Mixed-signal ASIC Projects

Cambridge Consultants’ extensive skills in IC design are backed by experience from many industry sectors. We have developed ASICs for utility meters, spectrometers, touch screens, personal healthcare and consumer products. Many of these combine analogue and digital processing to form a complete System on Chip with integrated processor cores, DSP, memories and communications peripherals.

One project example required a new low cost family of heat cost allocation meters for remote metering with radio transmitters. Cambridge Consultants undertook the entire product design thus optimising the global product cost. Central to the design was an ultra low power mixed-signal CMOS ASIC with integrated 433MHz radio transmitter, on-chip temperature sensing and our low power XAP processor core. This highly integrated design is now in volume manufacture and operates for ten years from its Lithium coin cell battery. One way in which we reduced cost was to bond the ASIC die directly onto the PCB thus saving IC package and assembly charges.

Another client required an ASIC for their touch screen controller employing both capacitive and resistive sensors. Our laboratory tests allowed variables such as the size of a touch to be identified and we developed simulations, using models generated by us, to enable understanding of the screen technology and its limitations. The modelling of system blocks, e.g. sigma-delta converters and general signal flow, allowed a mixed-signal ASIC, incorporating our APE DSP and XAP processor core, to be designed with confidence. This ASIC is now in high-volume production and used over a wide range of touch screen products.

Another ASIC development was for an ultrasonic gas meter. Our client needed to protect their established gas metering business from new solid-state products being developed by their competitors. We developed an approach that gave considerably lower cost than rival products with very low power consumption and hence long battery life. It used low-cost commercial sensors, with advanced signal processing in a very low-cost ASIC containing a XAP processor to minimise power.