Five suspense hits in portable product design

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At present, portable products have penetrated into all aspects of our lives and become the leading force in the advancement of the semiconductor industry. On the other hand, there are more and more types of portable products, such as portable products such as MP3, MP4, PMP, UMPC, PND, MID, and mobile TV terminals. It is constantly emerging, and the portable functions are increasingly powerful. It not only provides entertainment functions such as audio and video playback, but also provides functions such as navigation, Internet access, and business. As portable products change with each passing day, one question also begins to plague portable design engineers: future portable Will the product be fused? How to integrate? What features are merged? How to deal with the power management challenges of portable products? July 17-18, 2008, at the "PDPM2008 - 4th Portable Product Design and Power Management Technology Seminar" hosted by Shenzhen Creative Times, from In-Stat China, 3M, Fairchild, Infineon, Seiko Experts from well-known domestic and foreign companies such as Patriot, Zhongdian Equipment, Huaheng Technology, etc. delivered a wonderful speech and discussed the five suspense of portable product design.



Suspense one: Fusion VS is not integrated?



The ancients said: "The long-term must be divided, the long-term must be combined." The current portable products seem to be fulfilling this sentence, "fusion" is the hottest topic of portable products. In-Stat China industry analyst Tong Wenxia, ​​who has been tracking research on mobile terminals, pointed out: "At present, the boundaries of mobile terminals are becoming increasingly blurred, and mobile terminals exhibit multiple networks and versatility, and with users Demand is intensifying, and future portable products will be network-based feature-oriented products."


Figure 1: The boundaries of mobile terminals are increasingly blurred, communication, consumption, and computing are already in convergence.


Figure 2: Mobile terminal presents multi-networking and multi-function features

Tong Wenxia said that the In-Stat survey shows that 62.2% of PMP users want to have a mobile multimedia terminal that can support games, audio and video, network and communication. 49.8% of PMP users hope that the new PMP function is to support wireless Internet access. And 59.4% of portable game console users want a mobile multimedia terminal that can support games, audio, video, network and communication. 46.4% of portable game console users want new features to support wireless Internet access. It can be seen that wireless Internet access is supported. One of the features that many users demand, she said that the emergence of MID is in line with this demand. In addition, the data shows that as of January 2008, the number of active mobile Internet users in China reached 50.4 million, with a growth rate of more than 26%. Although the penetration rate of China Mobile Internet users is close to 10%, most of them are based on WAP/BREW. Therefore, China Mobile Internet has great potential.


Figure 3: China's Internet users, mobile phone users and mobile Internet users

Also, the terminal value is shifting to the delivery and back-end services, so she made a bold guess: Will there be a big terminal?


Figure 4: Will the terminal of the big one appear?

After comparing the success of the iPhone, she predicted that the future of portable terminals will be based on the network to achieve a pattern of blooming.


Figure 5: Portable products with network as the core to achieve convergence

For her big unified terminal guess, Zeng Xuefeng, a senior product manager from China Electronic Equipment Shenzhen Co., Ltd. said: "If you only consider the function integration without considering the cost, it will be difficult to have a market. Now the camera phone can go to 500. Ten thousand pixels, but I really like to use a separate camera to take pictures, so I think the integration is only in the market segment."



In order to provide multimedia design solutions, Chen Yifei, technical director of Hangzhou Aipu Duo Digital Technology Co., Ltd. pointed out that it is best to increase the cost without integration. In fact, each kind of integration brings about an increase in cost, while domestic cities in China are costs. Very sensitive places, and consumers have more needs, the future market should be a diversified market, mobile phones do not necessarily annex other forms, but other products will continue to emerge, like CMMB or when playing on TV and movies. When you are the main player, you will definitely notice the size of the screen and the size of the TV. The diversified form will exist for a long time, but the mobile phone should lead some trends.



Deng Guoyuan, CTO of Shenzhen Patriot Embedded System Technology Co., Ltd. said that the development of general electronic products is based on functional integration, and then tailored according to user needs and costs. Such products are what users want. Fusion can't just consider features and technology.



Zhu Gu, the manager of 3M Projection Department, vividly pointed out: "The red light can't go, sometimes the green light can't go. We can't believe that the fusion will be the mainstream because of the success of one or two companies' company fusion products. The success of the iPhone is not only the design. The success of the operation is more successful in the operation and business model, so whether to develop a converged product should be considered according to the actual situation of each company and the application environment."



Suspense two: small screen VS big screen?



Consumers want to have a TV or PC-like experience on portable products, but the screen of the portable product becomes the key to restricting the experience. Therefore, the screen of portable products such as mobile phones is constantly increasing, but the increase of the screen is limited. When the screen size of the portable product exceeds the size of the pocket, it will inevitably bring the portable product to the same. How to solve this contradiction? 3M, known for its innovation, has brought breakthrough technology to the 3M micro-optical engine. Zhu Gu, manager of 3M Projection Division, pointed out that this 21-gram projector can be integrated into almost all portable products, which can perfectly solve the display problem of portable products.


Figure 6: 3M's miniature optical engine can project a 50-inch screen

Zhu Gu pointed out: "Since the birth of the handheld device, its camera pixels have increased by 19 times, memory has increased by 320 times, network bandwidth has increased by 1000 times, and its screen size has only increased by 2 times! Such a large gap also shows portable products. The display technology is in urgent need of improvement. Especially after the development of 3G, various games and videos need a big screen!"


Figure 7: Development of various indicators for portable products

However, there is an inherent contradiction between display size and physical portability: if the display size is large, it cannot be portable, and it can only be powered by AC power. If it is portable, it can only be powered by a battery, and now the size cannot be too large, and the portable projection device is solved. A good strategy for this contradiction, but the conventional projection equipment also has the disadvantages of sufficient brightness, poor color saturation, large power consumption, large size and no portable belt. In this regard, Zhu Gu pointed out: "3M has multiple technologies for the above defects. Respond to: Solve the problem of volume and weight of projection equipment with multi-layer organic optical film and plastic PBS technology, solve the color saturation problem with Lcos projection chip and color gamut filtering technology, solve with high power LED and LED concentrating technology. Power and brightness issues."

Figure 8: Principles of LCOS imaging


Figure 9: Organic optical film technology reported in the journal Science in the United States


Figure 10: Reduced volume of plastic PBS technology

Zhu Gu said that the projection can reach VGA resolution at present, 3M is developing a wide-screen optical engine supporting WVGA, and stressed that 3M is very optimistic about the prospect of this technology, product planning has been in 2012. In the live demonstration, this projection device can display a variety of pictures and videos, etc., all have excellent performance, causing great interest to the audience. Patriot’s Deng Guoyuan said that the Patriots have been considering this feature with 3M to integrate into the Patriot’s portable products. Some engineers also said that the product may break the boundaries between personal consumption and business applications, and may trigger new applications. For example, combined with virtual keyboard projection, you can create the perfect application.


Figure 11: Projection device combined with a virtual keyboard

Zhu Gu pointed out that the data of a research company shows that from 2008 to 2012, the compound annual growth rate of mobile phone projection equipment will reach 140%! Shipments will increase from 490,000 in 2008 to 16.39 million! Can be described as creating a new blue ocean field!


Figure 12: The compound annual growth rate of mobile phone projection reaches 140%!

Suspense three: Linux OS VS WinCE/WinMobile

Linux, which has always held the open source banner, has been highly respected by the industry, but the owners of proprietary operating systems have also attacked Linux with maintenance vulnerabilities. In the development of portable products, with the decline of Motorola, the share of Linux has declined, and with the strength and gradually open source of Microsoft, the share of WinCE and Windows Mobile is rising rapidly. What kind of OS has been chosen for portable development in itself has always been a topic of concern for engineers. In this regard, the Patriot is CTO Deng Guoyuan said: "After several years of development, the Patriots have launched a Linux-based software platform with completely independent intellectual property rights." "For portable products that do not require Internet access, Linux OS is more suitable, but if you WinCE is better for browsing the webpage, because many vendors have optimized and certified WinCE. For example, Freescale's iMAX31 is optimized for WinCE and has certain advantages when browsing the web." He stressed. "The advantage of Linux is that you can optimize according to your own needs, and the flexibility is great. For OS such as WinCE, it is more difficult to optimize."


Figure 13: Patriot's multimedia system platform software architecture



Zhou Hao, sales manager of South China, of China Open Source Technology Co., Ltd., introduced the ADI Blackfin BF547 @ 533MHz DSP-based PMP solution developed by the company, emphasizing the open source uClinux operating system adopted by the solution, and pointed out that since uCLinux is embedded The TCP/IP protocol can support some Internet applications, such as Wi-Fi applications.



However, In-Stat's Tong Wenxia pointed out that the competition of the operating system, although it is currently a three-legged situation, but when the operating system is open, the future will become the era of application-oriented, and the competition of operating systems will decline.



Suspense 4: National Standard TMMB VS Standard CMMB



On June 24 this year, the selection of mobile TV/mobile multimedia national standard led by the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Standards Commission became a positive result. The T-MMB system developed by Beijing New Shoreline Company was officially promulgated as the national standard for mobile TV/mobile multimedia in China. After the results were announced, the industry was stunned, and the question of TMMB was heard. The Ministry of Broadcasting and Television clearly expressed its support for its standard CMMB. At present, only 20 days from the Olympics, who will be the winner of the mobile TV service during the Olympic Games? At the 17th portable product design seminar, it seems that the result has been clear: that is, CMMB will be popular, and Deng Guoyuan, CTO of Shenzhen Patriot Embedded System Technology Co., Ltd., a major manufacturer of portable terminal products, clearly stated: "The Patriots have developed Support CMMB and DMB-TH mobile TV solutions, because CMMB signals have covered 37 large and medium cities across the country, including 6 Olympic cities and Shenzhen, Guangzhou. In addition, the Ministry of Broadcasting and Television clearly supports CMMB, which will provide a large number of program sources. Therefore, we are more optimistic about this standard."


Figure 14 Current coverage of CMMB

In addition, he said that the CMMB promotion model has five main businesses, including TV broadcasting, sound broadcasting (a CMMB terminal can be used as a radio), data broadcasting (such as stock information, regional information, etc.), electronic business guide, Emergency broadcasts, etc., in this way, CMMB has a clearer business model, which is one reason why he is optimistic about CMMB. Deng Guoyuan said that the Patriots have developed a related multimedia system platform. Terminal products supporting the CMMB standard have also been launched, and mobile TV services can be provided during the Olympics.


Figure 15 Patriot's multimedia system platform


Figure 16 Mobile TV terminal developed by Patriots

In addition to the Patriots, at the seminar on the 17th, Hangzhou Aipu Duo Digital Technology Co., Ltd. also demonstrated its own CMMB solution based on the ADI BlackfinDSP-based BF52X series. The company's technical director Chen Yifei revealed that the company's products have Dual-mode CMMB mobile TV stick, built-in CMMB PMP, external CMMB PMP and CMMB-enabled mobile TV sticks, PC TV stick can be plugged into the PC to realize PC TV function, PMP TV stick is inserted into Aipu Duo PMP, ie PMP TV function can be realized, the built-in CMMB receiving module has low power consumption and can provide 6 hours of TV broadcast. The external CMMB TV PMP adopts the USB-OTG format and supports the CMMB mobile TV stick, which can realize the mobile TV function immediately without changing the existing PMP shell.



Suspense 5: Multifunction VS Power Management



Power is the source of a rich experience for all portable products. How do power management technologies provide sufficient power for multiple functions for a variety of portable products? This is the main topic of the 18th seminar. Experts from TI, ST, Fairchild, Infineon, Japan SII Seiko and China Power Equipment Shenzhen Company elaborated on three aspects: device, technology and battery.

At the power management device level, Zheng Guoqing, application engineer of Infineon Technologies, pointed out that to support the diverse functions of portable products and improve the efficiency of switching power supply, he introduced Infineon's latest OptiMOS3 product, which uses a unique channel and The packaging technology reduces the on-resistance of the MOSFET to the lowest level in the world.


Figure 17 OptiMOSFET uses a unique packaging technology

He pointed out that the figure of merit FOM (by the on-resistance multiplied by the gate charge) is a key parameter in measuring MOSFET efficiency, and the FOM of Infineon MOSFETs can reach the lowest level in the industry.


Figure 18 FOM comparison of OptisMOS3

In addition, Infineon has licensed DirectFET from IR and named the CanPAK package, which provides better MOSFET heat dissipation.


Figure 19 CanPAK has lower thermal resistance



Xing Xianfeng, an application engineer from STMicroelectronics, introduced ST's PM6641, a power management chip for UMPCs, which provides an array of high-precision power supplies.


Figure 20 ST's PM6641 is specifically developed for portable products such as UMPC

The chip features high integration, three independent, adjustable, out-of-phase buck switching power supplies for DDR2/3 (VDDQ) and chipset power supplies; fast response, constant frequency, peak current mode control; independent ' Power good 'signal; all outputs are equipped with active soft termination circuitry.

At the technical level, Meng Xianghao, a systems engineer from TI, introduced TI's new achievements in power management technology for portable products. He pointed out that after research, TI found that the backlight consumes the main power of portable products, mainly because the backlight size is getting larger and larger, the backlight needs to work all the time and many operations require higher brightness such as GPS. In response to these characteristics, he proposed the following solutions:

1, the detection of ambient brightness - this can save power and improve reading comfort.


Figure 21 Ambient light detection reduces power consumption

2, dynamic brightness adjustment - is to adjust the brightness of the backlight according to the difference in the image. Assuming that there are more snow scenes in this picture, the brightness of the backlight will be brighter. However, in the picture based on the night scene, the backlight can be adjusted to be darker, so that the overall power loss is relatively small, and the contrast effect of the same display will be higher.


Figure 22 Dynamic backlight adjustment technology can also reduce power consumption

The above functions can be realized by the following circuits.


Figure 23 concrete implementation circuit

Cao Yu, a technology marketing manager from Fairchild Semiconductor, introduced the level shifter and serializer/deserializer technology used in mobile phone design. He believes that this technology and the portable products represented by mobile phones have power efficiency and standby time. There is a big relationship. He pointed out that people want the standby power of the mobile phone to be less than 1 mA, but in practice, there is often a phenomenon of exceeding the standard, which is caused by the level mismatch. The first type of device he introduced is a level shifter that unifies the high or low voltages of two different logics to prevent leakage.


Figure 24 Level Conversion Application Example

The other is a serialization/deserializer for high-speed transmission. Its function is to reduce the parallel data lines to several serial lines. This can improve the mechanical feasibility and the second is to have higher resistance. Interference ability can eliminate EMI.

Figure 25 Benefits of the serializer/deserializer application



At the battery level, Zhang Wei from Japan SII Seiko Electronics Co., Ltd. introduced the company's multi-cell lithium battery protection solution. He pointed out that the current circuit protection for multi-cell lithium batteries is generally in the form of single chip and tandem. . A single chip uses a chip to correspond to all the cells. The advantage of this method is that the composition is very simple, but it has a fatal disadvantage that the number of corresponding batteries is not flexible enough, and the clustering method causes the peripheral circuit to be too complex.


Figure 26 Current battery protection example

He pointed out that Semen's multi-cell lithium protection scheme S-8204 combines the advantages of the above protection, not only the circuit is simple, but also solves the withstand voltage problem.

Figure 27 Seiko's solution features









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