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Monday, January 13, 2020

Flex teams to boost supply chain for IoT sensor nodes

By Nick Flaherty www.flaherty.co.uk

Contract manufacturer Flex has teamed with QuickLogic and Infineon Technologies on a design kit and a System-in-Package (SiP) for high volume production of Internet of Things (IoT) devices. 

The 12 x 12mm SiP is part of the FLEXino Sensor Fusion Development Kit for rapid prototyping of sensor fusion IoT products requiring audio, pressure and motion sensing, Bluetooth and WiFi capabilities. The aim is to move the designs quickly into volume production.

The development kit contains an ESP32 controller board with Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity and a sensor fusion daughter board, created in collaboration with QuickLogic and Infineon. The daughter board integrates QuickLogic’s EOS S3 SoC platform with Infineon’s DPS310 digital barometric pressure sensor and IM69D130 digital MEMS microphone in addition to a 6-axis IMU and a 64Mb SPI flash.

This daughter board has been miniaturised to create the SiP using Flex proprietary packaging processes and this frees the selected host processor from the sensor fusion workloads. The Flex proprietary SiP form factor can be customised for different sensor fusion applications and easily integrates into new or existing products.

The kit is compatible with the Adafruit Feather ecosystem and the hardware configuration addresses several use cases, as the sensor fusion algorithm is software configurable.

“The FLEXino Sensor Fusion Development Kit and SiP are designed to help bring a variety of next-generation and existing IoT devices to market faster,” said Dave Gonsiorowski, vice president of  Innovation Services & Solutions at Flex. “A significant challenge with IoT design today is the availability of flexible integrated development kits that easily transition to high-volume manufacturing. We are proud to have collaborated with QuickLogic and Infineon and provide a solution that enables customers across several industries to design products at unprecedented speeds.”

“Flex and QuickLogic worked closely together to integrate our EOS S3 SoC ultra-low power voice and sensor processing platform with their FLEXino Sensor Fusion Development Kit and SiP,” said Brian Faith, chief executive officer of QuickLogic. “The development kit includes a sensor fusion daughter board featuring the EOS S3 SoC, and the SiP version miniaturizes the same functionality into a single package that can be used for volume production. By working with Flex and Infineon, we are able to deliver sensor fusion customers a complete and seamless development path.”

“The collaboration is another step by Infineon to make the products we use every day smarter using our advanced sensor and sensor fusion software technologies,” said Philipp Von Schierstaedt, vice president and general manager, Radio Frequency and Sensors at Infineon Technologies. “The development kit combined with Infineon’s digital sensors and microphones delivers seamless, effortless interactions between people and the next generation of IoT devices across multiple industries.”

The FLEXino Sensor Fusion Development Kit is available now, and the System-in-Package is scheduled to be available the first quarter of 2020. 

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