Front End I News
Farnell element14 launches Arduino UNO Click Shield and multiple accessories for the Atmel Xplained
Farnell element14 has launched the Arduino UNO Click Shield and a host of Click Boards and accessories for the Atmel SAMA5D3 Xplained, a low-cost, rapid prototyping and evaluation platform featuring the ARM Cortex A5 based SAMA5D36 microprocessor. These accessories have been designed to provide users with quick and easy implementation on development kits and feature low power operation and a small footprint. The Arduino UNO Click Shield fits on the ATSAMA5D3-XPLD board using the common Arduino-compatible interface headers and provides two microBUS interfaces to connect any Click Board from MikroElectronika. Click Boards are
function-specific add-on modules with a common interface - four are currently available; the ADC, Bluetooth, SHT11 Environmental Sensor and Thermocouple Click Boards. With no hardware configuration required, Farnell believes that these boards will help to revolutionise the way new functionalities can be added to development boards. Additional add-on boards include the WIFI Dongle which connects via USB and
an LCD8000 display and interface board which offers an 18-bit touchscreen at 480x272 resolution. C/Probe from Micrium is also available for use with the SAMA5D3. C/Probe is an easy-to-use Windows application designed to read and write the memory of any embedded target processor during run- time and maps memory data to virtual
Industry boosts support for electronic engineering undergraduate scholarships
The UKESF has announced increased industry backing from 25 leading electronics companies who will be funding up to 65 scholarships for elite electronics engineering undergraduate students for the 2014/15 academic year. Since the launch of UKESF, employers
from the electronics industry have awarded a total of 174 UKESF scholarships, backed by over £1 million in investment. The increase to 65 scholarships on offer this coming academic year shows a 120 per cent rise, as well as an increase of 200 per cent in the number of companies engaged with the scholarship programme, since the scheme was set up.
Employer funded scholarships run
graphic controls on the host computer and is available in Basic and Pro editions. Farnell said that customers would also benefit from direct access to engineers worldwide with virtual field application engineers and community experts being available to support users with up-to-date technical information around the clock.
Raytheon UK and Newcastle University team to investigate silicon carbide interface defects
Raytheon UK's semiconductor business unit in Glenrothes, Scotland, has embarked on a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) project, in conjunction with researchers at Newcastle University, to enhance the performance of Silicon Carbide (SiC) electronic devices, specifically for Raytheon's own SiC CMOS process. KTPs are supported by Innovate UK, the UK's innovation agency.
Raytheon UK's KTP with Newcastle University is studying, in considerable depth, the characteristics of the interface between SiC and Silicon Dioxide (SiO2); the region which critically impacts on the performance of a Metal-Oxide- Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor (MOSFET), a fundamental building block of electronic circuits. Defects known as 'traps' in the interface between the two semiconductor materials affect the
4 October 2014
threshold voltage and maximum current that a MOSFET can handle. Commenting John Kennedy, Head of Raytheon UK's Integrated Power Solutions, said: "Interface defects represent a significant obstacle in the mass adoption of Silicon Carbide technology in a wide range of sectors, such as aerospace, automotive, rail and energy, in which increasingly high performance devices are required." A detailed understanding of the interface behaviour will enable Raytheon UK to optimise its manufacturing processes to minimise the occurrence of traps, resulting in not only higher performance devices for its own power-module devices, products and systems but also for those customers using the company's industry- leading foundry services. In the long-term, the project will publish
results on the development of characterisation metrics for the SiC/SiO2
Components in Electronics
throughout the students' degrees and include bursaries, paid work experience, industrial mentoring and professional development workshops designed to accelerate the skills development of fledgling electronics engineers at the beginning of their career. Students studying electronic engineering degrees at any of the 13 UKESF university partners will be able to apply for scholarships with one of 25 employers, including industry partners and founders ARM, AWE, Imagination Technologies, CSR, Dialog Semiconductor, Thales and XMOS. "The scholarships are a way of exciting and encouraging young people into an electronics engineering career and of ensuring a future pipeline of talented engineers." commented Rebecca Fradley- Stokes, Head of CSR, Sustainability and University Relations at Dialog
Semiconductor. "In addition, the programme also gives us access to the brightest degree students early on and is a fantastic recruitment tool for companies like Dialog. This is invaluable for a rapidly growing company like ours which has to strive for excellence at every stage to support its expansion into exciting new products and markets."
Whilst UCAS data show a significant rise in the overall demand for engineering and technology courses since 2002, UKESF is addressing a 26 per cent drop in British applicants to electrical and electronic engineering courses between 2002 and 2013. The Electronics Systems industry report for government, ESCO, stated that electronic systems underpin many of the world's economic activities across almost all sectors, and act as an enabler in a host of other sectors, such as education and healthcare. The UK electronics industry has the potential to contribute £120 billion to the UK economy by 2020 providing 1 million jobs, and whilst recognising industry's role as a critical enabler to support and achieve the ambition for growth, the report also highlights skills shortages as the most common challenge. Indro Mukerjee, Chairman of the UKESF Strategic Advisory Board, said, "We're really pleased that the number of companies engaging with UKESF and offering scholarships continues to increase. At the same time, it's important that we keep focused and aim to get even more industry engagement to drive an interest in electronics engineering from school to employment."
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interface, modelling of the impacts of defects on the observed MOSFET characterisations, short loop trials of novel oxide structures and processing, full CMOS wafer integration of the optimised oxide structures and evolutionary repetition of the process optimisation and characterisation to continue the development process. Kennedy, continued: "The study with
Newcastle University is an exciting addition to our day-to-day business. Our foundry remains open to support Silicon Carbide power device development programmes across the globe. Customers at any part of the product development cycle can benefit from our experience and proven ability to take SiC device designs and processes through development stages to full production."
www.cieonline.co.uk
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