power banks available in the market
today are bulky.
Would it not be great to have a power
bank that is portable, stylish and has some
cool additional features, too? To address
this, Xyra, an Indian start-up, has come up
with a new product called XS Powercard
a fashionable credit-card-sized gadget that
easily fits into a wallet/purse, has built-in
cables and detachable flash storage, and
can transfer or synchronise data between
the phone and a computer. It comes with
variable charging speeds and priority charging, too.
Most of us do not leave the
house without our phone and wallet. The proposition of the developers is Do not forget your wallet
and you will not forget your battery
pack.
Packed with features

This power bank, combined with
storage and syncing functions, offers variable charging rates, three
colours of light emitting diodes
(LEDs) to indicate different charging states, three modes of charging
(charge the phone, charge itself,
and charge both), two types of connectors, a fortified universal serial
bus (USB), autonomous phone detection and 2200mAh battery.
XS powercard has the following
circuit blocks: DC-to-DC converter,
40
logic circuit, lithium-ion battery recharging circuit, charge-rate modulation circuit

and USB enumeration circuit.
It runs on a built-in non-replaceable
2200mAh lithium-polymer battery, encapsulated in two plastic halves that are
ultrasonically welded together with other
electronics in the circuitry. The battery
lasts for over 500 cycles and has 150 days
standby time until discharge.
Miniaturising the product

XS Powercard is 82.5x63.0x6.3mm in
size and weighs just about 65gm. The
body is made of ten per cent glass-filled
polycarbonate, has smooth matte finish
and comes in white and black colour
variants.
Strategic casing design. It has an ergonomic and lightweight design that fits
into a wallet, effectively using the existing
space above the credit cards in it. That is,
you can place the gadget in the topmost
credit card slot with other credit cards
stacked below it, and it adds only 6.3mm
thickness to the wallet.
Cables are placed strategically to avoid
tangling and measure up to 30.5cm (1foot) when extended to their full length.
Moreover, it allows the user to talk or text
on the phone even while charging.
Eliminating switches. The smart
power-management feature automatically and instantly detects and starts
charging the phone when connected to
the card. This eliminates the need for an
on/off switch.
PCB size and space management. It
was mainly critical thinking, intricate design choices and immaculate space management that allowed fitting everything
into the small size, according to the team.
The team also spent a lot of time
trying to miniaturise the printed circuit
board (PCB) to the smallest size.
www.efymag.com
Innovation
Charging smartly
XS Powercard combines multiple features that make charging easier and
hassle-free for users.
Single-port smartcharging. The
single-port charging allows users to
simultaneously connect XS Powercard to the phone and USB port of
a computer, laptop or adaptor. The
team made it smart by introducing
priority charging, which means that,
when the gadget is connected to
both phone and USB port, power is
first directed to the phone, allowing
it to charge. Once the phone is fullycharged, the gadget redirects power
to charge itself. So you do not have
to separately charge the two. This
is ideal for those who charge their
phones every night, as they can wake
up to find both the devices charged.
Following is how it was implemented:
Current drawn by the phone was
measured and calibrated to understand when it is completely-charged.
Then, this system was hardwired
into the device. The same could have
been achieved with software as well
but the team decided to take the
hardware route as it was cheaper.
Variable charging rates. The
device has a mechanical toggle
switch that lets you select between
two modes of charging. In standard
mode, the phone is charged efficiently with 0.55A current. In other
words, all of Powercards power is
utilised to charge the phone.
In fast-charging mode, the phone
is charged faster but less efficiently
with 1A current. Battery of the phone
lasts for two hours when charged in
Fun fact
Team Xyra comprises young and
ambitious friends and recent college
graduates, Armaan Gandhi, Arzan Irani
and Sahej Sethi. During the first year
of the companys establishment, the
three partners were never in the same
country for more than a week. This was
all achieved while being thousands of
kilometres apart. Where there is a will,
there is a way, they say.
42
Different Battery Banks Available in the Market

Features
XS Powercard
LithiumCard
mophie
JUMP
powerstation
Cable
reserve
Battery (mAh) 2200 1200 700 800
Size (mm)
82.5x63x6.3 85.6x54x5.5 77x37.9x13 5x5x1.3
Fits in wallet
Yes
Yes
No
No
Data storage
Yes
No
No
No
Variable charging speed
Yes
No
No
No
Priority charging
Yes
No
Not specified
Yes
Price (US$)
34-45
35-100
39.95
30-40
fast mode and for three hours when

charged in standard mode. These
numbers may vary with capacity
of the battery, number of apps installed on the phone and usage of
the phone. The variable charging rate
was obtained by altering the feedback loop of the integrated circuit
(IC) used in the circuitry.
Power management and device
protection. How many times have
you plugged in your phone to a
power bank but forgotten to turn it
on? With smart power management,
you do not need to remember to turn
on and off the card each time, as it
automatically detects the phone and
starts or stops charging.
It also has inbuilt circuitry to
protect the phone as well as its own
battery from over-charge. This is
achieved with charge-termination
functionality of the IC used on the
board, allowing the turning off of
charge once the device is completelycharged.
Connectors and flash drive

There are two models of XS Powercard depending on the type of phone
connector offered: lightning (for iOS
devices) and micro-USB (for most
Some information
Device : XS Powercard
Brand : Xyra
Models : Connector: Micro-USB/lightning
Data storage: 8GB/16GB/32GB
Colour: Black and white
Pricing : ` 2999 for the base model
Website : www.helloxyra.com
Contact : info@helloxyra.com
Android, Blackberry and Window

based devices).
Then, there is a USB connector
that allows you to connect the power
card to the power source. This connector is reinforced with low-profile
metal tips, making it ideal for robust,
daily usage. The rate at which XS
Powercard charges itself depends on
the type of power source it is connected towhether USB 2.0 or USB
3.0 (of a laptop or computer) or AC
wall socket (using a standard USB
adaptor).
You could also choose between
8GB, 16GB and 32GB of removable
storage. This flash drive can be detached from the card and plugged
into any standard USB port, enabling
easy data storage and transfer.
Similar products in market

Developers claim that this is the only
product in the Indian market that
clubs a power bank, cables, datastorage device, and data transfer and
sync options on a single device that
fits inside the credit-card slot of a
wallet. Compared to other portable
chargers like LithiumCard, mophie
powerstation reserve and JUMP Cable, XS Powercard has more battery
capacity (2200mAh), multiple charging rates (fast and standard) and
even a data-storage device.
Moreover, all the important features of XS Powercard such as smart
power management, single-port
smart charging and priority charging,
three coloured LEDs and three modes
of working are not available in any
other device in the market.
www.efymag.com
Test & Measurement
Developments in Mixed-Signal
Oscilloscopes Accelerate Embedded
Design Development
E
Abhishek A. Mutha
is a senior technical
correspondent at EFY
ngineers, especially those working on

embedded designs, bank on mixedsignal oscilloscopes (MSOs) right
from the prototype stage to product testing.
Embedded system designers debug their
designs with analogue- and digital-channel
capabilities in these oscilloscopes, which
also provide a variety of triggering options.
Let us take a look at the new capabilities
added in these MSOs.
Faster, wider, higher, deeper:

four buzzwords in MSOs
Some mixed-signal
oscilloscopes available
in the market
44
As embedded designs continue to grow

speedily in numbers, manufacturers are
continuously evolving their MSOs accordingly. With new applications emerging in
the Internet of Things (IoT), wireless and
various semiconductor technologies, MSOs
are playing an important tool for debugging.
Todays oscilloscopes come with faster

sampling rates, wider channel selection,
higher resolutions and deep memory.
For instance, HDO8000 series introduced by Teledyne LeCroy has eight analogue input channels with 12-bit resolution.
This allows engineers to view clean and
crisp signals in greater detail, post debugging using digital channels. Often signals
are lost in noise. But with high resolution,
engineers can be sure of clearly seeing
such signals, thereby improving the overall
debug and analysis process.
RTO and RTE series of digital-storage
oscilloscopes (DSOs) from Rohde &
Schwarz, which also have the option of
mixed-signal, provide high-resolution capabilities with their monolithic analogue-todigital (A/D) converters that make acquisitions up to 16-bit resolution possible.
www.efymag.com
Test & Measurement

Some Mixed-Signal Oscilloscopes in the Market
Manufacturer
Model/type
Features
Price
Bitscope
BS05, PC based
20MHz bandwidth, two analogue and six digital channels

Compatible with Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and Raspberry Pi
Decodes Serial, SPI, I2C and CAN
` 14,131*
CWAV Inc.
USBee QX, PC based
First-of-its-kind USB 3.0/Wi-Fi MSO and protocol analyser

Captures up to 32 days of traces
600MHz with 24 digital channels and four analogue channels
Includes popular serial protocols such as RS232/UARTs, SPI, I2C, CAN, SDIO,
Async, 1-Wire and I2S
US$ 2495
Keysight
Technologies
InfiniiVision 3000T X-Series,

benchtop
21.6cm (8.5-inch) capacitive touch screen, waveform update rate up to 1M wfm/s,

six-in-one integration that includes an oscilloscope, optional digital channels,
hardware serial protocol decode and triggering, built-in arbitrary waveform generator,
DVM and an 8-digit counter and totaliser
Base price ranging

between ` 340,278
and ` 1,080,832
Oscium
iMSO-204L, mobile/tablet
based
MSO designed specifically for iPhones, iPads, iPods

Two analogue and four digital channels, 50MS/s sample rate, 5MHz bandwidth,
200ns/div-10s/div
Starts from
` 38,000**
Rigol
MSO1000 series/
MSO2000 series/
MSO4000 series, benchtops
70MHz-500MHz models with 16 digital channels and two or four analogue, up to

4GSa/s sampling, up to 140Mpts record length, serial triggering and decode, inbuilt
2-channels 25MHz arbitrary function generator, 6-bit counter
Starts from US$

835/US$ 1239/
US$ 3217
Siglent
SDS2000 series, benchtop
Up to 300MHz bandwidth, 2GSa/s sampling rate, built-in 25MHz function/arbitrary

waveform generator and a variety of serial protocol trigger and decode functions
Ranging between
US$ 805 and
US$ 2558
Tektronix
MSO4000B series, benchtop
Up to 1GHz bandwidth and 5GS/s sample rate, digital phosphor display and up to
four analogue and 16 digital channels
Ranging between
` 1,020,000 and
` 1,570,000
Teledyne
LeCroy
HDO8000 series, benchtop
8-channel available in 350MHz, 500MHz and 1GHz bandwidths

HD4096 technology and ERES (enhanced resolution) filtering
Starts from
US$ 23,850
Yokogawa
DLM4000 series, benchtop
Available in both 350MHz and 500MHz models; 2.5GSa/sec DLM4000 features

eight analogue input channels
Features Flex MSO
High-resolution 30.7cm (12.1-inch) LCD display
N/A
*As listed on element14.com

**As notified by the Indian distributor
Engineers are always on the look

out for more analogue channels in
a scope. Eight analogue channels
provide great flexibility to an engineer working on complex embedded
designs. Although, more analogue
channels on an MSO makes the
device more expensive. Apart from
Teledyne LeCroys HDO8000 series
of MSOs, another test and measurement (T&M) vendor, Yokogawa, provides eight analogue channels in its
DLM4000 series of MSOs.
Such MSOs, with a wide selection
of channels, are ideal for professionals debugging high-power power
electronics, automotive electronics
and complex embedded as well as
mechatronic designs. A unique ability
of DLM400 series is that the eighth
analogue channel comes with Flex
MSO, a feature that converts it to an
46
8-bit logic analyser with the push of

a button.
With more analogue channels
and higher resolutions, deep record
lengths is an equally important
feature. T&M vendors are offering
MSOs with deep memory typically
ranging from 150Mpts per channel to
250Mpts per channel. The sampling
rate for MSOs usually range from
1.5GSa/s to 4Gsa/s.
CAN FD-enabled MSOs

Most of the known MSO vendors are
steadily incorporating support for
controller area network with flexible
data rate (CAN FD) data frames by
providing an additional trigger capability for better analysis of traffic in
the CAN FD network.
After Teledyne LeCroy, Keysight
and Rohde & Schwarz, Yokogawa
has integrated support for CAN FD

in their DLM2000 and DLM4000
series of MSOs. Evolution of more
complex and advanced vehicular
control systems has a proportional
effect on the amount of traffic inside the CAN network. Therefore it
is important for MSOs to have the
ability to provide engineers with
dedicated triggers and functionalities to boost the analysis and
debugging process.
Apart from triggers and search
functions for CAN FD, it is important
for the MSO to have high memory
depth as it makes it easier for the
designer to handle extended data
frames.
Some other oscilloscopes that
support CAN FD are Infinii Vision
3000T X-series and 4000T X-series
from Keysight Technologies, Teledyne
www.efymag.com
Test & Measurement

Common requirements from MSO users
Upgradability for bandwidths is not usually asked for, although
additional digital channels requirement is an upgrade that is often
requested.
An interesting, highly-demanded feature is a full-fledged
arbitrary function/waveform generator. In this era of mixed-signal
designs, it is becoming very important for an MSO to have an
integrated signal source. Karl Chen, product marketing manager,
Rigol Technologies Inc., says, Inbuilt arbitrary waveform
generation, or Arb, is another significant advancement. Crowded
work benches and limited budgets are driving users to demand
more functionality in one instrument. For example, he adds, An
education lab can readily build an automatic frequency-response
test system. Likewise, a time-synchronous circuit could use the
Arb to simulate pulses for time-correlation. The possibilities are
limitless.
LeCroys CAN FD TDM oscilloscopes, and RTE and RTO

oscilloscopes from Rohde & Schwarz.
MSOs powered with PAM-4 analysis capability

Many known oscilloscope manufacturers have recently
introduced pulse amplitude modulation (PAM-4) analysis
capability in their range of MSOs.
Mobile computing applications are requiring everincreasing Internet speeds as well as improved Internet
infrastructure. To enable this, very-high-speed connectivity among server systems is absolutely necessary.
Non-return-to-zero (NRZ) encoding is mostly used
for modulation in conventional communication methods.
Industry experts feel NRZ will not function in a 56Gbit/s
environment. Hence, one solution for this problem is to
change the technique from NRZ to PAM. This would allow engineers to significantly expand the amount of data
these can transmit across high-speed digital communication links. Many industry standards bodies are actively
promoting PAM-4 technology.
PAM-4 signalling helps engineers to address design
and measurement challenges swiftly and achieve faster
time-to-market. Vendors usually provide an additional
software tool that can be combined with particular
models of MSOs to activate PAM-4 analysis capability.
Recently, Keysight introduced Keysight N8827A PAM4 analysis software (for V- and Z-series oscilloscopes)
and N8827B PAM-4 analysis software (for S-series oscilloscopes), which engineers can use to perform a complete analysis of electrical PAM-4 signals.
Teledyne LeCroy too released a set of tools for similar
analysis and they claim to be the only manufacturer who
offer a software that compares jitter, eye and noise measurements on up to four lanes, simultaneously.
Serial-bus triggering trickling down

to low-end MSOs
Another trend in MSOs is that serial-bus triggering and
decoding is moving down to low-end MSOs. Earlier, only
www.efymag.com
47
Test & Measurement

Who is buying MSOs in India
Embedded designers are the key users of MSOs. These applications span
across several segments, from communications, semiconductors, computing,
aerospace defence, industrial electronics, consumer electronics and
automotive industries.
Educational institutes also find MSOs of great value as these help students
visualise the intricacies of digital designs. Several reference boards and instruction aids,
commonly used in college labs, deploy serial busses on these. Serial bus triggering and
decoding helps students learn and understand the internals of embedded designs.
Karl Chen, product manager, Rigol Technologies Inc.
Creative use case of a mixed-signal scope

for a specific application
Matthew Navarro is a deployed US Navy sailor aboard USS Gridley, a guidedmissile destroyer. But being an electronics wizard aboard a ship has inherent
challenges. Navarro said, We regularly have to run around the ship and
perform repairs on installed equipment. The only oscilloscope we have for
functional checking and measurement is a 20.4kg (45-pound) benchtop unit
and we are out of luck if there is no electrical socket.
He was able to replace what he accurately termed a behemoth of a scope with Osciums
iPad oscilloscope, which weighs only 0.085kg (3 ounces). The iPad oscilloscope attaches to
the charging port of the iPad. And, it does not have a battery; it uses power from the tablet so
there is no need for an outlet. With the small size and no need for charging, this sailor is agile
enough to address all repair issues on the ship, regardless of where it is located.
Bryan Lee, president, Oscium
high-end MSOs had the capability

of serial triggering, but it is slowly
trickling down to basic MSOs offering 70MHz and 100MHz bandwidths.
Designers of embedded systems operating at 20MHz and lower
are addressing several applications
including the IoT and wearable devices, says Karl Chen, product manager, Rigol Technologies Inc. He adds,
This makes MSOs very affordable
and provides great value, especially
for designers working on a plethora
of small- and mid-level embedded
designs.
For instance, MSO1000Z series
from Rigol and SDS2000 series from
Siglent provide serial triggering functions at an affordable price. See Table
for pricing and other details.
Interesting developments in
portable, pocket-sized MSOs
USB based tools used with PCs or
laptops. When engineers look for
flexibility, portability and ease of
measurement, universal serial bus
(USB) oscilloscopes prove to be a
practical option.
USB MSOs are mostly used by
48
engineers and technicians working

in service, testing, equipment repair
and manufacturing. Some MSOs are
connected via USB, Ethernet or even
RS232 and are widely used for a variety of applications starting from research
and development (R&D) to embedded
designs and educational purposes.
An MSO integrated with a protocol analyser enabled with USB 3.0
and Wi-Fi capabilities was recently
introduced; a first of its kind in the PC
based test instrument group.
USBee QX comes with a bandwidth of 600MHz and a combination
of four analogue and 24 digital channels. One unique feature is that it can
record 32 days of traces and display
protocols as it has a buffer memory
of 896 Msamples.
An added benefit is that this device
includes all popular serial protocols
that usually need to be paid for separately in the case of benchtop MSOs.
Another option for hackers, hobbyists, students and engineers is a
tool nearly the size of a Snickers
chocolate bar. This device from
BitScope comes with 20MHz bandwidth, which is apt for small- and,
probably some, medium-level embedded applications. Completely user

programmable, BitScope Micro also
features two analogue channels and
six digital channels. It also behaves
as an 8-channel logic analyser, arbitrary waveform, a clock generator
and spectrum analyser. In addition to
Windows, Mac and Linux, it is also
compatible with Raspberry Pi including its latest versions, Model A+ and
Model B/B+.
Tool specifically for Apple phones
and tablets. An answer to test-bench
tools with mobile and touchscreen
advantage is Osciums iMSO-204L,
a plug-and-play solution. Although
specifically designed only for Apple
devices, such solutions have become
a viable alternative if engineers prefer
to switch over to touch interface from
traditional knobs.
These transform iPads or iPhones
into a variety of test equipment tools
like spectrum analysers, power meters, logic analysers and oscilloscopes.
These are ultra-portable and small
enough to fit in a pocket.
Bryan Lee, president, Oscium,
says, It is powered by the host device
with less than 100mA of current (less
than what it takes to power a small
LED light), so there is very little impact to the battery life, eliminating the
need for an external power source.
He adds, The software is very
easy-to-use. It can be downloaded from
Apple App Store and viewed in demo
mode without access to hardware. After
hardware is connected, field engineers
can monitor, store, and email results
while on-the-go. He also claims that
no other oscilloscope offers a solution
quite like this unique system.
Quite recently, three software updates were made. As a result, users
can now make advanced measurements between cursors, observe signal
clips indicated by a colour change and
can trigger in rolling mode.
Lee notes, Not every user will
be impacted by these changes but it
demonstrates that we are continually
investing in the tool and listening to
our users.
www.efymag.com
CHIPS
FPGAs for The Internet of Things
B
V.P. Sampath is an active
member of IEEE and Institution
of Engineers India. He is a
regular contributor to national
newspapers, IEEE-MAS
section and has published
international papers on VLSI
and networks
illions of devices are expected

to be connected wirelessly by
2020. In this emerging era of connected devices, machines need not only
be secure but also need to be secure at
device, design and system levels. The
Internet of Things (IoT) requires diverse
technology and specialised skill areas
such as specialised hardware and sensor
development, along with sophisticated
real-time embedded firmware, cloud
applications and Big Data analytics for
massive real-time data into usable information, delivery of data to human-scale
and human-usable platforms, particularly
sophisticated smartphone apps. The IoT
is revealing an important need in technology, that is, programmable hardware
and I/O.
The IoT will soon be driven by fieldprogrammable gate array (FPGA)-like
devices, because these devices can interface with the outside world very easily
and provide lowest power, lowest latency
and best determinism. The IoT would
interface with temperature, pressure,
position, acceleration, analogue-to-digital
converters (ADCs), digital-to-analogue
converters (DACs), current and voltage,
among others. Arduino and Raspberry Pi
could also be used.
An FPGA can be considered a programmable special-purpose processor
Fig. 1: The IoT comprises at

least three layers, each with its
own medium and protocols
as it can handle signals at its input pins,

process these and drive signals on its output pins.
The above system is very deterministic.
An FPGA can interact with memory and
storage devices through serialiser/deserialiser interfaces (SERDES), which also allow
for Ethernet, serial or Bluetooth communication. An FPGA can, for example, take
an HTTP request packet received from a
wireless Ethernet component, decode its request, fetch information from memory and
return the requested result back through
the Ethernet device.
The FPGA could be coupled with an
ARM processor to leverage higher-level
software functions such as Web servers or
security packages, if higher level of processing is required. The key consideration
is the programmable aspect of an FPGA. In
a typical development cycle, a supplier development kit is employed to configure the
FPGA, while a printed circuit board (PCB)
is developed with specific sensor/communication/display components, as required.
The IoT challenges

The IoT challenges include security, privacy, unauthorised access, malicious control and denial of service. A hardware-first
approach with respect to security and implementation of necessary functionality on
the systems on chip (SoC) level is vital for
Data Centre
Data Centre
Internet
Access
Point
Hub
50
LTE etc
Wireless
Access
LTE etc
Hub
Hub
Hub
Capillary Network
Short-Range RF
www.efymag.com
CHIPS
fully securing devices and platforms
such as FPGAs, wearables, smartphones, tablets and other intelligent
appliances.
In practice, the hardware-based
platform offers a single user interface
(UI) across factory locations, realtime visibility into operations and
remote, cloud based feature activation. IoT devices also have long life
spans, yet manufacturers are likely
to stop developing and rolling out
patches for a product once it reaches
obsolescence. For these reasons, IoT
devices should leverage hardware
based security and isolation mechanisms that offer robust protection
against various forms of attack.
The outside layer of this network comprises physical devices
that touch, or almost touch, the
real world, such as sensors (optical,
thermal, mechanical and others)
that measure the physical states of
houses, machines or people.
There are some complete control
systems such as thermostats, smartappliances or drone helicopters. The
presence of these complex devices
introduces an encounter with the IoT
in the form of sensors and actuators,
or complete systems.
Consider the thermostat at home.
When we add an interface to it
so that a mobile app can read the
temperature, check for failures and
change the set-point, it works automatically. This approach wants to,
whenever possible, move control
onto the Internet, and ideally onto
a computing cloud and scatter tiny,
inexpensive sensors everywhere.
Here, we eliminate the thermostat
altogether and, instead, put temperature sensors around the house, inside
and out. And while we are at it, we
pull the controller boards out of the
furnace and air-conditioner, connect
their inputs and outputs to the Internet as well, so a cloud application
can directly read their states and
control their sub-systems.
In general, these wireless interfaces match the characteristics such as
low power and the ability to sleep at
52
Hub
Hub
OR
Thermostat
Furance
Controller
Board
Sensors Around
House
Gas
Valve
Ignitor
In Furnace
Fan
Sensors
Fig. 2: Two different concepts of the IoT: connect to existing intelligent controllers (left) or connect
directly to individual sensors and actuators (right) (Source: Altera)
very low quiescent current, long periods of sleep and short bursts of activity. But the interfaces bring with them
baggage, too. These are mutuallyincompatible, have a short range and
use simplified, non-Internet protocol
(IP) packet formats. These characteristics necessitate a new kind of device
to intermediate between the capillary
network and the next layer of the IoT,
that is, a local IoT concentrator.
The concentrator serves as a
hub for short-range radio frequency
(RF) links in its immediate vicinity, manages the link interfaces and
exchanges data with these. Because
these concentrators are unlikely to
have any direct connection to an
Internet-access router, these will generally use Wi-Fi or Long Term Evolution (LTE) as a backhaul network,
which then becomes the second layer
of the IoT. It is the job of the hub,
then, to perform routine work of a
network bridge as well as packing
and unpacking, shaping traffic and
translating between headers used in
short-range RF packets and headers
necessary for backhaul networks.
Future trends
In future, we can expect vehicles
with an increasing amount of autonomous capabilities to navigate roads
and highways, and interact with each
other, their owners and the IoT. Intelligent cars and smartgrids are just the
beginning of a changing ecosystem,
where devices, systems and platforms
that were previously disconnected
will become online.
Ultimately, integration of various

IoT devices and platforms will lead to
the proliferation of smartcities across
the globe, riding on the new digital
infrastructure enabled by ubiquitous
connectivity and the ever-increasing
bandwidth. Thus, it is important to
realise that, just because a system
is embedded, it does not mean it is
secure or will remain so, indefinitely.
Therefore security must be perceived as hardware rather than software patches, with chip makers routinely forced to contend with a wide
range of potentially serious threats
including data breaches, counterfeit
components and intellectual property
(IP) theft. Apart from ensuring fundamental chip security during manufacturing, embedding the right security
intellectual property (IP) core into an
SoC can help manufacturers design
devices, platforms and systems that
remain secure throughout their respective lifecycles.
Hardware-enabled examples include device provisioning, subscription management, secure payments,
authorisation and return merchandise
authorisation (RMA)/test support.
Embedded SoC security can provide
a critical root of trust, managing sensitive keys for secure boot, service
authentication and key management.
The SoC security core can regulate
debug modes to thwart reverse engineering, while providing chip authentication to prevent counterfeiting.
SoC based security can also manage
one-time programming of on-chip
resources.
www.efymag.com
Embedded
Engineers Need Tools That Solve More Than

Just Immediate Hardware Problems
C
Anagha P. is a technical
Dilin Anand is a senior

assistant editor at EFY
54
hanging trends have brought us to

the age where development tools
like electronic design automation
(EDA) solve more than just immediate
hardware problems. Electronic products
have become more sophisticated, so developing their underlying hardware and
software and integrating these two sides
together has also become more complex.
This article takes a look at the trends observed in software development tools for
electronics engineers.
Software-eclipsing hardware
Jaswinder Ahuja, corporate vice president
and managing director, Cadence India,
explained in an interview with EFY that,
from the electronic system level (ESL)
design perspective, high-level abstraction
of software is eclipsing hardware as the
main driver of system development cost,
schedule and risk. Early software development, hardware verification, hardware or
software integration and integrated system
validation have now become primary challenges, increasing development costs, project schedules and risks. As software applications have become the primary product
differentiator, systems and semiconductor
companies must provide not only silicon

but also complete hardware or software
systems ready for apps deployment.
It is not just apps development, though.
An interesting trend observed in the product design flow is how it is increasingly
becoming a multi-disciplinary approach.
Sreekanth Tammana, country manager for
India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka,
Altium Europe GmbH, explained this to
us a few months back. He said, You need
mechanical engineering for the modern
printed circuit boards (PCBs) physical
design and hardware engineers who build
the system. If it is an intelligent or a smart
device, you get embedded engineering and
software engineering involved. Then, there
is cloud systems engineering to connect
these devices to the cloud and to develop
front-end interfaces to manage devices
and grab data out of these. Cloud systems
engineering is an important discipline due
to the popularity of machine-to-machine
(M2M) and Internet of Things (IoT) designs.
How does cloud systems engineering
help you? Let us say that you are designing
a temperature-control system. You have
memory, a microprocessor and you might
www.efymag.com
Embedded
Some Software Tools Updated in the Last One Year
Category
Name
Licence
Description
Latest features
Analogue
simulator
AIM-Spice 5.9
Free
Automatic Integrated Circuit Modeling

Spice (AIM-Spice) uses SPICE format
for describing analogue circuits and has
point-and-click type controls
Supports BSIM4v8.0
Supports ND TFET model version 1.6
Versions for Android and iOS released
cali
VariCAD 2015-2.0
Licensed Tools for 3D modelling and 2D drawingcum-editing, and support for geometrical
constraints; tools for shells, pipelines,
sheet metal unbending and crash tests,
and assembly support
Data logger and

analyser
CAPture VDAS
(CAPture Data
Logger)
Licensed Acquires, displays, logs physical parameters

from connected sensors; can also store and
analyse data
Electronic CAD
LASI 7.0.88
Free
Graphic based on OpenGL 4.0 or 4.3, making

rendering 2.5x to 10x faster
File opening and creation of graphic data is approximately 2x faster
New version automatically turns on anti-aliasing,
making 3D images look significantly better
Edulib cell library and basic tutorial have been revised

LAyout System for Individuals (LASI),
to include Top.gds and Opamp.gds file examples of
originally intended for integrated circuits,
GDS conversion
can be used for ICs, MEMS, other technologies, discrete devices, schematics and project Even byte strings are required by GDS format
Imager tutorial now contains Spice CIR file
documentation drawings
Imager_a_l1.cir compiled from cell Imager_a_l1
by LasiCkt utility
Maximum text size has been increased by a factor of 10
Electronics design Altium Designer 15

environment
Licensed Integrated environment that includes tools

for schematic capture, PCB design, FPGA
design, embedded software development
and manufacturing file support
xSignals to accurately plan and route high-speed

designs
Solder mask-expansion enhancements by which top
and bottom layers can be configured individually
Separate 2D- and 3D-view orientations
Supports collaboration between electrical and mechanical computer-aided design (ECAD and MCAD) domains
with incremental design exchange (IDX) format
Embedded design Kactus2 2.8.0
Free
Metadata based software for sketching,

packing, integrating and generating both
hardware and software for embedded
products at several hierarchy levels
Feature to import parameters from included files

Editors for IP-XACT elements remapState and
memoryRemap
Support for expressions in memory map elements
Support for parameter references in generated
header files
Feature to save new versions of design configurations
and designs
Support for module parameters to hierarchical views
FPGA CAD
RapidSmith 0.5.2
Free
Easy-to-use platform to work on modern

Xilinx FPGAs. Offers a compact and fast
device database with several APIs to enable
different functions for Xilinx devices
Preliminary support for Artix 7 and Zynq devices

Preliminary support for the inout pin type found in
Zynq device/XDL files
HDL
MyHDL 0.8.1
Free
Python based hardware description and

verification language. Designs can be converted to Verilog or VHDL automatically and
implemented using a standard tool flow
Elegant modelling of wrap-around behaviour with

modular bit-vector types
A new decorator for error-free reset behaviour coding
Adds conversion of top-level class methods
IC design
Symica FE / Symica
Toolkit 2.3.0
Dual
Integrates schematic editor, SPICE simulator, waveform viewer and analyser and other
additional features, such as library manager,
symbol editor, hierarchy editor and input and
output translators; paid version includes support for mixed-signal designs and unlimited
number of devices, threads and Verilog-A
model parameters
Creates different netlists for different tools like

SPICE, LVS and others
Probing currents for complex transistor models
represented as sub-circuits
Shares project among multiple designers
PCB design
ZenitPCB 1.8.1
Free
Easy-to-use program that lets you quickly

create professional-quality PCBs
Programming
language and numerical computing environment
Octave 4.0
Free
Free and close alternative to MATLAB for

writing numerical solution of linear and
nonlinear problems, and performing other
numerical experiments
56
Equipped with graphical user interface (GUI) along

with traditional command line interface (CLI)
Support for classdef object-oriented programming
Better compatibility with MATLAB
www.efymag.com
Embedded
Category
Name
Licence
Description
SCADA
IndigoSCADA
Free
Small-footprint SCADA system entirely developed in C and C++ with multiple OS support
and multiple front end protocol drivers
SCADA
S.E.E.R.2 1.5.4
Free
Schematic editor,
mixed signal
simulator and
power consumption estimator
SLED 2.4.0, SMASH

6.4.0 and SCROOGE
3.4.0
Licensed Hierarchical schematic editor SLED, mixedsignal simulator SMASH and extension
SCROOGE for power consumption analysis
Latest features
Moved to phpsysinfo version 3, supporting modern

Windows 7 or Server 2008 and up
Ability to give touch panel instances a friendly name,
rather than only go by their machine name (panel name)
for user display
Added ON_OFF_IND_TOGGLE_INVERSE and ON_OFF_
IND_INVERSE to the touchpanel
Signal processing GNU Radio 3.7.5
Free
Added snap-to-grid, hiding of port names (optional) and

C language based software development
saving of console output to GNU Radio Companion (cretoolkit consisting of signal-processing blocks
ates flowgraphs), and newly-created or saved GRC files
for creating software-defined radios and other
will have version information embedded into these
signal-processing systems
Two separate graphics systems for producing display
output, based on wxWidgets and QT windowing system,
have reached feature parity with each other
New digital television component that incorporates
receiver code
Simulator
DoCircuits
Dual
Online virtual electronics lab with which

you can prototype and test designs
Available on Windows 8.1 devices

(tablets, ultrabooks and the like)
Simulator
Archimides 2.0.1
Free
For design, simulation and behaviour

prediction of sub-micron and mesoscopic
semiconductor devices, based on the
ensemble Monte Carlo method
Fixes a small problem related to Automake

vulnerabilities
Simulator
Ltspice IV (formerly
SwitcherCAD)
Free
SPICE tool to virtually model, simulate

and analyse electronic circuits, particularly
switching regulators
Supports Mac OS X 10.7+ platforms

Multi-threaded solvers that utilise multi-core processors
New SPARSE matrix solvers that deploy self-authoring
code
want to add Internet connectivity to

it. In the first stage, you can place
the collected data on the cloud, and
in the second stage, you would need
an application running locally on the
device to control the temperature and
set up a Web interface to it. Then,
you would need to set up locations
for the device, a smartphone, for
example, to control the system. The
designer needs infrastructure to set
up a server or a portal or a platform,
where the mobile phone is connecting to and syncing with the cloud.
More tools in the sky

Another interesting trend in the
software tools arena is the growing
number and increasing popularity
of Web based development tools for
embedded systems.
Jason Guo, senior technical staff
www.efymag.com
India in the picture

The software development tools sector in Indian electronics industry is growing fast, mainly
because of the good number of established independent design houses and the present
start-up wave here. It is interesting to see that there are a few software development tools
coming up from India too.
Experiment in your virtual lab. Sakshat Virtual Labs, an initiative by Ministry of Human
Resource and Development (MHRD), is one of the many interesting projects that came
up from India. It is a set of free virtual lab software developed by 12 different educational
institutes including the IITs and is undergoing continuous developments. These let you
model physical phenomena with equations and simulate these to predict and understand
the approximate result of the experiment in real. These also let you remotely trigger an
experiment in a real lab and get results through a computer interface.
Going online. Bengaluru based Sparsha Learning Technologies Pvt Ltd has come up
with DoCircuits, a website that provides users with a virtual electronics lab that allows
prototyping and testing of electronics circuits, storing these on the cloud and accessing
these from anywhere securely.
member of Fairchild Semiconductor,

recently said in an interaction with
EFY that some advanced electronic
design and simulation tools are now
available online to enable systemlevel design of switching mode power
supply (SMPS).
Cloud based development tools
reduce the hassle of setting up software, resolve space issues in the
users computer and avoid frequent
upgrades of the tool. These also alElectronics For You | August 2015
57
Embedded
Development tools and EDAsimilarities and differences
A software development tool for embedded systems is an application or tool that is used in
the design flow for designing, simulating, debugging, compiling, optimising and supporting
these systems.
EDA tools are a category of such development tools. These include a schematic editor
and simulator, signal integrity software and PCB design, layout and simulation. These,
along with chip design, cross-compilation systems, in-circuit tools, debuggers, supervisory
control and data acquisition (SCADA) and others, constitute software development tools that
support embedded designs.
low sharing of files between users

from around different parts of the
world. Of course, a Web based system also comes with issues like the
need for continuous high-speed Internet, security and increased uptime.
Fairchilds Power Supply WebDesigner (PSW), Texas Instruments
WEBENCH and the open source project Simulations for Performance Assessments that Report on Knowledge
and Skills (SPARKS) are some of the
online design and simulation tools
currently available.
Altera and Mentor Graphics are
collaborating to provide virtual platforms that contain simulation models
of ARM processor sub-systems in
Alteras systems on chip (SoC) fieldprogrammable gate array (FPGA)
families. This makes embedded
software development easier while
reducing the need for expensive
hardware by enabling large development teams to perform development
and testing in a virtual environment
based on the chip.
Interconnected tools
Tools now encompass the entire
system design flow. This means that
something like wire harness tools
now have the capability of being
connected to their PCB tools, which
are then combined and used for designing systems and even systems of
systems.
Tools like the one Guo mentioned
earlier in the article are also typically
driven by knowledge based automation for every decision-making point
of a design flow. This makes it possible for even novices and amateurs in
the design field to complete a design
quickly.
58
Engineers also want to know how

they can do collision checking and
can ensure that all ports fit perfectly
on the circuit board, and soon.
This is why it became important
to integrate the mechanical world
into EDA tools. If the tool has support
for Incremental Design Exchange format (IDX) files, it would help in the
integration of design files from EDA
tools to mechanical design tools like
SolidWorks. The benefit here is that
IDX allows incremental changes to
the design file, in addition to making
the file sizes smaller.
Tools for the IoT

Every other engineer we meet is into
designing some product or the other
for the IoT. So we thought it would
be a good idea to have one section
focusing entirely on the software
tools available for those working on
IoT products.
If you are trying to build M2M
applications like remote monitoring or fleet management, M2MLabs
Mainspring is a good framework that
you could check out. Written in Java,
it is an open source framework that
allows flexible modelling of devices,
their parts and characteristics. For
instance, a temperature sensor can
have a set of attributes related to indoor and outdoor data that it sends.
All data is time-stamped and sent
according to a REST Web service.
When new data is received, it triggers
execution of Groovy scripts (programming language for Java platform) to
perform boundary checking of data,
interpolation or threshold supervision. Data is stored on scalablenoSQL
database.
DeviceHive and the IoT toolkit
are other frameworks that you could

try out, too.
Node-RED is a tool for wiring
together hardware devices and online services through different flows.
It works with popular boards like
Raspberry Pi (or Raspi), BeagleBone
Black and Arduino. Flows could be
created by adding an inject node and
a debug node and then wiring the
two together through a simple dragand-drop GUI. You can then deploy
the nodes. If you want to apply some
function to each message from the
inject node to the debug node, you
can add a function node in between
theseit is that simple!
Intel XDK IoT edition is a software
tool that also uses Javascript to define
the behaviour of an IoT device. It allows you to design a companion app
I/O for the IoT device and control it
from another smart device.
Wyliodrin is a tool that Intel recommends. It can be used to create
IoT projects using just your browser.
Being a cloud based tool, it saves
everything automatically, works in
most browsers and is compatible
with most popular boards. It allows
boards to talk to each other, and enables mobile devices and Web services
to talk to the board.
There are also neutral home automation software like OpenHAB that
allow smart devices in your home
to talk to each other. Being vendorneutral, it allows users to easily add
new features to their devices. To top
these off, there are middleware like
IoTSyS and OpenIoT that ease the
process of communicating data to
and from devices.
Time to open up a new tool

We hope you have fun exploring
these tools. EFY Plus subscribers
would have had the chance to get
most of these tools from the DVD
accompanying their copy of the
magazine over the last year. You can
also check out in-depth reviews on
development tools at www.electronicsforu.com/newelectronics/efydvd.
Have fun!
www.efymag.com
BUYERS GUIDE
Latest MCU Development Boards

Make Prototyping Easier
Abhishek A. Mutha
is a senior technical
mbedded design prototyping has

never been so easy before, exclaims
Darshan Virupaksha, systems engineer, Altiux Innovations, and co-organiser,
IoTBLR. He says, Makers and do-it-yourself
(DIY) enthusiasts have a plethora of options
to suit their needs. Today, the ecosystem offers
easy access to development boards and the
most important feature is software support.
The prototyping scenario has indeed seen
an escalation and one of the biggest factors
is the range of microcontroller (MCU) development boards out there in market. From
low-cost, entry-level boards to powerful,
application-specific ones, we try to help you
buy the right board by focusing on different
categories, new features, general selection
criteria and boards that have been in the
spotlight.
General, application- and

industrial-specific boards
Some MCU
development boards
60
Quite a few development boards in the market today are general MCU-specific, such as
STM32 discovery kits, MSP430 from Texas

Instruments (TI) or Xplained boards from
Atmel, and these are available from semiconductor manufacturers themselves, informs T.
Anand, managing director, Knewron.
Local companies design some of the economically available boards. Anand says, In
both cases, MCU development boards come
in two flavours; one is the MCU evaluation
board, where the focus is on evaluating
MCU capabilities.
Second category is application- or
feature-specific, where the board is designed
for the purpose of evaluating certain features of the MCU and is usually focussed on
some application area, he adds.
Broadly, there are three different categories that todays MCU boards fall under.
Generic multi-purpose boards. Today,
every MCU manufacturer like Microchip,
NXP, Cypress, TI and Atmel provides an
evaluation kit compatible with their MCUs.
Kanishka Shah, co-founder of Entesla, says,
International third-party development board
www.efymag.com
BUYERS GUIDE
manufacturers like Arduino, Sparkfun,
Adafruit, Seeedstudio and Mikroelectronika are popular among students,
hobbyists and professionals for the
quick prototyping tools they offer.
Shah adds, Development boards
for MCUs based on AVR, PIC, 8051
and ARM7 architectures are very
popular among students and beginners as these are easily available in
the local market. These come with a
varying set of onboard peripherals to
suit a wide range of applications for
every budget.
These can be used for rapid prototyping and smaller proof-of-concept
(POC) development. Boards such as
Arduino, MangoPi, chipKIT, mbed,
MSP430 Launchpads and STM32 discovery kits, to name a few, fall under
this category, notes Syed Anwaarullah, founder, PotentialLabs.
He adds, MCU development platforms such as Arduino come with a
host of free and open source libraries
that help in building rapid prototypes
very easily with the help of add-on
shields and expansion boards.
Application-specific development
boards. Anwaarullah informs that,
such boards are for dedicated tasks
mostly used by companies or engineers building specific products in
areas such as home/industrial automation, automotive applications and
more. He says, These development
kits allow to rapidly test the functionality of the MCU as per requirements
before moving on to fabricating custom printed circuit boards (PCBs).
Such boards are usually costly in
comparison to generic development
boards, but offer more features and
a dedicated development tool chain.
Platforms like Raspberry Pi (or
Raspi), BeagleBone and mbed have
very high processing power running
into GHz and random access memory
(RAM) that expends in GBs, remarks
Neha Mehta, founder, Hacktronics
India. She says, These boards run
custom Linux variants and encapsulate all complexities of the external
hardware into friendly programming
languages like Python, for instance.
62
Why is Arduino a hot favourite in entry-level MCU boards

Popularity of an MCU development kit is primarily driven by the ease of the development
environment. Arduino revolution has shown the way it has to be and has inspired many to
take up embedded prototyping.
Darshan Virupaksha, systems engineer, Altiux Innovations,
and co-organiser, IoTBLR
It is because of the ease of programming Arduino that gets even non-programmers
such as design students and hobbyists to tinker with MCUs without knowing advanced
MCU C/C++ or assembly languages.
Syed Anwaarullah, founder, PotentialLabs
Arduino and its variants are perfect for beginning with programming embedded
electronics. Used mostly by students and in open source projects, these are available
with almost every major retailer in India. Benefits of these boards are cost, availability and
libraries support. Almost all major sensors have libraries written for Arduino.
Neha Mehta, founder, Hacktronics India
Industry-ready development
boards. Advanced processing power
boards based on ARM7 or ARM9
architecture are used for industrial
applications. These include Cubietruck boards and dual-core or quadcore processors-powered Allwinner
boards, which are mostly used for
media processing in applications like
smart televisions, media centres and
digital video recorders (DVRs).
Such boards can be used directly
in real-time applications. Anwaarullah says, For instance, Arduino Micro or Pro Mini are compact enough
to be embedded inside products
directly and can also be programmed
on-the-go as requirements change.
Features in the spotlight

Different MCUs have varying features
and the entire development board
is usually based on the supported
features of the MCU. Thushar V.P.,
technical director, Rhydo Technologies (P) Ltd, says, Nowadays, many
development boards such as Raspi or
BeagleBone support an onboard operating system (OS). Though a great
feature, these boards tend to be more
expensive than the ones without an
onboard OS.
Primarily, one does look at MCU
boards for their processing and
memory capabilities, but nowadays
most of these offer decent RAM and
flash capabilities, remarks Virupaksha. He says, This makes interface
[like serial peripheral interface (SPI)
and Inter-IC (I2C)] and out-of-box
support offered more valuable. He

adds, Many chips now also support
a universal serial bus (USB) natively
and sometimes USB host as well.
Features such as availability of
embedded wireless modules, dedicated functionality such as encryption and data logging, over-the-air
(OTA) programming and mobile/
cloud synchronisation are some new
features to look out for, observes
Anwaarullah.
ARM, with its mbed initiative,
has helped programmers to have a
variety of mbed-enabled boards using MCU chips from most of the ARM
licencees like NXP, STMicroelectronics and Freescale, among others,
notes Virupaksha. A rich variety
of features in terms of input/output
(I/O) peripherals, low-power modes
and hardware accelerator for digital
signal processing (DSP) plus securitycoupled software support make the
development process a joyful ride
with the latest development boards.
Another addition to this exciting lot is Java-/Java script-enabled
boards. Virupaksha adds, Knowledge of Embedded C is no more a
limitation. Traditional Java programmers can now code on MCUs. Java
source code is compiled using cross
compilers and programmed on to
the target device. Other higher level
languages like .net are supported
too. Espruino development kit can be
programmed using Java scripts and
Netduino using .net.
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BUYERS GUIDE
General criteria to consider before buying an MCU board for prototyping
Serviceability. It is important for the boards to be repairable
when something goes wrong. Packaging of the MCU needs to be
considered too. It is important to examine if the MCU is a throughhole part-mounted in a socket or a surface-mounted one. If it is
surface-mounted, it is important to know if it can be replaced when
the need arises.
Pedagogy. The educational value and cognitive loading effects
of the board must be taken into account. Big and fancy development
boards may offer tremendous number of features and look really
cool, but if these features impact a users understanding of the core
technology, then these may be detrimental to the cause.
Reliability. One of the main goals of a development board is
to ensure an operational development board for each and every
experiment. Any time spent attempting to fix the development board
can take away a lot of critical and important time.
Programming support/options. Newer MCUs allow in-circuit
programming while these are located in the system. Options
may include an external programmer or through a self-program
mechanism. Short-term and long-term consideration should be taken
in account. If the development board is utilised for other activities,
these should be considered when deciding how the board will be
programmed.
Processor support (single or multiple). If one is working on
multiple controller families or different part numbers, this factor
becomes critical, as having a separate development board for each
controller may not be feasible all the time. A proper decision can
save money in the short term as well as help in efficiently developing
products or projects in the long run.
Operating voltage. Many controllers these days support multivoltage operation and circuits could have multiple sections operating
at different voltages such as 1.8V, 3.3V, 5V, 12V or so on. Therefore
development tools must support multi-voltages along with level
converters, wherever needed.
Cost. It is an important factor. Irrespective of the value an MCU
board provides to the user, the cost should be at par.
Design control. There is nothing more frustrating than selecting
an appropriate development board only to have the manufacturer
make a change that ultimately forces a new development board to
be selected. It is therefore necessary to have some type of design
control over the development board that is ultimately chosen.
Power supply. Users would not want to buy another power
supply just to suit a certain type of development board. There
tal displays (LCDs), thin-film transistor (TFT) displays and communication ports with onboard transceivers
are popular among users. Many
users also look for onboard sensors,
which may be as simple as the ones
for sensing the X-Y-Z coordinate and
as complicated as the ones that perform medical applications like pulse
oximetry, notes Nishant Bhaskar,
embedded processing application
engineer, Texas Instruments India.
He adds, In case of power electronics based systems, customers not
only look for the extent to which the
power stage has been designed but
64
are a multitude of options for supplying power to a development

board including benchtop supplies, wall warts, batteries or via USB
connections. As long as the development board provides some kind
of support on power supply management (whether the board has
a rectifier, switched mode power supply (SMPS) or whole power
supply on the board), its value is retained.
Debugging capabilities. Depending upon the kind of work to
be done on a development board, Joint Test Action Group (JTAG),
single-wire debug or any other functionality is necessary so as to
enable users do easy debugging and faster development.
System clock options. This gives the board multiple clock
options such as an internal resistor-capacitor (RC) oscillator and/or
an external crystal to be installed, which can make or break some
of the developments. This is not very critical when compared to all
other factors, though.
Serial port/USB connectivity. For many years, RS232 serial
port connections between development boards and computers
have been a norm. However, laptops with RS232 ports are almost
impossible to find nowadays. Recent trends have led to USB serial
ports as the primary connection between boards. These may be with
native USB support or in the form of serial-to-USB converters. Either
way, this option is critical to development.
Additionally, one may want more than one communication port
(COM). One of the ports can be used in project development, while
the other can be used for debugging and other purposes. Therefore
dual- or multiple-connectivity options are ideal to have.
Form factor. While development boards are ultimately used
for development purposes, their form factor is critical. A board,
which is much bigger in size and difficult to move around may
not be preferred, while a small-sized handy board, which can be
taken anywhere in a pocket or a small box could help engineers
develop things any time.
Readiness for final integration. Buyers also need to look for
embeddable boards, such that if they finalise a solution and time-tomarket is short, development boards could be directly integrated into
the solution. In many cases, development boards become a perfect
fit for the final product. In such cases, designing another board may
not be warranted (except when parameters like outline of board,
form factor, etc are different). This becomes a very important factor
since it has high potential to save not only time but also redesign
and manufacturing costs.
Courtesy: T. Anand, managing director, Knewron
also the configurability on offer, if

users want to tweak it.
Another very important feature
in present-day development boards
from companies like STMicroelectronics and TI is onboard debugging,
informs Virupaksha. He says, Apart
from beginners, most users require
this feature. In fact, it is a boon for
developers, as they need not invest
in a debugger, which costs approximately ` 8000.
Even with all these new features,
Thushar feels, basic I/O pins, universal synchronous asynchronous
receiver transmitters (USARTs), serial
peripheral interface (SPI), I2C, twowire serial interface (TWI), timers,

compare/capture/pulse width modulation (CCP), analogue-to-digital converters (ADCs) and digital-to-analogue
converters (DACs) constitute basic
features of an MCU, which should
always be accounted for as far as a
development board is concerned.
With increased focus on smartphone based connected applications,
consumers also prefer to work with
wireless MCU kits [specifically in the
Wi-Fi/Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)/
Bluetooth domain], which have some
kind of Android or iOS app to interact
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BUYERS GUIDE
with, informs Bhaskar. He says, Some
customers also prefer to have access to
the source files of these graphical user
interfaces (GUIs)/apps as reference for
their own development.
For developing IoT applications

The rapid growth of Internet of Things
(IoT) applications requires devices to
be connected to the Web. Niraj Jha,
CEO and MD, Fab.to.Lab, says, Most
people would like to have an Ethernet
port or a Wi-Fi module built into the
board. The biggest feature to consider for developing IoT-related products
is inbuilt connectivity.
Mehta says, It is important to
consider the kind of connectivity
options supported by the MCU like
BLE4.0, 2.4GHz wireless technology
and others.
Another important feature is the
ease of programming while using the
board. Programming becomes much
easier if the board can run Linux or
Android. For smaller processors, I
would choose a processor architecture
that is well-supported and has tons
of documentation available online,
states Mehta.
She adds, Companies like STMicroelectronics and TI provide
their own software development kits
(SDKs), which wrap all internal hardware-level details for that particular
MCU and make it easier to upgrade to
a newer processor based on the same
architecture.
Additional onboard features like
flash-to-store program, lithium battery
charger and SD card support are good
to have.
Last, power consumption and different sleep modes are essential. It is
important to consider environmental
factors such as adaptability of the
board in remote locations running on
solar power, or if it can survive on a
small battery during unavailability of
power for long durations.
Since the IoT is the talk of the
town, Jha feels, some users might also
want specific features like a display,
motor/servo control for Internetconnected robotics applications or
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Pricing trends
Entry-level boards with prices starting from ` 800 are usually packaged with a limited
set of onboard peripherals featuring 8-bit MCUs. Intermediate development boards range
from ` 1500 to ` 5000 comprising 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit MCUs. There are full-featured
development kits available for ` 5000 onwards featuring popular MCUs with a plethora of
onboard peripherals and the ability to expand to new technologies using add-on modules.
Kanishka Shah, co-founder, Entesla
As pricing can range from a few hundreds to over ` 20,000, it is always good to do a
thorough research before investing money in any of these development boards as you could
stumble upon boards with similar specifications with a much lower price tag. However, some
of these boards might be Chinese-made, which might compromise on quality and reliability.
So, it is always a tough bargain between pricing, features and reliability.
Thushar V.P., technical director, Rhydo Technologies Pvt Ltd
Owing to the great demand for development boards and the increasing interest among
the developer community, boards have seen a steep price decline over the past few years.
Many sub-standard and cheap clones of these boards have also surfaced, which I would
never recommend as these are usually unstable and fail over time.
Syed Anwaarullah, founder, PotentialLabs
Indian buyers are price-conscious and thus pricing seems to be at par for many boards
available in the market. However, the trend is changing fast. Highly capable boards are being
priced on value based outcomes rather than just bill of materials (BOM) costs and many
buyers are appreciative of that.
T. Anand, managing director, Knewron
Pricing is a matter of concern for most developers today. Most mbed development
boards cost ` 3000 or more and a majority of these need to be imported. Hopefully, prices
will reduce in the future. Cheaper open source hardware is on the cards from many hardware
communities. In fact, we at IoTBLR are exploring options on collaborative efforts towards
designing some low-cost, open source MCU development kits for the Indian community.
The variants will support mbed and Arduino integrated development environments (IDEs).
Darshan Virupaksha, systems engineer, Altiux Innovations,
and co-organiser, IoTBLR
Pricing today starts from as low as the US$ 9 full-featured, ultra-powerful, cloud-ready
OAK boards to Java-ready, wirelessly-programmable US$ 70 Tessel boards.
Niraj Jha, CEO and MD, Fab.to.Lab
TI development kits may be priced anywhere from as low as US$ 9 to as high as US$
1000. Price point is something that is dictated solely by the kind of features the users are
looking for in their development kits. In general, evaluation kits as launchpads tend to be of
lower cost than full-blown development kits.
Nishant Bhaskar, embedded processing application engineer, Texas Instruments India
sometimes a combination of a relay

built into an IoT-ready board for home
automation applications. He says,
Boards specifically made for home
automation sometimes have other
niche features like mesh networking
built in. Other IoT boards may have
features like secured cloud connectivity built-in into its software as well.
New technologies, prospects

ARM Cortex-M architecture based
MCUs seem to be the future, feels
Virupaksha. He says, Getting used
to ARM MCU architecture will be an
added advantage for any career prospect. He adds, Also, mbed today
has revolutionised the development
environment by making it an online
compiler. You just need a computer

and an mbed board to get started.
As such no new revolutionary
technology has emerged in the last
few years, but according to Moores
Law, the speed is always increasing,
notes Mehta. She says, Intel has
launched many new development
boards like Galileo and Edison, which
take the leverage of Intels powerful
and trusted platform.
Mehta adds, Most technologies
used are old like Wi-Fi but are packaged into newer processors and at
highly reduced costs like the ESP8266
chip, which can act as a Wi-Fi solution with an integrated MCU. Older
chips like AR9331 are packaged as
easy-to-use modules like Onion
65
BUYERS GUIDE
Omega and Domino Major Contributors to this Story
Pi boards, which cost
around US$ 10, have
integrated Wi-Fi stacks
and can run embedded
Linux.
With an increasing
Darshan
Kanishka Shah, Neha Mehta,
Niraj Jha,
Nishant Bhaskar,
Syed
T. Anand,
Thushar V.P.,
Virupaksha,
co-founder,
founder,
CEO and MD, embedded processing Anwaarullah, managing director, technical director,
requirement for ultra systems
engineer,
Entesla
Hacktronics
Fab.to.Lab
application engineer,
founder,
Knewron
Rhydo
India
Texas Instruments
PotentialLabs
Technologies
low power and data re- Altiux Innovations,
and co-organiser,
India
Pvt Ltd
liability, Bhaskar feels,
IoTBLR
ferroelectric random
access memory (FRAM) is slowly be- shipping by 2016, will create endless looking to add Wi-Fi based connectivity to their embedded applications.
ing seen as a viable replacement for possibilities.
flash. FRAM offers a huge number of
MediaTek LinkIt ONE development Bhaskar says, CC3200 has been an
read/write cycles, with lesser read/ platform is one among the best, feels award-winning chipset, receiving
write times and much lower power Virupaksha. He says, It enables you several accolades in 2014 such as
consumption as opposed to flash. He to design and prototype wearables Electronics Products Product of the
says, These kinds of devices are use- and IoT devices, using hardware and Year, Zinnov Innovation Award and
ful in particular for applications that application programming interfaces Electronic Design Best Communication
have very stringent requirements on (API) that are similar to those offered Product of the Year.
Arduino Zero definitely provides a
power consumption.
for Arduino boards. He adds, It is a
He adds, TI also features a whole power pack in terms of its features as huge boost to the community and prohost of development kits, both gen- it offers Bluetooth, GSM and GPS on a vides a powerful MCU with Arduino
eral-purpose as well as application- single platform and, most importantly, IDE support, which makes it merrier
to implement some complex projects,
specific, based on our FRAM MCUs in a very small form factor.
for users to evaluate.
Raspi recently sold two million informs Virupaksha. He says, Many
Developers should also look for boards and is a very good board for crowd-funded boards using Nordic
development boards integrated with learning basic computer programming Semiconductors nRF51822 have
helped many BLE developers to demonboard features for different wireless and interfacing with hardware. Mehta
technologies like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, says, Apart from Raspi, we are seeing onstrate use cases with mobile phones
Global System for Mobile communi- high traction for Wi-Fi boards with and other IoT applications.
Keeping in mind the requirements
cation (GSM), General Packet Radio ESP8266 or AR9331 chipsets.
Service (GRPS), ZigBee and near field
mbed has been making quite of building scalable IoT applications,
communication (NFC) with a low- some noise with its Cortex M0 and Anwaarullah says, Our team has
power MCU and display, opines Shah.
Cortex M3 based NXP MCU develop- built an Arduino-compatible Wi-Fi
He says, The ability to interface ment boards supporting cloud based IoT development board called Refflion
different low-power technology sen- firmware development, says Shah. for building end-to-end IoT solutions
sors like accelerometers, gyroscopes, He adds, Launchpad series by TI through cloud gateway and mobile
global positioning systems (GPSes), is quite popular among developers applications. Made in India, Refflion
temperature and humidity sensors us- working on low-power battery-oper- can also be used by educational organisations and universities to introduce
ing add-ons should be made available ated devices based on MSP430.
onboard in future.
BLE sensor tag based on CC2541 students to build connected robotics,
has garnered a lot of attention ever wearables and other IoT solutions. He
Boards in the spotlight and
since it was released. It has won EE says, Refflion will soon be launched
some upcoming ones
Times/EDN Ace award for the best internationally on crowd funding, and
A new US$ 9 board called Chip has development kit and was also an- backers would be able to get the board
recently received more than US$ 2 nounced as the first Bluetooth Smart and shields at a special price.
Knewrons Quickly is an IoT-ready
million in online crowd-funding, in- accessory to support Android (July
development
board, which has all the
2013).
Bhaskar
says,
This
design
forms Anwaarullah. He says, This
is a power-packed board that comes kit, while being extremely low-cost essentials required to develop IoT-relatwith onboard Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and an (about US$ 25), has been extremely ed products. Anand says, Alpha verARM processor. At such a low price, popular with users over the years for sion of the board is already available for
sampling, and beta version is coming
building powerful connected devices IoT based solution development.
Similarly, CC3200 Launchpad has out in July. This was also featured in
and scalable solutions becomes a
lot easier. This board, which starts been of great interest among users EFY Expo 2015 held at New Delhi.
66
www.efymag.com
MOBILES
Operating Systems for Mobiles
A
Akul Sabharwal is
an electronics and
communication engineer.
He is currently working
with Simmtronics
Semiconductors Ltd
n operating system (OS) is a collection of programs that control the

application software that users run
and provide a link between the hardware
and software currently running on the
computer. The OS is also responsible for
management and control of all resources
such as memory, hard drive and monitor
that are shared among the different application programs that may be running
simultaneously.
A mobile OS is an OS for devices such
as smartphones, tablets, PDAs and other
mobile devices.
iOS
iOS (originally iPhone OS) is a mobile OS
developed by Apple Inc. and distributed
exclusively for Apple hardware. It was unveiled with the iPhone at Macworld Con-
User
ference & Expo on January 9, 2007, and

released in June of that year.
Architecture
The iOS software development kit (SDK)
contains the tools and interfaces needed
to develop, install, run and test native
apps that appear on an iOS devices Home
screen. Native apps are built using iOS system frameworks and Objective-C language
and run directly on iOS. Unlike Web apps,
native apps are installed physically on a
device and are therefore always available
to the user, even when the device is in
Airplane mode. These reside next to other
system apps, and both the app and any
user data is synced to the users computer
through iTunes.
At the highest level, iOS acts as an
intermediary between the underlying hardware and the apps you create. Apps do not
talk to the underlying hardware directly.
Instead, these communicate with the hardware through a set of well-defined system
interfaces. These interfaces make it easy to
write apps that work consistently on devices having different hardware capabilities.
The implementation of iOS technologies can be viewed as a set of layers, which
are shown in Fig. 3. Lower layers contain
fundamental services and technologies.
Higher-level layers build upon the lower
layers and provide more sophisticated services and technologies.
Cocoa Touch layer. This layer contains
key frameworks for building iOS apps.
Application
Operating System
Hardware
Fig. 1: Interconnection
between user,
application, OS and
hardware
68
Fig. 2: iOS 8 Home screen
Fig. 3: Layers of iOS architecture

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MOBILES
These frameworks define the appearance of an app. These also provide
the basic app infrastructure and
support for key technologies such
as multitasking, touch based input,
push notifications and many highlevel system services.
High-level features available in
Cocoa Touch layer are App extensions, Handoff, AirDrop, TextKit,
UIKit Dynamics, Multitasking, Auto
Layout, User Interface (UI) State
Preservation, Apple Push Notification Service, Local Notifications and
Gesture Recognisers, among others.
Described next are the frameworks of Cocoa Touch layer and the
services these offer:
Address Book UI framework. Address Book UI framework (AddressBookUI.framework) is an Objective-C
programming interface that you use
to display standard system interfaces
for creating new contacts and for editing and selecting existing contacts.
This framework simplifies the work
needed to display contact information
in the app and also makes sure that
the app uses the same interfaces as
other apps, thus ensuring consistency
across the platform.
EventKit UI framework. EventKit
UI framework (EventKitUI.framework) provides view controllers for
presenting standard system interfaces
for viewing and editing calendarrelated events.
GameKit framework. GameKit
framework (GameKit.framework)
implements support for Game Centre,
which lets users share their gamerelated information online.
iAd framework. iAd framework
(iAd.framework) lets you deliver
banner based advertisements from
your app. Advertisements are incorporated into standard views that you
integrate into your UI and present
when required.
MapKit framework. MapKit framework (MapKit.framework) provides a
scrollable map that you can incorporate into your apps UI. Beyond just
displaying a map, you can use the
framework interfaces to customise
70
Coca Touch
Media
Core Services
Core OS
Map Kit
High-Level Features
iAd
Push Notifications
Storyboard
Local Notifications
Printing
Gesture Recognition
File Sharing
Game Kit
Events (Touch)
View Controllers
UIKit
Fig. 4: Cocoa Touch layer
Cocoa Touch
Media
Core Audio
Core Animation
AirPlay
Quartz (2D)
Core Services
Core OS
Video Playback
JPEG, PNG, TIFF
Audio Recording
Audio Mixing
OpenAL
PDF
Fig. 5: Media layer
the maps content and appearance.

In addition to displaying maps,
MapKit framework integrates with
Maps app and Apples map servers
to facilitate directions.
Message UI framework. Message
UI framework (MessageUI.framework) provides support for composing emails or SMS messages from
your app. The composition support
consists of a view-controller interface
that you present in your app.
Notification Centre framework.
Notification Centre framework (NotificationCenter.framework) provides
support for creating widgets that
display information in Notification
Centre.
PushKit framework. PushKit
framework (PushKit.framework) provides registration support for voiceover Internet protocol (VoIP) apps.
This framework replaces the previous
application program interfaces (APIs)
for registering VoIP apps. Instead of
keeping a persistent connection open,
and thus draining the devices battery, an app can use this framework
to receive push notifications when

there is an incoming call.
Twitter framework. Twitter framework (Twitter.framework) has been
replaced by Social framework, which
supports a UI for generating tweets
and support for creating URLs to access Twitter service.
UIKit framework. UIKit framework
(UIKit.framework) provides crucial
infrastructure for implementing
graphical, event-driven apps in iOS.
Media layer. Media layer contains graphics, audio and video
technologies you use to implement
multimedia experiences in your apps.
Technologies in this layer make it
easy for you to build apps that look
and sound great.
iOS graphics technologies offer
a wide range of support, working
seamlessly with UIKit view architecture to make it easy to deliver
content.
Media layer are UIKit graphics, Core
Graphics framework, Core Animation, Core Image, OpenGL ES and
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MOBILES
Cocoa Touch
Media
Core Services
Core OS
Threading
File Access
Preferences
Collections
NSArray
NSDictionary
NSSet
High-Level
Features
ARC (Automatic
Reference Counting)
iCloud
GCD (Grand Central
Dispatch)
In-App Purchase
SQLite
Networking
Address Book
Fig. 6: Core Services layer
GLKit, Metal, TextKit and Core Text,

Image I/O and Photos Library.
AirPlay. AirPlay lets your app
stream audio and video content to
Apple TV and stream audio content
to third-party AirPlay speakers and
receivers. AirPlay support is built
into numerous frameworks including UIKit framework, Media Player
framework, AV Foundation framework and the Core Audio family of
frameworks. So, in most cases, you
do not need to do anything special to
support it. Any content you play using these frameworks is automatically
made eligible for AirPlay distribution.
When the user chooses to play your
content using AirPlay, it is routed
automatically by the system.
Core Services layer. Core Services
layer contains fundamental system
services for apps. Key among these
services are Core Foundation and
Foundation frameworks, which define the basic types that all apps use.
This layer also contains individual
technologies to support features such
as Location, iCloud, social media and
networking.
this layer are Peer-to-Peer Services,
iCloud Storage, Block Objects, Data
Protection, File-Sharing Support,
Grand Central Dispatch, In-App Purchase, SQLite and XML Support.
Described below are the frameworks of Core Services layer and the
services these offer:
Accounts framework. Accounts
framework (Accounts.framework)
provides a single sign-on model for
certain user accounts. Single sign72
on improves the user experience by

eliminating the need to prompt the
user separately for multiple accounts.
Address Book framework. Address Book framework (AddressBook.
framework) provides programmatic
access to a users contacts database.
Ad Support framework. Ad Support framework (AdSupport.framework) provides access to an identifier that apps can use for advertising
purposes.
CFNetwork framework. CFNetwork framework (CFNetwork.framework) is a set of high-performance
C based interfaces that use objectoriented abstractions for working
with network protocols.
CloudKit framework. CloudKit
(CloudKit.framework) provides a
conduit for moving data between
your app and iCloud.
Core Data framework. Core Data
framework (CoreData.framework) is
a technology for managing the data
model of Model-View-Controller app.
Core Foundation framework. Core
Foundation framework (CoreFoundation.framework) is a set of C based
interfaces that provide basic data
management and service features for
iOS apps.
Core Location framework. Core
Location framework (CoreLocation.
framework) provides location and
heading information to apps.
Core Media framework. Core
Media framework (CoreMedia.framework) provides low-level media types
used by AV Foundation framework.
Core Motion framework. Core
Motion framework (CoreMotion.
framework) provides a single set of

interfaces for accessing all motion
based data available on a device.
Core Telephony framework. Core
Telephony framework (CoreTelephony.framework) provides interfaces
for interacting with phone based
information on devices that have a
mobile radio.
EventKit framework. EventKit
framework (EventKit.framework)
provides an interface for accessing
calendar events on a users device.
HealthKit framework. HealthKit
(HealthKit.framework) is a new
framework for managing a users
health-related information.
HomeKit framework. HomeKit
(HomeKit.framework) is a new
framework for communicating with,
and controlling, connected devices in
a users home.
JavaScript Core framework. JavaScript Core framework (JavaScriptCore.framework) provides ObjectiveC wrapper classes for many standard
JavaScript objects.
Mobile Core Services framework.
Mobile Core Services framework (MobileCoreServices.framework) defines
low-level types used in uniform-type
identifiers (UTIs).
Multipeer Connectivity framework.
Multipeer Connectivity framework
(MultipeerConnectivity.framework)
supports discovery of nearby devices
and direct communication with those
devices without requiring Internet
connectivity.
NewsstandKit framework. Publishers who want to deliver their
magazine and newspaper content
through Newsstand can create their
own iOS apps using NewsstandKit
framework (NewsstandKit.framework), which lets you initiate background downloads of new magazine
and newspaper issues.
PassKit framework. PassKit framework (PassKit.framework) provides
Objective-C interfaces you need, to
integrate support for these items into
your apps.
Quick Look framework. Quick
Look framework (QuickLook.framewww.efymag.com
MOBILES
work) provides a direct interface for
previewing contents of files that your
app does not support directly.
Safari Services framework. Safari
Services framework (SafariServices.
framework) provides support for programmatically adding URLs to the
users Safari reading list.
Social framework. Social framework (Social.framework) provides
a simple interface for accessing the
users social media accounts.
StoreKit framework. StoreKit
framework (StoreKit.framework)
provides support for purchasing content and services from within your
iOS apps, a feature known as In-App
Purchase.
System Configuration framework.
System Configuration framework
(SystemConfiguration.framework)
provides reachability interfaces,
which you can use to determine the
network configuration of a device.
WebKit framework. WebKit framework (WebKit.framework) lets you
display HTML content in your app.
Core OS layer. Core OS layer
contains low-level features that
most other technologies are built
upon. Even if you do not use these
technologies directly in your apps,
these are most likely being used by
other frameworks. And in situations
where you need to explicitly deal
with security or communicating with
an external hardware accessory, you
do so using the frameworks in this
layer.
Accelerate framework. Accelerate
framework (Accelerate.framework)
contains interfaces for performing
digital signal processing (DSP), linear algebra and image-processing
calculations.
Core Bluetooth framework. Core
Bluetooth framework (CoreBluetooth.
framework) allows developers to interact specifically with Bluetooth Low
Energy (BLE) accessories.
External Accessory framework.
External Accessory framework (ExternalAccessory.framework) provides
support for communicating with
hardware accessories attached to an
74
Cocoa Touch
Media
Core Services
Core OS
Security FW
Accelerate FW
External Accessory FW
System
Threading (POSIX threads)

Networking (BSD sockets)
File-system access
Standard I/O
Bonjour and DNS services
Locale Information
Memory allocation
Fig. 7: Core OS layer
iOS based device.

Generic Security Services framework. Generic Security Services
framework (GSS.framework) provides
a standard set of security-related services to iOS apps.
Local Authentication framework.
Local Authentication framework
(LocalAuthentication.framework)
lets you use Touch ID to authenticate
a user.
Network Extension framework.
Network Extension framework (NetworkExtension.framework) provides
support for configuring and controlling Virtual Private Network (VPN)
tunnels.
Security framework. In addition to
its built-in security features, iOS also
provides an explicit Security framework (Security.framework) that you
can use to guarantee the security of
the data your app manages.
System. The system level encompasses the kernel environment, drivers and low-level UNIX interfaces of
the OS.
64-bit support for iOS

iOS was initially designed to support
binary files on devices using a 32-bit
architecture. In iOS 7, however, support was introduced for compiling,
linking and debugging binaries on
a 64-bit architecture. All system
libraries and frameworks are 64-bit
ready, meaning that these can be
used in both 32-bit and 64-bit apps.
When compiled for 64-bit runtime,
apps may run faster because of the
availability of extra processor resources in 64-bit mode.
Fig. 8: Android 5.0 Home screen
Android
Android is a mobile OS based on
Linux kernel and currently developed
by Google. With a UI based on direct
manipulation, Android is designed
primarily for touchscreen mobile
devices such as smartphones and
tablet computers, with specialised
UIs for televisions (Android TV), cars
(Android Auto) and wrist watches
(Android Wear). Android Inc. was
founded in Palo Alto, California, the
USA, in October 2003.
Architecture. Android is architected in the form of a software stack
comprising applications, an OS, runtime environment, middleware, serwww.efymag.com
MOBILES
Comparing the Different Operating Systems
Features
iOS
Android
Firefox OS
Company
Apple Inc.
Open handset
alliance/Google
OS family
Darwin
Supported CPU
architecture
Blackberry OS
Ubuntu Touch
Mozilla foundation Microsoft
Blackberry Ltd
Cannonical Ltd
Linux
Linux
Windows NT 8+
QNX
Linux
ARM and
ARM64
ARM, x86 MIPS

and 64-bit variants
of all three
ARM and x86
ARM
ARM
ARM and x86
Programming language
C, C++,
Objective C
and Swift
C, C++ and Java
HTML5, CSS,
JavaScript and
C++
.NET C#, VB.NET,Silverlight,

native C/C++, WinRTP
(XMLA) and DirectX
C, C++, Native
SDK and HTML5/
Javascript/CSS
C, C++
and QML
Package manager
iTunes
APK
Firefox OS
packaged apps
Zune software
Blackberry link
Click packages
and dpkg
Remote device location

tracking
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Remote device locking

and/or data wipe
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Accessibility features
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
On-device encryption
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Sync to cloud
encryption
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Desktop-sync
Yes
No
No
Yes
Yes
Major available
browsers
Safari and
Chrome
Chrome and Firefox Firefox
IE and Opera Mini
Official application store App Store
Google Play
Firefox Marketplace
Windows Phone Store
Blackberry World
Ubuntu Store
Printer support
Yes(AirPrint)
Yes; over cloud

print
Third-party software
Yes
Multitasking
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Bluetooth keyboard
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
VPN
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
vices and libraries. This architecture

can, perhaps, best be represented
visually as in Fig. 9. Each layer of the
stack and the corresponding elements
within each layer are tightly integrated and carefully tuned to provide
an optimal application development
and execution environment for mobile devices.
Linux Kernel. The basic layer is
Linux Kernel. The whole Android OS
is built on top of Linux Kernel with
some further architectural changes.
Linux Kernel interacts with the
hardware and contains all essential
hardware drivers. It also acts as
an abstraction layer between the
hardware and other software layers.
The kernel provides pre-emptive
multitasking, low-level core system
services such as memory, process
76
Windows Phone
and power management, in addition

to providing a network stack and
device drivers for hardware such as
the device display, Wi-Fi and audio.
Libraries. The next layer is Androids native libraries. It is this layer
that enables the device to handle different types of data. These libraries
are written in C or C++ language
and are specific to a particular hardware.
Some of the important native libraries include the following:
Surface Manager. It is used for
compositing window manager with
off-screen buffering. Off-screen buffering means that the apps cannot
directly be drawn into the screen,
instead drawings go to the off-screen
buffer. There, it is combined with
other drawings and form the final
screen that the user will see. This offscreen buffer is the reason behind the
transparency of windows.
Media framework. Media framework provides different media codecs
allowing the recording and playback
of different media formats.
SQLite. SQLite is the database engine used in Android for data-storage
purposes.
WebKit. It is the browser engine
used to display HTML content.
OpenGL. This is used to render
2D or 3D graphics content to the
screen.
Android Runtime. Android Runtime consists of Dalvik virtual machine and Core Java libraries.
Dalvik virtual machine. It is a
type of JVM used in Android devices
to run apps, and is optimised for low
www.efymag.com
MOBILES
Applications
Applications Framework
Activity
Manager
Window
Manager
Content
Providers
View
System
Notification
System
Package
Manager
Telephony
Manager
Resource
Manager
Location
Manager
XMP P
Service
Libraries
Surface
Manager
Media
Framework
SQ Lite
Open GL/ES
FreeType
Webkit
SGL
SSL
Libc
Android Runtime
Core Libraries
Dalvik Vitual Machine
Linux Kernel
Display
Driver
Camera
Driver
Bluetooth
Driver
Rash
Memory
Driver
Binder
(IPC)
Driver
USB
Driver
Keypad
Driver
Wifi
Driver
Audio
Driver
Power
Management
Fig. 9: Android software stack
processing power and low memory

environments. Unlike JVM, Dalvik
virtual machine (VM) does not run
.class files, instead it runs .dex files.
Dex files are built from .class file at
the time of compilation and provide
higher efficiency in low-resource
environments. Dalvik VM (DVM) allows multiple instances of virtual machines to be created simultaneously,
providing security, isolation, memory
management and threading support.
ART. Google has introduced a
new virtual machine known as ART,
which is short for Android Runtime,
in their newer releases of Android.
In 5.0, DVM is completely replaced
by ART.
ART has many advantages over
DVM such as Ahead of Time (AOT)
compilation and improved garbage
collection, which boost the performance of apps significantly.
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Core Java libraries. These are

different from Java SE and Java ME
libraries. However, these libraries
provide most functionalities defined
in Java SE libraries.
Application framework. These
are the blocks that our applications
directly interact with. These programs manage the basic functions of
phone like resource management and
voice-call management.
Important blocks of Application
framework are:
Activity manager. Manages the
activity life cycle of applications
Content providers. Manages data
sharing between applications
Telephony manager. Manages all
voice calls. We use telephony manager if we want to access voice calls
in our application
Location manager. Manages location using GPS or a mobile tower
77
MOBILES
Fig. 12: Blackberry OS 7.1 Home screen
phones as the
re p l a c e m e n t
successor to
Windows Mobile.
Windows
Phone features a new UI
derived from
Metro design
language. Unlike Windows
Mobile, it
is p rimarily
aimed at the
consumer market rather than the
enterprise market.
Blackberry OS
BlackBerry OS is a proprietary mobile
OS developed by BlackBerry Ltd for
its BlackBerry line of smartphones.
The OS provides multitasking and
supports specialised input devices
that have been adopted by BlackBerry Ltd for use in its handhelds,
particularly the trackwheel, trackball
and, most recently, trackpad and
touchscreen.
Fig. 10: Firefox OS Home screen
Ubuntu Touch
Fig. 13: Ubuntu Touch Home screen
Firefox OS
Fig. 11: Windows Phone 8 Home screen
Resource manager. Manages various types of resources we use in our

application
Applications. Applications form
the top layer in Android architecture.
Several standard applications come
pre-installed with every device such
as SMS client app, Dialer, Web browser and Contacts Manager.
78
Firefox OS is a Linux kernel based

open source OS for smartphones and
tablet computers; it is set to be used
on smart TVs. It is being developed
by Mozilla, the non-profit organisation best known for Firefox Web
browser.
Firefox OS is designed to provide a
complete, community based alternative system for mobile devices, using
open standards and approaches such
as HTML5 applications, JavaScript
a robust privilege model, open Web
APIs to communicate directly with
mobile phone hardware and application marketplace.
Windows Phone
Windows is a family of mobile OSes
developed by Microsoft for smart-
Ubuntu Touch, also known as

Ubuntu Phone, is a mobile version of
Ubuntu OS developed by Canonical
UK Ltd and Ubuntu Community. It
is designed primarily for touchscreen
mobile devices such as smartphones
and tablet computers.
Ubuntu Touch was released to
manufacturers on September 16,
2014. Aquaris E4.5, the worlds first
Ubuntu based smartphone, went on
sale in Europe on February 9, 2015.
Future prospects
With changing trends in the chipset
industry, OS developers are not far
behind. Software packages and applications are being developed to meet
the demands of users and also to
incorporate hardware additions like
touch sensor, look-away to pause,
etc. We might be seeing facial-recognition or retina-scanner software
packages in the future.
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Interview
Surveillance and Access Control:
What is finally happening is adaptive

streaming of surveillance video
Wireless connectivity and real-time communication have given video
surveillance and access-control systems an intelligent edge. Let us take a look
at what is cutting-edge in security systems. Kaushal Kadakia, product manager,
video surveillance solutions, Matrix ComSec, speaks with Dilin Anand from EFY
Kaushal Kadakia
product manager, video

surveillance solutions,
Matrix ComSec
tion module, which can monitor specific objects of interest

and alert the user about the movement of a particular object.
Q. Please give an example of how this works?
Q. What are the biggest challenges faced while designing

security systems in India?
A. When designing for bigger companies, one problem
that is faced is that the infrastructure is unable to handle
all cameras together. Infrastructure optimisation is one way
to solve this.
Scalability of cameras has increased from having just
a few cameras to over 100,000 cameras. Challenges faced
here are with respect to the lack of centralised control,
which is magnified by the lack of a wide bandwidth.
Rising infrastructure management expenses by security
customers is another problem area.
Q. What was the biggest critical challenge solved by your

R&D team recently?
A. One understated, yet critical, challenge was with
delivering content in real-time. Security has to be real-time,
as passive communication does not let you prevent theft
but only investigate it. In the past, thieves would take the
surveillance device with them, leaving no evidence behind.
Now, if an event takes place under the eye of a modern
surveillance system, it will identify the intrusion event,
send out an SMS and an email with a snapshot of the intrusion in real-time.
Q. What has changed in video surveillance technology?

A. Previously, these systems were designed as closed
systems with a recording device and cameras connected to
it, leaving the user with just a recording apparatus.
So if someone using such a system was robbed, he or
she would have to manually go through all data in the
recording apparatus to figure out what had happened. To
solve this problem, there is now a thing called an investigawww.efymag.com
A. Let us take the example of a jewellery showroom.

On the counter is a piece of jewellery that goes missing.
Now, instead of going through the entire piece of data and
trying to figure out who stole it, what the owner can do
is simply select a particular area. Any time the jewellery
moves out of that area, a popup comes right up, allowing
the investigator to start the work from that point onwards.
Q. For the Indian market, the biggest challenge is bandwidth. How have your engineers tried to solve this issue?
A. For this problem, we divided a single image into
multiple images coming from a single camera. This means
selecting part of an image as an area of high importance,
which gets processed in full high-definition (HD); surrounding areas are processed with a little lower resolution
as these are areas of lower importance.
For example, if there is one camera in a room, that room
is not considered important. But if someone enters the room,
he or she is of higher importance and would be recorded
with maximum clarity; lower interest areas could now be
recorded with missed frames or lower pixels. What is finally
happening is adaptive streaming of surveillance video.
Q. What is happening in access control?

A. This is definitely an area where innovation is happening. Most people used to think that access control
simply meant that there is a lock on the door that could
be biometric or smartcard based, and which does not stop
people from going inside. However, it has now become
smarter to the point of understanding what situations
should allow a person or a group to enter the area.
Q. Could you give an example of this?

A. One simple example is the CEO scan. Until and unless
the CEO has entered the cabin, no one else will be able to
enter the secure area. Once he or she has entered, anyone
with the required credentials and access to the door may
enter. Some parameters currently used are a combination of
time periods, pre-determined area or people of interest.
79
Interview
Power System Design:
Whiteboard... would give them time

to work on multiple projects
Power system design advancements have provided power engineers with many tools
and technologies. Let us take a look at what some of these are. Phil Davies, global
marketing and sales VP, Vicor Corp., speaks with Atul Goel and Dilin Anand from EFY
Q. What is meant by power component methodology?

A. It is for almost all power control and regulation engineers. Any engineering work being done on AC-DC or DCAC at any power level can be considered to be a part of it,
including front-end power systems developing voltage to be
used as a hub from 48V (or, 28V in military) to the point of
low voltages. The methodology aims to make it simple, scalable, repeatable, deliver faster time-to-market and for a design
manager to get more productivity out of his design engineers.
Q. How do power regulation components help engineers?

A. These components typically switch at a very high frequency, which enables reduction in the size of magnetics and
all types of passives that go within it. Having a lot of intellectual property in planar magnetics gives engineers the ability to
put cores of transformers and inductors inside the packages.
In our case, this, coupled with proprietary conversion
and regulation engines, and the fact that we have our own
silicon team, allows us to design control integrated circuits (ICs) ourselves. We leverage this with our packaging
technology to build the densest and most efficient power
conversion and regulation modules.
Q. Please elaborate on these engines?

A. A basic cornerstone of these engines is the sine amplitude converter, which is similar to a resonant converter.
When we use this in bus converter modules and voltage
multipliers, there is no energy storage. You can pulse very
high current through here, with very fast transient response.
The ZVS zero-voltage switching topology engine allows
switching at very high frequencies, but when switched on or
in transition, it is done at zero voltage and, in some cases,
zero current, which minimises switching losses and body
recovery all through the diodes in the power metal oxide
semiconductor field effect transistors and other devices.
Q. What technological improvements have helped these

components in the past few years?
A. Improvements over the years have been with respect
to switching at higher frequencies, as well as with integrated core planar magnetics technology.
Earlier, these chips were manufactured single-sided, but
are now being manufactured double-sided. This lets designers ensure that heat is drawn out of the component from
both sides of the package. By extracting the heat faster, they
82
Phil Davies
global marketing and sales

vice president, Vicor Corp.
get better watts per cubic centimetre or watts per square

inch, which further reduces the density of the product.
Moulding material, PCBs and silicon integration are other
areas we focus on. We now integrate more, moving from
Bipolar to BiCMOS to Bipolar-CMOS-DMOS technology.
Q. Has the design process of a power system changed?

A. Many a time, a company develops a new electronics
system and then goes to the engineer with the requirements.
They are often considered right at a later stage and end up
designing their own power converters over and over.
Q. Could they not re-use a design?

A. It is very difficult to leverage one design from one
platform to the next. Our methodology suggests using power
modules from front-end to the point of load and use these
to rapidly design a power system instead of starting from
scratch. This allows engineers to increase productivity with
respect to engineering time, enabling them to work on more
designs. This way they can leverage the same components
again on the next system design.
Q. How is designing power systems being made easier?

A. Whiteboard is a tool that lets you sit with your colleagues to architect a power system without being in the
same geographical area. It supports dragging and dropping
components like a front-end AC power supply, specifying
the input and output voltage or building an entire system
out of different chips and building blocks. Then it shows the
efficiency of the system and the actual mechanical picture of
the system, so that you can understand the density and sizes
of different components. Then, if you want to do a simulation of the design, you can do that by looking at transient
response, output ripple or change-switching frequencies.
Q. Could these design tools help non-experts?

A. Yes, they will be able to quickly build designs by using the whiteboard to simulate the solution. They can then
use the evaluation boards to test it very quickly.
Q. How do engineers handle constant simplification of the

design process?
A. Some engineers might feel this could replace their
skills, but at the same time, some might feel that this would
give them time to work on multiple projects, faster.
www.efymag.com
efy plus dvd
This Months DVD Contents

This months DVD contains various emulators, simulators and a selection of utilities
that aid the electronics design and simulation process
Sneha Ambastha
Popular resources
FreeRTOS
7Zip. Version v.15.05 beta (file archiver)

Java Development Kit (JDK). Version 8.0.450.15
(development kit to create Java runtime
environment for various applications)
VLC. Version 2.2.1 (media player)
Opera. Version 30.0.1835.59 (Web browser)
Free Download Manager. Version 3.9.6 build 1549
RC (file download manager)
Thunderbird. Version 38.0.1 (email application)
Mozilla Firefox. Version 39.0 (Web browser)
Apache Open Office. Version 4.1.1 (open office)
Ubuntu. Version 15.04 (operating system)
FreeRTOS is a real-time operating

system (RTOS) that can run even on a
small microcontroller (MCU), though
is not limited to it. In special cases,
as in MCUs, full implementation of
an RTOS is not possible because of
the size of the MCU and the nature of
the end application it is attached to.
FreeRTOS fulfils the requirement for
such components in any application.
Bochs IA-32
This is an open source emulator for
Intel x86 machines, particularly IA-32.
It can emulate a number of processors
like 386, 486, Pentium or Pentium Pro
and even AMD64 (with or without
streaming single instruction, multiple
data (SIMD) extensions (SSE), SSE2,
3DNow and MMX) using the common
input/output (I/O) and customised basic input/output system (BIOS).
Flowcode
Flowcode is a GUI software that allows
a user to quickly and easily develop
complex electronic and electromechanical systems. The graphical programming tool allows even those with
little experience to develop complex
electronic systems in minutes. It supports testing and debugging of user
code, simulation in 3D, component
creation, Arduino programming in addition to supporting a large number
of PIC, dsPIC, ARM and AVR devices.
It is available in student, educational
and professional versions as single/ten
users/50 users and campus licences.
Meep
Meep, or MEEP, which is officially
called MIT electromagnetic equation
propagation, is a free finite-difference
time-domain (FDTD) simulation software developed for the modelling of
84
electromagnetic systems. It is also a

freeware developed by MIT, distributed under GNU GPL licence. Meep
can simulate in any of the coordinates
(cylindrical, 1D, 2D and 3D) and work
portably on any Unix-like OS.
CircuitLogix
CircuitLogix allows you to convert
your PC into an electronics laboratory,
which would give you access to thousands of interconnected components
and devices. This tool not only enables you to design the schematic and
simulate it in one program but also
gives a fast simulation experience.
You can test your electronic circuit
designs in all possible scenarios that
may arise without worrying about the
parts getting damaged.
eSketch PRO
eSketch Pro is an electronic sketching
tool that captures schematic and simulates analogue circuits. It has been
specially created for circuits that contain inductors, capacitors, op-amps
and resistors. This tool can change the
layout, component tolerance, component values and can identify the gain
bandwidth in an op-amp.
CIDER
CIDER is a combination of the latest version of SPICE3 (version 3F.2)
and DSIM, which is a C based device
simulator. This combination gives it an
ability to simulate both mixed-level

circuits and devices. This mixedlevel simulation capability makes
CIDER a good choice to test circuit
performance and to identify the
technical parameters used there
with utmost accuracy.
idealCiruit
idealCircuit is a free simulator for

analogue circuits with true or ideal
components. This ideal components compatibility makes evaluation
and testing of designs quick, providing a detailed analysis of the output.
It supports Windows 7 OS and has the
same algorithm as NL5 circuit simulator. It has a very simple interface with
fewer models and components.
Code::Blocks
Code::Blocks is an open source integrated development environment
(IDE) for developing C/C++ projects
(DirectX, console applications, OpenGL,
GTK+ and QT). Its layout environment
resembles that of Eclipse and thus can
be referred to as its mini version. It has
a consistent look, feel and operation
across all platforms and is compatible
with Linux, Mac and Windows. You
can enhance its functionalities by either
installing plugins or creating codes.
GMIC
GREYCs Magic for Image Computing (GMIC) is an open source, fullfeatured framework for processing
images. It provides different user
interfaces (UIs) for converting, filtering, manipulating and visualising generic datasheets for images to different
signal levels. The interfaces include
command line interface gmic, plug-in
gmic_gimp, Web service GMIC, Qt
based interface ZArt, a portable C++
image-processing library.
The author is a technical correspondent at EFY
www.efymag.com
efy plus dvd
FreeRTOS: A Real-Time
Operating System
Sneha Ambastha
mbedded systems have realtime requirements that need to

be fulfilled in a given amount
of time. This requirement is fulfilled
by the real-time operating system
(RTOS). In this article we try to understand FreeRTOS. Let us see how
this is different from any other RTOS.
FreeRTOS is a part of RTOS that
can run even on a small microcontroller (MCU) though is not limited
to it. In special cases, like in MCUs,
full implementation of an RTOS is
not possible because of the size
of the MCU and the nature of the
end application it is attached to. So
FreeRTOS fulfils the requirements for
such components in any application.
If you are using an OS on an
embedded system, you will have to
be very specific about the tasks you
want to be done with that embedded
system. The OS should be efficient
enough to support all those applications, and FreeRTOS allows this.
do we not use Windows or Linux

OS on an embedded kit like Galileo
or Raspberry Pi, or in an embedded
component like an MCU? To understand this, we have to understand
both OS and FreeRTOS in detail.
An OS is nothing but a computer
program with the ability to support

basic functions of a computer and
provide basic services to the applications running on that computer. For
example, if you are using Microsoft
Office (application that helps you do
your file-management work online),
Fig. 1: FreeRTOS shell command using Qemu
OS vs FreeRTOS
If FreeRTOS is also an OS, why do
we not use it on our computers just
like Windows and Linux? Also, why
Quick review
Version: 8.2.1
Licence: Open source
Applications: Embedded systems
Key features:
Small size of code
Independent of third-party source codes
Competing RTOSes
ChiBIOS
NuttX
www.efymag.com
RTEMS
uCOS
Fig. 2: FreeRTOS and Eclipse views for ARM

Electronics For You Plus | August 2015
efy plus dvd
Fig. 3: FreeRTOS with Trace v2.3
Fig. 4: Debugging in FreeRTOS
all files related to Microsoft Office

will work in an environment that
your OS will provide. This is how an
II
August 2015 | Electronics For You Plus
OS works in general. FreeRTOS is the

same but with real-time execution
ability.
When you talk about Windows or

Linux, these OSes have a larger size
and cannot be used with an MCU
that is just a few microns in size. But
with a size of only 4kB, FreeRTOS
allows small components like MCUs
to have add-on components for functionalities such as networking stacks
and command-console interface.
The most important thing in any
OS is its scheduler, which decides
the time of execution of any application or program. Like, in the
case of Windows on a desktop, the
main work of a scheduler is to ensure that the desktop does not stop
responding to its users, whereas in
the case of Unix based multi-user
OS, a scheduler ensures that each
user gets the required amount of
processing time.
In FreeRTOS, the scheduler follows a prescribed execution pattern,
where each task is assigned a priority for execution.
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efy plus dvd

Open source, yet proprietary
FreeRTOS has been developed in such
a way that it forms the core of the software. Although RTOS kernel is open
source, application codes that use this
kernel still remain proprietary and are
closed source. It has both free and commercial support forums that are actively
run by engineers and engineering companies all over the Internet.
Although many open source electronics software end up costing a lot,
FreeRTOS is available free of cost on
the Internet for download, deployment
and experimentation.
In the case of open source software, the source code gets fragmented
with the availability of any new version, whereas FreeRTOS follows a very
controlled release procedure where all
its official ports are updated simultaneously.
Many free tools do not have any
life; these are either trial versions
that last only 30 days or are student
versions with limited usage, while
FreeRTOS is a forever software that
comes at no cost at all.
A commercially-licensed version of
FreeRTOS is also available with Real
Time Engineers Ltd.
Features it supports
In order to understand the benefits of
using FreeRTOS it is very important to
understand its features in detail from
the systems memory that it occupies
to the different architectures that it
supports. But when you speak about
memory, it is important to talk about
both random access memory (RAM)
and read only memory (ROM).
The size of RAM that FreeRTOS
occupies depends on the application
it is being used for. When used with
IAR STR71X ARM7 port with four
priorities, the scheduler in FreeRTOS
uses 236 bytes, the queues created use
76 bytes plus the storage area of the
queue and the total tasks created use
64 bytes (four characters for each task
created multiplied by the total number
of tasks, that is, four) plus the stack
size of each task.
On the contrary, the ROM usage
www.efymag.com
Using FreeRTOS with an MCU

FreeRTOS easily runs on MCUs with different brands and different architectures, but you will
find slight variations in the steps for each. Although www.freertos.org lists procedures for
working with FreeRTOS on many different MCUs that officially support FreeRTOS, described
below are the steps for using it on Atmel ATSAMD20 with Atmel Studio.
ATSAMD20 is an MCU by Atmel with ARM Cortex-M0+ architecture. Atmel Studio
integrated development environment (IDE) uses the visual studio framework and FreeRTOS
plugin to work with SAMD20 Xplained Pro that contains ATSAMD20 MCU.
1. Open the following file in Atmenl Studio IDE: FreeRTOS/Demo/CORTEX_M0+_Atmel_
SAMD20_Xplained/RTOSDemo.atsln
2. Locate definition mainCREATE_SIMPLE_BLINKY_DEMO_ONLY at the top of main.c
3. Set mainCREATE_SIMPLE_BLINKY_DEMO_ONLY to 1 to create the simple blinky
demo, or to 0 to create the comprehensive demo that also includes the command line
interpreter.
4. Select Rebuild RTOSDemo from Atmel Studio Build menu (or press F7) to build the
demo project.
5. Connect a USB cable between the USB port on SAMD20 Xplained Pro board and the
host computer you are using for this operation.
6. In order to program the flash memory of the MCU you are using, select Start
Debugging and Break from Atmel Studio Debug menu and start the debugging session.
by FreeRTOS depends
on the compiler, architecture and RTOS kernel
configuration, which
alone requires about
5kB to 10kB of ROM.
It follows a fixed
coding standard that
determines that no nondefined task gets executed during an interrupt
or in a critical situation.
Users say...
If you go online and look
up FreeRTOS, you will
realise that majority of Fig. 5: FreeRTOS with STM32F4 MCU using Linux platform
people appreciate both
its features and developers, Real Time between a general OS and a realEngineers Ltd.
time one, and to use it with different
Taking an example from source- MCUs easily.
forge.net, almost 95 per cent of users
Additionally, you will also find
seem to have experienced that it is some beginners who are studying
lightweight and that its architecture FreeRTOS through different documakes it an independent OS for em- ments available online and are using
bedded systems. They also acknowl- it with various MCUs.
edge the fact that this OS supports all
Some engineers at electronics.
types of platforms and does not crash stackexchange.com have compared
even when being used by beginners FreeRTOS with other RTOSes to try
for the first time.
and prove its popularity over others
On the other hand, if you visit by pointing out the high number of
www.edaboard.com, you will find downloads of it and its extremely tiny
beginners who wish to learn and unfootprint of about 4kB.
derstand FreeRTOS and other RTOSes
only to understand the difference The author is a technical correspondent at EFY
III
efy plus dvd
GMIC: A Pleasant Image-Processing

Framework
thing for everyone in it. As a beginner, one can easily use this tool for
n the last issue of EFY Plus, we functions like mirroring, rotating,
discussed CImg library for image sharpening, resizing, creating animations using various warps and deforprocessing. Let us now take a look
at GREYCs Magic for Image Comput- mations. An expert can use this tool
ing (GMIC) tool, which is based on to work with videos, for processing
webcam videos in real-time, to have
the latest developments of CImg.
GMIC is a pleasant yet powerful multi-dimensional plots, for creating
image-processing framework that 3D models and logos, and so on. Macomes with an extensive package of nipulations and interactions on the
top-quality effects and predefined image can be done either grouped or
filters. The latest release of the soft- focused on specific items.
Simplicity. A simple instruction,
ware version 1.6.5.0 is included in
this months DVD of EFY Plus. The gmic pic1.jpg pic2.jpg pic3.jpg, alsoftware is distributed under CEA lows the user to view three pictures
CNRS INRIA Logiciel Libre (CeCILL) in a sequence.
Conversion of an image from one
licence, which is a French GPL-comformat to another is possible by yet
patible licence.
another single-line instruction, gmic
Why GMIC
ThisPicture.png Output.jpg.
A simple command, gmic image.
Even though the purpose of GMIC
jpg
-old_photo, allows the user to
is to facilitate experts, there is somecreate an old-photo effect for an image.
Flexibility. The tool
gives the user the freedom to choose from
a range of image-processing options. For example, for blurring an
image, the user is given
an option to select filFig. 1: Colour transformation using interactive colour curves
ter type, border setting,
Jai Sachith Paul
various blur types (angular, radial,

linear and selective), direction (x/
xy/xyz/y/z) and more.
Extensible. The software allows the user to have a customised
library of commands that could be
understood by the interpreter. Thus,
an expert user can customise the library in order to adapt to his or her
requirements.
Portability. Developers of this
software had portability as one of
their major design considerations.
GMIC runs well on different platforms such as Windows, Unix and
Mac. Use of OpenMP specifications
takes advantage of multiple cores
for speeding up the computation of
image-processing operations while
parallel-processing.
Motivation behind
the development
As mentioned earlier, the same team
who developed CImg library developed GMIC framework. There were
some observations that led to the
development of the new framework.
For working on CImg, basic
knowledge of C++ is necessary.
We cannot expect people like doctors, who are interested in image
processing, to have literacy on the
programming language.
Some recurring basic operations
Software overview
Fig. 2: Comic colourisation by placing coloured keypoints and running Colorization algorithm for
interpolating the colours (Image courtesy: David Revoy website)
IV
Name of the tool: GMIC (GREYCs Magic

for Image Computing)
Application: Image processing
Main developer: David Tschumperl,
GREYC Lab, Caen France
Main coding languages: C and C++
Licence: CECILL-2.0 (GPL-compactible)
Latest release: Version 1.6.5.0
www.efymag.com
efy plus dvd

are done on most of the image data,
such as instance visualisation, frequency analysis or noise reduction.
On the other hand, there are some
specific operations like masking
Fourier transform to eliminate some
frequency noise on certain images.
It is not always practical to have
a C++ code for every minor task.
The user, who may use a particular
piece of code, probably just once in
his lifetime, should not be spending
time in editing and compiling it.
This might not be economical.
User interfaces
For datasets varying from singledimensional scalar signals to multidimensional multi-spectral volumetric images, various user interfaces
(UIs) present in this toolkit provide
mechanisms for conversion, manipulation, filtering and visualisation of images.
Command-line interface. GMIC
language is a powerful script language for image-processing pipelines. The command line interface
(CLI), gmic, allows users to access
features of the framework from
within a shell. In the absence of a
dedicated graphical interface, CLI is
the most powerful interface that allows users to work on sequences of
float-valued 3D volumetric images
having arbitrary channels, without limits other than the available
memory.
By default, loading and saving
of image sequences is done using
OpenCV. Users can enter demo
mode, displaying all capabilities of
the tool by invoking gmic on the
command line without any other
arguments.
Gmic_gimp plugin. GIMP is a
very popular image retouching and
editing software. gmic_gimp plugin
renders the capabilities of GMIC to
GIMP. More than 400 filters including film emulation, frames, layers,
light and shadows, patterns and rendering are available with the tool.
ZArt Interface. ZArt interface
was initially developed as a demonwww.efymag.com
GMIC relies on an interactive colour curves

filter that includes
CMY, CMYK, HSI, HSL,
HSV, Lab, Lch and
YCbCr. This can be
done using the new
command line instruction -x_color_curves.
Fig. 3: GMIC Colorization algorithm for colourisation of an old
black-and-white photograph
Plugin users, who use
Colors / Curves [interactive] filter can serve
their favourite colour
curve and use it repeatedly.
Fig. 4: An implementation of GMIC colour-transfer algorithm
Comics colourisation. Even using a computer, the activity of
comic colourisation
is a tedious task. The
new GMIC command
-x_colorize and corresponding Black &
White / Colorize [interactive] filter in GMIC
plugin helps the user
to do the colourisation
job easily.
The user simply has
Fig. 5: Decomposition of foreground and background of an image
to put some keypoints
stration platform, where a user can here and there within different
process images from a webcam. Now image regions. GMIC provides a
this interface is capable of importing minimal interface for doing. By
any kind of image files. Most filters analysing contours and colour-point
from GIMP plugin have now been interpolation, the algorithm comes
shifted to ZArt interface.
up with a probable colourisation.
GMIC online. Image-processing
Black-and-white picture colourialgorithms from a Web browser can sation. With a small change in the
be directly applied on the images above algorithm, GMIC provides a
with the help of this Web service.
new tool to colourise old black-andBesides this, there is a thread-safe white photographs. Even for blackC++ library, libgmic, to be linked to
and-white picture colourisation, the
third-party applications. This multi- user could effectively use Black &
threaded library implements the White / Colorize [interactive] filter.
entire GMIC core image-processing
Colour transferring. In the colroutines and structures.
our-transferring algorithm, colour
of the source image is replaced by
New features in GMIC
the colour schemes of a reference
Let us take a look at some of the image, so as to get a better colour
latest features introduced in the ambience for the original image.
This is achieved with the help of
software.
Colors/Transfer colors [advanced]
For colour processing.
Interactive colour curves filter. plugin.
Foreground/background exInstead of going for conventional
red-green-blue (RGB) colour space, traction algorithm. In the photo
efy plus dvd

retouching process, it is important
to separate the foreground and background of an image. A speedy, userguided segmentation algorithm is
developed in GMIC, which is accessible through -x_segment command
(using CLI interface) and Contours
/ Extract foreground [interactive]
plugin filter.
Artistic filters. A wide range
of artistic filters help users to play
on the images. A couple of recently
incorporated artistic filters in GMIC
are Engrave effect and Delaunay
triangulation.
Open source projects

that use GMIC
Earlier in the article, we discussed
gmic_gimp plugin. Let us now look
at some of the other open source
projects that makes use of GMIC
features.
Krita is an open source digital
painting and illustration application.
A lot of filters of GMIC including
that makes use of the videoprocessing application from

GMIC framework.
The gimmick on images

GMIC framework has been
actively under development
by David Tschumperl and
the IMAGE team at GREYC
Labs, since 2008. The scripting
language understands about
1000 different commands, allconfigurable, for a libgmic liFig. 6: Use of artistic Engrave filter for photo-to-comic
conversion
brary file that takes a little less
than 5MB. These cover a wide
the one to colourise comics work range of image-processing applications including motion estimation
directly in Krita.
Photoflow is a full non-destructive and image manipulation.
People around the world make
photo-retouching program. It provides a complete workflow from RAW use of GMIC either directly or
image development to printing. Many through other open source software
applications of the GMIC filters that make use of the features of this
including noise reduction were suc- tool.
cessfully incorporated in Photoflow.
EKD is a postproduction process- The author is an electronics enthusiast from
ing software for videos and images Kerala
Are You into the Business of LED Lighting?

Heres a Good News for You
Presents
Bazaar
An excellent platform to get noticed
VI
Section Highlights
Dedicated Section on LEDs & LED Lighting

In Conversation with Industry Experts
Product Focus
New Product Launches
Upcoming Market Trends
Government Guidelines & Policies
www.efymag.com
efy plus dvd
Meep for Electromagnetic Simulations

Jai Sachith Paul
his article focuses on the

MIT electromagnetic equation
propagation (Meep) software
developed at Massachusetts Institute
of Technology (MIT) for modelling
electromagnetic (EM) systems. The
implementation is based on finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method.
The latest release of this open source
software released under GNU general
public licence, version 1.3, is included
in this months EFY Plus.
FDTD simulation
In the FDTD numeric analysis technique, time and space are divided into
a regular grid and the time evolution
of Maxwells equations is simulated.
Of course, there are many numeric
tools for computational electromagnetism. Some of these like Finite Element
Methods (FEMs) are more sophisticated and guarantee greater accuracy.
Boundary Element Method represents interfaces instead of volume.
Each technique has its own advantages and disadvantages.
Generic in nature. The full timedependent Maxwells equations can
be directly applied for nearly arbitrary
materials including anisotropic, dispersive, time varying and non-linear.
The algorithm helps in realistic simulation and propagation of an EM wave
through these complex structures.
Also, the software is capable of testing
a wide range of boundary conditions.
For researchers working in computational electromagnetism, new interactions of modern physical processes
are easily possible with the help of an
FDTD algorithm. An experienced user
can simulate the population of excited
atoms for lasing using this technique.
Distributed computing. The design of Meep facilitates distributed
computing. The algorithm used in this
software can be easily parallelised for
www.efymag.com
Software overview
Name of the software: Meep
Licence: GNU GPL
Software type: Electromagnetic simulation package
Major contributors to the software: David Roundy, Mihai Ibanescu, Peter Bermel,
Steven G. Johnson and Ardavan F. Oskooi
Programming language: C++
System requirements: Any computer with Unix-like system and C++ compiler; optionally
exploits additional free software packages like GNU Guile, libctl interface library, HDF5,
MPI message-passing interface and Harminv filter-diagonalisation
For more information: ab-initio.mit.edu/meep
implementation. This
results in duplication
of effort and wastage
of time and money.
There were a few
FDTD implementations available to the
public when the research group at MIT
started working on
Meep. But the features
were limited and were
Fig. 1: Meep plot showing the field in a dielectric wave-guide excited
not capable enough
by a point source at a given frequency. Input file in Scheme Language
is shown at the foreground
to meet their requirements. Massive downloads
and
citations
of this package rerunning on clusters or supercomputaffirm
the
demand
for
such a software
ers. Distributed memory parallelism
package.
could be achieved on any system that
supports Message Passing Interfacing (MPI) standard. This simulation Time-domain simulation:
package is portable to any Unix-like Major applications
system. With a free Unix-compati- In a time-domain simulation, Maxbility environment like Cygwin, it wells equations are evolved over time
should be possible to install Meep in in a finite computational region. The
Windows too.
result of this numerical experiment is
helpful to compute many useful quanThe motivation behind
tities like the ones mentioned below:
By taking Fourier transform of the
There are plenty of commercial softresponse
to a short pulse, transmission
ware packages based on FDTD algoand
reflection-scattering
parameters
rithm. For any kind of improved sciover
a
wide
spectrum
could
be easily
entific research in this area, access to
the source code is essential. Licens- found out.
Frequencies, decay rates and field
ing constraints should be relaxed in
order to speed porting to new clusters patterns of the harmonic modes of a
and supercomputers. Therefore most system could be easily extracted from
research groups working on photon- the analysis of the system to a short
ics and computational electromagnet- pulse.
Field patterns like Greens function
ics end up having their own FDTD
VII
efy plus dvd

Some interesting features
Python Meep
Simulation is possible in single, di and tri dimensions as well as in cylindrical coordinates

Effective exploitation of symmetries including odd/even mirror symmetries and 90/180
rotations allow reduction of computation size
Field output provided in Hierarchical Data Format (HDF5) is supported by many
visualisation tools
Complete scriptability provided through Scheme scripting front-end or a callable C++
library or python binding
Field analysis including frequency extraction, near- to far-field transformation, flux
spectra, etc is fully programmable
The default scripting language for Meep

software is Scheme. Python Meep is a
wrapper around C++ core of Meep,
allowing researchers to script Meep
simulations using Python. Not only does it
make the work of researchers easier, it also
allows them to integrate Meep with other
packages available in the Python ecosystem.
be effectively used
for computation of
far-field.
FDTD++. This
is yet another actively-developed, fullyfeatured open source
FDTD implementation. It provides
flexible geometrical
modelling capabilities with support for
computer aided deFig. 2: Plot showing the relative error in scattered power from a small
semi-circular bump in a dielectric waveguide excited by a point-dipole
signs, meshes and
source in the waveguide, as a function of the computational resolution.
algorithmic specificaThe geometry and field of the waveguide is shown in the inset
tions.
GSVIT.
This
open source FDTD
for an arbitrary source such as a conpackage
is
very
helpful
for scientific
tinuous wave input.
researches
in
nano
technology
and
Many other quantities could be
nano-scale
optics.
The
tool
supports
easily computed with the help of
these results. Various computations the use of NVIDIA CUDA environcould be added either sequentially or ment-compatible graphics cards. The
in parallel with the help of the script- latest version of the package comes
along with a graphical interface,
able interface.
XSvit, for parameter files set up and
Other competing software
visualisation purposes.
B-CALM. B-CALM, or Belgium
Let us now take a look at some other
California
Light Machine, is an FDTD
FDTD implementations available as
simulation
tool that makes use of
open source.
Compute
Unified
Device Architecture
Angora. Main features of this free
(CUDA) for fast computing on graphFDTD implementation include an
MPI library for full parallelisability, ics card.
build and install mechanism for GNU/
Linux operating system being auto- Dedicated EM simulation
tool without a GI
matic, support for planar multi-layered
spaces, flexible and user-friendly con- There is a basic Unix philosophy that
figuration with the help of text based reads, Write programs that do one
configuration files and numerical thing and do it well and Meep softoptical-imaging simulation.
ware does exactly that. Developers
OpenEMS. OpenEMS FDTD im- visualise Meep as a dedicated tool for
plementation comes with an exten- EM simulations, incorporating other
sive MATLAB/Octave interface. The functionalities by combining with othsoftware also has a graphical inter- er programs using standard interfaces.
face (GI) called CSXCAD. It can also
Some users might find using the
VIII
tool a bit difficult without a dedicated

GI. Setting up a realistic simulation is
usually a challenging scientific task on
its own and with Meep, one also needs
to write a working code. That said, I
believe that the minimalistic interface
of Meep and the fundamental simplicity of the FDTD algorithm provide a
very useful complement to more elaborate software packages, points out
Filip Dominec in his blog titled MEEP
- my notes on FDTD simulation.
Developers have valid reasons to
opt against a GI. Graphical simulations are used while setting up a
single simulation. But this tool is not
intended to have a single simulation.
Simulations are to be done for a class
of related problems and optimising
the results and looking at the same
geometry under a sequence of different stimuli. When it comes to a series
of related simulations, a graphical
computer aided design (CAD) style
interface would not be optimal.
Second, developers do not want
to write a mediocre CAD program. In
the paper titled MEEP: A flexible free
software package for electromagnetic
simulations by the FDTD method,
they write, If we wanted to use a
CAD program, we would use a professional quality one, export the design
to a standard interchange format and
write a conversion program to turn
this format into what Meep expects.
Therefore developers have finally
come up with a tool that provides
interactions using a low-level C++
interface, standard high-level scripting
language called Scheme implemented
by an external GNU Guile library and
Python Meep.
The author is an electronics enthusiast from Kerala
www.efymag.com
Make in India
Industry News
Tax structure, lack of

incentives impact electronics
manufacturing
onsumer Electronics and Appliances Manufacturers Association

(CEAMA) has released a statement
that the inverted duty structure and
lack of incentives are impacting the
manufacturing of consumer electronics. According to reports, in a
letter to Ministry of Commerce and
Industry, CEAMA has said that the
tax structure on imports of parts and
components to manufacture a product attracts huge customs and excise
duties. This inverted duty structure
impacts the domestic industry adversely as manufacturers have to
pay a higher price for raw materials
because of the duty, while importers are able to bring in the finished
product by paying lower duty, which
therefore costs less.
Currently, India is importing electronic goods worth US$ 100 billion a
year and the import bill is likely to
cross US$ 400 billion by 2020.
Hero Group enters electronics
ndian motorcycle and scooter

manufacturer, Hero Group, has entered the electronics sector. The Delhi
based two-wheeler manufacturer has
launched a new company, Hero Electronix. To take this further, Hero will
acquire a majority stake in Mybox,
which is a multi-operator manufacturer of set-top boxes in the country.
Mybox is known for the set-top
boxes it makes for various DTH operators in India. As Mybox is a known
player in the cable and DTH broadcast system, Hero will get a strong
foothold in the electronics ecosystem.
SoftBank to invest US$ 20

billion in Indian solar projects
apanese multinational telecommunications and Internet giant, SoftBank Corp., is partnering with Indias
Bharti Enterprises and Taiwan based
86
In Focus
Management changes at LG India
South Korean electronics company LG
has appointed Kim Ki-Wan to head its
Indian operations. Soon Kwon will take
over as global head for information
display business, while former global
head of marketing MY Kim replaces
Kwon as managing director.
Ashraf ElArman named

managing director of Xerox India
Xerox has announced the appointment of
Ashraf ElArman as MD of its Indian unit.
In this role, he will be responsible for new
business development, driving growth
and achieving business objectives for
Xerox India.
Rupa Santosh to head Nokia

Networks Technology Center
Nokia has appointment Rupa Santosh as
the head of Nokia Networks Technology
Centre in Bengaluru. The tech centre
electronics contract manufacturing

company Foxconn. SoftBank will
invest about US$ 20 billion in solar
projects in India. As India is looking
to boost its renewable energy sector,
SoftBank seeks business expansion
in the same sector. SoftBank will
initially invest US$ 10 billion in India.
The three companies are committed to generating a minimum
of 20GW of energy. Foxconn will
provide support in solar equipment
manufacturing for the projects. The
companies are also looking at manufacturing equipment in India.
Major changes have been observed
in the Indian solar industry. The rapidly-falling cost of solar power, which
is expected to reach parity with conventional energy by 2017, has ignited
interest in its potential in India.
Sony to tap rural TV market

with small-screen units
lectronics major Sony aims to tap

non-metro/rural markets with its
small-screen television panels along
is currently the leading research and

development (R&D) site for Nokia
Networks globally.
Amit Pradhan joins Vodafone

as Chief Technology Security Officer
Vodafone India, Indias second-largest
telecom operator, has appointed Amit
Pradhan as chief technology security
officer of the company. Prior to Vodafone
India, Pradhan served Cipla for almost
three years as group chief information
security officer.
Sistema Shyam TeleServices

announces two appointments
Sistema Shyam TeleServices (SSTL),
which provides telecom services under
MTS brand, has announced two senior
leadership appointments. Bijender Yadav
has been named chief technology officer
and Ashok Singh has been named chief
operating officer of Kolkata and West
Bengal circles.
with strengthening its sales network

in these areas.
The company, which launched an
affordable range of television panels
last year in order to tap tier II, III and
IV markets, has expanded its sales
network to over 10,000 distributors to
cash in on the opportunities.
Eon Electric gets ` 510 million

order for LEDs in UP, Rajasthan
ED lights manufacturer Eon Electric has won ` 510 million worth

of contracts to supply LED streetlights in Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh and
Jodhpur in Rajasthan.
With governments emphasis on
conserving energy by replacing conventional lights by LED lights, the
demand for LED streetlights in India
is expected to reach ` 3950 billion by
2020. Accordingly, EON has expanded its portfolio from conventional/
CFL lights to a range of LED bulbs
and LED streetlights.
The company will install 60,000
LED streetlights in Jodhpur and
www.efymag.com
Make in India
Calendar of Forthcoming Electronics
Fairs/Exhibitions/Seminars/Events
Name, Date and Venue
Topics
Contact address for details
Make in India Bright Prospects

of LED Manufacturing
August 14, 2015
PHD House, New Delhi
How LED technology in future can become

the primary source of power in India
PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry

Phone: +91-11-26863801-4
Website: www.phdcci.in
BFSI Innovation & Technology

Summit
August 20, 2015
Mumbai
Explores key aspects, issues related to the

BFSI sector, their practices and applications
as business drivers for innovation and
growth
Exito Media Concepts Pvt Ltd

Phone: 080-42015540
Email: enquiry@exito-e.com
Website: www.bfsiitsummit.com
8th Edition IPCA Electronics

Expo India 2015
August 20-22, 2015
Pragati Maidan, New Delhi
A platform to source latest electronic

components, equipment and services. The
exhibition demonstrates the latest trends in
the industry
IPCA Electronics Expo India 2015

Website: www.ipca-expo.com
Digital India 2015

Indian Mobile Applications &
Gadgets Expo
August 20-22, 2015
Topics include infrastructure as utility to

every citizen, mobile phone and banking,
sharable private space on public cloud, and
safe and secure cyber-space
Indian Mobile Applications & Gadgets

Expo (IMAGE)
Phone: +91-9818623337
Email: info@imageindia.org
Website: www.imageindia.org
Shunde Expo
August 20-22, 2015-07-16
Shunde Exhibition Centre, China
Focuses on showcasing quality appliances,

accessories and technology and providing
the best trading platform for exhibitors and
trade visitors in China and Asia
Koelnmesse Co. Ltd

Phone: +86-20-8755 2468-12
Website: www.shundeexpo.com
6th World Renewable Energy

Technology Congress - 2015
August 21-23, 2015
Manekshaw Centre, New Delhi
An international platform for promoting the

global renewal energy industry
6th World Renewable Energy Technology

Congress - 2015
Website: www.wretc.in
AUTOMATION 2015
August 24-27, 2015
Hall No.1 & 5, NSEMumbai,
Mumbai
Catering to industrial automation, robotics,

drives and controls, logistics, hydraulics and
pneumatics, and building automation
IED Communications Ltd

Phone: 022-22079567, 22073370
Email: jyothi@iedcommunications.com
Website: www.iedcommunications.com/
index.php
Embedded Systems
Technology Forum
September 2-4, 2015-05-14
NIMHANS Convention Centre,
Bengaluru
A conference and exhibition that caters

to the requirement of the electronics
engineering community in India
dmg events
Email: aneesahmed@dmgeventsme.com
Website: www.estf.in
IFA Berlin
September 4-9, 2015
Berlin, Germany
Worlds leading trade show for consumer

electronics and home appliances
Messe Berlin GmbH, Messedamm 22

Phone: +49-30-3038-2217
Email: vonderropp@messe-berlin.de
Website: b2b.ifa-berlin.com
electronica India
productronica India
September 9-11, 2015
Fair for electronic components, systems,

applications and entire value chain
in electronics production, besides
communication platform for the electronics
industry
MMI India Pvt Ltd

Phone: 9967558496
Email: kavita.chhatani@mmi-india.in
Website: www.electronica-productronicaindia.com
IT ASIA 2015
September 25-27, 2015
Hitex, Hyderabad, Telangana
An India international exhibition and

conference on electronics and ICT industry
Aakar Exhibition Pvt Ltd

Email: sanjay@mait.com
Website: www.itasia.in
Safety & Security Asia 2015

Singapore
September 29 October 1, 2015
Marina Bay Sands, Singapore
One of the largest international safety and

Conference & Exhibition Management
security technology and equipment exhibition Services Pte Ltd
Phone: +65 62788666
Website: safetysecurityasia.com.sg
Taitronics 2015
October 6-9, 2015
TWTC Nangang Exhibition
Hall No.1, Nangang District,
Taipei, Taiwan (R.O.C.)
Electronic components and parts, meters

and instruments, LED lighting and
applications, power supplies, industrial
process and automation, smart living and
consumer electronics, broadband products
and cloud
TAITRONICS 2015
(41st Taipei International Electronics
Show)
Website: www.taitronics.tw
Gizworld Wearable Tech and

IoT SF conference
October 27, 2015
Santa Clara Convention Centre,
Santa Clara, California, the USA
Over 20 dynamic TED-style keynotes, 50

fast-track start-up pitches, product demos
and unique networking opportunities
Gizworld Wearable Tech and IoT SF

Website: gizworldconf.com/san-francisco
CeBIT India
October 29-31, 2015
BIEC, Bengaluru
A digital marketplace to understand what

new technology can do for a business
Hannover Milano Fairs India Pvt Ltd

Phone: +91-22-66875527
Website: www.cebit-india.com
OSI Days 2015

November 19-20, 2015
Nimhans Convention &
Exhibition Centre, Bengaluru
Open source conference that aims to nurture

and promote the open source ecosystem
in Asia
EFY Enterprises Pvt Ltd

Phone: 011-26810601/2/3
Email: info@osidays.com
Website: www.osidays.com
LED Expo 2015

December 3-5, 2015
Countrys No. 1 exhibition on LED lighting

products and technologies
Messe Frankfurt Trade Fairs India Pvt Ltd

Phone: 022-61445900
Website: www.theledexpo.com
Energy Storage India

December 8-9, 2015
India Habitat Centre, New Delhi
International conference and exhibition on

energy storage and microgrids in India
Customised Energy Solutions

Website: www.esiexpo.in
www.efymag.com
13,000 in Aligarh. These streetlights

will be installed with a centrally
controlled system, which will continuously monitor and report satisfactory performance and energy
conservation of the streetlights.
Bharti to partner with

electronics manufacturer
ndian telecom conglomerate,

Bharti Enterprises, is planning to
start manufacturing set-top boxes,
for which it is looking at partnering with an electronics manufacturer in the country. According to
reports, Bharti is planning to make
set-top boxes in Pune, in partnership with an electronics manufacturing company, in line with
its commitment to support Make
in India initiative. The process
of cable digitisation across India
is underway in a phased manner,
which is fuelling the demand for
set-top boxes.
The government has mandated
that cable TV transmission has to
be done through digital addressable systems only, as consumers
can access a larger number of TV
channels compared to only 60 to
70 channels that can be accessed
through analogue cable transmission. As per industry estimates, the
cable digitisation programme has
created a huge demand for set-top
boxes, which is likely to reach 75
million units by 2016-17.
Micromax to increase
production of TV panels
onsumer electronics company,

Micromax, has plans to capture
15 per cent market share in the TV
panel segment by 2016 and is planning to set up a new unit to ramp
up production of budget-range models by investing up to ` 5 billion.
At present Micromax, which had
forayed into TV panel segment in
2012, has an eight per cent share of
the total market.
The company uses 50 per cent
local components for its TV units
and the rest are imported.
87
Make in India
Calendar of Forthcoming Electronics
Fairs/Exhibitions/Seminars/Events
Name, Date and Venue
Topics
Contact address for details
WIN India
December 9-11, 2015
From hydraulics and pneumatics to electromechanical transmission, automation

components to process and factory
automation systems, among others
Hannover Milano Fairs India Pvt Ltd

Phone: 9167522998
Email: nikhil.desai@hmf-india.com
Website: www.win-india.com
India Electronics Week

January 11-13, 2016
Bengaluru
An Indian exhibition for the global electronics

industry showcasing concurrently five
events: Electronics For You Expo,
Electronics Rocks, T&M India, LED Asia and
IoT Show
EFY Enterprises Pvt Ltd

Phone: +91-11-40596605
Email: growmybiz@efy.in
WEARABLE EXPO
January 13-15, 2016
Tokyo Big Sight, Tokyo
Wearable device and technology expo
WEARABLE EXPO Show Management

Reed Exhibitions Japan Ltd
Website: www.wearable-expo.jp/en
ELECRAMA 2016
February 13-17, 2016
BIEC, Bengaluru
Serves the business needs of utilities,

government, EPC consultants, contractors,
electrical equipment manufacturers and
generation companies
ELECRAMA 2016
Email: anil.nagrani@ieema.org
Look up under Events section in www.electronicsforu.com for a comprehensive list

Since this information is subject to change, all those interested are advised
to ascertain the details from the organisers before making any commitment.
Snippets
PM launches flexible electronics
centre at IIT Kanpur
A flexible electronic centre worth ` 1330
million is being set up at IIT Kanpur.
This is a first-of-its-kind facility across
IITs, aimed at pioneering new flexible
electronics domain. Department of
Electronics and Information Technology
(DeitY), government of India, is assisting
IIT Kanpur in this project.
Renesas Electronics
to deliver IoT platform
Renesas has announced Renesas
Synergy Platform, a new, easy-to-use,
qualified platform designed to accelerate
time-to-market, reduce total cost of
ownership and remove many obstacles
that engineers face as they develop
products for the growing IoT and industrial
markets. The platform uses an innovative
approach to new product design that
lets embedded systems engineers start
product development at API level, giving
Celkon rolls out manufacturing

unit in Telangana
yderabad based mobile phone

company, Celkon, has announced the launch of its first manufacturing unit in Telangana. Until
now, its mobiles and tablet PCs were
assembled in Taiwan and China.
According to reports, the unit
has the capacity to manufacture
200,000 phones per month, and this
will be increased to 500,000 phones
per month in the next quarter. Also,
about 60 per cent of the phones
88
them more time to design innovative and

differentiated features.
Cisco launches IoT system

for enterprises and smartcities
Tech giant Cisco has introduced Internet
of Things (IoT) system, under which it
has launched 15 products. This system
encompasses all parts of the infrastructure
that go into IoT deployment, which include
communications gear, computing elements,
security and management software.
Synopsys to increase
footprint in India
Synopsys India, a part of the electronic
design automation (EDA) conglomerate
Synopsys Inc., is planning to collaborate
with small semiconductor design
companies in order to expand its footprint in
India. Besides partnering with local players,
the company will continue to collaborate
with tech giants such as Intel, Qualcomm,
Texas Instruments, Brocade and Freescale
for EDA and software capabilities.
manufactured at this plant will be

feature phones and the remaining 40
per cent will be smartphones.
Foxconn to set up 12
manufacturing units in Sri City
oxconn, the largest contract

manufacturer of phones/gadgets
and hardware globally, has zeroed in
on Sri City in Andhra Pradesh to set
up a manufacturing facility.
The Taiwanese giant is planning
to set up several units in the country
Check efytimes.com for more news, daily
involving significant investments.

Foxconn CEO has indicated plans to
set up ten to twelve manufacturing
units and possibly create one million
jobs by 2020. Initial focus will be on
Gujarat and Maharashtra, besides
Andhra Pradesh.
Foxconn is also looking to set up
data centres and invest in start-ups.
Chinese mobile phone companies
like Xiaomi and Gionee are among
those that have outlined plans for
manufacturing in India and they are
expected to team up with Foxconn.
Crompton Greaves, SOGO to sell

kitchen appliances in India
rompton Greaves has signed a

long-term alliance pact with Spanish European consumer appliances
company SOGO to sell kitchen appliances in India.
SOGO is engaged in the marketing
and worldwide sales of kitchen and
home appliances and personal care
products. It will provide market intelligence and access to its international
design houses to develop unique products for the Indian consumer.
Through this alliance, Crompton
will leverage SOGOs robust costeffective supply chain to introduce
the new range of products through
its well-established distribution network with a target of reaching 9000
premium retail counters. The high
volume procurement projected will enable both companies to achieve higher
competitiveness.
Japans Komamura keen to

make lenses, cameras in India
apans Komamura Corp. is looking

to make lenses and cameras in India and would explore the possibility
of setting up operations in Andhra
Pradesh in this regard.
The company is also exploring
the possibility of exporting its equipment to other parts of the world from
Andhra Pradesh.
Komamura operates in the optics
space and manufactures view/technical cameras, pro-digital photo equipment and pro-broadcasting equipment.
www.efymag.com
make in India
Market Survey:
An Outlook for the PCB Industry in 2015-16:

The Indian Perspective
P
Sudeshna Das is senior
executive editor at EFY
rinted circuit boards (PCBs) are the

backbone of the electronics industry.
These are deployed in almost all
electronic products, ranging from consumer
electronics such as personal computers,
tablets, smartphones and gaming consoles
to industrial electronics and also high-end
commercial products including strategic
electronics and medical electronics.
Considering the importance of the PCB
industry in the electronics manufacturing
ecosystem, July 2014 issue of Electronics For
You published an article titled PCB Industry in India: Marching Ahead, discussing
how the Indian PCB industry was moving
ahead despite unfavourable government
policies and increased imports that competed with local products.
However, given that the electronics
industry ecosystem has evolved significantly in the last one year with respect to
government policies, investment climate
and consumer demand, we decided to take
a fresh peek into the Indian PCB industry
to understand how the industry has been
shaping up. This time, however, rather than
going only by facts and figures available in
different reports, we tried to bring to you
perspectives from industry thought leaders on the PCB industrys prospects.
Signs of growth
The Indian electronics industry is projected to touch US$
400 billion by 2020. This, in
turn, is expected to fuel a
high demand for PCBs. The
Indian PCB industry is showing signs of growth at last.
I can confidently say that
one of the primary reasons
would be Make in India initiative. There are other reasons as well, such as policy
changes by the government
90
combined with incentive schemes, which

have created a very encouraging environment
for the growth of this industry, opines Anil
Kumar Muniswamy, managing director, SLN
Technologies, while discussing the growthfriendly changes that took place in the PCB
industry in the past year.
In 2014, majority of growth in the PCB
market was driven by the consumer electronics segment followed by requirement from
strategic and medical electronics segments.
In the near future, telecommunications, consumer electronics and industrial electronics
will continue to driver growth. In these sectors, miniaturisation of semiconductor devices and demand for enhanced functionality in
electronic products would drive the demand
for more complex PCBs with high layer volume. The huge push by the government for
electronics manufacturing along with Make
in India focus and the push from the defence
sector will drive the growth of PCB industry
in the country in the near future, opines
Abhay B. Doshi, managing director, Fine-Line
Circuits Ltd.
According to Doshi, PCB manufacturers
in India mostly fall under the following segments:
1. Large-volume manufacturers (mostly
double-sided PCB manufacturers and a few
who produce a good amount of multi-layer
PCBs)
2. Small-volume manufacturers (both
double-sided PCB manufacturers and a few
who produce multi-layer PCBs)
3. Small-volume fast-delivery manufacturers (both double-sided PCB manufacturers and a few who produce multi-layer
PCBs)
4. Small-volume complex-design manufacturers (who produce all types of special/
complex PCBs)
Doshi specifically expects the growth in
the second, third and fourth type of manufacturers, and explains that, automotive,
www.efymag.com
make in India
telecom, solar and LED continue
to be demand-generating areas and
the core growth continues from the
industrial automation and instrumentation segments.
Further, advances in technology
such as high-density interconnection (HDI) technology would enable
more interconnection functions per
unit area, which has the potential
of having a high growth impact on
the market for advanced-level applications. For example, according
to Muniswamy, availability of the
Internet to remote areas, changing
lifestyles with increased purchasing
power of the middle class and rapid
growth of the ecommerce industry
is expected to generate demand for
PCBs required for mobile and portable devices, cloud computing servers and networking devices.
Mobile computing, cloud computing and the Internet of Things
(IoT) are the latest fads in the electronics industry, and we are seeing
the emergence of local brands in
mobile computing, which includes
smartphones, tablets and laptops,
among others. Policy changes are
forcing local brands to start manufacturing in India, and this should
help the local PCB manufacturing
ecosystem and create millions of
jobs, he adds.
In recent years, consumer demand and regulatory concern for
low carbon emission, energy saving
and environmental protection has attracted greater attention towards LED
lighting. LED manufacturing segment
in the country is poised to grow at a
very high rate. This, in turn, has the
potential to open up a huge demand
potential for PCBs, says Rajoo Goel,
secretary general, ELCINA.
According to Anuraag Dhoot,
managing director, Epitome Components, presently, the best bet for Indian PCB manufacturers is in the area
of supplies to energy meters, UPS
systems and automotive electronics.
These are the growing areas that
have good potential for growth and
expansion for PCB manufacturers.
www.efymag.com
Fig. 1: Demand-supply gap in Indian PCB industry (Source: IPCA)
Steps to promote indigenous ecosystem for PCBs

Imposing high import tariff; nil duty on raw material imports
Interest subsidies/low interest loans; quicker reimbursement of CENVAT
Provision of export subsidies
Elimination of inverted duty structure
Imposing anti-dump duty/safeguard duty
Source: An IESA - Frost & Sullivan report
Given that the automotive industry in India is growing steadily

and every car needs two to 15 PCBs
depending on features and functionality requirements, demand for PCBs
from this segment is bound to grow,
opines Paresh Vasani, managing
director, Circuit Systems India Ltd.
In addition, the recent thrust on
indigenisation of strategic electronics manufacturing will likely fuel the
demand for high-grade multi-layer
PCBs.
Demand-supply gap
Currently, most domestic PCB consumption in the country is served
through imports. This does not bode
well for the economic health of the industry in the long term. Currently, almost 80 per cent to 85 per cent of the
countrys PCB requirements are met
through imports. To boost electronics
manufacturing in the country, it is important to have adequate PCB manufacturing capacities that meet the need
of the industry at competitive prices,
thereby preventing excessive dependence on imports, says Goel.
According to an IPCA report,
there is a gap of around US$ 950
million (Fig. 1) between the demand
and supply of PCBs in the Indian
market. This huge demand-supply
gap provides enough opportunity for
Market drivers
Automotive electronics
Consumer electronics
Industrial electronics
Light emitting diodes (LEDs)
Strategic electronics
Telecommunications
new manufacturing plants to come

up in India.
Areas of concern
Doshi expresses his concerns about
the time lagbetween announcement
and implementation of government
initiatives due to slow translation. It is
a big challenge for achieving expected
growth through those initiativesrelated demand that woulddrive consumption and investment.
Muniswamy points out the main
hindrances for starting PCB manufacturing in the country. These are
high capital cost, non-availability
of a good percentage of raw materials and world-class manufacturing
equipment.
He also mentions that, typically in
countries like Taiwan, China, Korea
and Japan, PCB companies are located close to EMS or OEM companies
and form a good ecosystem. In India,
manufacturing itself is very small
and is spread across the country from
91
make in India
Fig. 2: Indian PCB market at a glance
Obstacles for growth

Inefficient supply chain for raw materials resulting in high inventory storage costs

Unfair level playing due to the high cost of finance with respect to other countries

Inverted tax structure

Logistics inefficiencies and infrastructural bottlenecks resulting in greater turnaround
time and costs

Conflict of interest among various sectors within the electronics industry, from
components to finished products
Some leading PCB

Manufacturers in India
AT&S India Pvt Ltd

Ascent Circuits Pvt Ltd
BLG Electronics Ltd
CIPSA-TEC India Pvt Ltd
Circuits Systems India Ltd/PCB Power
Epitome Components Ltd
Fine-Line Circuits Ltd
Garg Electronics Pvt Ltd
Genus Electrotech Ltd
Hi-Q Electronics Pvt Ltd
Meena Circuits Pvt Ltd
Micropack Ltd
Shogini Technoarts Pvt Ltd
Sulakshana Circuits Ltd
Vintek Circuits (India) Pvt Ltd
New Delhi to Chennai and Gujarat to

West Bengal. Because of this, inland
transportation costs are more than
importing costs from China.
Satish Athavale, managing director, Shogini Technoarts, highlights
that, Presently, output of the Indian
PCB industry is less than one per
cent of the total global capacity. This
is due to unavailability of the latest
technology and high capital requirement for capacity expansion. Capital
investment cost goes up due to the
very high cost of finance in the country for capital investment, as well as
92
for working capital.

Goel explains that, the very low
capital-output ratio in the PCB industry entails need for huge investment
and high interest cost. Thus, profitability is an issue that is impacted
by the fact that manufacturers are
not able to invest in new equipment,
most of which is imported. He also
mentioned that availability of skilled
manpower is also a challenge as the
industry is small and does not support an ecosystem for organised skilldevelopment infrastructure.
Infrastructural challenges such
as availability of clean and uninterrupted power, water, developed
industrial parks and lack of raw material were some of the hindrances
to the growth of the PCB industry in
the past. According to Muniswamy,
Though things are improving, raw
material supply chain is still an issue
in the country as most raw materials
are still being imported.
Non-availability of critical raw
materials increases inventory cost and
non-availability of modern manufacturing equipment increases the overall
cost of acquisition and maintenance.
Vasani says, There is no domestic
supply chain for the raw materials required in the PCB industry. In view of
huge dependence on imports, manufacturers have to keep over three months

of inventory, which adds to the cost.
Doshi feels that the large import
content of raw materials in a strong
dollar situation will significantly impact margins and hinder growth.
These factors contribute towards
increasing the price point of the
product, which makes these less competitive as compared to their Chinese
competitors. Dhoot mentions that, the
relevance of manufacturing equipment used today is for a maximum of
four years, after which these tend to
become redundant.
Vasani also mentioned the need for
huge investments associated with the
creation and maintenance of effluent
treatment facilities as one of the major
challenges for this industry.
In this regards, Athavale emphasised the need for support from the
government and felt that this could
enable India to avail the opportunity
that has been created by the shutting down of PCB manufacturing in
European Union (EU) due to stringent
pollution-control concerns.
While discussing the capability
limitations of the Indian PCB industry,
Dhoot says, India does not manufacture PCBs for most high-growth project
segments such as mobile handsets,
laptops or set-top boxes. We are only
able to manufacture PCBs for consumer electronics such as televisions
and power electronics products such
as UPSes and inverters. Even LCD/LED
televisions require high-tech PCBs with
a specification of 5mil x 5mil boards.
This often results in high rejection of
Indian PCBs in this segment due to
lack of an inadequately upgraded projection process in the country.
Most Indian PCB companies in the
past catered to a small local market
consisting primarily of public sector
companies and therefore never felt the
need for continual improvement.
To grow in todays competitive environment, however, PCB companies
must focus on top-notch quality that
could be sold in any market across the
globe. Developing a global market for
www.efymag.com
make in India
products will reduce reliance on local
demand.
Most companies have quality
standards such as ISO and LCSO in
place but these certifications do not
have much impact on the actual
product quality. I think it is high time
for Indian companies to focus on
Japanese quality standards and follow
those like cult, opines Muniswamy.
On the same lines, Doshi mentions that IPC standards are and will
be the core standards to follow. He
says, More and more customers
are now demanding higher level of
quality standards, parameters and
systems prevalent in the automotive
(TS), aerospace (AS) and medical (ISO
13485) arena.
Growing inorganically
Almost all senior thought leaders who
shared their insights for this survey
believe in the possibility of inorganic
growth in this segment, which could
either be in the form of mergers and
acquisitions (M&As) or through joint
ventures (JVs). For example, Muniswamy states, I strongly believe
in M&As as these help companies to
grow inorganically in a short span
of time. Entrepreneurs often fail to
grow beyond a point due to lack of
vision and leadership. They develop
strong resistance to change. Most
early starters restrict themselves to
the domestic market, thereby limiting
their exposure, unlike Chinese firms
that conquer world markets. There
are still many PCB companies that
are running businesses like a lifestyle
and these are good cases for M&As.
These companies need to let capable
people run the company and original
founders should sit back and enjoy
the success.
However, Doshi opines, Globally, most PCB industries that have
survived the Chinese onslaught and
those in China also are mostly ownermanaged. The need for a huge skill
set (technological, managerial and
financial) required in a professional
who can successfully grow the company is largely absent in India. He
www.efymag.com
Major contributors to this report
Abhay B. Doshi,
managing director,
Fine-Line
Circuits Ltd
Anil Kumar
Muniswamy,
managing director,
SLN Technologies
Anuraag Dhoot,
chief executive
officer, Epitome
Components
Paresh Vasani,
managing director,
Circuit Systems
India Ltd/PCB Power
Rajoo Goel,
secretary general,
ELCINA
Satish Athavale,
managing director,
Shogini Technoarts
Favourable conditions

Special incentive schemes such as MSIPS from DeitY

Electronics manufacturing clusters being set up by associations such as ELCINA

Special PCB manufacturing cluster by Madhya Pradesh government in Gwalior

Special schemes announced by Orissa government for the manufacturing sector

Special electronics manufacturing clusters being set up in Andhra Pradesh
adds, Given the relatively small

sizes of most companies in the PCB
industry, although theoretically logical, a change may end up costing the
current opportunity of growth on
hand.
Since most PCB manufacturers in the country are incapable of
investments required for producing
high-tech products for devices like
set-top boxes and mobile handsets in
required volume, any kind of partnership with foreign companies could
help Indian companies manufacture
high-tech PCBs by leveraging technology transfer.
India advantages
In the last few months, campaigns
like Make in India and Digital India
have attracted huge FDI inflows to
the country from across the globe.
This has created more opportunities
for outsourcing work by companies
such as Foxconn. Exponential growth
of the mobile phone market is fueling
the growth of electronics manufacturing units, and the day is not far when
a large company would set up a
manufacturing facility for HDI boards
for the mobile phone industry.
For the first time in decades,
venture capital (VC) funds are available with as low as six per cent to
eight per cent interest rates. Some
companies are looking for JVs with
foreign companies to bring cutting-
edge technology to India. There are

at least half a dozen companies in
the pipeline for establishing greenfield PCB projects in India, which
include two JVs. Therefore right
now is the best time for investment
in the PCB industry in India, says
Muniswamy.
Looking forward
Despite limitations like capital intensive, low investment-to-sales ratio, logistics and infrastructural issues, the
Indian PCB industry should be able
to witness sustainable growth if the
government can provide a level playing field for the industry. As Vasani
rightly comments, We do not need
nurturing or subsidy. Instead, the
government should be a catalyst for
growth. Take the case of the Indian
automotive industry for example; the
government discourages automotive
import with high duty structures and
complicated registration process,
compelling automotive companies to
manufacture in India, resulting in a
proper manufacturing ecosystem. The
government should create a similar
environment for PCBs and other electronic components as well.
Given that there is huge domestic
demand for electronic products, it
will help not just the PCB industry
but the entire electronic ecosystem to
achieve long-term sustainable growth
in-line with Make in India.
93
Make in India
new products
COMPONENTS
Integrated gate driver
This integrated gate driver offers adjustable gate drive settings with the
flexibility to drive a wide range of
external field-effect transistors, supporting multiple motors, speeds or
ating, as the vehicle battery voltage

dips during engine cranking. The
devices provide a reliable replacement
for electromechanical relays and associated circuitry. These have built-in
multiplexed current-sense diagnostics
that provide precise analogue loadcurrent feedback.
STMicroelectronics
Website: www.st.com
IR camera lens
Texas Instruments
Website: www.ti.com
Compatible with Fluke TiX560

and TiX520 infrared (IR) cameras,
the 25 micron macro lens enables
technicians to distinguish thermal
variations across
distances smaller than a human
hair, making it ideal for applications in electronics/PCB
board research and development or
anything requiring near-microscopiclevel IR resolution.
AC-DC control IC
Fluke Corp.
Website: www.fluke.com/india
varying loads. The DRV8701 enables

designers to scale their platforms
using a single gate driver across
various brushed DC motor models
in equipment such as white goods,
household appliances, robotics and
home automation.
The BD7682FJ-LB control integrated

circuit (IC) has been designed specifically for SiC MOSFETs in industrial
equipment such
as servers and
other large power
applications.
Its key features are:
1. Maximizes SiC MOSFET performance for energy savings
2. SiC MOSFET contributes to
miniaturisation
3. Multiple protection circuits
support high voltage operations up
to 690V AC
ROHM Co. Ltd
Website: www.rohm.com
Automotive high-side drivers

VND7050AJ12 and VND7140AJ12
drivers have minimum supply voltage
of 3.2V to keep essential equipment
such as dashboard instruments oper94
CMOS image sensor

The AR0136AT optical format CMOS
digital image sensor with 1280x960
resolution and 3.75 micron BSI pixels
supports linear and high dynamic
range (HDR) modes on a single chip
HDR solution, with a 120dB dynamic
range in HDR mode.
It has an output
p i xe l ra t e o f
74.25MP/second
(maximum), which
results in a frame rate
of 45 frames per second (fps) at 960
pixels resolution and 60fps at 720
pixels resolution.
ON Semiconductor
Website: www.onsemi.com
Ferroelectric RAM
MB85RS1MT, an 8-pin wafer-level
chip scale package (WL-CSP), occupies only 23 per cent of the mounted
surface area of the existing 8-pin
small-outline package (SOP) and is
roughly one-fifth as thick. WL-CSP
ferroelectric RAM (FRAM) is ideal for
wearable devices.
Fujitsu Semiconductor Ltd
Website: www.fujitsu.com
TVS diodes
Littelfuse has introduced six new series of high-reliability TVS diodes that
are up-screened for use in aerospace
applications. The 5KP/15KPA/30KPAHR and 5KP/15KPA/30KPA-HRA
series TVS diodes are designed specifically to protect sensitive electronic
equipment from voltage transients
induced by lightning surges and other
transient voltage events.
Littelfuse Inc.
Website: www.littelfuse.com
Circuit breaker
SCHURTERs circuit breaker, the T12MSM, is a unique combination of a
reliable circuit breaker and a robust
metal switch. It offers a variety of design options including an assortment
of colours for ring or point illumination, as well as options for standard
or custom inscription.
SCHURTER Electronics (India) Pvt Ltd
Website: www.SCHURTER.co.in
Industrial Ethernet
communication ICs
Renesas has announced the launch of
the R-IN32M4-CL2 industrial Ethernet
communication application-specific
standard product (ASSP) with integrated gigabit PHY to support
the increasing network and factory
productivity needs of Industry 4.0.
R-IN32M4-CL2 extends the family of
R-IN32M3 platform that incorporates
hardware accelerators supporting
real-time operating system (RTOS)
www.efymag.com
Make in India
performance as well as Ethernet
packet handling.
Renesas Electronics Corp.
Website: www.renesas.com
Power-factor correction ICs

Power Integrations has announced
its HiperPFSTM-3 family of power
factor correction ICs, which offer
high power factor and high efficiency
across the entire load range. Targeting applications with continuous
power demands up
to 405W for universal input and
900W for high-line,
the ICs feature efficiency levels of
better than 95 per
cent from ten per cent load to full
load and consume less than 60mW
under no-load conditions.
Power Integrations Inc.
Website: www.power.com
Chip capacitors
SMEC Electronics has launched tantalum chip capacitors for use in automotive, military, portable consumer,
medical, PCB and other applications.
Some features are:
1. Surge tested for maximum
robustness
2. Precision moulded case with
flat surfaces for vacuum pick up
3. Laser marking and bold videcon-readable polarity stripe compliant terminations
4. Glue pad on underside for
bonding to circuit board prior to
soldering
5. Encapsulant material satisfies
UL94 VO flammability classification
6. MSL (moisture sensitivity level)
per IPC/Jdec J-STD-020B is level 1
SMEC Electronics (I) Pvt Ltd
Website: www.smec-inc.com
TEST & MEASUREMENT

Spectrum analyser
This new product combines the
function of three separate test equipment, namely, oscilloscope, spectrum
analyzer, power meter or logic anawww.efymag.com
lyser, into one, enabling frequency,

power and timing measurements in
one setup. It is an extremely powerful tool for protocol verification and
troubleshooting wireless devices.
Oscium
Websites: www.oscium.com,
www.mobioscope.com
Clamp meter
EX840 CAT IV clamp meter comes
with the following features:
1. Built-in non-contact IR thermometer
with laser pointer
2. True RMS current
and voltage measurements
3. Peak hold captures inrush currents
and transients
4. Multimeter functions include AC/DC voltage, resistance, capacitance, frequency, diode
and continuity
5. 43mm (1.7-inch) jaw opening
for conductors up to 750MCM or two
500MCM
6. 4000-count backlit display
FLIR Systems
Website: www.flir.in
Radio communication analyzer

MT8821C is a successor to MT8820C
and enables up to four carriers with
MIMO to be generated in a one-box
solution, while retaining code and
radio frequency compatibility with
MT8820C. This backwards compatibility enables the joint test solution
to immediately support all commonly
used communication standards such
as LTE FDD and TDD including
LTE-Advanced, W-CDMA (HSPA,
HSPA+), CDMA (EV-DO), TD-SCDMA and GSM (GPRS/EDGE).
Anritsu India Pvt Ltd
Website: www.anritsu.com
Temperature sensor
The PTS series of platinum SMD
flat-chip temperature sensors are designed to provide accurate and stable
temperature sensing for automotive,
space and industrial electronics. The
devices combine enhanced thermal

cycling performance with higher operating temperatures up to +175C.
The sensors offer resistance values of 100 and 500 in the 0805
size and 100, 500 and 1k in the
1206 size; F0.3 and F0.6 tolerance
classes; and a near-linear temperature characteristic of +3850ppm/K.
Vishay Intertechnology Inc.
Website: www.vishay.com
Digital oscilloscope
Key features of this product are:
Time analysis. High sensitivity of
1mV/div to detect signals that would
otherwise be lost in the noise
Frequency analysis. Reliable fault

detection with integrated FFT and
spectrum analysis with spectrogram
Logic analysis. 20Msample with
5Gsample/s for detailed analysis of
digital signals
Protocol analysis. Simple triggering and decoding of serial buses
Digital voltmeter/frequency
counter. Key signal parameters at a
glance
Rohde & Schwarz
Website: www.rohde-schwarz.com
Digital blood pressure monitor

The device is an easy-to-use monitor
with fuzzy logic inflation and controlled deflation. It features a large
LCD display with easy-to-read inprogress results and measures systolic
and diastolic blood pressure and pulse
rates simultaneously, and detects and
alerts the user to irregular heartbeat.
Paramount Surgimed Ltd
Website: www.paramountsurgimedltd.com
POWER SUPPLY
UPS unit
Aplabs military-grade uninterruptible power supply (UPS) units are
95
Make in India
designed for extreme environmental
and demanding electrical conditions
of military applications. These accept
of these lights is that these exhibit

an added advantage of turning the
colour from white to 256 different
shades of RGB LED light using smart
technology.
a wide range of input voltage and

frequency values while delivering a
well-conditioned AC output to the
load.
Aplab Ltd
Website: www.aplab.com
Switch-mode power supplies

The (M)WLP350 series is an evolution
of the EOS brand of high-technology
power solutions, which is designed
to operate with single-phase (3-wire)
universal input with 0.95 or better
power factor at a rated continuous
output power of up to 350W. The
products have convection cooled ratings of up to 200W, typical efficiency
levels of 93 per cent and no-load
power consumption levels of 0.5W
maximum at 230V AC input levels.
Jugnu is a 5W table-top mood

light that comes in the shape of a
UFO. It is powered by two AAA batteries and emits soft light to enhance
the mood.
ENRG
Website: www.enrg.in
CoB LEDs
LUXEON chip on board (CoB) Core
Range of LEDs (generation 2) delivers an average of ten per cent higher
efficacy and ten per cent higher flux
MISCELLANEOUS
PLC modem SoC
ZENO/MAX79356 ultra-low-power
powerline communications (PLC)
modem system on a chip (SoC) reduces footprint by up to three times
and improves time-to-market.
Some key advantages are:
Versatile. Software configurability supports todays PLC standards
and will adjust for
future standards
Low power.
Uses 80 per cent
less power when
listening for PLC
communications (55mW versus
300mW); active transmission power
consumption is 70mW
Maxim Integrated Products Inc.
Website: www.maximintegrated.com
PLC trainers
ABVOLT has announced the expansion of its range of PLC trainers for
training applications using different
EOS Power India Pvt Ltd

Website: www.eospower.com
Electric rickshaw battery

INPHYNYT E-Tour electric rikshaw
batteries are made of highly-purelead-antimonial alloy with thick grid
design that reinforces the strength
of a grid structure and reduces
corrosion at the
same time. Highly-fortified grid
structure, use of
special binders
in pasting, improvised use of worldclass separators, copper rings in assembly and dual poles reduces the
downtime.
INPHYNYT Accumulators India Pvt Ltd
Website: www.inphynyt.com
LEDs
LED lights
ENRG has launched two new ambient mood lights, ENRG Prism and
ENRG Jugnu. The unique feature
96
with a lower voltage and the same

footprint as the first-generation LEDs.
The LEDs are offered in multiple lumen packages from less than 1000
lumens for MR16 and PAR lamps,
up to 7600 lumens for 100W CDM
replacements.
makes of industrial PLCs as required

with different digital/analogue input/
output configurations.
LUMINEDS
Website: www.lumileds.com
3D printer
Abvolt Technologies Inc.

Website: www.abvoltindia.com
The new RCOB LED driver series

from RECOM have specifically been
developed to meet the requirements
of CoB LEDs. The driver series includes 11 models with output voltages between 25V DC and 44V DC and
constant output currents of 350mA
to 1050mA, thus offering a suitable
driver for virtually any application.
Dreamer 3D printer is bundled with

easy-to-use printing software. It is
suitable for people with little to no
3D printing experience. Dreamer has
a built-in temperature control system
to meet temperature control needs of
different materials. It can print complex supporting structures and has a
printing accuracy of 0.1mm and build
size of 230x150x140mm. It weighs
only 11kg and has a stable structure.
RECOM Electronic
Website: www.recomasia.com
3Dcreatr
Website: www.3dcreatr.com
RCOB LED drivers
www.efymag.com
do-it-yourself
Basic Guide to
Radio-Controlled Boat Modelling
W
T.K. Hareendran is an
electronics hobbyist,
freelance technical writer
and circuit designer
hether you crave action or

relaxation, you will relish
radio-controlled (RC) boating
because there is nothing quite as comforting as gliding your own RC boat across a
pond. If you enjoy building and racing
RC boats but do not know where to start,
read on for an avalanche of helpful hints.
The basics
Easy-to-use boat kits are widely available
for the craftsman who wants building
satisfaction. Most of the kits may be 90
per cent pre-built and may include an
electric motor/engine, radio, radio gear,
batteries and other required accessories.
Boat kits with a single motor and battery
(brushless electric motor and a rechargeable Ni-MH/lithium-polymer battery) are
the norm. However, twinmotored boat
kits are also available. Take note, the
standard running time of a single-motor
boat is around three to six minutes only.
Fig. 1: A mini
RC boat
The drive system of a typical RC boat

is very simple. An electric motor near the
front of the boat is connected to a shaft
that runs towards the back of the boat and
out through the bottom of the hull. This
shaft is contained within a tube, called
stuffing tube, which is filled with grease.
The grease in the stuffing tube provides
lubrication and also prevents water from
entering the hull. At the end of the shaft is
the propeller. Steering is accomplished via
a completely submerged rudder placed just
behind the propeller. A shaft on the rudder protrudes into the hull, where a small
servo actuates it in either direction. The
radio receiver and electronic speed control
(ESC) for the motor are usually enclosed
in a single waterproof casing. Emerging
from this casing are the radio antenna, rudder servo cable, battery wires and power
on/off switch. The built-in battery pack
(Ni-MH or lithium-polymer) with at least
1100mAh capacity provides a nominal DC
supply voltage of 7.2V (1.2Vx6 Ni-MH or
2C lithium-polymer).
The electronics
Fig. 2: Layout
of the basic
components of
the rc boat
www.efymag.com
RC boats provide a totally different experience than flying a plane or driving a car
on many different levels. Do-it-yourself
(DIY) kits of ready-to-run/ready-to-float
(RTR/RTF) boats have made it easier for
just about anyone to get into RC boat
modelling easily and quickly. RC boat kits
are more popular than ever and for many
great reasons. From the fit and finish to
the outstanding performance, the quality
of todays DIY kits are better than ever.
However, besides the aesthetics of the
RC boat, there are other considerations
to think about such as the power system,
drive system, radio system, battery, charger
and a lot more.
Power system. A major part in the power system of an RC boat is the brushed or
brushless electric motor. While the brushed
97
do-it-yourself
motor system is slightly slower and
less expensive but still provides
plentiful power and runtimes, the
brushless motor system offers more
power, requires less maintenance and
is more efficient.
Drive system. In the drive system, usually the electric motor transfers its power to the propeller via
some sort of drive shaft. The drive
shaft has some sort of tube (stuffing
tube) that helps it to exit the hull and
establish a rigid connection with the
propeller mount.
Fig. 3: Near-finished DIY kit of the rc boat

without the top shell and water-tight covers
Radio system. The radio system is

a combination of the radio frequency
(RF) transmitter and receiver. Now,
the good old 27MHz (and 75MHz)
radio systems have, for the most part,
been replaced with 2.4GHz radio
systems. 2.4GHz radio systems are
less prone to interference from other
radio sources and free from undesired
frequency conflicts.
Battery. An RC electric boat would
need a suitable onboard battery pack.
There are several things to consider
when purchasing a battery pack,
and one of the important things to
consider is the type of battery. Ni-MH
batteries are less expensive and provide solid performance. Ni-MH packs
have a sharper discharge curve, which
means, the speed and performance
difference between the start and end
of a run tends to be greater.
Lithium-polymer batteries are
lighter in weight than Ni-MH packs
Fig. 4: Brushed electric motor, propeller shaft and servo
and have a flatter discharge curve,

which means, the performance from
start to end is more consistent.
Further, lithium-polymer batteries
are free from inherent performance
degradation problems that Ni-MH
packs have. First consideration with a
lithium-polymer battery pack is the C
rating, which refers to the amperagedischarge capability of a particular
battery. A higher-rating battery pack
can handle more load without any
issue.
Battery charger. From the battery pack for handheld starters to the
receiver pack, having a good battery
charger can make it easier to run the
boat. Although timer chargers and
peak detection chargers are available
for RC boats, the latter is recommended for better results.
A timer charger will save you
money but a peak-detection charger,
also known as peak charger, costs
a little more and features advanced
charging algorithms to ensure that
the battery pack is brought to a complete charge safely.
ESC. Many of the latest RC boat
model kits include a programmable
ESC. The programming feature allows
alteration of the cutoff voltage of the
ESC to protect the battery pack from
over-discharging. The enhanced option to programme the ESC through
the use of an ESC programming module (EPM) will also make it possible
to activate braking, set cutoff preferences and choose throttle curves.
DIY tips
Fig. 5: Propeller, battery pack and electronic speed control (ESC)
98
These days it is easy to buy DIY

kits for RC boats from many online
vendors. Independent spare parts for
these boats are also available at affordable rates. If you want to drive a
boat but you do not have access to a
wide area of open water, a mini boat
kit is an option. It is smaller than
other boats but features similar handling and performance characteristics
of its larger counterparts.
These mini boat DIY kits require
very little preparation time to get on
the water and provide an inexpensive
www.efymag.com
do-it-yourself
Fig. 6: Radio transmitter, radio receiver box and battery charger
Fig. 7: diy kit for an rc boat model
Fig. 8: Water-cooling technique
way for someone to get their hands

wet in the world of RC boat modelling. Whether it is a minor kit or a
major one, there should be a small
plastic bag that includes a basic assortment tool kit, in addition to the
boat kit. The tool kit comes in most
popular sizes used in RC world, and
you will realise its value the first time
you use it.
Water cooling. Water-cooling technique is widely used to keep the motor and ESC running relatively cool.
The components are wrapped with
coils of aluminium tubing, and the
coils are connected with flexible tubing to a water pickup at the bottom of
the hull. As the boat moves forwards,
www.efymag.com
water is forced into the pickup and

through the coils to provide conductive cooling of components.
Fig. 8 shows the inside view of a
brushless DC motor (BLDC) based RC
boat with an effective water cooling
system.
Before you run your finished
boat for the first time, you should
lubricate the main propeller shaft
with plenty of marine grease. This
not only helps seal the flex shaft tube
better, preventing water from seeping into the hull, but also reduces
friction. If the canopy is not sealed
properly, water may seep in to the
hull. So, remember to seal off the
area between the canopy and the
hull itself using flexible clear tape or
a similar high-quality adhesive tape.
Similarly, ESCs and radio receivers used in boats are highly water-resistant. However, extra steps to better
seal off the electronics will help these
live longer down the water.
Finally, use fresh batteries in the
radio transmitter and a fully-charged
battery pack in the boat.
RC boat modelling is a great
hobby. Through this basic guide you
can make sure your RC boat is set
up properly to maximise fun and
minimise down time. Well, just roll
up your sleeves and prepare your boat
for the water. Get ready to make some
good waves!
Warning! Since RC boats are not
designed as flotation devices, retrieval of a stalled RC boat is not an easy
task. Never attempt to swim after
a stalled RC boat. Do not get in the
water for any reason to retrieve your
boat. Always use a personal flotation
device (PFD) for retrieval.
99
do-it-yourself
Arduino Based Audio VU Meter
rakash
Sandeep P
Madhuram Mishra
Circuit and working

The Arduino based audio VU meter,
as shown in Fig. 1, is built around
Arduino UNO board, 16x2 LCD and
10-kilo-ohm potentiometer (or potmeter).
Arduino UNO board. Arduino
UNO is an open source electronics
prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. Arduino UNO board is based
on ATmega328 MCU. It has 14 digital
input/output (I/O) pins of which six
can be used as pulse width modulated (PWM) outputs, six analogue in100
D4
D5
D6
D7
R/W
EN
Vcc
Vo
RS
Arduino Uno board

GND
resented here is an Arduino

based audio volume unit
(VU) meter that uses a liquid
crystal display (LCD). A VU meter or
standard volume indicator (SVI) is
a device that displays a representation of signal level in audio equipment. In this project, the intensity
of left-channel and right-channel
audio signals provided as input to
Arduino UNO board is displayed as
bars on the 16x2 LCD. In this circuit,
analogue input pins of Arduino UNO
board are used for measurement of
audio-signal levels.
Audio-signal inputs are provided
at analogue input pins A2 and A4 of
Arduino UNO board. These can be
in the form of voice coming from a
microphone through an amplifier or
as direct output from a music player.
Audio signals at pins A2 and A4
are processed by ATmega328 microcontroller (MCU) on Arduino UNO
board and, after comparing the signals, calculations are done.
Finally, corresponding values are
provided by ATmega328 to a 16x2
LCD for displaying audio intensity
bars.
162 LCD
Audio L
Audio R
Ground from
3.5mm Jack
Potmeter (10k)
Fig. 1: Arduino based audio VU meter
puts, 16MHz ceramic resonator, USB

connection, power jack, reset button
and an ICSP header. It contains everything needed to support the MCU;
simply connect it to a computer using a USB cable, or power it with an
AC-to-DC adaptor or a battery to get
started.
Pins 11 and 12 of Arduino UNO
board are connected to pins EN and
RS of the LCD, while pins 2 through
5 are connected to data pins D7, D6,
D5 and D4 of the 16x2 LCD.
LCD 16x2. LCD JHD162A is a
display module with a 4-bit interface,
which is used here to display the bars
corresponding to the applied input
signal level. Only four data pins of
the LCD module are being used in
this circuit. A potmeter of 10-kiloohm is used to control the contrast of
the LCD screen display.
Analogue audio signals (leftchannel and right-channel) are
provided at analogue input pins A4
and A2 of Arduino UNO board. The
signals are processed by ATmega328
MCU on Arduino UNO board and,
after performing some comparisons,
data is sent to the LCD screen to

display the corresponding signal
level bars.
Height of the bars will change as
per voltage of the audio-input signal
at pins A2 and A4 of Arduino UNO
board as shown in Fig. 2. L is displayed on the LCD for left channel
and, similarly, R is displayed for right
channel. Connections of pins A2 and
A4 of Arduino UNO board must be
done carefully so that proper channel
audio input is provided to the circuit.
To display bars on the LCD
screen, custom characters are created
for the 16x2 LCD, which is explained
in the programming section. The
potmeter is used for controlling the
contrast of the display and, so, can
be varied as per requirement.
Software program
The program for this circuit performs
the following functions:
1. Initialising the circuit and LCD
2. Displaying the welcome message on the LCD
3. Generating custom characters
4. Performing various compariwww.efymag.com
do-it-yourself
Fig. 2: Left and right bars displayed on the LCD
efy Note
The source code of this project is
included in this months EFY DVD
and is also available for free download at source.efymag.com
sons with input signal voltage at

analogue input pins
5. Displaying bars and changing
their respective heights on the LCD
according to the input signals
The program uses special characters for bar-height display on both
rows of the LCD using arrays p3, p4,
p5, p6 and p7, and arrays L[8] and
R[8] for displaying letters L and R on
the 16x2 LCDs starting columns of
both rows, respectively.
Similarly, array K[8] is used for
displaying special characters at the
end of both rows, and LEEG[8] is
used to display special characters for
bar shapes.
LiquidCrystal lcd(12, 11, 5, 4, 3,
2) function is used for LCD configuration.
void setup()function is used to
configure the pins of ATmega328
MCU on Arduino UNO board.
Serial.begin(9600) function is
used to configure for serial communication with Arduino board at a baud
rate of 9600.
lcd.begin(16, 2) function is used
www.efymag.com
to indicate the
size of the LCD.
lcd.createChar(1, p3)
function is used
to define custom
characters for further calling in the
program by number only.
lcd.print(VU
METER) function is used to
display the VU
meter as a welcome message.
void loop()
function is used
to perform the
task for infinite
time.
analogRead(inputPin) function is
used for reading the analogue-input
value.
Simple calculations are performed
to get the values for displaying the
bar heights as per audio-input signals.
Construction and testing

A USB A-B cable is used to upload
the compiled sketch (software) from
the PC to the MCU through Arduino
IDE.
The operation is as follows:
1. Power on Arduino UNO board
using a USB A-B cable. As soon as
you power on the LCD, it displays VU
meter on the first row and bars on
the second row of the LCD.
2. 10k potmeter VR1 can be used
to adjust the contrast of the LCD.
3. If we connect the input from a
music player to analogue input pins
A2 and A4 of Arduino board through
two wires, we can easily see the
changes in the bars and letters L and
R on both rows of the LCD, simultaneously, as shown in Fig. 2.
Madhuram Mishra is BE in
electronics and communication
from TRUBA Institute of
Engineering & Information
Technology, Bhopal. His
interests include designing
circuits and working with
Arduino boards
101
do-it-yourself
AVR Based Programmable

Object Counter
particular area or into a tray or container in manufacturing industries,
the number of tablets filled in a bottle or a wrapper in the pharmaceutical industry and counting and limiting the number of people entering
elevators or halls, among others.
Ashutosh M. Bhatt
bject counters are used for

applications like counting the
number of visitors at super
markets and other public places, the
number of objects passing through a
p Singh
Amar Dee
The project presented here demonstrates the working of an object

counter suitable for industrial applications for counting up to 9999
objects. It is an AVR microcontroller
(MCU) based full-featured programmable counter. Its prototype on
breadboard is shown in Fig. 1.
In manufacturing industries, before the final product is ready, the
product passes through a number of
different stages of the manufacturing process. Normally, the operator
enters the number of objects to be
counted from the monitoring con-
Test Points
Test point
Details
TP0
0V (GND)
TP1 5V
Fig. 1: Prototype on breadboard
LED1
T1
PN2222A
CON1 FOR 230V RL1

AC IN 1C/O
R2 470E
LED2
D1
1N4007
N/O
CON2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
14
15
16
17
R3 470E
R4 470E
R7 10K
S1
RESET
C3 0.1u
R11
100E
4
15
RS
R/W EN
D0
D1
10
D2
11
D3
D4
12
D5
13
D6
14
D7
VDD
A/VEE
LCD1
16
16x2
VO
Vss
RST
PD0
PD1
PD2
PD3
3
1
AVcc
PA0
PA1
PA2
PA3
PA4
PA5
PA6
PA7
IC1
AREF
ATMEGA16 PC7
PC6
PC5
PC4
40
39
38
37
36
35
34
33
32
29
28
27
26
18
PD4
PC3
25
19
20
21
11
PD5
PD6
PD7
GND
PC2
PC1
PC0
24
23
22
31
VR1
10K
CONT.
TP1
S5
START
TP0
30
Vcc
PB0
PB1
PB2
PB3
PB4
PB5
PB6
PB7
S4
ENTER
S3
DOWN
S2
UP
R1 470E
10
T2
PN2222A
N/C
Low when object is detected
LED2 = STOP
LED1 =
CON2 FOR MOTOR
12V when S6 is closed
TP3
GND
XTAL2
XTAL1
12
13
C4
22p
XTAL1
8MHz
C5
22p
5 4 3 2
PZ1
TP2
RNW1
10K
R10 10K
TP3
GND
R5 470E
T3
PN2222A
R8
10K
IRRX1
S6
POWER ON/OFF
1
JACK1
12V
TP2
IRTX1
IC2
7805
R6
470E
C1
10u,25V
R9
220E
C2
0.1u
LED3
POWER
Fig. 2: Circuit diagram of the AVR based programmable object counter
102
www.efymag.com
do-it-yourself
Parts List
Semiconductors:
IC1
- ATmega16, 8-bit MCU
IC2
- 7805, 5V regulator
LED1
- 5mm green LED
LED2, LED3
- 5mm red LED
T1-T3
- PN2222A npn transistor
D1
- 1N4007 rectifier diode
IRTX1
- IR transmitter (LED)
IRRX1
- IR receiver (photodiode)
LCD1
- 162 alphanumeric display
Resistors (all 1/4-watt, 5% carbon):
R1-R6
- 470-ohm
R7, R8, R10
- 10-kilo-ohm
R9
- 220-ohm
R11
- 100-ohm
RNW1
- 10-kilo-ohm resistor network
VR1
- 10-kilo-ohm preset
Capacitors:
C1
- 10F, 25V electrolytic
C2, C3
- 0.1F ceramic disk
C4, C5
- 22pF ceramic disk
Miscellaneous:
XTAL1
- 8MHz crystal oscillator
S1-S5
- Tactile switch
S6
- On/off switch
CON1, CON2 - 2-pin connector terminal
PZ1
- DC piezo buzzer
RL1
- 12V, 1C/O relay
JACK1
- 12V DC jack

- 12V DC power supply
sole, followed by pressing Start. The

products moving on a conveyor belt
are counted by the programmable
object counter. The conveyor belt
automatically stops when the number of counts entered by the operator is reached.
Main features of this programmable object counter are simple
user interface (UI) using only four
pushbuttons, an LCD display for the
UI, LEDs for simple visual indications, a buzzer for audio indication,
counting of objects from 0 to 9999
and user-selectable counting up or
counting down options.
Circuit and working

ATmega16 AVR MCU (IC1) is the
heart of the programmable object
counter whose circuit is shown in
Fig. 2. A voltage regulator 7805
(IC2) is used to provide 5V regulated voltage to drive the circuit
including the MCU and LCD display.
Four pushbutton switches or tactile
switches (S2 through S5) are used
to set the number to be counted and
the up/down count, with a 16x2
LCD to display count values and
www.efymag.com
Fig. 3: Actual-size PCB layout of the object counter
other settings.
An object-sensor circuit consists
of an infrared (IR) LED (acting as the
transmitter) and a photodiode (acting
as the receiver) placed 7cm apart,
facing each other. The IR beam from
the transmitter falls continuously on
the receiver. Whenever the IR beam
is interrupted, that is, when an object
comes in between IRTX1 and IRRX1,
a count is registered. In this way, the
pair of IR transmitter (IRTX1) and IR
receiver (IRRX1) continuously monitors the objects.
The motor to control the conveyor
belt is connected across relay RL1.
Transistor T2 is the relay driver connected to port pin PB3 of ATmega16
(IC1).
Port pin PB0 of IC1 drives the DC
buzzer through transistor T1. Green
LED1 and red LED2 are connected to
pins PB1 and PB2 to indicate countprogress and count-stop, respectively.
An 8MHz crystal is connected to
crystal input pins of IC1 to provide
an internal clock for the operation.
IRTX1 and IRRX1 are given 5V
supply through current-limiting
resistors R9 and R8, respectively.
Photodiode IRRX1 is connected in
reverse mode through R8. It is also
connected to the base of transistor
T3 through R5. The collector of T3 is

connected to port pin PA7 of IC1. The
IR beam interruption by the object is
reflected at the collector of transistor
T3. The interruption is monitored by
the program in the microcontroller
(IC1).
When the desired count is
reached, the relay is switched off
and hence, the motor pulling the
conveyor belt stops.
Software program
Circuit operation is done using the
software program loaded into the
internal memory of the AVR MCU.
The program implements all required
functionalities including handling
user inputs through pushbuttons,
displaying messages on the LCD,
switching on and switching off the
load connected through the relay and
visual/audio indications.
The program is written in C language. AVR studio software tool is
used to compile the program.

An actual-size, single-side PCB layout
of the circuit is shown in Fig. 3 and
its component layout in Fig. 4. After
soldering the components properly, a
12V DC adaptor is connected to the
103
do-it-yourself
Fig. 4: Component layout of the PCB
circuit through JACK1 to provide the

power supply. LED3 glows to indicate
that the power has been connected.
230V AC mains is connected to CON1
and the motor is connected to CON2.
The operation of the circuit is as
explained below:
1. When the circuit is switched
on, the LCD shows the message as
set object count. Vary VR1 to control
the contrast of the LCD if the message is not visible. (Initially, LEDs,
buzzer and relay would be switched
off.)
2. The user can set the desired
count by incrementing or decrementing it by pressing Up/Down (S2/S3),
respectively.
3. After the count is set, the user
has to press Enter (S4). On pressing
Enter, the LCD shows the message as
count is set to xxxx for two seconds
and then next message is displayed
as count up or down? By default,
count up is selected.
4. To change the counting direction, press Down (S3) for count down
or Up (S2) for count up, followed by
pressing Enter. After two seconds, the
LCD shows next message as press
start.
5. When Start (S5) is pressed,
the LCD shows the counting process.
Then, as objects pass across the sen104
efy Note
sor pair, the count is incremented

or decremented while LED (LED1)
is on to indicate that counting is in
progress. A beep sound is produced
through buzzer (PZ1) for every
count. The relay (RL1) is energised
and so the motor is on, pulling the
conveyor belt till the selected number
of objects is reached.
6. When the desired number
of objects have been counted, the
counting process stops. Green LED
turns off and red LED (LED2) turns
on to indicate that the counting
process is over. The relay (RL1) is
switched off to turn off the motor.
7. To repeat the process, reset the
counter by pressing Reset (S1).
For hardware debugging, ensure
various voltages are as given in the
test points table.
Ashutosh M. Bhatt is M.Tech
in embedded systems.
Currently, he is a lecturer
of electronics and radio
engineering at government
polytechnic, Jamnagar,
Gujarat
www.efymag.com
do-it-yourself
Device for Maintaining Car Batteries

Petre Tzv. Petrov
hen we do not drive our

cars for extended periods
of time, the abandoned
rechargeable batteries become fully
discharged. Sometimes, these get
damaged, too.
Batteries have self-discharging
rates that depend on their type and
capacity, and may vary from a few
milliamperes to tens of milliamperes.
Also, the electrical installations in a
car have leakage currents that may
discharge the battery. If we compensate the discharging current, the
battery will remain always charged.
This can reduce the probability of the
battery getting discharged or damaged. In any case, it is good to read
the datasheet of the manufacturer in

order to know how to maintain the
battery.
Circuit and working

Fig. 1 shows the simple device that
can maintain two 12V rechargeable
batteries. The mains power supply
is applied to connector CON1 and is
reduced by transformer X1 to 21V AC,
200mA. The bridge rectifier comprising diodes D1 through D4 rectifies
the AC voltage.
The device has two identical
channels. Each channel has an individual low-cost linear regulator 7805
(IC1 and IC2). Minimum output current for the battery is set by resistors
R2 and R5 at around 10mA. Maximum output current can have two
X1 = 230V AC PRIMARY TO 21V AC,

200mA SECONDARY TRANSFORMER
IC1
7805
F1
0.25A
D1
1N4002
R2 510E 0.5W
1
R3 110E 2W
S2
C3
0.33u
C1
100n
630V
R4 51E 2W
C4
1u
35V
D2
1N4002
X1
D3
1N4002
IC2
7805
S1B
R1
100E
2W
R5 510E 0.5W
1
S3
C2
2200u
40V
2
LED2
C5
0.33u
ZD3
6.8V BATT.2
C6
1u
35V
Fig. 1: Circuit of the simple device maintaining two 12V rechargeable batteries
D6
1N4002
R6 110E 2W
R7 51E 2W
GND
www.efymag.com
Construction
and testing
TP2
D4
1N4002
Das
values (around 50mA and 100mA).

When switches S2 and S3 are
at position 1, the output current is
around 50mA. When switches S2 and
S3 are at position 2, the output current
is around 100mA. Maximum output
voltage is limited to around 15.5V with
LED1, ZD1 and ZD2 for the first channel and LED2, ZD3 and ZD4 for the
second channel.
Raising the current to around
100mA should not damage LED1 and
LED2. Diodes D5 and D6 prevent the
discharge of batteries BATT.1 and
BATT.2 when the mains power supply is not present. Nevertheless, if the
mains power supply is not present for
a long time, disconnect the batteries
from the device.
Mount regulators IC1 and IC2
on small individual
heat-sinks with therTP1
mal resistance below
D5
30C/W. The device
1N4002
will start working
immediately if the
circuit is wired propLED1
erly. Verify the maxiZD1
6.8V BATT.1
mum output voltage
and maximum outZD2
put current with a
6.8V
multimeter.
S1A
CON1
FOR
230V AC
50Hz,
INPUT
Biswajit
ZD4
6.8V
A n a c t u a l - s i z e,
single-side PCB for
the power supply is
shown in Fig. 2 and
its component layout
in Fig. 3. Enclose the
PCB in a suitable
small box in such
a way that outputs
can be easily taken
from the front panel.
The ground pin
of each 7805 IC is
connected to metal-
105
do-it-yourself
Fig. 2: Actual-size PCB of the power supply
Parts List
Semiconductors:
IC1, IC2
- 7805, 5V voltage regulator
D1-D6
ZD1-ZD4
- 6.8V zener diode
LED1, LED2
- 5mm LED
Resistors:
R1
- 100-ohm, 2W
R2, R5
- 510-ohm, 0.5W
R3, R6
- 110-ohm, 2W
R4, R7
- 51-ohm, 2W
Capacitors:
C1
- 100nF, 630V polyster
C2
C3, C5
- 0.33F ceramic disk
C4, C6
Miscellaneous:
CON1
- 2-pin connector
S1 (S1A, S1B) - DPDT switch
S2, S3
- SPDT switch
X1
- 230V AC primary to 21V,

200mA secondar transformer
F1
- 0.25A fuse with holder
BATT.1, BATT.2 - 12V battery
106
lic part of the

package and,
Test point
Details con seq u en tly,
the metallic part
TP1 15.5V
of at least one of
TP2 15.5V
the ICs should
be isolated from the common heatsink. Panel-mount AC input, switches,
fuse, output connector and battery, as
per requirement.
Test Points
Petre Tzv. Petrov was a researcher and

assistant professor in
Technical University of Sofia,
Bulgaria, and expert-lecturer
in OFPPT (Casablance),
Kingdom of Morocco.
Now, he is working as an
electronics engineer in the
private sector in Bulgaria
www.efymag.com
do-it-yourself
Door-Opening Alarm Using Hall Sensor

(IC1), pnp transistor BC557 (T1), npn
transistor BC547 (T2) and a few other
his simple door-opening alarm components.
Hall sensor MH183 is a magnetuses a hall sensor to produce
sound when someone opens operated solid-state sensor. When the
the door. The circuit can be installed magnet is brought near the sensor, its
at a workshop, office or home for output goes low. This low output is
security purposes. The 3-terminal amplified by pnp transistor T1. npn
hall sensor is easily available in the transistor T2 inverts the operation.
When T1 conducts, T2 does not conmarket.
duct, and vice-versa.
Circuit and working
The magnet should be fitted on
moving
part of the door and the
The circuit diagram of the doorsensor
at
the door frame. When the
opening alarm is shown in Fig. 1. It
door
is
closed,
the magnet comes
is built around hall sensor MH183
close to the
sensor and the
R4
alarm is off.
470E
R1
R3
But when door
150E
D1
100K
1N4148 LED1
is opened, the
+
PZ1
alarm makes a
CON1
5V
R2
sound.
_
1K
IC1
3
The buzz1
MH183
er
can
be reT1
T2
BC557
2
BC547
placed
with
C1
0.01u
a 5 V re l ay
to control a
PZ1 = PIEZO BUZZER
GND
mains alarm.
Fig. 1: Circuit diagram of the door-opening alarm
When the
edi
s.c. dwiv
Pradeep G.
Fig. 2: Actual-size PCB of the door-opening

alarm
www.efymag.com
Parts List
Semiconductors:
IC1
- MH183 hall sensor
T1
- BC557 pnp transistor
T2
- BC547 npn transistor
LED1
- 5mm LED
D1
- 1N4148 signal diode
R1
- 150-ohm
R2
- 1-kilo-ohm
R3
- 100-kilo-ohm
R4
- 470-ohm
Capacitor:
C1
Miscellaneous:
CON1
- 2-pin connector terminal
PZ1
- Piezo buzzer

- 5V regulated power supply
door is closed, neither the buzzer

sounds nor LED1 glows. But when
the door is opened, the buzzer
sounds and LED1 glows, too.

An actual-size, single-side PCB for the
door-opening alarm circuit is shown
in Fig. 2 and its component layout in
Fig. 3. Enclose the PCB in a suitable
small box and install it at a suitable
place.
Fit the magnet on a moving part
of the door and sensor MH183 on the
door-frame opposite to it.
Use 5V regulated power supply
for the circuit.
Pradeep G. is B.Sc. (Physics)
and a regular contributor to
international magazines. He is
also a small-business owner
making school/college projects
in south India
107
do-it-yourself
Solar-Powered Kennel Light

T.K. Hareendran
is built around DC-to-DC converter

MC34063A (IC1), six 5mm bright
white LEDs (LED1 through LED6),
three Schottky SR206 diodes (D1
through D3) and a few other components.
The backup battery pack (BATT.1)
of this circuit is a series of two
1.2V/500mAh Ni-MH cells. When
sunlight is available, this battery
pack is charged by the 6V/100mA
solar panel connected across CON1
through the 47-ohm (R1) charging
current-limiting resistor.
MC34063A IC is configured as a
DC-DC boost converter to drive the
LEDs (LED1-LED6) using 3V DC supply provided by the battery pack. The
47-ohm resistor R2 limits the operating current of the string of LEDs to a
safe value.
When the solar panel is working,
ere is the circuit of a solarpowered kennel light. The

solar cell panel included
gives a voltage that fits the voltage
demands of the rechargeable battery
cells for back up. The rechargeable
cells are charged by solar panel during daytime and these provide power
supply for the kennel light at night.
The central part of this compact
design is a popular 8-pin DC-DC
converter chip MC34063A, which is
a monolithic control circuit that contains the primary functions required
for DC-to-DC converters. The chip
(available in a PDIP-8 package) has
an internal temperature-compensated
reference, a comparator, controlled
duty-cycle oscillator with an active
current-limit circuit, driver and highcurrent output switch.
Here, MC34063A IC
is configured to drive a
bunch of series-connected
ultra-bright white light
emitting diodes (LEDs) at
a constant current rate.
When sufficient sunlight is
available, the solar panel Fig. 1: Authors prototype
charges the rechargeable
cells directly, and the solar
1
panel voltage is sampled
2
3
L1
D3
by the front-end circuitry
S1
150uH SR206
R1
SPDT
to disable the LED driver
47E
circuit.
BATT.1
When the voltage of
1 SWC
D1
DC
1.2V X 2V
SR206
the solar panel drops due
2
SWE
to low sunlight, the LED
IC1 SEN
MC34063A
driver circuit is enabled
3
TC
Vcc
R5
automatically to keep the
C1
100E
4
LEDs turned on. Fig. 1
GND
COM II
CON1
0.001u
VR1
6V,100E
shows the authors proto10K
SOLAR
type.
PANEL
Circuit and working
edi
s.c. dwiv
D2
SR206
R4
0.22E
8
R3
220E
C2
10u
35V
6
5
TP1
R2
47E
The circuit diagram of

GND
LED1 LED6 = BRIGHT WHITE LED
the sun-powered kennel
light is shown in Fig. 2. It Fig. 2: Circuit diagram of the solar-powered kennel light
108
all LEDs (LED1 through LED6) are

turned off. However, when the solar
panel is switched off, all LED lights
are turned on. SPDT switch S1 is
used to switch on or switch off the
LEDs.

An actual-size, single-side PCB for
the solar-powered kennel light is
shown in Fig. 3 and its component
layout in Fig. 4. Enclose the PCB in a
small box in such a way that you can
install it at a suitable place.
The 10k potmeter VR1 is used to
sample the DC voltage output from
the solar panel. If the solar panel
gives enough output during daytime,
a fraction of this voltage is fed to
pin 5 of IC1 via SR206 diode (D2) to
disable IC1. An initial
(one-time) setup is required to fine-tune this
automatic switching option, which is described
below:
Connect a fullycharged 2.4V Ni-MH
battery pack to the circuit. Remove the solar
panel and switch on
TP2
switch S1. Ensure that
LEDs (LED1 through
LED1
LED6) are lit. Set the
potmeter (VR1) at its
LED2
mechanical centre position. Apply 6V DC
LED3
supply to the solar
LED4
panel input (CON1)
from your labs power
LED5
supply. Slowly turn
the potmeter and stop
LED6
it when the LED lights
go off. Remove your
lab power supply, reTP0
connect the solar panel.
Verify the test point
table voltages to ensure
www.efymag.com
do-it-yourself
Parts List
Semiconductors:
IC1
- MC34063A DC to DC
converter
LED1-LED6
- 5mm LED bright white LED
D1-D3
- SR206 Schottky diode
R1, R2
- 47-ohm
R3
- 220-ohm
R4
- 0.22-ohm
R5
- 100-ohm
VR1
- 10-kilo-ohm potmeter
Capacitors:
C1
C2
Miscellaneous:
S1
- SPDT switch
L1
- 150uH inductor
CON1
- 2-pin connector terminal
BATT.1
- 1.2Vtwo small Ni-MH cells

- 6V, 100mA solar panel
Test Points
Test point
Details
TP0
0V (GND)
Across TP0 and TP1
Around 1.0V
Across TP1 and TP2
Around 18V
Across TP0 and TP2
Around 19V
www.efymag.com
Fig. 3: Actual-size PCB of the kennel light
proper working before using the

circuit.
Even though the datasheet indicates that working voltage of
MC34063A is in 3V to 40V range,
the IC will start working from 2.4V
onwards, but with somewhat lesser
efficiency.
For good performance, you must
use a 3V (or around 3.6V) battery
pack in place of the normal 2.4V type.
Potmeter VR1 is used for automation. If you do not like the automatic
switching option, remove components R5, VR1 and D2 from the PCB
circuit.
T.K. Hareendran is an
electronics hobbyist, a
freelance technical writer
and circuit designer
109
do-it-yourself
Motion Detector Using NE555 Timer

Kumar AbhisekH
in Fig. 1. It is built around 230V AC

primary to 9V, 300mA secondary
transformer X1, bridge rectifier DB107
(BR1), 6V voltage regulator 7806
(IC1), timer NE555 (IC2) and a few
other components.
The 230V AC mains is stepped
down to 9V, 300mA through stepdown transformer X1. Secondary
output of X1 goes to bridge rectifier
BR1. Capacitor C1 filters the ripples
and the rectified output is given to
regulator 7806 (IC1). IC1 provides 6V
regulated DC output to operate the
circuit. LED1 is used as a power-on
indicator.
IC2 is configured in monostable
mode. Time period of IC2 is based on
resistor R4 and capacitor C3, which is
his circuit is based on a passive infrared (PIR) sensor,

which automatically switches
on a device when someone comes
close to it. It can be used for detection of theft or an unauthorised
person entering a restricted area or
building. It can also turn on lights
when someone approaches the area
where it is installed. Applications of
this circuit include security systems,
corridor lights and bathroom lights,
among others.
Circuit and working

The circuit diagram of the motion
detector using NE555 timer is shown
p singh
amar dee
around ten minutes in this case. By

changing resistor R4 and capacitor
C3 you can change the time period
of IC2.
Output pin 3 of IC2 is connected to
the base of relay driver transistor T2.
Contacts of relay RL1 are connected
to the load, which could be a CFL or a
bulb connected across CON2.
The PIR sensor is a pyroelectric
device developed for detection of hu-
Test Points
Test point
Details
TP0
0V (GND)
TP1 6V
TP2

Normally high and becomes

low when motion is detected
X1 = 230V AC TO 9V, 300mA SECONDARY TRANSFORMER

L
230V AC
50Hz
N
BR1
DB107
C1
220u
25V
_ 4
Parts List
C2
0.1u
R1
680E
LED1
POWER
X1
R2
10K
TP1
OUT
GND
CON1
FOR PIR
SENSOR
TP0
R4
560K
TP2
Vcc
R3 1K
T1
BC547
GND
D1
1N4007
7 DIS
C3
1000u
16V
Fig. 1: Circuit diagram of the motion detector
110
IC1
7806
TH
RESET 4
IC2 Vcc
NE555
TRI
GND
RL1
6V, 1C/O
N/O
O/P 3
CV
N/C
R5
1K
CON2
FOR
LOAD
T2
BC547
C4
0.01u
CON3
230V
AC
Semiconductors:
IC1
- 7806, 6V voltage regulator
IC2
- NE555 timer
BR1
- DB107 bridge rectifier
LED1
- 5mm LED
D1
T1, T2
- BC547 npn transistor
R1
- 680-ohm
R2
- 10-kilo-ohm
R3, R5
- 1-kilo-ohm
R4
- 560-kilo-ohm
Capacitors:
C1
C2
- 0.1F ceramic disk
C3
C4
Miscellaneous:
CON1
- 3-pin connector
CON2-CON4 - 2-pin connector terminal
X1
- 230V AC primary to 9V,
300mA secondary
transformer
RL1
- 6V, 1C/O relay
Load
- 40W, 230V AC bulb

- PIR sensor
www.efymag.com
do-it-yourself
In brief, when someone
comes in front of the PIR
module, its output triggers IC2
to turn on the load. Thereafter
it is disabled automatically.
Fig. 2: Actual-size PCB of the motion detector
man body infrared radiations. It has

a single output that goes high when
a valid motion is detected. That is,
the load is switched on whenever the
PIR module senses a body in motion
nearby.
Under normal conditions, transistor T1 is cut off and collector output
is high around 6V. When motion is
www.efymag.com
sensed, output pin (OUT) of the sensor becomes high, making transistor
T1 to conduct for a few seconds,
and voltage at its collector goes low
momentarily. This low signal triggers
IC2. Output pin 3 of IC2 goes high for
around ten minutes, energising relay
RL1 through transistor T2, turning on
the load for ten minutes.
An actual-size, single-side
PCB for the motion detector
using NE555 timer is shown
in Fig. 2 and its component
layout in Fig. 3. Enclose the
PCB in a box and install it at
a suitable location. Connect
the PIR module across CON1.
Connect transformer X1 to
230V AC mains. Verify various test point voltages as given in the
table to ensure proper working before
using the circuit.
Kumar Abhisekh is a
third-year student of
B.Tech (electronics and
communication) at SETGOI,
Institute of Engineering &
Industrial Technology,
West Bengal
111
do-it-yourself
Design and Analysis of A Single-Stage

Transistor Amplifier Using C++
o
Dr R.V. Dhekale
o design a transistor based audio amplifier, many formulae

are required to calculate the
various parameters such as values of
resistors, coupling capacitor, bypass
capacitor, power consumption, current flowing through different components and others. A good amount
of time is required to calculate such
parameters even with a regular calculator. Using C++ program, all the
parameters can be calculated in a
fraction of a second.
To design an electronic circuit like
a power supply, an amplifier, oscillator or operational amplifier, certain
formulae are required so that correct
values of components are obtained
for the intended application. Some
circuits require only one formula,
while others may require two or
more.
The single-stage transistor audio
amplifier presented here requires a
total of 19 formulae to obtain the
values of components and analyse
the circuit.
Single-stage transistor
amplifier
The single-stage transistor amplifier
consists of a single npn transistor
T1 (BC547), four resistors R1, R2,
Rc and Re, two coupling capacitors
C1 and C2, one bypass capacitor Ce
connected across emitter resistor Re
as shown in Fig. 1.
+Vcc is the supply voltage, Vi
the input signal and Vo the output
signal. I1, I2, Ic and Ie, as shown in
the figure, are DC currents. Resistors
R1, R2 and Re are used to provide
proper voltages to base b, emitter e
and collector c of T1, so that base112
emitter junction is forward-biased

and base-collector junction is reversebiased.
Collector resistor Rc is used as
the load that provides output voltage
Vo. Bypass capacitor Ce is used to
bypass the AC audio-frequency signal
towards the ground so that constant
sani the
Ve = 0.1 Vcc
If voltage across the collector and
emitter is Vce = 0.5Vcc, the remaining voltage of 0.4Vcc appears across
the collector resistance.
Therefore
collector resist+Vcc
ance in kiloRc
Vc
R1
V1
ohms is given
by:
Ic
C2
Rc = 4 x Re
I1
where Re is the
T1
c
emitter resistBC547
C1
Ib
ance.
Vce
b
Base current
e
Vo
Vbe
in milliamperes
I2
Ie
is given by:
Vi
Ib = Ic / b
where
Ic is the
R2
Ce
V2
Ve
Re
collector current
and b is the curGND
rent gain of the
Fig. 1: Circuit diagram of the single-stage transistor amplifier
transistor. (It is
normally repreDC emitter voltage Ve is mainained sented by or h-parameter hFE).
Therefore emitter current in milto prevent negative feedback in the
amplifier. Coupling capacitors C1 and liamperes is given by:
Ie = Ic +Ib
C2 are used to block the DC signal
Emitter resistance of the transistor
and pass the AC signal.
in kilo-ohms is given by:
Design guidelines
Re = Ve/Ie
Applying 10:1 rule of the firm
In order to bias the transistor properly
voltage
divider, second base resistwith voltage-divider bias method, opance
in
kilo-ohms
is given by:
erating point Q should be at the centre
R2
=0.1
x
b
x
Re
of the DC load line (not shown here),
The base voltage or voltage across
where Vce= Vcc/2 and collector current Ic is as per the data sheet of the R2 in volts is given by:
V2 = Ve + Vbe
transistor. With no AC input signal,
stable operating Q is maintained by where Vbe is the voltage across the
using the one-tenth rule, which makes base and emitter.
For the silicon transistor, Vbe =
emitter voltage one-tenth of the supply voltage, Vcc. Therefore emitter 0.7 volts. In this case, the silicon
transistor is considered. Voltage
voltage in volts is given by:
www.efymag.com
do-it-yourself
efy Note
Fig. 2: Input parameters for the example entered by user
across first base resistance R1 in volts

is given by:
V1 = Vcc V2
Therefore first base resistance in
kilo-ohms is given by:
R1 = (V1/V2) x R2
Power consumed by the circuit in
milliwatts is given by:
P = Ic x Vcc
Collector voltage of the transistor
in volts is given by:
Vc = Ic x Rc
Voltage across the collector and
emitter of the transistor in volts is
given by:
Vce = Vcc (Vc + Ve)
Current flowing through resistor
R1 in milliamperes is given by:
I1 = V1 / R1
Current flowing through resistor
R2 in milliamperes is given by:
I2 = V2 / R2
Power dissipated across resistor
R1 in milliwatts is given by:
PR1 = I1 x I1 x R1
Power dissipated across resistor
R2 in milliwatts is given by:
PR2 = I2 x I2 x R2
Power dissipated across collector
resistor Rc in milliwatts is given by:
PRc = Ic x Ic x Rc
Power dissipated across emitter
resistor Re in milliwatts is given by:
PRe = Ie x Ie x Re
Coupling capacitors C1 and C2
and bypass capacitor Ce in microfarads is given by:
C = C1 = C2 = Ce = (1000000)
/ ( 2 x 3.14 x f x Xc)
114
Fig. 3: Screenshot of an example program output
where f is the minimum frequency in

hertz to be amplified by the transistor
amplifier and Xc is the reactance of
capacitors C1, C2 and Ce.
Reactances of these three capacitors are considered to be the same,
which is 1000 ohms.
Software program
All 19 formulae mentioned above are
programmed using C++ language.
The circuit has been tested using
Turbo C++ version 3 and Visual
C++ IDE on Windows 7.
After running the program, it
prompts you to enter the values of
DC supply voltage Vcc, bias collector current of transistor Ic, current
gain of transistor b and minimum
frequency f to be amplified by the
transistor amplifier.
For example, enter Vcc = 9, Ic

= 2, b = 200 and f = 20 as shown
in Fig. 2.
Next, hit Enter. Within a fraction
of a second, all 19 parameters for the
transistor amplifier are calculated and
displayed on the monitor as shown
in Fig. 3.
It is found that, to calculate the
above 19 parameters, around 12 minutes are required. Therefore in order
to save time, such a program can be
quite useful for a circuit designer.
Dr R.V. Dhekale is currently

working as associate
professor and head of
department (Physics) at
Kisan Veer Mahavidhyalaya,
Maharashtra. He is a life
member of Indian Association
of Physics Teachers
www.efymag.com
do-it-yourself
Controlling a Stepper Motor

Using a Rotary Encoder
thuria
Nidhi Ka
is the common lead,

while blue wires
are the two points,
namely A and B.
Somnath Bera
resented here is a project to

control a stepper motor using
an incremental rotary encoder.
It consists of a Raspberry Pi (Raspi)
board, 5-pin rotary encoder, 5V
stepper motor and an L293D motor
driver. Authors prototype is shown
in Fig. 1.
A rotary encoder, also called a
shaft encoder, is an electromechanical device that converts the angular
position or motion of a shaft or an
axle to analogue or digital code.
There are two main types: absolute and incremental (relative).
Output of the absolute encoder
indicates the current position of the
shaft, making it an angle transducer.
Output of the incremental encoder
provides information about the motion of the shaft, which is further
processed elsewhere into information
such as speed, distance and position.
Rotary encoders are used in various applications that require precise
but unlimited shaft rotation, including industrial controls, robotics,
special-purpose photographic lenses,
computer input devices (such as optomechanical mice and trackballs),
controlled stress rheometers and
rotating radar platforms.
Raspberry Pi in action
Here is the solution based on Raspi
using a rotary encoder to drive a
stepper motor.
The rotary encoder is an easy,
efficient and inexpensive device for
creating directional rotation in digital
format. A typical rotary encoder has
three or more leads, wherein the
common lead goes to ground.
By following which lead goes to
www.efymag.com
Circuit and
working
Circuit connection of
the rotary encoder is
shown in Fig. 3. The
encoder is connected
to physical pins 12
and 15, while the
central (common)
pin goes to ground
Fig. 1: Authors prototype
Fig. 2: A 5-pin rotary encoder
ground through the common lead,

a direction of rotation is established
and a counter is incremented at the
same time.
Each movement of the rotary encoder is read by the program and fed
to the stepper motor for making the
same amount of stepped movement.
This principle can be employed to
control feeding of the heavy motor
control such as in a paddle feeder.
The same technique can be
employed for aligning a telescopes
focus mechanism, direction of a dish
antenna to re-adjust satellite drifting,
mast of a crane for placing it on the
load and much more.
A 5-pin rotary encoder is shown
in Fig. 2. Only three wires have been
used for the project. The orange wire
pin 6 of Raspi.
The uni-polar stepper motor is
connected to pins 16, 18, 24 and 26
(GPIO pins 23, 24, 8 and 7), and the
common pin is connected to +5V of
Raspi.
L293D is a quadruple half-H motor driver. The motor-enabled pin 1
and pin 9 are connected to positive
supply pin 2 of Raspi. ULN2003, the
Darlington array IC, may also be used
for this project in place of L293D.
The actual direction control is
done by running rotary-servo.php
program in Raspi.
The initial set up of rotary-servo.
php program is given below for reference:
<?php
require_once(GPIO.php);
include(wiringpi.php);
$g[0] = new GPIO();
$g[1] = new GPIO();
$g[2] = new GPIO();
$g[3] = new GPIO();
$g[0]->setup(7, out);
$g[1]->setup(8,out);
This program requires wiringpi.

php library, which is available for
115
do-it-yourself
STEPPER MOTOR
A
+
ROTOR
TP0 TP1
GND +5V
SD CARD
POWER
3.3V
GPIO2
GPIO3
GPIO4
GND
GPIO17
GPIO27
GPIO22
3.3V
GPIO10
GPIO9
GPIO11
GND
C
1 2
3 4
5 6
7 8
9 10
11 12
13 14
15 16
17 18
19 20
21 22
23 24
25 26
5V
5V
GND
GPIO14
GPIO15
GPIO18
GND
GPIO23
GPIO24
GND
GPIO25
GPIO8
GPIO7
HDMI
RASPBERRY PI
MODELB
REVISION 2
ETHERNET
OUT1
GND
GND
12
GND
13
GND
14
11
OUT2
OUT4
OUT3
IN4
IC1
L293D
IN3
IN2
IN1
EN2
EN1
VCC1
16
VCC2
8
15
10
7
2
A
C
B
ROTARY ENCODER
USB
Fig. 3: Circuit connection of the rotary encoder with Raspi
efy Note
download at github.com/WiringPi/
WiringPi-PHP
First, install php5-dev before installing WiringPi as given below:
sudo apt-get install php5-dev
Now use git to install wiringpi.php
$ git clone https://github.com/WiringPi/
$ sudo ./install.sh
$ cp wiringpi.php /var/www/
WiringPi is installed on Raspi and

also copied to /var/www directory.
But to get it inside PHP, load it in
wiringpi.ini file.
Open wiringpi.ini file in /etc/
php5/conf.d/ and write the following
lines on it:
$sudo nano /etc/php5/conf.d/wiringpi.ini
extension=wiringpi.so
$ sudo ./build.sh
php -m | grep wiringpi
116
Rotate the shaft of the rotary

encoder in clockwise and counterclockwise directions. You would see
the stepper motor rotate in clockwise
and counter-clockwise directions,
respectively.
Save the file and restart apache.
/etc/init.d/apache2 restart
$ git submodule update -init
$ cd WiringPi-PHP
$ sudo php f rotary-servo.php
wiringpi.pinmaptype=PINS
Run the following command to

check whether WiringPi module has
been loaded:
WiringPi-PHP.git
After installing WiringPi for PHP,

run rotary-server.php code, the main
program of this project, by issuing
following command:
Somnath Bera is an avid user

of open source software.
Professionally, he is a
thermal power expert and
works as additional general
manager at NTPC Ltd
www.efymag.com
do-it-yourself
Simulation of 7-Segment
Display Using LabVIEW
sani the
Janani Rajaraman
Table I
digital decoder IC is a device

that converts one digital
format into another, and one
of the most commonly-used device
for doing this is the binary-coded
decimal (BCD) to 7-segment display
decoder. The 7-segment light emitting
diode (LED) provides a convenient
way of displaying information or
digital data in the form of numbers,
letters and alphanumeric characters.
Typically, 7-segment displays
consist of seven same coloured LEDs
(called segments) within a single
display package. In order to display
the correct character or number, the
correct combination of LED segments
has to be illuminated. This LabVIEW
program demonstrates the illumination of each segment by displaying
hex values (0000 through FFFF) in
decimal form from 0 through 9 and
A through F.
The standard 7-segment LED
display has eight input connections,
one for each LED segment and one
that acts as a common terminal or
connection for all internal display
segments. Some displays also have
an additional input pin for displaying
a decimal point.
Types of digital display

There are two important types of
7-segment LED displays, namely, common cathode and common anode.
Common cathode display (CCD).
In this display, all cathode connections of the LEDs are joined together
to a low logic or ground or 0. The
individual segment is illuminated by
the application of high logic or +Vcc
or 1 to the individual anode terminal.
The CCD is shown in Fig. 1.
Common anode display (CAD).
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Truth Table for the

Hexadecimal Display

Individual segments
Display
a b c d e f g
Fig. 1: Common
cathode display
Fig. 2: Common
anode display
In a CAD, all anode connections of

the LEDs are joined together to a
high logic or +Vcc and individual
segments are illuminated by connecting individual cathode terminals
to low logic or ground. The CAD is
shown in Fig. 2.
1 1 1 1 1 1 0
0 1 1 0 0 0 0
1 1 0 1 1 0 1
1 1 1 1 0 0 1
0 1 1 0 0 1 1
1 0 1 1 0 1 1
1 0 1 1 1 1 1
1 1 1 0 0 0 0
1 1 1 1 1 1 1
1 1 1 1 0 1 1
1 1 1 0 1 1 1
0 0 1 1 1 1 1
1 0 0 1 1 1 0
0 1 1 1 1 0 1
1 1 0 1 1 1 1
1 0 0 0 1 1 1
Truth table for display

The segment that should be illuminated is given as 1, which means
high, as input. Decimal values from
zero to nine are obtained for corresponding binary inputs as shown
in Table I. Also, hexadecimal outputs
such as A, b, C, d, e and F have been
shown. Certain characters appear in
lowercase because B looks similar to
8 and D looks similar to 0 on an LED
display.
Boolean expression for each segment is shown in Table II.
LabVIEW program
Following are the steps required to
design a 7-segment LED hexadecimal
display using NI Labview:
1. Open LabVIEW and press
ctrl+n followed by ctrl+t to open
Front Panel and Block Diagram windows.
Table II
Boolean Expression
Segment Expression
a
ABD+ABC+BD+AC+AD+BC
A(CD)+A(CD)+BC+BD
BC+BD+CD+AB+AB
BCD+BCD+ACD+BCD+AC+ABD
BD+CD+AB+AC
ABC+CD+BD+AC+AB
ABD+BCD+BC+AC+AB
2. On Front Panel, from Menu,

select ViewControlModern
BooleanRound LED; drag and drop
it on Front Panel and label as A (Input A). Similarly, select three more
inputs and name these B, C and D,
respectively. Arrange these as shown
in Fig. 3.
3. Select ViewControlModern
BooleanSquare LED; drag and
117
do-it-yourself
binary inputs
D
Segment a
Segment f
binary inputs
Segment b
D
Segment a
Segment f
Segment g
Segment e
Segment b
Segment c
Segment g
Segment e
Segment d
Segment c
binary inputs
D
Segment a
Segment d
Segment f
Fig. 3: Front Panel of LabVIEW
efy Note
Segment b
Segment g
Segment e

Segment c
Segment d
Fig. 5: Decimal/hexadecimal display for 0 and F
drop it on Front Panel and arrange in

the form of an actual 7-segment LED
display and name each as individual
segment a, b, c, d, e, f and g, respectively, as shown in Fig. 3.
4. Go to Block Diagram workspace (Fig. 4). From Menu, select
ProgrammingBooleanNOT gate;
drag and drop it on the workspace for
each input as shown in Fig. 4.
5. From Menu, select Programming NumericCompound Arithmetic; drag and drop it on the workspace. Right-click on Compound
Arithmetic, select Change Mode and
choose logic gate (OR or AND) operation, as needed. Compound Arithme-
Fig. 4: Block diagram of LabVIEW for the display
tic is used to carry out logical and

arithmetic operations for more than
two inputs.
6. Similarly, select suitable logic
gates for the corresponding Boolean
expression for each segment as given
in Table II.
7. Connect each output of the
Boolean expression to each of the indicator (segment) as shown in Fig. 4.
THE COMPLETE MAGAZINE ON OPEN SOURCE
8. Return to Front Panel. Save VI

and press Run Continuously to check
the operation of 7-segment display
giving different binary inputs and
also check outputs from 0 to f.
Checking the output

Fig. 5 shows the result of a 7-segment
LED (decimal and hexadecimal) display for 0 and F.
Janani Rajaraman is working
as assistant professor in the
department of electronics and
instrumentation engineering,
SCSVMV University,
Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu
Your favourite Magazine on Open

Source is now on the Web, too.
OpenSourceForU.com
Follow us on Twitter@LinuxForYou
118
www.efymag.com
estyle: first look
LG launches
G4 smartphone
Featuring a great
visual experience
his smartphone from LG features Android 5.1 Lollipop,

4G LTE connectivity, Qualcomm
Snapdragon 808 processor with
1.8GHz 64-bit hexa-core CPU,
13.97cm (5.5-inch) Quantum
quad-HD IPS display, 16MP rear
camera with F1.8 aperture and
OIS 2.0, 8MP front camera, dual
SIM with dual standby, 3GB
RAM, Gorilla Glass 3, capacitive touchscreen type and much
more.
The smartphone has a
3000mAh lithium-ion battery,
32GB internal memory (expandable up to 2TB), 100GB cloud
storage (on Google Drive), sensors like proximity, ambient light,
accelerometer, digital compass
and gyroscope and USB OTG
connectivity, among others.
Intex launches full-HD LED TV

A colourful companion for everyone
he 53.3cm (21-inch)
LED TV (LED-2111
FHD) from Intex features
a native resolution of
1920x1080 pixels, DLED
LED type, smart power saving, built-in stereo
speaker (to produce balanced stereo sound over
a wide area) and digital
noise reduction. It eliminates lag, ensures faster
response time and better viewing experience without straining the eyes.
It uses Eye Safe-T Matrix Technology, a path-breaking innovation that blends the uniqueness of
technology and glass subtracts. The
technology incorporates Advanced
Plane Switching (that helps correct
pixel orientation on the LCD screen,
deliver a wider viewing angle, great
colour fidelity with least colour
shift and save energy), Copper Bus
Line Technology (that enhances
Price: ` 9990
colour quality for the video, graphics

and everyday applications and uses
lower-resistance material for faster
and brighter transmission of signal),
Over Driving Circuit (that eliminates
blur and facilitates a faster full-white
to black transition) and Column
Spacer Technology (that gives the
screen improved picture quality free
of ripples and ensures improved contrast ratio).
Price: ` 51,500
Zebronics unveils Iron Head headphones

For long-wearing comfort
ron Head headphones deliver astounding sonic depth, creating a virtual world
through simulated 3D surround sound. These
headphones feature easily-adjustable, padded
headbands with extra cushioning on the ear
pieces for long gaming and movie sessions.
The directional boom microphone filters out
background noises, delivering clear voice
signals for all users.
The control pod is solidly-built with
easy-to-use buttons for volume up, volume
down, mute and mic mute. The headphones
also come with a long-lasting sleeved cable
measuring three metres, USB interface and
built-in audio processor.
www.efymag.com
Price: ` 2199
119
estyle: first look
GizMo
ByTes
Google launches News Lab
The search giant has announced
Google News Lab, a website for
journalists. With an aim to help them
to create their own stories, the Lab
provides various tools along with
tutorials to teach them how to use
online tools like Google Alerts, Google
News and Google Trends. By using
news outlets like First Draft, YouTube,
Newswire and WITNESS Media Lab,
Google News Lab also motivates
eyewitness citizen journalism.
Splendo PC stick from iBall, Microsoft

For a complete Windows PC experience
Ball Splendo is a compact device

that can fit neatly into a pocket.
It is powered by Intel Atom quadcore processor, runs Windows 8.1
and features 2GB RAM with 32GB
inbuilt memory. When connected
to a television, through the HDMI
male plug, it can turn the television into a personal computer
(PC), complete with features like
HD graphics, multichannel digital
audio, micro SDXC slot, normal
USB port, micro-USB port, Wi-Fi
and inbuilt Bluetooth 4.0.
The device features a fan-less

design. The fully-functional PC
setup can be used for tasks like
checking emails and document
editing. Because of its small size, it
is portable and can be carried along
while travelling as a replacement to
the laptop. It can also be used for
entertainment purposes, surfing
the Internet, browsing photos and
playing games.
Price: ` 8999
Truecaller introduces
Truemessenger
Swedish firm Truecaller has introduced
a new app called Truemessenger for
verifying senders of SMSes. Just
like Truecaller app, data is obtained
from the contact list of users of the
application, which enables them to
identify spam SMSes.
Microsoft launches
Office for Android
Microsoft has brought its popular
Microsoft Office software to Android
devices. This would allow users to
work on documents using Word, Excel
and PowerPoint while on the go.
HomeLane launches
Kaleido VR headset
HomeLane, a Bengaluru based startup, which deals with interior designing,
modular kitchen manufacturing and
3D modelling, has launched a new
virtual reality (VR) based device
called Kaleido, powered by Google
Cardboard. Kaleido can be worn to
watch different finishes, flooring
options, accessories and appliances,
in different combinations, making it
simpler for users to make an informed
decision.
120
LED light from Xiaomi

For people on the go
he wireless, pocket-sized Mi LED

light from Xiaomi can be used on
the desk, by the bed or on the go. It
features diffused lighting that is easy
on the eyes.
The LED light
is portable, features a flexible
body and is powered by a standard USB port,
which means it
can be plugged
into any USB charger, a computers
USB port or power
bank with a USB
port. The LED
light comes in two
colour variants, namely, white and

light blue.
Price: ` 199
www.efymag.com
eStyle: diy
Eight Things You Did Not Know

You Could Do with an iPhone Camera
iPhone 6 and
iPhone 6 Plus models
www.efytimes.com
pple fans love iPhone and

its camera, which has come
to become the first choice
for professional photographers, too.
You can take tons of photos with
your iPhone, any time. The best part
is, unlike a professional camera, the
iPhone is incredibly handy. In this
www.efymag.com
article, we have listed eight things

you may not know you could do with
iPhones camera.
All the features mentioned below
are available on iPhone 6 and its Plus
variant. But most of these are also
available on its previous models starting with iPhone 4, as checked at EFY.
Grid. Grid helps you align your
photos in perfect order. You can turn
on grid by going to Settings Photos

Camera Grid.
Earbuds. Did you know that you
can take pictures using your Apples earphones? The volume button
on the earbuds cord can be used
to click the photo and even record
video. It acts like a camera-shutter
button.
Volume button. Users often complain about the physical camera button on the phone. iPhones volume
button acts as a shutter button. You
can press volume Up/Down button to
take a photo.
Focus and brightness. iPhone
offers the tap-to-focus option. You
can simply tap on the screen to focus
and slide your finger up and down on
the slider to adjust the brightness of
a shot. This editing tool makes this
camera work like almost a professional point-and-shoot camera.
Lock exposure. You can pre-define exposure very easily in iPhone.
All you need to do is simply press
and hold on the screen to lock exposure settings. Once you lock these
settings, you need not adjust it again.
Burst mode. Taking burst pictures
is made easier with iPhone. Press and
hold Shutter button to enable Burst
Mode. Burst Mode on iPhone can
take ten photos per second.
Auto HDR. Auto HDR is an interesting feature on the iPhone. HDR
mode takes three photos at different
exposures and combines the best
aspects of each. You can turn on this
feature by launching the camera and
tapping HDR.
Timer. You can set the self timer
to camera shutter by tapping on
Clock icon while taking pictures. This
feature comes in very handy while
clicking family photos.
121
estyle: BUYERS GUIDE
How to Buy the Best DSLR Camera
D
Sushma Rani is a
content-developer-cumsub-editor at EFY
igital single lens reflex (DSLR) cameras are increasingly gaining popularity
these days. These cameras are now
within the reach of an average photographer
as manufacturers are coming out with affordable, user-friendly models. This is good news
for photography enthusiasts as the price of
DSLR cameras is falling rapidly.
The best camera is not always the most
expensive one. Every individual has different
needs; an amateur would require a different
camera than a professional photographer,
who would need extensive features.
DSLR cameras usually offer advanced
features that experienced shooters need,
which include a wide range of lenses, flashes and other accessories.
As companies keep introducing advanced
technologies in their DSLRs, entry-level models are getting more affordable. However,
powerful, dependable professional models
are still quite popular. While photography
enthusiasts look for the best combination of
performance and versatility, casual photographers generally consider a camera to be just a
tool. If the picture quality is good, the camera
is easy to use and affordable, they are happy.
But, users must not confuse DSLRs with
compact system cameras that are infiltrat-
ing camera shops these days. These look

like point-and-shoot cameras but have interchangeable lenses. In this article, we list
some key features that could help a photographer find the right DSLR camera based on
his or her preference and need.
Features are the most important to consider before buying an electronic device.
For using the camera in different situations,
you must consider the lenses that match the
DSLR you are considering before finalising
the camera.
Comfort level and size

Most DSLRs are similar in size but sometimes
the styling of the handgrip, position of controls and other ergonomic features can differ
drastically.
If the camera is too big or too small for
you to hold comfortably, or if the controls are
not laid out in a way that are not convenient
for use, chances are you would not enjoy
photography as much as you expected to.
Battery life
You must look at the battery life of the camera as there are several types of batteries
available. Battery life and cost are often unrelated; some inexpensive cameras have a great
Some DSLR Cameras Available in India

Nikon D3300
Price
Canon EOS 70D
` 36,095
Features Shoots sharp 24.3MP images

and smooth 1080p videos at
worth
60 frames per second (fps)
looking
7.6cm (3-inch), 921k pixel
at
LCD and 18mm-50mm f3.55.6 kit lens
Optical viewfinder
5fps burst mode
Shutter speed of 30 to
1/4000 seconds
Nikon DX (APS-C) CMOS
sensor
Canon Rebel T6s
Sony Alpha 77 M2
` 65,131
` 74,000
` 99,700
20.2MP CMOS (APS-C) sensor,

14-bit A/D conversion
DIGIC 5+ image processor for
exceptional image quality and
processing speed
19-point all cross-type AF system
(including a high-precision f/2.8
dual cross-type AF centre point)
Viewfinder with superimposed
LCD display
24.2MP CMOS (APS-C)

sensor, ISO 100-12800
(expandable to H: 25600)
EOS full-HD movie mode
helps capture brilliant
results in MP4 format
High-speed continuous
shooting upto 5.0fps allows
you to capture fast action
19-point all cross-type
AF system allows superb
autofocus performance
Aperture of f/3.5 - f/5.6

24.3MP camera
USB support
7.6cm (3-inch) TFT LCD
screen
Exmor CMOS sensor
Full-HD recording
Focal length of 18mm-135mm
Built-in flash
Shooting speed of 12fps
Pentax 645Z
` 585,500
51.4 MP CMOS sensor
ISO 204.800
8.1cm (3.2-inch) tiltable
LCD monitor
43.8mm x 32.8mm sensor
27-point auto-focus
Prime III processing
3fps maximum drive rate
ISO 100204, 800
sensitivity
The prices mentioned here are from various e-commerce portals and are subject to change.
122
www.efymag.com
estyle: BUYERS GUIDE

battery life, whereas some expensive
ones use up a charge quickly.
Some examples of the available
batteries are high-capacity disposable
CRV3s, proprietary rechargeable batteries, non-rechargeable alkaline batteries and rechargeable nickel metal
hydride (NiMH). Batteries such as
alkaline batteries might get drained
pretty quickly, which could turn out
to be quite expensive.
Viewfinders
A DSLR camera features an optical
viewfinder which displays the exact
image that the camera lens is capturing. But, it is worth mentioning that
not all are created equal.
DSLRs come with three basic
types of viewfinders, namely, optical
viewfinder, electronic viewfinder and
an LCD screen with a live view. You
need to make sure that the cameras
viewfinder is bright, you are able to
see edge-to-edge and that the focusing
screen is clear.
You also need to pay attention to
magnification and coverage numbers
for pentaprism finders, as these give
you an idea of the actual size of the
finder and how much of the captured
image can be viewed.
Megapixels
Talking about the role played by megapixels in a camera, you should know
that a high megapixel count does not
necessarily mean better image quality. Though, high megapixels give
you more flexibility when cropping or
making enlargements. But, a higher
megapixel count produces larger files,
which, in turn, take up more space.
Many DSLR cameras today exceed
13MP, which enables creative zooming in and cropping of images. A 5MP
image is enough to make a sharp
20.3cm-by-25.4cm (8-inch-by-10-inch)
print and an 8MP image is enough
to make a sharp 27.9cm-by-35.6cm
(11-inch-by-14-inch) print.
Sensors
An image sensor detects and conveys
the information that constitutes an
www.efymag.com
image. It does so by converting the

variable attenuation of light waves
into electrical signals, the small
bursts of current that convey the
information.
Cameras with larger sensors
and better lenses normally take
better shots, regardless of the
megapixel count. Bigger sensors
normally create better images, as
do higher-quality lenses. Therefore
it is important to check the size of
the sensor of the camera you are
planning to buy.
Although it is also available on
some point-and-shoot cameras, sensor stabilisation is more commonly
used in DSLRs. With sensor stabilisation, gyroscopes located in the
camera body, rather than the lenses,
detect shake and then move the image sensor to counteract motion.
Flash
It is important to know the type of
flash the chosen DSLR camera has
and how much control it gives over
flash settings. DLSRs usually have
inbuilt flash; some have a hot-shoe
mount or a bracket that lets you attach an external flash to the camera,
while some have both. If a camera
has a mount but no flash, check to
see if an external flash is included as
part of the kit or whether you would
need to buy it separately.
The inbuilt flash can be extremely handy to have, but it would not
be of as high quality as an external
flash. For casual photography, the
inbuilt flash could be useful, but for
professional use, a hot-shoe mount
would work better.
Another point to be considered
is quick access to different flash
modes. Make sure the camera you
buy gives you quick access to different flash modes, including On
(forces the flash to fire even if the
camera detects enough light, which
can be useful for back-lighting situations), Off (prevents your flash from
firing even in low-light situations)
and Slow-Sync (also referred to as
night-time mode).
123
product categories index
advertisers product category index

Products
Page No.
Products
Page No.
Universal Electronic Agencies........................... 136
Automation & Robotics

Eita Technologies.............................................. 143
HARI HI Ohm Electronics.................................. 130
Indus Robotics & Automation Research
Pvt Ltd........................................................... 130
Logic Power....................................................... 136
Microchip Technology Inc. .................................. 49
Nuvoton Technology Corp. ................................. 41
ROHM Semiconductor ........................................ 85
SECO srl ............................................................. 69
Shavison Electronics Pvt. Ltd............................ 123
ST Microelectronics Marketing Pvt. Ltd .............. 71
Products
Page No.
Progressive Engineers...................................... 135
PIC GmbH .......................................................... 21
Cirkit Electro Components P Ltd....................... 128
Optics & Optoelectronics
Digi-Key Corporation ............................................ 3
Telecom Products
Binay Opto Electronics Pvt Ltd ........................... 16
Element14 India Pvt Ltd........................................ 1
Buljin Elemec Pvt Ltd......................................... 141
Visha World....................................................... 131
Components (Including Active & Passive)
Hirose Electric Singapore Pte Ltd ....................... 15
GSR Infocom Pvt. Ltd........................................ 143
LWI Electronics Inc. ............................................ 23
Rockforest......................................................... 144
MobiOscope Technology Solutions................... 126

Mouser Electronics (Hong Kong) Ltd .................... 7
PCBs, Assemblies & Sub Assemblies
Murata Electronics India Pvt Ltd ......................... 75
Circuit Systems India Ltd .................................. 109
Numato Systems Pvt Ltd................................... 126
Fine Line Circuit Limited.................................... 129
Perfect Radios................................................... 142
Indus Robotics & Automation Research Pvt Ltd.130
Premier Controls................................................ 137
M & D Enterprises............................................. 143
Renesas Electronics India Pvt. Ltd.......... 59, 80, 81
Salasar Inc......................................................... 142
Batteries & Power Supplies
S.M Semiconductors........................................... 25
Arham Electronics & Electricals
SMD Electro Components................................. 132
Plugs, Sockets & Connectors
(Nimra Products)........................................... 143
Stead Electronics (India) Pvt. Ltd...................... 134
Hirose Electric Singapore Pte Ltd ....................... 15
BB Battery India Co. Pvt Ltd................................ 79
Virginia Panel Corporation .................................. 39
Jai Mata Electronics.......................................... 141
Elnova Ltd.......................................................... 143
EDA Tools (Including Designing &
Reseller and Distributors
Etekniks Technologies....................................... 141
Drafting Aids)
Digi-Key Corporation ............................................ 3
Good Will Instrument Co. Ltd............................ 148
MathWorks ......................................................... 67
Element14 India Pvt Ltd. ...................................... 1
Gurukirpa Electronics........................................ 141
Technics .............................................................. 61
LWI Electronics Inc. ............................................ 23
Indicators & Monitors)

Advance Tech Services Pvt. Ltd.......................... 31
Anritsu India Pvt Ltd ........................................... 19
Crown Electronic Systems................................. 141
Cyronics Instruments Pvt. Ltd. ............................ 77
Dinteck............................................................... 143
FLIR Systems ..................................................... 43
Keysight Technologies India
NI Systems (India) Pvt Ltd ................................ 149
Rishabh Instruments Pvt Ltd ............................ 101
SIGLENT Technologies Co. Ltd..........................113
Tangent Test Technologies ................................. 45
Mouser Electronics (Hong Kong) Ltd .................... 7
Inphynyt Accumulators India Pvt. Ltd................ 125
Test & Measurement Equipment (Including
Pvt Ltd........................................................... 2, 5
Digital Promoters (I) Pvt Ltd.............................. 141
Kandhari Photo Electronics P Ltd...................... 142
Page No.
Electronics Relays (India) Pvt Ltd...................... 126
Toshiba India Pvt. Ltd ......................................... 55
Toradex Systems (India) Private Limited .............11
Products
HK Wentworth (India) Pvt Ltd.............................. 51
Educational Training Kits
Tektronix India Pvt Ltd....................................... 150

Trade Shows and Events
CII GUARDIAN International Ltd......................... 27
Electromation India 2016 .................................... 89
IED Communications Ltd................................... 129
MathWorks.......................................................... 67
Advance Technologies....................................... 143
Sensors & Transducers
National Controlling & Equipments.................... 144
Excel Technologies............................................ 135
PIC GmbH .......................................................... 21
Nehatronix......................................................... 142
Future Chip Technologies.................................. 141
Visha World....................................................... 131
NI Systems (India) Pvt Ltd................................. 149
Nippon India...................................................... 135
Mepits infotech Private Limited ......................... 107
Precimec Products............................................ 132
Visha World....................................................... 131
Services
Training and Certification Institutes
Pulraj Electronics Pvt Ltd................................... 137
Proxima Asia Inc................................................ 134

PSI Enterprises.................................................. 142
Industrial & Manufacturing Equipment
Pye Electro Systems......................................... 142
Hybrid Metals Pvt Ltd........................................ 132
Technics .............................................................. 61
CADD Centre Training Services

Private Limited............................................... 127
Transformers
Sakthi Accumulators Private Ltd........................ 142
Inde Enterprises ........................................... 35, 53
Solar Products
SM Electronic Technologies Pvt. Ltd................... 25
Max Technology & Co. ........................................ 33
MathWorks.......................................................... 67
Mitramax Energy Private Limited......................... 73
Srishti Electronics.............................................. 143
MMI India Pvt. Ltd. .............................................. 63
EGSTON Electronics India Pvt. Ltd................... 128

GT Magnetics Pvt. Ltd....................................... 130
Precimec Products............................................ 132
Jai Mata Electronics.......................................... 141
DD Enterprises.................................................. 143
Switches & Relays
Wires & Cables
DELTA Magnets Ltd ............................................ 47
CII GUARDIAN International Ltd ........................ 27
Sagar Switch Gear............................................ 133
Materials (Including Chemicals &

Cabinets, Enclosures & Accessories
Consumables)
S K Metal Works................................................ 141

Shrey Plastic Moulders...................................... 142
EFY Magazine Attractions During 2015

Month
Technology Focus
Market Surveys
Buyers Guide For Electronics Labs
January
IoT & Big Data
LED Lighting
Programmable Power Supplies
February
3D Printing
Coil Wound Components
Handheld T&M Equipment for Field Engineers
March
Wearables (Smart Humans)
SMT Manufacturing Equipment
Digital Multimeters
April
3G, 4G & Beyond: Latest in Telecom
Industrial Inverters & UPSes for Corporate
FPGA Based Development Boards
May
Virtual Electronics (on Web)
Telecom & Electronics
3D Printers (Under ` 100,000)
June
Printed and Flexible Electronics
Educational & Training Products
Wi-Fi & RF Modules
July
Smartcars
Automotive Electronics
Budget-Friendly Oscilloscopes
August
Smarthomes
PCB Industry in India: Suppliers & Manufacturers
Development Boards (Microcontroller based)
September
Medical Electronics
Aerospace & Defence Electronics
Soldering/Desoldering Stations
October
Robotics & Automation (Smart Machines)
Solar Electronics
Latest Tools to Manage ESD for Your LAB
November
Renewable Energy
Industrial Automation
Desktop PCB Manufacturing Equipment
December
Smart Lighting
LCD Display Components
Programmable Power Source
146
www.efymag.com
advertisers index
advertisers index
Client name
Page No.
Advance Tech Services Pvt. Ltd. (www.advancetechonline.in)...............31

Advance Technologies............................................................................143
Anritsu India Pvt Ltd..................................................................................19
Arham Electronics & Electricals (Nimra Products).................................143
Artim Electronics Private Limited..............................................................13
BB Battery India Co. Pvt Ltd.....................................................................79
Binay Opto Electronics Pvt Ltd (www.binayLED.com).............................16
Buljin Elemec Pvt Ltd (www.flexiblepcb.com)........................................141
CADD Centre Training Services Private Limited....................................127
CII GUARDIAN International Ltd..............................................................27
Circuit Systems India Ltd .......................................................................109
Cirkit Electro Components P Ltd............................................................128
Crown Electronic Systems .....................................................................141
Cyronics Instruments Pvt. Ltd...................................................................77
DD Enterprises........................................................................................143
DELTA Magnets Ltd (www.Deltin.com).....................................................47
Digi-Key Corporation (www.digikey.com)...................................................3
Digital Promoters (I) Pvt Ltd....................................................................141
Dinteck....................................................................................................143
EFY Expo India2015................................................................................12
EFY Group: LED Bazaar..........................................................................37
EFY Group: Subscription........................................................................124
EFY Tech Center.....................................................................................134
EGSTON Electronics India Pvt. Ltd........................................................128
Eita Technologies....................................................................................143
Electromation India 2016..........................................................................89
Electronics Relays (India) Pvt Ltd...........................................................126
Element14 India Pvt Ltd..............................................................................1
Elnova Ltd (www.elnova.com)................................................................143
Elsys Technologies.................................................................................128
Etekniks Technologies............................................................................141
Evolute Solutions Pvt. Ltd. (www.evolute.in)..........................................138
Excel Technologies.................................................................................135
Fine Line Circuit Limited.........................................................................129
FLIR Systems (www.flir.com)....................................................................43
Future Chip Technologies.......................................................................141
Good Will Instrument Co. Ltd (www.goodwill.com.tw)...........................148
GSR Infocom Pvt. Ltd.............................................................................143
www.efymag.com
Client name
Page No.
GT Magnetics Pvt. Ltd. (www.gtmagnetic.com).....................................130

Gurukirpa Electronics (www.gurukirpaelectronics.com).........................141
HARI HI Ohm Electronics.......................................................................130
Hirose Electric Singapore Pte Ltd (www.hirose.com/sg)..........................15
HK Wentworth (India) Pvt Ltd...................................................................51
Hybrid Metals Pvt Ltd..............................................................................132
IED Communications Ltd (www.iedcommunications.com)...................129
Inde Enterprises (www.indeonline.in).................................................35, 53
India Electronics Week...............................................................................9
Indus Robotics & Automation Research Pvt. Ltd...................................130
Industrial Agencies..................................................................................147
Inphynyt Accumulators India Pvt. Ltd.....................................................125
Jai Mata Electronics................................................................................141
Kandhari Photo Electronics P Ltd...........................................................142
Keysight Technologies India Pvt. Ltd. (www.keysight.com)...................2, 5
Kits N Spares......................................................................................17, 24
Lappteck Marketing (www.lappteck.com)...............................................138
Logic Power............................................................................................136
LWI Electronics Inc. (www.livewireinfo.com)............................................23
M & D Enterprises...................................................................................143
MathWorks................................................................................................67
Max Technology & Co. (www.maxtechnoloindia.com).............................33
Mepits infotech Private Limited...............................................................107
Microchip Technology Inc. (www.microchip.com).....................................49
Mitramax Energy Private Limited (www.mitramax.com)..........................73
MMI India Pvt. Ltd.....................................................................................63
MobiOscope Technology Solutions........................................................126
Mornsun Guangzhou Science & Technology Co.Ltd............................. 111
Mouser Electronics (Hong Kong) Ltd.........................................................7
Murata Electronics India Pvt Ltd ..............................................................75
National Controlling & Equipments.........................................................144
Nehatronix (www.natashaindia.com)......................................................142
NI Systems (India) Pvt Ltd (www.ni.com)...............................................149
Nippon India (www.nipponindia.com).....................................................135
Numato Systems Pvt Ltd........................................................................126
Nuvoton Technology Corp........................................................................41
Perfect Radios........................................................................................142
PIC GmbH (www.pic-gmbh.com).............................................................21
Client name
Page No.
Precimec Products (www.precimecproducts.com).................................132

Premier Controls.....................................................................................137
Productornica..........................................................................................140
Progressive Engineers ...........................................................................135
Proxima Asia Inc.....................................................................................134
PSI Enterprises.......................................................................................142
Pulraj Electronics Pvt Ltd (www.pulraj.com)...........................................137
Pye Electro Systems...............................................................................142
Rapid radio solution private limited.........................................................144
Renesas Electronics India Pvt. Ltd...............................................59, 80, 81
Rishabh Instruments Pvt Ltd .................................................................101
Rockforest...............................................................................................144
ROHM Semiconductor..............................................................................85
S K Metal Works (www.skmetals.com)...................................................141
S.M Semiconductors...............................................................................142
Sagar Switch Gear..................................................................................133
Sahasra Electronics Pvt Ltd (www.sahasraelectronics.com).................139
Sakthi Accumulators Private Ltd.............................................................142
Salasar Inc..............................................................................................142
SECO srl...................................................................................................69
Shavison Electronics Pvt. Ltd. (www.shavison.com).............................123
Shrey Plastic Moulders (www.shreyplasticmoulders.com)....................142
SIGLENT Technologies Co. Ltd.............................................................. 113
SM Electronic Technologies Pvt. Ltd........................................................25
SMD Electro Components (www.smdelectro.com)................................132
Srishti Electronics (www.acedigital.co.in)...............................................143
ST Microelectronics Marketing Pvt. Ltd....................................................71
Stead Electronics (India) Pvt. Ltd. (www.steadresistors.com)...............134
T&M India..................................................................................................29
Tangent Test Technologies.......................................................................45
Technics (www.technics-india.com)..........................................................61
Tektronix India Pvt Ltd. (www.tektronix.com)..........................................150
Toradex Systems (India) Private Limited (www.toradex.com)................. 11
Toshiba India Pvt Ltd.................................................................................55
Universal Electronic Agencies (www.easternradio.co.in).......................136
Virginia Panel Corporation........................................................................39
Visha World ............................................................................................131
Zenith Industrial Products (www.zip-india.com).....................................143
147

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contents

electronics for you Plus | August 2015 | Vol. 04 No. 04 | ISSN-2454-4426

Would You Like

Editor : Ramesh Chopra

Bionic Lenses Adding

Basic Guide to Radio-Controlled

EFY Plus DVD

More Power to Your Phone

Test & Measurement

FPGAs for The Internet of Things

Engineers Need Tools That

Operating Systems for Mobiles

Surveillance and Access Control:

Kaushal Kadakia, product manager,

Power System Design:

FreeRTOS: A Real-Time Operating System.............................I

EFY Plus DVD

This Months DVD Contents

Market Survey: An Outlook for

August 2015 | Electronics For You plus

The Future of High Resolution

Would You Feel at Home

Printed, published and owned by Ramesh Chopra. Printed at International

Things You Wanted to Know

August 2015 | Electronics For You

From Facebook: EFYs Electronics Design Community

Spot An Error Award Winners

EFY: The complete

From Twitter: EFY Group@EFYIndia

can also be used. Brightness of the

do some mobile phone

August 2015 | Electronics For You

erence point for measuring the other

For example, Nokia NiMH batteries

Answers compiled by EFY joint director (training), Col.

doityourself.com, founded in 1995, is an independent home improvement and repair website. It is

This website has a good collection of DIY projects on electronics. diy-electronic-projects.com

August 2015 | Electronics For You

Technology at your Service

mind-controlled car that would do away with

Mind-controlled car by Nankai University in Tianjin

team from Nankai University in Tianjin in collaboration

Plant-inspired solar cells

technology developed by scientists at University of

August 2015 | Electronics For You

Technology by University of California, Los Angeles, could allow storage of

Memcomputer mimics human brain

s the need for computing grows, researchers are

Software to detect eye diseases

martphones can detect heart rate and blood-oxygen

Flexible electronics now a reality

Kirigami stretchable batteries

An ASU research team has used a variation of origami, called kirigami, as

August 2015 | Electronics For You

Material with magnetoresistance

esearchers in Germany have found a material that

Niobium-phosphide for building smaller and faster electronics

tronic resistance increases dramatically when exposed

Electronics For You | August 2015

Now, print electronic circuits

esearchers from University of Tokyo have created a

Quantum dots, a type of nanocrystals discovered

Robot that can be controlled