Product category:
Programmable Logic Devices
News Release from: Cypress Semiconductor | Subject: PSoC
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 20 November 2003
Controller tackles smart lighting design
Cypress MicroSystems has developed an electronic ballast design example using its award-winning PSoC mixed-signal array with an embedded microcontroller.
Cypress MicroSystems has developed an electronic ballast design example using its award-winning PSoC mixed-signal array with an embedded microcontroller The flexibility of PSoC allows the design engineer to streamline the development of electronic lighting systems
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 7 Feb 2002 at 8.00am (UK)
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Cypress MicroSystems (CMS) will show its latest generation of PSoC (Programmable System on Chip) microcontroller devices and PSoC Designer software at this years' Embedded System Show.
This design example highlights the single-chip electronic dimming ballast controller that includes Digital Addressable Lighting Interface (DALI) communication capability.
The PSoC family of products provides an easy-to-use, cost effective solution for engineers building advanced lighting designs.
"Thirty to forty percent of the energy used in a typical building is for lighting", said Nathan John, Director of Strategic Marketing for Cypress MicroSystems.
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"DALI ballasts enable central digital control of fluorescent lighting fixtures, providing the capability to dim individual fixtures in response to changes in ambient light; this "light harvesting" results in substantial energy savings.
Using PSoC, designers can quickly implement complete DALI lighting solutions that are fast, inexpensive and highly reliable".
The PSoC lighting solution enables 1-100% dimming (per DALI spec EN60929), yielding a considerable energy saving.
PSoC manages both the ballast control functions as well as the communication between lighting fixtures and their controllers.
This is in contrast to other solutions on the market that require two devices to perform the dimming ballast capability: one chip to control the ballast function and one chip to manage the communication interface.
PSoC based electronic ballast designs typically require a bill of materials with fewer than 90 parts, contributing to a considerable cost reduction over competing solutions.
The PSoC lighting product family is based on Cypress's reconfigurable mixed-signal array with an on board controller.
PSoC devices offer a highly integrated mix of analogue and digital logic, memory and processing circuitry in one small package.
In contrast, traditional microcontroller based solutions require additional chips to perform functions such as signal amplification, filtering, analogue to digital conversion, LCD control, and real time clock generation.
By leveraging PSoC's flexible hardware resources and intuitive development software, designers can not only reduce development time and costs but can also easily adapt their designs to match the unique requirements of each system.
PSoC devices are high performance, field programmable, mixed signal arrays with on board microcontrollers for high volume embedded control functions in consumer, industrial, office automation, telecom and automotive applications.
PSoC devices integrate programmable blocks of analogue and digital logic, a fast 8bit CPU, 8 to 16Kbyte of flash memory and 256byte of SRAM.
The PSoC family includes pre-programmed, specialised versions for lighting, energy, motor control, communications, automotive and battery applications.
Each family member comes with a reference design and extensive application notes to speed application development.
PSoC devices provide designers with a flexible architecture that can be configured for a broad range of embedded applications and dynamically reconfigured to extend the capabilities and value of their product.
The PSoC platform typically reduces customer development time by 33% and lowers bill of material costs by an average of $5 by significantly reducing the number of chips required for solutions using a traditional microcontroller and discrete digital and analogue components.
Customers starting PSoC designs may purchase the basic development kit, for $399.
This kit which includes a full-featured emulator, as well as software, documentation and samples allows engineers to be immediately productive on their PSoC designs.
The kit is can be purchased from licensed distributors or directly from the Cypress online store.
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