Programmable analogue SoCs suit multi-sensor systems

The PSoC Analog Coprocessor integrates programmable analogue blocks, including a new Universal Analogue Block (UAB), which can be configured with GUI-based software components. This combination simplifies the design of custom AFEs for sensor interfaces by allowing engineers to update sensor features quickly with no hardware or host processor software changes, while also reducing BOM costs.

For example, in home automation applications, engineers can easily configure the PSoC Analog Coprocessor to continuously monitor multiple sensors, such as temperature, humidity, ambient light, motion and sound, allowing the host to stay in a standby low-power mode. Future design changes to support new sensor types can also be easily implemented by reconfiguring the programmable analogue blocks. Cypress will demonstrate the PSoC Analog Coprocessor, along with its PSoC, FM Flexible MCU, BLE and Energy Harvesting PMIC solutions at Sensors Expo from 21st to 23rd June in booth 416 at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose.

The design of custom sensor interfaces is enabled by Cypress’s free PSoC Creator IDE, which simplifies system design by enabling concurrent hardware and firmware development using PSoC Components - free embedded ICs represented by an icon in the IDE. Engineers can easily configure the programmable analogue blocks in the PSoC Analog Coprocessor by dragging and dropping components on the PSoC Creator schematic and customising them with graphical component configuration tools. The components offer fully engineered embedded initialisation, calibration and temperature correction algorithms.

John Weil, Vice President, MCU Marketing, Cypress, commented: “The PSoC Analog Coprocessor makes sensor interface design accessible to embedded systems engineers without requiring expertise in analogue system design; this comes with the added benefit of enabling rapid prototyping and design iterations in software with no hardware changes by simply modifying components in PSoC Creator. Cypress has pioneered and perfected programmable analog technology for 15 years and now our PSoC Analog Coprocessor provides the most programmable analogue IP per square millimetre in a tiny chip-scale package.”

The PSoC Analog Coprocessor is available in a 3.7x2.0mm chip-scale package option. Based on a 32-bit ARM Cortex-M0+ signal processing engine, it delivers a low-cost, fully programmable AFE with op amps, programmable gain amplifiers, analogue multiplexers, ADCs, analogue filters and DACs.

PSoC solutions bring the flash-based equivalent of a field-programmable ASIC to embedded designs without lead-time or NRE penalties. PSoC integrates configurable analogue and digital circuits with an on-chip MCU, reducing component count and simplifying revisions. A single PSoC device can integrate as many as 100 peripheral functions, accelerating cycle time and improving quality while reducing board space, power consumption and system cost.

PSoC 'future-proofs' designs, protecting them against last-minute specifications changes. It enables firmware-based changes at any point in the design cycle - even out in the field. All PSoC devices are dynamically reconfigurable, enabling designers to transform resources on-the-fly and to execute tasks with fewer ICs.