Innovative electronics developments were in abundance at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Here are just a few of them.

January 9, 2023

6 Min Read
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Qualcomm's Snapdragon Ride™ Flex SoC enables digital cockpit, ADAS and AD functions to co-exist on a single SoC. Image courtesy of Qualcomm

The annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is a treasure trove of interesting technology and products, and the just-completed 2023 show was no exception. Whether it be automotive tech, health and wellness products, electronics, energy management solutions, there was something for everyone.

While Design News highlighted several new products last week, inevitably a few other products were introduced at CES that have important implications for our design engineering audience. Below are descriptions of several of them.

Qualcomm SoCs Simultaneously Support Digital Cockpit and ADA Systems

Wireless chipmaker Qualcomm Technologies took a step in trying to ease vehicle interior design by introducing the Snapdragon Ride Flex SoC, the latest addition to the company’s growing Snapdragon® Digital Chassis product portfolio. The Flex SoC is engineered to support mixed-criticality workloads across heterogenous compute resources, allowing for the digital cockpit, ADAS and AD functions to co-exist on a single SoC. 

Designed to meet the highest level of automotive safety, the Flex SoC enables a hardware architecture to support isolation, freedom from interference, and quality-of-service (QoS) for specific ADAS functions and comes equipped with a dedicated Automotive Safety Integrity Level D (ASIL-D) safety island. Furthermore, the Flex SoC pre-integrates a software platform that supports multi-operating system operating concurrently, hypervisor enablement with isolated virtual machines, and real-time operating system (OS) with an Automotive Open System Architecture (AUTOSAR) to meet the mixed criticality workload requirements for driver assistance safety systems, digital reconfigurable clusters, infotainment systems, driver monitoring systems (DMS), and park-assist systems.  

Related:From Metaverse to Processors, Technology on Full View at 2023 CES

The Flex SoC is pre-integrated with the industry-proven Snapdragon Ride Vision stack, which enables highly scalable and safe driver assistance and automated driving experiences using a front camera to meet regulatory requirements, and multi-modal sensors (multiple cameras, radars, lidars and maps) for enhanced perception that creates an environmental model around the vehicle feeding into vehicle control algorithms.  The Snapdragon Ride Vision stack meets the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) requirements and Europe’s General Safety Regulations (GSR) while scaling up to higher levels of autonomy.

The Flex SoC family is compatible with the broader portfolio of SoCs within the Snapdragon Digital Chassis Platform. 

Related:At CES: AMD Looks at Adaptive Computing to Expand Reach

The first Snapdragon Ride Flex SoC is sampling now with production beginning in 2024. 

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Bosch Introduces Tiny Particulate, Barometric Pressure Sensors

Bosch introduced reportedly the world’s smallest particulate matter (PM2.5) air quality sensor, enabling use in ultra-compact IoT devices

Designed for indoor applications, the BMV080 sensor can detect fine dust known as PM2.5 particulates, which are solid and liquid particles smaller than 2.5 µm. These particulates are inhaled and enter the lungs, where they cause serious health problems.

The BMV080 sensing element measures only 4.2 x 3.5 x 3 mm³ (W x L x H), which is more than 450 times smaller in volume than any comparable device on the market. The miniscule size and fanless, non-intrusive design of the BMV080 are a game-changer, and its noiseless operation means it does not disturb residents who may be sleeping or working.

Comparable state-of-the-art PM2.5 sensors all rely on a fan to draw air across a laser beam, where a photodiode then detects and measures the particulates as they reflect or block the light from the laser. The BMV080 utilizes an innovative design based on ultra-compact lasers with integrated photodiodes. It applies sophisticated algorithms to measure the PM2.5 concentration directly in free space, without requiring a fan.

The sensor is easily integrated into ultra-compact IoT-based smart home and smart building systems to deliver air quality notifications to residents when PM2.5 levels rise above a threshold level. To take action, the resident or home automation system can ventilate by switching on an exhaust fan or filter to clear the air.

Bosch also unveiled a barometric pressure sensor, the BMP585, that can used underwater and in harsh environments, for instance, in wearables for swimming.

The BMP585 provides excellent relative accuracy of +/-0.06 hPa and typical absolute accuracy of +/-0.5 hPa. The BMP585 has a typical temperature coefficient offset (TCO) of just +/-0.5 Pa/K and low RMS noise of 0.08 Pa @ 1000 hPa (typical). Long-term drift over 12 months is only +/-0.2 hPa.

Typical current consumption of just 1.3 μA at 1Hz data rate substantially extends battery life. The BMP585 offers an I2C, I3C, and SPI digital, serial interface.

The BMP585 is provided in a compact 9-pin LGA package with a metal lid, measuring just 3.25 mm x 3.25 mm x 1.86 mm³, and is small enough to use in smartwatches and other wearables.

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AMD Unveils Slew of High-Speed Processors

AMD introduced a number of new mobile and desktop processors at CES. The company introduced the Ryzen 7040 Series mobile processors, which the company claims are the fastest processors in the world with up to eight “Zen 4” cores and AMD RDNA graphics. Other new parts include the 7045HX mobile processors, with up to 16 “Zen 4” cores, and the Ryzen 7000X3D series processors with AMD 3D V-cache technology. For gaming applications, AMD unveiled the Radeon™ RX 7000 Series GPU for laptops, designed to deliver energy efficiency and performance to power 1080p gaming at ultra settings and advanced content creation applications on next-generation premium laptops.

For AI (Artificial Intelligence) applications, AMD introduced the V70 AI accelerator, and the AMD Instinct M1300, the first integrated data center CPU and GPU. The M1300 has a 3D chiplet design combining AMD CDNA™ 3 GPU architecture, “Zen 4” CPU cores, and HBM memory chiplets.

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Automotive SoC for Surround and Rear-View Cameras

OMNIVISION announced its new 1.3-megapixel (MP) OX01E20 system-on-chip (SoC) for automotive 360-degree surround view systems (SVS) and rear-view cameras (RVC). The OX01E20 brings top-of-the-line LED flicker mitigation (LFM) and 140db high dynamic range (HDR) capabilities to the OMNIVISION product portfolio of automotive single-chip image sensor and signal processor solutions.

In a single 1/4-inch optical format package, the OX01E20 features a 3-micron image sensor, an advanced image signal processor (ISP), and full-featured distortion correction/perspective correction (DC/PC) and on-screen display (OSD), enabling designers to achieve a small form factor with excellent low-light performance, ultra-low power, and reduced cost, while also improving reliability by using only one printed circuit board.

Key features of the OX01E20 include:

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  • Industry-leading 140dB HDR and LFM simultaneously

  • HDR and LFM performance over the automotive temperature range

  • Advanced ISP that includes DC/PC and OSD

  • Use of a-CSP technology for the smallest possible solution

  • Low power consumption

  • OMNIVISION’s PureCel®Plus architecture provides low-light sensitivity and high signal-to-noise ratio performance

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