Oct 18 2012
Intersil Corporation, a leader in the design and manufacture of high-performance analog, mixed-signal and power management semiconductors, will demonstrate practical sensor signal conditioning solutions for thermocouple, pressure and strain gauges at the Renesas DevCon October 22-25 at the Hyatt Regency in Orange County, California.
The Intersil designs are targeted for industrial, medical and data acquisition applications. Each design includes a sensor, signal conditioning circuits and a Renesas microcontroller. Design engineers can review the reference design and evaluation platform for early prototype development here: http://www.intersil.com/en/applications/industrial/renesas.html
The Intersil pressure and strain gauge sensor signal conditioning designs use a combination of Intersil devices along with a Renesas RL78 microcontroller for extracting small sensor signals riding on a high common mode voltage of up to 10V. Amplification, filtering and analog-to-digital conversion are performed, and the output is delivered to the RL78 MCU for further digital processing. The Intersil solution provides 24-bit low noise precision signal conditioning with a complete analog-to-digital front-end including the ISL28617, a low noise 40V instrumentation amplifier with integrated ADC driver, the ISL28134, a 5V low noise zero-drift op amp, the delta sigma ADC, and the ISL21090, an ultra-low noise precision bandgap voltage reference, among others. A software interface is included for evaluation purposes.
A K-type thermocouple temperature sensor demo board includes cold junction compensation circuitry using the ISL28134 zero drift chopper stabilized amplifier, a 24-bit low noise ADC and the Renesas RL78 MCU. A software interface is included.
"Intersil's low noise and low power precision amps, voltage references and 24-bit delta sigma ADC are perfect matches for the Renesas low power RL78 microcontroller," said Don LaFontaine, Senior Principal Application Engineer and Senior Engineering Manager at Intersil. "This combination enables the engineer to design a high performance sensor front-end capable of measuring the very small signals found in sensor applications."
"We are excited to have Intersil join us at the Renesas DevCon to highlight its sensor solutions," said Ritesh Tyagi, senior director, Microcontroller Products & Solution Marketing, Renesas Electronics America. "Sensor-integrated, "smart" applications offer new levels of intelligence and efficiency for markets like industrial, building automation and medical, but require design collaboration across the signal chain; Combining the low-power capabilities of Renesas' RL78 MCUs with Intersil's high-precision analog expertise provides customers with a complete solution they're looking for to help bring their applications to market quickly and efficiently."