Digi-Key at Embedded World 2022 with Broadcom

Marko explains that Broadcom, a global infrastructure technology company, is largely focused on position sensing, but are notably honing-in on optical position sensing and magnetic position sensing, which is an area seeing more and more growth.

Position sensing and motion control encoders

Almost anything that moves via electric or hydraulic power needs position sensing and motion control encoders. Motion control encoders translate mechanical motion into electrical signals. They can be used in almost anything, regardless of its size.

Broadcom have its encoding and position sensing roots in Silicon Valley, where it originally produced motion sensors from printers.

Good quality, as well as proven and reliable technology are key qualities of Broadcom’s components.

Trends in the market

Harvesting technology is a trend that Broadcom are seeing in the market. Hepp commented: “It is technology with more than 1 million pieces already proven, very reliable and very efficient.” With harvesting technology you do not require batteries, and you can make things smaller.

Another trend it is seeing is that of functional safety, which means that systems need to be able to detect or diagnose the extent of a hazard to limit risks to safety. Also becoming more and more important is higher integration and easier use for the application engineers.

New products

The AR25, an absolute optical encoder with a high resolution and a direct interface ability with energy harvesting, is a tailor-made and scalable solution.

The ADR9920, a single track optical incremental solution with an embedded index which makes the system half of the size of plastic systems, so things can be made much smaller, lighter and portable.

The AT9950, and the dual chip version 9966, are magnetic encoder products that are functional safety capable.

Broadcom continues to raise its standards and make its products easy for end users without compromising on quality. Functional safety, conditioner monitoring, a combination of sensors is one of the bigger areas they are going into.