Long-Range Wireless Sensors

Hardware modules for communicating with battery-powered End-Points over a long-range wireless link are GSC's most recent developments (jointly with IceWire).

The modules are based on spread-spectrum, LoRa-compatible, sub 1 GHz, transceivers from Semtech (SX1276). These transceivers can operate through walls over very long distances (up to 15km in rural setting). Modules are optimized for battery-powered operation with life-times of many years depending on “sleep” duty cycles.

End Points have transceiver and sensor plug-in sub-modules making customization fast and simple.
End Point controller is a modern fast 32-bit ARM processor with floating point unit (STM32L486), and many peripherals including RTC, I2C, SPI, UART, COM, A/Ds and D/As, and uSD storage; It's optimized for low-power applications.
Easily customized for any sensor; current drivers support temperature, humidity, and 3-axis accelerometer, magnetometer, and gyroscope

Wide-Area or Local-Area Networks

Supports commercially available LoRaWAN Gateways, such as Multi-Tech Conduit, for cloud applications, or a Raspberry Pi with GSC “hat” having LoRa transceiver, real-time clock, and EEPROM for local applicatios.

White Papers

White Paper describing Sensor Interface Conditioners and demonstration platform.

White Paperr describing GSC's general purpose 0.5GHz-7.5GHz 40LP digital PLL with fractional/N functionality; one of four DPLL's GSC has developed.

Intelligent Sensor Interface

Sensor Interfaces

Digital Interfaces: INT101 (I2C bus based on TI PGA309) has 16-bit A/D, input multiplexor, 3 gain adjusts, 2 offset adjusts, linearity compensation, and built-in self test for both functionality and connectivity opens and shorts right to bridge. Interface supports RTD's at sensor. Interface has EEPROM available to user for storing customization values and includes temperature sensor. INT102 (SPI bus based on TI LMP90100) has 24-bit A/D, input multiplexor, chopper-stabilized programmable gain amplifier, and separate high-quality reference generator.

Controller Interface Board

Granite SemiCom Inc. (GSC) has developed a BBB Cape intended to be used as a Platform for the fast development of digital output sensor interfaces. Control software implements a 3-Level Abstraction with GUI's optimized for top two levels running on the host and the bottom level running on a Beaglebone Black (BBB) controller board. USB, Cat-5, and wireless channels are supported between remote host and local smart board. The lower-level register-based abstraction is normally hidden, but can be accessed for remote programming and debug. The commands between the host and the BBB require very-low-bit-rates, which supports narrow-band high-distance wireless (a LoRa interface is under development). The BBB Smart board has non-volatile data and command logging giving black-box functionality. The INT100 Control Board Interface (CIB) supports 4 I2C interfaces, and one each of SPI, UART, and COM interfaces; it has a programmable and monitored power-supply voltage. Temperature is also monitored. An 8-bit GPIO is included. The included Real-Time-Clock (RTC) allows for time logging without a network connection. A built-in real-time logic analyzer allows for remote debugging of hardware without shipping instruments. All outputs are level-translated and buffered. Zoomable data plotting is supported along with analog and digital read-out at the top level.

Digital DPLL's

All DPLL's have fractional-N division, and both serial and/or parallel bus programming. No off-chip components are required. Full-speed off-chip output drivers are available.

High Speed in 40G

0.5-7.5 GHz DPLL in TSMC's 40G

Improved Jitter in 40LP

Second generation, optimized DPLL in TSMC's 40LP

Ultra Low Power in 28HPM

5 mW, extremely low area DPLL in TSMC's 28HPM

Dual Loop Jitter-Cleaning

DPLL optimized for extremely low frequency references having excessive jitter