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mroyer
Thanks for your interest in future TI devices, rajveer75. I can’t disclose our ...
rajveer57
Do you have any plan to develop a front-end for ultrasonic gas meter?
TI targets smart meters with analog front end
Ismini Scouras
7/20/2012 11:12 AM EDT
NEW YORK—Texas Instruments strengthened its commitment to the smart meter market this week with its first integrated e-metering product that it claims offers the lowest power.
Designed for power monitoring and control of smart e-meters, TI’s latest line of analog front ends delivers 2 milliwatts per channel, which is “about a little over a third less power consumption per channel against competing solutions,” according to Marc Royer, marketing manager for Precision Analog at Dallas-based TI.
The ADS131E08 family consists of analog-to-digital converters with a built-in programmable gain amplifier, internal reference and an onboard oscillator. It is available with 8, 6 or 4 channels and in 16- or 24-bit resolution to support a variety of smart e-metering applications, from two-phase systems to three-phase with tamper detection.
Smart meters represent a huge market opportunity for TI.According to IDC Energy Insights' Worldwide Quarterly Smart Meter Tracker, the global smart meter industry shipped nearly 7 million meters in the first quarter of 2012. Shipments were up 28.8 percent year-over-year with shipments projected to grow 111.3 percent on an annual basis from 2011 to the end of 2012.
But TI isn’t the first semiconductor supplier to have an integrated e-metering solution, Royer said.“There are other manufacturers that do have a solution, but the advantages that we have against the existing solutions are attractive to our customers.”
In addition to the lowest power, the ADS131E08 family also provides the highest signal-to-ratio and distortion levels, he added. Robust AC/DC specifications include a signal-to-noise ratio of 107 dB, ENOB of up to 20.4 bits, input signal range of +/-2.4 V and a common mode rejection ratio of -110 dB. This allows the analog front ends to exceed 0.1 e-metering performance with less than 0.1 percent error for 1 to 1,000 dynamic range.The devices also provide the lowest price per channel by 40 percent at $0.74.
TI is working on bringing higher performance, lower power and smaller system-level solutions to smart meter customers, Royer said.
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hm
7/21/2012 8:00 PM EDT
Should TI integrate ARM core and memory along with this high performance e-meter front end? This will make it SoC and very easy to use.
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mroyer
7/23/2012 3:54 PM EDT
Thanks for your question, hm.
TI is always looking for ways to make system design easier for our customers, while also reducing power consumption and overall board space requirements, and increasing performance. Today the ADS131E08 family provides the lowest power consumption and highest overall precision performance in its class – a strong foundation to build upon. While I can’t disclose specific plans for our roadmap, I can tell you that our design team is looking at ways to achieve even higher levels of integration as they work to take our e-metering family to the next level.
Marc Royer, TI Precision Analog Marketing Manager
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rajveer57
7/24/2012 7:15 AM EDT
Do you have any plan to develop a front-end for ultrasonic gas meter?
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mroyer
7/24/2012 6:41 PM EDT
Thanks for your interest in future TI devices, rajveer75. I can’t disclose our roadmap publicly, but our precision analog businesses are designing new analog front ends that’ll help make system design easier for industrial applications beyond our existing AFEs for smart e-meters (ADS131E08 family), medical and fitness (ADS1298 family), and sensors (LMP91000 family). There’s definitely more to come! Matter of fact today TI released another AFE, the AFE4300 a low-cost, integrated, analog front end for weigh-scale and body composition measurement.
Marc Royer, TI Precision Analog Marketing Manager
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