Ready to wear sensor hubs

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Majeed Ahmad explores the latest sensor hub offerings for wearable devices.  

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By Majeed Ahmad

Atmel has beefed up its sensor hub offerings for wearable devices with SAM D20 Cortex M0+ microcontroller core to add more functionality and further lower the power bar for battery-operated devices. The SAM D20 MCUs offer ultra-low power through a patented power-saving technique called “Event System” that allows peripherals to communicate directly with each other without involving the CPU.

Atmel is part of the group of chipmakers that use low-power MCUs for sensor management as opposed to incorporating low-power core within the application processor. According to market research firm IHS Technology, Atmel is the leading sensor hub device supplier with 32 percent market share.

Sensor hubs are semiconductor devices that carry out sensor processing tasks — like sensor fusion and sensor calibration — through an array of software algorithms and subsequently transform sensor data into app-ready information for smartphones, tablets and wearable devices. Sensor hubs combine inputs from multiple sensors and sensor types including motion sensors — such as accelerometers, magnetometers and gyroscopes — and environmental sensors that provide light level, color, temperature, pressure, humidity, and many other inputs.

Atmel has supplied MCU-centric sensor hub solutions for a number of smartphones. Take China’s fourth largest smartphone maker, Coolpad, which has been using Atmel’s low-power MCU to offload sensor management tasks from handset’s main processor. However, while still busy in supplying sensor hub chips for smartphones and tablets, Atmel is looking at the next sensor-laden frontier: wearable devices.

SAM D20 Evaluation Kit

Wearable devices are becoming the epitome of always-on sensor systems as they mirror and enhance cool smartphone apps like location and transport, activity and gesture monitoring, and voice command operation in far more portable manner. At the same time, however, always-on sensor ecosystem within connected wearables requires sensor hubs to interpret and combine multiple types of sensing—motion, sound and face—to enable context, motion and gesture solutions for devices like smartwatch.

Sensor hubs within wearable environment should be able to manage robust context awareness, motion detection, and gesture recognition demands. Wearable application developers are going to write all kinds of apps such as tap-to-walk and optical gesture. And, for sensor hubs, that means a lot more processing work and a requirement for greater accuracy.

So, the low-power demand is crucial in wearable devices given that sensor hubs would have to process a lot more sensor data at a lot lower power budget compared to smartphones and tablets. That’s why Atmel is pushing the power envelope for connected wearables through SAM D20 Cortex M0+ cores that offload the application processor from sensor-related tasks.

LifeQ’s sensor module for connected wearables

The SAM D20 devices have two software-selectable sleep modes: idle and standby. In idle mode, the CPU is stopped while all other functions can be kept running. In standby mode, all clocks and functions are stopped except those selected to continue running.

Moreover, SAM D20 microcontroller supports SleepWalking, a feature that allows the peripheral to wake up from sleep based on predefined conditions. It allows the CPU to wake up only when needed — for instance, when a threshold is crossed or a result is ready.

The SAM D20 Cortex M0+ core offers the peripheral flexibility through a serial communication module (SERCOM) that is fully software-configurable to handle I²C, USART/UART and SPI communications. Furthermore, it offers memory densities ranging from 16KB to 256KB to give designers the option to determine how much memory they will require in sleep mode to achieve better power efficiency.

Atmel’s sensor hub solutions support Android and Windows operating systems as well as real-time operating system (RTOS) software. The San Jose–based chipmaker has also partnered with sensor fusion software and application providers including Hillcrest Labs and Sensor Platforms. In fact, Hillcrest is providing sensor hub software for China’s Coolpad, which is using Atmel’s low-power MCU for sensor data management.

The company has also signed partnership deals with major sensor manufacturers — including Bosch, Intersil, Kionix, Memsic and Sensirion — to streamline and accelerate design process for OEMs and ensure quick and seamless product integration.

Atmel Sensor Hub Software from Hillcrest Labs

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This post has been republished with permission from SemiWiki.com, where Majeed Ahmad is a featured blogger. It first appeared there on February 4, 2015.  Majeed Ahmad is author of books Smartphone: Mobile Revolution at the Crossroads of Communications, Computing and Consumer Electronics and The Next Web of 50 Billion Devices: Mobile Internet’s Past, Present and Future. Majeed has a background in Engineering MS, former EE Times Editor in Chief (Asia), Writer for EC Magazine, Author of SmartPhone, Nokia’s SMART Phone.

 

Exploring Atmel’s new microcontrollers, IoT and wearables

More and more companies, regardless of their vertical, are trying to get closer to their customers and see various aspects of the internet of things (IoT) as the way to do so. For a good example, here is Salesforce Wear Developer Pack which, as they say:

..is a collection of open-source starter apps that let you quickly design and build wearable apps that connect to the Salesforce1 Platform. Millions of wearable devices connected to the cloud will create amazing new application opportunities.

Since Salesforce.com cuts across all industries this has potential impact in many different market segments.

And, the wearable devices that they list are Google Glass, Android Wear, Samsung Gear Watch, Myo Armband, Nymi Bionym, Pebble Watch, Jawbone UP, Epson Moverio, Vuzix Smart Glasses, Oculus Rift, Meta Glasses.

This combination brings home that the internet of things isn’t just about the things, it is about connecting the things back to the cloud so that the data generated can be aggregated where it has much greater value.

I am sure that people will design SoCs for various aspects of IoT, but even if they do I think it will be in old processes, not even 28nm, so they can integrate sensors and analog and wireless on the same chip. But more likely a lot of these will be small boards with microcontrollers, wireless and sensors on different chips. For example, take a look at the iFixit teardown of the Fitbit, which in its current incarnation is about one inch by quarter of an inch.

An important aspect of doing this sort of design is having enough microcontrollers with the right combination of features. You can’t afford to have twice as much flash as you need or too many unused functions. The Atmel microcontroller product finder shows that at present they have 506 different ones to choose from.

The most recent two are SAMA5D4, and SAMD21 which are specifically targeted towards wearables and IoT projects. These are the latest two products in the Atmel SAM D family.

One area of especial concern in this market is security since it is too dangerous to simply try and do everything in software on the microcontroller. Keys can be stolen. Software can be compromised if it is in external RAM. An area of particular security concern is to make sure that any JTAG debug port is secure or it can be used to compromise almost anything on the chip.

So what are these chips?

The SAMA5D4 is an ARM Cortex-A5 device with a 720p hardware video decoder. It has high security with on-the-fly capability to run encrypted code straight out of external memory, tamper detection, secret key storage in hardware, hardware private and public key cryptography and ARM TrustZone. It supports both 16 and 32 bit memory interfaces for maximum flexibility. It is targeted at applications that require displays, such as home and industrial automation, vending machines, elevator displays with ads, or surveillance camera playback.

The SAMD21 is the latest Atmel microcontroller based on the ARM Cortex-M0+ but in addition to the features on earlier cores it also has:

• Full speed USB device and embedded host
• DMA
• Enhanced timer/counters for high end PWM in Lighting and motor control – I2S
• Increased I2C speed to 3.4Mbit/S
• Fractional PLL for audio streaming

As you can deduce from the feature set it is target at medium end industrial and consumer applications, possibly involving audio and high power management.

And, to show that this sort of market is starting to become real, at the salesforce Dreamforce event earlier in the week a keynote was given by will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas (and a founder of Beats that Apple recently acquired). In a chat with Marc Benoiff, CEO of Salesforce.com, he has already leaked that he will introduced a wearable wrist computer that doesn’t require a phone to piggy-back on (unlike the Apple Watch).

Watch the chat:

Looking for more information on the SAMA5D4? It can be found here.

This post has been republished with permission from SemiWiki.com, where Paul McLellan is a featured blogger. It first appeared there on October 17, 2014.

Kaivan Karimi talks IoT and wearables at Designers of Things

Designers of Things — a two-day conference dedicated to the explosive and exciting potential of wearable tech, 3D printing and the Internet of Things — kicked off this morning with a session from Kaivan Karimi. During his presentation, the Atmel VP and GM of Wireless Solutions broke down the evolution of technologies necessary for wearable devices to succeed.

Undoubtedly, wearables have emerged as an extremely hot topic within the technology industry with big name enterprises and small startups alike working endlessly to develop the next high-profile device. Wearables, which are not only being integrated into smart fashion and allowing users to access technology hands-free, are now accelerating the self-quantification movement and paving the way for the upcoming always-on healthcare revolution. Using specific examples from the smartwatch and smart fashion realms, Karimi educated event attendees on the underlying hardware, software, sensing, connectivity, and security technologies needed to make wearables happen, and get them integrated into already existing broader networks.

Karimi began the session by making it clear that wearables are a subset of the IoT, which is the wider umbrella of connected things. When explaining the size of this umbrella, Karimi stated, “The Internet of Things is like sunlight, it covers everything.” He emphasized to attendees that the IoT will go on to impact all aspects of industry and commerce, therefore migrating to devices that collect data: “If you can’t track it, you can’t improve it”.

Despite the fact that it is a mere subset in today’s ever-evolving, constantly-connected world, Karimi stressed that the wearable tech space is not a single entity. “Wearables are not a single segment. There are different categories with different requirements,” he urged. High-end or local processing wearables include smartwatches that run standalone systems such as Android Wear, Tizen for the Gear line of devices and the upcoming Apple Watch. Mid-range wearables are more along the lines of smartphone accessories, which use thin client models and rely on applications on the smartphone. The third category, low-end or limited devices, usually boast no display or feature a limited user interface and act more as a sensor aggregator. This category includes devices such as Fitbit, Polar Loop and other fitness trackers.

“Wearables is one of the edge nodes of the IoT infrastructure,” Karimi continued as he put wearables in perspective of the IoT. Karimi then went on to share several reasons as to why wearables have experienced immediate adoption so far — seamless and ability to integrate into our lives; ease-of-use; inexpensiveness; health and fashion-focused; the potential to save lives; and, the quantified self movement. “The value created by IoT is not just dollars and cents but how we live our lives,” he added.

However, as more devices become connected particularly those adorned to bodies, security and privacy concerns will arise. According to Karimi, this can and will inhibit the growth of wearable tech and IoT as a whole; therefore, how we secure the devices will play an integral role in the development of IoT. “Security and privacy are major growth inhibitors of wearables,” explained Karimi.

Karimi then depicted a time in the relatively near future where hackers could open your doors, access your neighborhood’s streetlights, as well as take control of your toaster oven. Creating the necessary hierarchal gateways to protect access to connected devices and its data will be key in a connected tomorrow. “When it comes to security for the Internet of Things, stakes are much more severe,” he told the Designers of Things audience.

Major advancemetns in technologies like semiconductors are attributed to growth of wearable tech, Karimi revealed. Semiconductors are getting faster, cheaper, smaller and more powerful yet less power consuming, which make them well-suited for smaller devices that need to be on all-day. But one of wearables biggest allies will be contextual computing, which Karimi revealed “will be the driving force behind the next wave of technology.”

The use of big data, sensor fusion, personal history, GPS and social media will also enable computers to know who we are which in turn will let them better serve us. “The future of data analytics will see a shift from reporting to prediction,” Karimi said. “In the future, your devices will know you better than your spouse knows you or you even know yourself.”

Wearables aren’t limited to smartwatches and fitness trackers; in fact, Karimi teased the audience with new form factors coming down the chain. “New form factors are on the way. It’s like pills you take to authenticate yourself,” he noted.

Karimi went on to conclude with a discussion around wearables and IoT in the healthcare setting. “The future of healthcare with wearables is the always-on revolution,” he told attendees. “In order for IoT and wearables to work in healthcare, you have to link the databases.”

So what does the future have in store for wearables? According to Karimi, over the next four to five years, we can expect that wearables will:

• Be here for the long-haul
• Enable a variety of new services
• Allow medicine to become more personalized
• Revolutionize healthcare
• Focus on prevention vs. disease management

According to analysts at ABI Research, over the next five years businesses will integrate into their wellness plans more than 13 million wearable devices with embedded wireless connectivity. Wearable tech also ties into the rapidly evolving Internet of Things, which refers to a future world where all types of electronic devices link to each other via the Internet. Today, it’s estimated there are nearly 10 billion devices in the world connected to the Internet, a figure expected to triple to nearly 30 billion devices by 2020. The inherent versatility of Atmel’s microcontrollers and radio chips have made our silicon a favorite of Makers and engineers. As allude to in Kaivan Karimi’s presentation, Atmel is smack dab in the middle of the wearable revolution, with a comprehensive portfolio of versatile microcontrollers (MCUs) that power a wide range of platforms and devices.

Report: People are talking about wearable tech

According to an analysis of over 8 million online conversations about wearable tech over the last year, there has been a 190% increase around the topic. Brilliant Noise recently carried out some desk research and used data supplied by Brandwatch to examine recent discussions around wearable device.

When users of wearable devices were asked how useful these gadgets have been, 82% of them believe that wearable tech has enhanced their lives. If you ask us, that’s a pretty good number for a product category that has only recently taken off. As previously reported on Bits & Pieces, wearable tech is projected to experience a surge in the coming years while Atmel will remain smack dab in the middle of the revolution — both in terms of hardware and social conversation.

Considering the 190% increase in mentions of wearable tech over the past year, more people are exhibiting interest than are not. With its jump in online discussions around wearables from 2013 to 2014, Google Glass was the most talked about product, closely followed by Fitbit, Nike Fuelband and of course, the recently-announced iWatch.

According to the report, Google Glass accounted for about half (51%) of the conversation as the smart glasses garnered over 2.8 million mentions. Fitbit, which has been talked about almost 1.5 million times, made up 27% of the wearable conversation volume with Nike’s Fuelband just behind at 11%. While a lot of the buzz is around the newly-unveiled iWatch and highly-popular Google Glass, the study showed that people are more likely to be actively talking about purchasing a Fitbit and Pebble, which have become quite ubiquitous amongst “affluent modern city-dwellers.”

Furthermore, 32% of U.S. adults have or plan to purchase wearable tech within two years while nearly 61% of the current wearable tech market is sports and activity trackers — some of which powered by AVR or ARM-core 32-bit chips.

“One of the interesting things that came from this research – perhaps that we weren’t expecting – is that chatter about wearable tech is no longer confined to the water cooler in the engineering department. Discussion about wearables has become far more commonplace in mainstream society, and we’re seeing more types of people talking about it, and in more kinds of places. Just like with smart phones or tablets almost a decade ago, we’re on the cusp of a cultural shift that reflects our changing attitudes towards how we live with technology,” explained Natalie Meehan, Marketing Insights Analyst at Brandwatch.

Most wearable discussions are coming from the United States with 70% of mentions and the UK – which actually only accounts for less than 10% of the mentions — with men making up nearly two-thirds (65%) of the conversation. However, the study found that women are more positive than men when discussing ownership of wearables (women’s commentary is 17% positive, unlike men whose commentary is 12% positive).

Wearable technology doesn’t stop at the wrist or eyes either. In fact, clothing and accessories embedded with computer and advanced electronic technology is among one of the fastest growing segments. In 2015, the smart clothing worldwide market revenue is projected to be worth $1.24 billion. As the report notes, ‘smarter’ clothing will likely be used not only used for health and wellness tracking, but for industrial, military and infotainment purposes as well; reason being, embedded clothing itself is seen to offer a more ubiquitous experience than separate sports monitoring accessories, potentially making the latter obsolete.

Beyond providing users with real-time data about their health or an augmented view of their world, wearable tech will continue play an integral role in the Internet of Things, which refers to a future world where all types of electronic devices (including those adorned to our bodies) link to each other via the web. As this market continues to take shape, you can expect to find a number of Atmel’s versatile microcontrollers (MCUs) powering a wide range of innovative platforms and wearable devices.

You can read the Brandwatch report or check out its infographic in their entirety here.