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EEWebIssue 86
February 19, 2013
Electrical Engineering Community eeweb.com
MicrocontrollerSecurity System
TECHNICAL ARTICLE
ManagingElectronicsDesign Data
TECHNICAL ARTICLE
CEO, Altium
KayvanOboudiyat
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Kayvan Oboudiyat CEO OF ALTIUM
A conversation with Altium’s CEO about the importance of device ecosystems and how their CAD devices are fitting in to the bigger picture.
A look at Altium’s smart, powerful tools for implementing and re-using high-integrity design data, without the risk.
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KayvanOboudiyat
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EEWeb PULSE INTERVIEW
KayvanOboudiyat
Altium is a leading provider of electronic
design tools for software and development hard-
ware. Their unique design environment allows elec-
tronics designers to connect people with devices. We spoke
with Kayvan Oboudiyat, CEO, as well as Aram Mirkazemi, CTO,
about the importance of a device ecosystem, where Altium’s CAD de-
vices are in this ecosystem and the vi-sion for Altium for the coming years.
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Kayvan, could you tell us a little bit about your background before joining Altium?
Kayvan: I have degrees in electrical engineering and mathematics from Reading University, UK. The first part of my career was in telecommunications with a major telecom company based in Australia. In 1997, I joined, what was at the time Protel International, as the managing director, and worked with Nick Martin and Aram. I’ve been with the company since then, in different capacities. Between 1999 and 2003, I played a key role in the listing of the company, and I also managed a range of mergers and acquisitions for the company. These acquisitions led to the development and release of the Altium DXP platform and Altium Designer product line.
Could you tell us a little bit more about Altium as a company? How many people work there?
Last time I counted, we had just over 400 employees. We have direct offices in US, Germany, China, Australia, and a small office in the Ukraine. We also have a network of 45 re-sellers around the world, both in countries where we have direct presence and countries that are represented by re-sellers. Since the listing of the company, we have been focused a mainly on development of technology, and the outcome of that effort was Altium DXP platform and Altium Designer. About three years ago, we acquired a company called Morfik, which was founded by Aram. The reason behind this acquisition was to bring web technology into Altium, which we were lacking at the time. That was Altium’s first step, in a way, towards realization of our ecosystem
strategy. The second step after that acquisition was the relocation of our headquarters to China about 18 months ago. The third step was the change in leadership, which happened a couple of months ago.
What percent of the company’s efforts are spent on development versus all the other things the company requires?In terms of product development and research, we have around 90 employees and around 60 component library developers.
Why don’t you tell us a little about your goal and vision for Altium?
The main vision of Altium—particularly over the recent years—has been to develop technologies and tools enabling design of ecosystem of devices, otherwise known as the Internet of Things by our customers. This is an objective that the company is committed to, and we have already taken a number of steps towards this objective. Under the new paradigm we are aiming to provide the technologies, tools, and software required, to enable engineers to create their own ecosystems of devices. Altium will become the enabler of that ecosystem rather than trying to create a global ecosystem for others to join in. Of course, we are an engineering company—our core competency is board level design, and it is very important that we continue to deliver the latest board level design technology and tools to our customers.
What does the “device ecosystem” mean in Altium’s terminology?Aram: Obviously, a device ecosystem is essentially centered
around the evolution of the web and is a much bigger thing than Altium can actually make happen. If you look at Web 1.0, it was about information, but with Web 2.0, the participants and the environment began interacting and exchanging information with one another. Web 2.0 was about people and their identity with the environment. Many organizations want this kind of ecosystems for their users. When you look today, ecosystems are so ubiquitous that you don’t even notice them—Amazon, Google, eBay, LinkedIn, to name a few. But what is emerging now that is recognized by many—the Intels of the world and the IBMs of the world—is Web 3.0, where smart devices are at the heart of it. With smart devices, the web and the physical world come together. Altium is not making it happen, people are making it happen by aligning themselves with it. That’s what we see the device ecosystem as, and we feel that a CAD company such as ourselves can play an important role in this.
How do your CAD tools contribute to the ecosystem of devices?
In the CAD world, we firmly believe that the CAD tools need to be in the forefront and center of that ecosystem to allow design processes to be part of the ecosystem. Bringing design processes into an ecosystem is much more demanding and much more involved than is the case in a typical content management ecosystem. We see CAD tools as needing to be right in there, in other words, the ecosystem would manifest itself through the CAD tools—in some ways like the music industry manifesting its songs and content through iTunes. We see CAD tools perform that same role. A universal browser like Chrome
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EEWeb PULSE INTERVIEW or Firefox cannot actually bring the design process into ecosystems.
Do you think you will take your CAD tools and make them web apps eventually, or will just the app itself be tied to the Internet?
In the 90s, we developed what is now known as the DXP platform. In those years, we referred to it as EDA/Client, a platform for tools integration. Even today, if you look at Altium, it has many tools in one environment, which is made possible by the DXP platform. With the acquisition of Morfik, the
as a web app. The end user actually may not quite know whether it’s a native plug-in or whether it’s a web app, so you really could look at it like a specialized browser for engineering.
Kayvan: I would like to point to a couple of underpinning strategies for Altium’s new direction. The first strategy is openness. In the past, we had what we called a closed-system, which was applied to our platform, our relationship with the industry and forming partnerships. Closed system was actually necessary so that we could put our own platform
in the areas that are complimenting and expanding our reach to other key players in the industry, such as supply chain and components manufacturing. We also need to be open to form relationships with the investment community, so that we can, if needed in the future, to raise capital for mergers and acquisitions, which we believe is going to add another dimension our openness strategy. I also think that openness strategy needs to be applied within the organization, to empower our people to co-create solutions with our partners. We must open the doors so that others can come in to
DXP platform has been extended to include the web as well as tools such as the PCB design, schematic capture, simulation router, and many more apps. Through Morfik, Altium has built a platform that allows the app to exist on the back-end server. These apps then surface through the DXP front-end next to PCB and Schematic. So when you build an app for this new platform, it will actually fit right in next to your PCB and Schematic, but it will be served
and applications together. Altium is now moving to implement its strategy of openness—opening up our platform to the outside world so that our customers can develop their own applications that could work with other applications on our platform. We also need to make sure that openness strategy goes beyond the platform and establish a much closer relationships with our customers. We would like to be open to form strategic partnerships
create a real ecosystem that would be much bigger than what Altium may able to achieve on its own.
Could you give us an example of the types of partnerships you are talking about and how they might make the experience for the designer more valuable or effective?Aram: An example that we have actually done quite a bit of work on, in terms of technology, is having what
“With smart devices, the web and the physical world come together. Altium is not making it happen, people are making it happen by aligning themselves with it. That’s what we see the device ecosystem as, and we feel that a CAD company such as ourselves can play an important role in this.”
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we call supply chain intelligence. As you go through your design process, information about parts is actually there within the CAD and you can tell about the availability and cost. Your bill of material is what we call a “live BOM,” so you can have a connection with a part supplier. This is an example of strategic partnership with part suppliers.
Kayvan: Strategic partnership is something that we see as a necessary strategy going forward. There are, of course, quite a large numbers of components and a few major suppliers Altium will be actively pursuing in order to form partnership with the key component suppliers. This isn’t something that will happen over a short period of time; it will be a strategy that we work towards in the short to medium term.
How many parts does Altium have for people who use the app?
Aram: Currently we have about 150,000 parts but hope to have 760,000 parts added throughout the next 2-3 years.
What are some of the features you expect us to see first over the next year?
We have been focusing on the DXP platform to include web and have a full professional development requirement for it. For the most part, it’s done and we should be rolling it out this year. As for the other developments, like supply chain intelligence, it’s been a big project that has been running for several years. We’ve reached a point where its roll out is imminent. We have also
been putting a lot of effort in features that our customers have been asking for, like productivity features and we have set up a section of our website that we call “Ideas,” where users put ideas up, and Altium will develop them. We are going to put a lot of effort into that area as well. The kind of things we’re thinking are multi-board systems (and the ability to work with them), which is one of the key areas that we can make some contribution towards by the virtue of the 3D capabilities that we have.
For more information about Altium, visit:
www.altium.com
Altium’s Design Software
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Optocouplers are the only isolation devices that meet or exceed the IEC 60747-5-5 International Safety Standard for insulation and isolation. Stringent evaluation tests show Avago’s optocouplers deliver outstanding performance on essential safety and deliver exceptional High Voltage protection for your equipment. Alternative isolation technologies such as ADI’s magnetic or TI’s capacitive isolators do not deliver anywhere near the high voltage insulation protection or noise isolation capabilities that optocouplers deliver.
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Smart, powerful tools forimplementing and re-usinghigh-integrity design data,without the risk.
ManagingElectronicsDesign Data
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Smart, powerful tools forimplementing and re-usinghigh-integrity design data,without the risk.
ManagingElectronicsDesign Data
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14 EEWeb | Electrical Engineering Community
As the process of developing electronic products has increased in complexity and involved more engineering domains, managing the huge array of design data that’s sourced and generated has become a crucial part of the task. Beyond the traditional notions of electronics design – developing hardware and software – engineers are spending an increasing amount of time sourcing, storing, reusing and releasing a wide variety of design data.
Maintaining the integrity of that design data across the entire product development process is an increasingly necessary part of today’s electronics design process, and its effectiveness can make the difference between commercial failure or success. This is largely about eliminating risk. The familiar risks are associated with introducing a new, unproven part into your design, but more importantly, there are risks associated with reusing existing design data. There are risks from the most basic design elements (such as component models) to high level blocks of functional circuitry and design output that is released to manufacturing.
Successfully managing risk and maintaining the integrity of existing design data will mean that a pool of proven design elements becomes available for new designs. The elements, from components to complete design sections, have been used in fully-developed, debugged production designs and are therefore known, trusted entities that can be dropped into new designs with a high level of confidence in their integrity.
The low design risk associated with this approach carries the cumulative benefit of being able to progressively build up higher level design elements (for example, blocks of circuitry) from known, trusted elements such as components or sub-circuits. When successfully used in a production design, that higher level design data can become the basis of even higher level design elements. Each stage of increasing design abstraction in the reusable elements is based on proven, high-integrity sub elements.
With the right data management systems in place the traditional risks associated with meaningful design reuse can be vastly reduced, and the task of taking a design from concept to production will become easier, safer and faster. What’s needed is a design data management system and methodology that allows robust data integrity and design reuse to exist in harmony with innovation, design freedom and productivity.
Altium Designer provides a powerful, scalable set of tools and technologies for managing and updating design data at all stages of the electronics development process. This includes version-controlled design repositories, a formal vault-based system for storing revisions of all board-level design content and released manufacturing data, the ability to manage the lifecycle of released (and reusable) content and components, cloud-based storage and live supply chain management for components and assemblies.
www.altium.com
Design reuse – manage and reuse existing design contentWith Altium Designer, design content can be released from the design space into a secure storage vault as a unique, traceable revision. Based on server technology, the managed vault system exists separately from the design system’s own project data storage, but can be accessed easily and directly through the design environment itself. The content is stored in a single location where it can be tracked and man-aged as released design data, and shared with authorized members of your organization.
From a design reuse view it means that you can reuse stored design content such as blocks of circuitry, components (and their constituent models) and templates with full confidence in their data integ-rity. You will know that an item is the latest revision, can be confident it hasn’t changed since it was released into the vault, and you can see where it’s already used in other designs thanks to powerful ‘where used’ capabilities built into the system.
By addressing the key issues of data integrity, the approach avoids the design risks associated with reusing even high level, multi-layered design sections. It opens the opportunity to structure the elec-tronics design process around Design for Reuse, where all design elements (from component models to complete designs sections) are released to the vault then reused accordingly.
With a Design for Reuse approach, reusing elements becomes the essence of the electronic design process, as opposed to it being just an adjunct or added design capability option. Vaults are central to the design methodology, where all design content is ultimately released from the fluid, creative design space to a managed, secure release vault. Subsequent, more complex design content can then be built up from those released elements, creating verified high-level IP that can be reused repeatedly with full confidence in its integrity.
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With Altium Designer, design content can be released from the design space into a secure storage vault as a unique, traceable revision.
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Design reuse – manage and reuse existing design content
With Altium Designer, design content can be released from the design space into a secure storage vault as a unique, traceable revision. Based on server technology, the managed vault system exists separately from the design system’s own project data storage, but can
be accessed easily and directly through the design environment itself. The content is stored in a single location where it can be tracked and managed as released design data, and shared with authorized members of your organization.
From a design-reuse view it means that you can reuse stored design content such as blocks of circuitry, components (and their constituent models) and templates with full confidence in their data integrity. You will know that an item is the latest revision, can be confident it hasn’t changed since it was released into the vault, and you can see where it’s already used in other designs, thanks to powerful ‘where used’ capabilities built into the system.
By addressing the key issues of data integrity, the approach avoids the design risks associated with reusing even high level, multi-layered design sections. It opens the opportunity to structure the electronics design process around Design for Reuse, where all design elements (from component models to complete designs sections) are released to the vault then reused accordingly.
With a Design for Reuse approach, reusing elements becomes the essence of the electronic design process, as opposed to it being just an adjunct or added design capability option. Vaults are central to the design
www.altium.com
Design reuse – manage and reuse existing design contentWith Altium Designer, design content can be released from the design space into a secure storage vault as a unique, traceable revision. Based on server technology, the managed vault system exists separately from the design system’s own project data storage, but can be accessed easily and directly through the design environment itself. The content is stored in a single location where it can be tracked and man-aged as released design data, and shared with authorized members of your organization.
From a design reuse view it means that you can reuse stored design content such as blocks of circuitry, components (and their constituent models) and templates with full confidence in their data integ-rity. You will know that an item is the latest revision, can be confident it hasn’t changed since it was released into the vault, and you can see where it’s already used in other designs thanks to powerful ‘where used’ capabilities built into the system.
By addressing the key issues of data integrity, the approach avoids the design risks associated with reusing even high level, multi-layered design sections. It opens the opportunity to structure the elec-tronics design process around Design for Reuse, where all design elements (from component models to complete designs sections) are released to the vault then reused accordingly.
With a Design for Reuse approach, reusing elements becomes the essence of the electronic design process, as opposed to it being just an adjunct or added design capability option. Vaults are central to the design methodology, where all design content is ultimately released from the fluid, creative design space to a managed, secure release vault. Subsequent, more complex design content can then be built up from those released elements, creating verified high-level IP that can be reused repeatedly with full confidence in its integrity.
2
www.altium.com
Supply chain management – parts availability and cost information, in real timeSelecting the right component during the design stage means knowing that its supply is assured for pro-duction, that its current cost is appropriate, the model information is correct and more. Altium Designer provides live links to component supplier information, so the vault-based revisions of approved com-ponents can be used in new designs with up-to-date knowledge of their lifecycle state, manufacturer, vendor and their current pricing and availability.
Collections of released components or assemblies can be built to create a catalog of company-ratified, approved parts and equivalents that provide the data and supply information you need to reuse those design elements with confidence. The result is that fully informed parts choices can be made at design time and from within the design environment, allowing you to plan for production earlier and eliminate potential delays or errors.
Design Release management – automated and high integrity
4
Unlike traditional, manual design release systems, Altium Designer provides a robust, automated andfully configurable design release process that targets an Altium vault. Released designs, typically packaged as full assemblies or bare boards for fabrication, are stored as locked, traceable revisions that are independent of the fluid content in the working design space.
Design content is automatically validated when released to a vault from Altium Designer, where thecontent is generated as project configurations that map design-side elements (typically a board design)to named item revisions in the vault (such as several assembly variations).
Everything is correct and in synch before the output files are generated, creating a high-integrity design release that includes all output files and a snapshot of the design itself. All elements are traceable back to the source files, and the releases data can be shared with approved manufacturers and partners using automated publishing to local or internet-based storage services. The result is a fully audited, high integrity design release system that takes the risk (and worry) out of sending a design to the production stage.
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16 EEWeb | Electrical Engineering Community
www.altium.com5
Altium Designer’s design data management system bridges the gap between electronics design and the broader product development process. Its advanced design management capabilities work in harmony with powerful, up-to-date core design tools, all within a single unified product development environment.
These capabilities combine with Altium’s advanced vault technology to enable a low-risk, design-for-re-use electronics product development approach that raises design integrity and quality, while enhancingproductivity and making maximum value out of your cumulative design IP and engineering talent.
You can reap its full benefits with an Altium subscription plan, which provides continuous softwareupdates, plugin modules for additional functionality, access to AltiumLive-hosted design content, theuse of Altium vaults servers, direct bug reporting, plus Altium and peer-based support.
Lifecycle management – from component models to complete board assembliesAlong with providing a secure, yet easily-accessible storage system for configured design release output, Altium’s vault technology includes integrated, permission-based lifecycle management. Implemented at a basic or advanced level (to align with company ERP, PLM infrastructure), the system allows you to control the state of released vault items (from constituent component data to complete board assemblies) as defined by what stage they have reached in their life and therefore what they can be safely used for.
The vault hierarchical data structure allows parent-child relationships to determine lifecycle states basedon dependencies. So if a child item (say a component footprint model) has only a ‘prototype’ status,its parent item (a unified component) cannot be advanced to the higher ‘production’ state. The approvalstate of design content can be accessed and managed from within the design space itself, whereyou can make informed decisions while you design with full confidence in the contents suitability andintegrity.
Advanced data managementfor next generation electronics design
www.altium.com
Supply chain management – parts availability and cost information, in real timeSelecting the right component during the design stage means knowing that its supply is assured for pro-duction, that its current cost is appropriate, the model information is correct and more. Altium Designer provides live links to component supplier information, so the vault-based revisions of approved com-ponents can be used in new designs with up-to-date knowledge of their lifecycle state, manufacturer, vendor and their current pricing and availability.
Collections of released components or assemblies can be built to create a catalog of company-ratified, approved parts and equivalents that provide the data and supply information you need to reuse those design elements with confidence. The result is that fully informed parts choices can be made at design time and from within the design environment, allowing you to plan for production earlier and eliminate potential delays or errors.
Design Release management – automated and high integrity
4
Unlike traditional, manual design release systems, Altium Designer provides a robust, automated andfully configurable design release process that targets an Altium vault. Released designs, typically packaged as full assemblies or bare boards for fabrication, are stored as locked, traceable revisions that are independent of the fluid content in the working design space.
Design content is automatically validated when released to a vault from Altium Designer, where thecontent is generated as project configurations that map design-side elements (typically a board design)to named item revisions in the vault (such as several assembly variations).
Everything is correct and in synch before the output files are generated, creating a high-integrity design release that includes all output files and a snapshot of the design itself. All elements are traceable back to the source files, and the releases data can be shared with approved manufacturers and partners using automated publishing to local or internet-based storage services. The result is a fully audited, high integrity design release system that takes the risk (and worry) out of sending a design to the production stage.
methodology, where all design content is ultimately released from the fluid, creative design space to a managed, secure release vault. Subsequent, more complex design content can then be built up from those released elements, creating verified high-level IP that can be reused repeatedly with full confidence in its integrity.
Supply chain management – parts availability and cost information, in real time
Selecting the right component during the design
stage means knowing that its supply is assured for production, that its current cost is appropriate, that model information is correct and more. Altium Designer provides live links to component supplier information, so the vault-based revisions of approved components can be used in new designs with up-to-date knowledge of their lifecycle state, manufacturer, vendor, and their current pricing and availability.
Collections of released components or assemblies can be built to create a catalog of company-ratified, approved parts and equivalents that provide the data and supply
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information you need to reuse those design elements with confidence. The result is that fully informed parts choices can be made at design time and from within the design environment, allowing you to plan for production earlier and eliminate potential delays or errors.
Design release management – automated and high integrity
Unlike traditional, manual design release systems, Altium Designer provides a robust, automated, and fully configurable design release process that targets an Altium vault. Released designs, typically packaged as full assemblies or bare boards for fabrication, are stored as locked, traceable revisions that are independent of the fluid content in the working design space.
Design content is automatically validated when released to a vault from Altium Designer, where the content is generated as project configurations that map design-side elements (typically a board design) to named item revisions in the vault (such as several assembly variations).
Everything is correct and in synch before the output files are generated, creating a high-integrity design release that includes all output files and a snapshot of the design itself. All elements are traceable back to the source files, and the released data can be shared with approved manufacturers and partners using automated publishing to local or internet-based storage services. The result is a fully audited, high integrity design release system that takes the risk (and worry) out of sending a design to the production stage.
Lifecycle management – from component models to complete board assemblies
Along with providing a secure, yet easily-accessible storage system for configured design release output, Altium’s vault technology includes integrated, permission-based lifecycle management. Implemented at a basic or advanced level (to align with company ERP, PLM infrastructure), the system allows you to control the state of released vault items (from constituent component data to complete board assemblies) as defined by what stage they have reached in their life and therefore what they can be safely used for.
The vault hierarchical data structure allows parent-child relationships to determine lifecycle states based on dependencies. So if a child item (say a component footprint model) has only a ‘prototype’ status, its parent item (a unified component) cannot be advanced to the
www.altium.com5
Altium Designer’s design data management system bridges the gap between electronics design and the broader product development process. Its advanced design management capabilities work in harmony with powerful, up-to-date core design tools, all within a single unified product development environment.
These capabilities combine with Altium’s advanced vault technology to enable a low-risk, design-for-re-use electronics product development approach that raises design integrity and quality, while enhancingproductivity and making maximum value out of your cumulative design IP and engineering talent.
You can reap its full benefits with an Altium subscription plan, which provides continuous softwareupdates, plugin modules for additional functionality, access to AltiumLive-hosted design content, theuse of Altium vaults servers, direct bug reporting, plus Altium and peer-based support.
Lifecycle management – from component models to complete board assembliesAlong with providing a secure, yet easily-accessible storage system for configured design release output, Altium’s vault technology includes integrated, permission-based lifecycle management. Implemented at a basic or advanced level (to align with company ERP, PLM infrastructure), the system allows you to control the state of released vault items (from constituent component data to complete board assemblies) as defined by what stage they have reached in their life and therefore what they can be safely used for.
The vault hierarchical data structure allows parent-child relationships to determine lifecycle states basedon dependencies. So if a child item (say a component footprint model) has only a ‘prototype’ status,its parent item (a unified component) cannot be advanced to the higher ‘production’ state. The approvalstate of design content can be accessed and managed from within the design space itself, whereyou can make informed decisions while you design with full confidence in the contents suitability andintegrity.
Advanced data managementfor next generation electronics design
higher ‘production’ state. The approval state of design content can be accessed and managed from within the design space itself, where you can make informed decisions while you design with full confidence in the contents suitability and integrity.
Advanced data management for next generation electronics design
Altium Designer’s design data management system bridges the gap between electronics design and the broader product development process. Its advanced design management capabilities work in harmony with powerful, up-to-date core design tools, all within a single unified product development environment.
These capabilities combine with Altium’s advanced vault technology to enable a low-risk, design-for-reuse electronics product development approach that raises design integrity and quality, while enhancing productivity and making maximum value out of your cumulative design IP and engineering talent.
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Making WirelessTruly Wireless:
Need For UniversalWireless Power
Solution
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JOINTODAY
NXP is a leader in low power capacitance touch sensors, which work based on the fact that the human body can serve as one of the capacitive plates in parallel to the second plate, connected to the input of the NXP capacitive sensor device.
Thanks to a patented auto-calibration technology, the capacitive sensors can detect changes in capacitance and continually adjust to the environment. Things such as dirt, humidity, freezing temperatures, or damage to the electrode do not affect the device function. The rise of touch sensors in modern electronics has become a worldwide phenomenon, and with NXP’s low power capacitive sensors it’s never been easier to create the future.
Learn more at: touch.interfacechips.com
World’s lowest power capacitivesensors with auto-calibration
EEWeb PULSE STARTUP SPOTLIGHT
20 EEWeb | Electrical Engineering Community
Cheap,Smart,
Tiny.
How TinyCircuits is producing robust hardwarein a small (tiny) package
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TinyCircuits is an Open Source Hardware company that designs and manufactures small—well—tiny electronics. The company’s founder, Ken Burns, is a gradu-ate of the University of Akron and worked at a few different compa-nies in the area designing every-thing embedded—from micropro-cessors to firmware to software. His experience in embedded product design led him to think about branching off to TinyCircuits around five years ago.
Got a penny?TinyCircuits’ ‘TinyLily’ Peripherals can fit three components on a penny with room to spare!
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The Idea“It was around the time that ZigBee and other wire-less sensor networks started to come out,” Burns told us, “and there was a lot of buzz around those in academia.” Burns started noticing that some of the customers at his previous company were interest-ed in bringing ZigBee wireless networks into their products. “I kind of had the feeling that there’s a really great business opportunity here,” Burns said, “we wanted to start this company based around small modules to achieve a basic idea.” This was around the same time that Arduinos were becom-ing really popular in the electronics world, and Burns saw an opportunity arise out of that. “The de-cision then was to standardize on Arduino’s popu-larity and make it very small,” Burns told us. “Their
initial target was for wireless sensor networks and that diverged towards a more generic, easy-to-use approach that could be used by hobbyists, but also embedded into their products.”
The Kickstarter ApproachWith the idea to start a company for small, easy-to-use and embeddable electronics, Burns turned to Kickstarter for some initial fundraising. While designing the Kickstarter campaign, Burns noticed some other benefits of using the site; “The biggest benefit of Kickstarter is using it as a marketing tool,” Burns explained, “we built some prototypes and showed them to a number of people that were extremely interested.” The campaign allowed thousands of people to view the prototypes and pledge money—ultimately raising around $110,000. While this sounds like a big investment, when people pledge
Ken Burns - Founder of TinyCircuits Photographs courtesy of Tim Hollister
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money on Kickstarter, they are essentially putting down some money to get something in return. If the project doesn’t meet its intended goal, then the pledgers get their money back—there is virtually no risk for pledgers as opposed to the traditional way of raising money with a group of investors. While the TinyCircuits Kickstarter surpassed their fundraising goal, the exposure proved to be equally beneficial; “We had about 15,000 people actually watch the video on Kickstarter,” Burns told us, “and in return, we had a huge amount of hits to our website. From that standpoint, it was really a great success.” A large portion of the Kickstarter funds went to TinyCircuits’ inventory and online web store.
The ProductsAs part of the initial launch of TinyCircuits, Burns and his team developed something based around the Arduino processor board with the idea that it could branch out into other processor families or modules. They have announced a WiFi board, a BlueTooth board and a GPS board—all in a very small form factor. “These are sorts of things that now allow people to very easily enable a product,” Burns told us, “where as before, with things like that, you’d be using a bunch of development boards from Microchip or whoever else and try to put something together that might not be ideal.” With TinyCircuits’ approach, according to Burns, you get a very unique result: “You can actually take the an idea, put it together in a very small form factor, prove a concept or even take that to market.” Keep your eyes peeled for TinyCircuit’s online web-store, which will make these tiny, easily programmable and embeddable circuits available to the masses.
To find out more information about TinyCircuits, visit:
www.tiny-circuits.com
Cheap, Smart, Tiny:How TinyCircuits is producingrobust hardware in a small package
Tiny products, big results.
By using an Arduino processor board,
TinyCircuits’ prod-ucts could easily
branch out into oth-er processor fami-
lies or modules.
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MicrocontrollerSecuritySystem
Robert RiemanComputer Engineering Student
The University Of Cincinnati
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MicrocontrollerSecuritySystem
Robert RiemanComputer Engineering Student
The University Of Cincinnati
How to create a basic home security system using the BASIC
Stamp homework board.
Robert Riemen
EEWeb PULSE PROJECT
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This kit has a breadboard attached as shown in the image below. There are 16 designated I/O pins on the left side of the bread board. The board also contains your standard Source voltage pins as well as ground pins. Because of the setup of this HomeWork Board, with the breadboard already pre-soldered, it is very easy to use components to develop moderately complex systems.
Circuit Construction
There is plenty of I/O involved in this project. The main list of components is as follows:
• Parallax Standard Servo Motor
• Sharp IR Sensor
• PIR Sensor
• Piezoelectric Speaker
• 2 NO Pushbuttons
• 10k Potentiometer
• Common Anode Seven Segment Display
• NPN Transistor
• BCD to Seven Segment Decoder (74LS47)
• LCD Screen
• 4 LED’s
• Red
• Green
• Yellow
• Bi-Color LED
All of these components have to be taken into consideration when developing this project. The BASIC Stamp homework board has a 20/25 mA Source/Sink current, and a 500 mA Vdd Source Current. The board also has a 5 V power supply through an LM2936 regulator from a 9V transistor battery. If there are too many components drawing too much current and/or voltage, the system will not be able to run. Fortunately, my Homework board was able to rise to the challenge and effectively house each I/O component listed above.
With this in mind, construct the circuit for this system in the figure on the left.
Use 14 I/O pins to house the 10 main components. There a quite a lot of components to fit on the small breadboard that is mounted on the BASIC Stamp Homework board.
100 kΩ
(+5) Vdd
+ –
Vss
100 kΩ
0.1 µF
1 kΩ
1 kΩ
1 kΩ
1 kΩ
1 kΩ
1 kΩ
1 kΩ
220 Ω
220 Ω
10 kΩ
Pot
Nc
10 kΩ10 kΩ
220 Ω
470 kΩ
470 kΩ
470 kΩ YELLOW
GREEN
LIGHT GREEN
RED470 kΩ
F
Pin 15
Pin 14
Pin 13
Pin 12
Pin 11
Pin 10
Pin 9
Pin 8
Pin 7
Pin 6
Pin 5
Pin 4
Pin 3
Pin 2
Pin 1
Pin 0
F
F
F
F
F
F
0.1 µF
Seven SegmentDisplay
PIRSensor
BCD
To
Seven
Segment
Decoder
ServoMotor
Sharp IRSensor
This basic security system will be similar to that of a home security system, such an ADT Home security system. Many of the I/O components from the original BASIC Stamp Activity Kit will be used in conjunction with two IR sensors and a LCD screen. Using this and an effective program, a capable security system can be created.
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You will also need two extra breadboards in order to fit all the components. A physical setup is shown above.
Most of the components have a simple setup. This means that either they are directly connected to the I/O pin or they have the use of a resistor to limit current flow from the I/O pin. However, the circuit contains a BCD to Seven Segment Decoder integrated circuit (IC) and a NPN Transistor to help simplify the design. This helps reduce the number of pins used. There are only 15 pins on the Basic Stamp HomeWork Board, and to keep costs low, there was no reason to upgrade to the professional
version with 15+ pins. I begin with implementing the BCD to Seven Segment Decoder IC.
You can see in the image that there is a BCD to Seven Segment Decoder IC, which is included because in order to power the Seven Segment Display, eight pins have to be configured. There are a total of 16 pins, which then reduces total pins to seven. This project needs more than seven open pins. The BCD to Seven Segment Decoder reduces the pins required by the Seven Segment display to four pins. Four extra pins can now be used for other I/O.
The NPN transistor is setup as:
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The diagram on page 29 shows how to interface the Sharp IR distance sensor with an NPN transistor. This setup is actually much easier than the setup suggested by Parallax’s original documentation posted on their website. In the original documentation, the setup calls for an Analog to Digital Conversion to take place in the program code. Unfortunately, with all of the I/O involved, it would have been impossible to implement Analog to Digital conversion without upgrading EEPROM. So, using this method we can use the standard RCTIME function to read the charging and discharging time of the capacitor. From this reading, distance of an object (or intruder) can be detected.
How it all Works (Program Flow)
With so many components, the possibilities should be endless. But, with only 2KB standard EEPROM, there is only so much that can be programmed. With that in mind, the system will be designed as follows:
• System will be idle waiting for user to enter a passcode
• A potentiometer is used to cycle through 0-9
• 0-9 displayed on seven segment display
• Passcode is 4 separate numbers
• User gets three tries to enter passcode
• Alarm sounds if incorrect more than three times
• LCD shows what numbers have been entered
• LEDs will symbolize the status of the system.
• A yellow LED will show idle status
• A green LED will show active status, meaning the passcode is correct and users are allowed in
• A red LED will show alarm status
• LED will blink when alarmed
• Sound system will be used to notify users alongside LEDs
• Short negative beep to indicate incorrect passcode
• Short neutral beep to indicate pushbutton pressed
• Short positive beep when user enters correct password and gains entry to system.
• Alarm type sound notification if system is alarmed
• The system will be programmable
• Change passcode
• Change time limit of active system
• The system will be programmable when the user holds the reset button for 3 seconds
• Sensors implemented
• Sensor to watch if someone is present when entering passcode
• Sample sensor to monitor a room for intruders.
• LCD (Debug Window) to be implemented for alphabetical display
• Shows passcode that has been entered
• Shows message for idle status
• Used to select time limit
• General notifications for ease of use.
• Security
• System will alarm if the system is in idle mode but he system doesn’t sense anything in from of the panel.
• If there is anything detected in the room behind the door controlled by the servo, then an alarm sounds
• If an intruder enters the wrong passcode 3 times, an alarm sounds
• User has to enter current passcode before entering new passcode.
• If the system alarms, two things have to happen before the alarm is reset.
• The user has to hold the reset button to acknowledge the alarm
• The user has to type in the stored passcode correctly
Having this programmed will bring total EEPROM used to around 97%! Having this much code actually does not slow down functionality, however. With the BASIC Stamp Homework Board, the code involved is of language I used PBASIC because it is much simpler to involve than another coding language.
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My idea behind using a potentiometer to control the number on the Seven Segment display is to emulate a spinning combination lock. To make a more sleek looking design, use a Common Anode Seven Segment display where the pins are on the top and bottom on the underside of the device. As shown in the picture below, the display can appear sideways if you have a display with pins on the sides. ■
Final Update
Before posting this article, I decided to modify the project to include an enclosure. This final version is what I would like a prototype to look like for the security system. The final version has the LCD added, but the servo motor has been removed. In terms of modification of the above circuit, the servo motor has the same connections as the serial LCD. These images are of the final circuit as well as the system in an enclosure.
