A first in accelerators built for cloud and edge Data Centres.

Xilinx has expanded its Alveo data center accelerator card portfolio with the launch of the Alveo™ U50. The U50 card is the industry’s first low profile adaptable accelerator with PCIe Gen 4 support, uniquely designed to supercharge a broad range of critical compute, network and storage workloads, all on one reconfigurable platform.

The Alveo U50 provides customers with a programmable low profile and low-power accelerator platform built for scale-out architectures and domain-specific acceleration of any server deployment, on-premise, in the cloud and at the edge. To meet the challenges of emerging dynamic workloads such as cloud microservices, Alveo U50 delivers between 10-20x improvements in throughput, latency and power efficiency. For accelerated networking and storage workloads, the U50 card helps developers identify and eliminate latency and data movement bottlenecks by moving compute closer to the data.

Powered by the Xilinx® UltraScale+™ architecture, this card is the first in the Alveo portfolio to be packaged in a half-height, half-length form factor and low 75-Watt power envelope. The card features high-bandwidth memory (HBM2), 100 gigabit per second (100 Gbps) networking connectivity, and support for the PCIe Gen 4 and CCIX interconnects. By fitting into standard PCIe server slots and using one-third the power, the Alveo U50 significantly expands the scope in which adaptable acceleration can be deployed to unlock dramatic throughput and latency improvements for demanding compute, network and storage workloads. The 8GB of HBM2 delivers over 400 Gbps data transfer speeds and the QSFP ports provide up to 100 Gbps network connectivity. The high-speed networking I/O also supports advanced applications like NVMe-oF™ solutions (NVM Express over Fabrics™), disaggregated computational storage and specialized financial services applications.

From machine learning inference, video transcoding and data analytics to computational storage, electronic trading and financial risk modeling, the Alveo U50 brings programmability, flexibility, and high throughput and low latency performance advantages to any server deployment. Unlike fixed architecture alternatives, the software and hardware programmability of the Alveo U50 allows customers to meet ever-changing demands and optimize application performance as workloads and algorithms continue to evolve.

Alveo U50 accelerated solutions deliver significant customer value across a range of applications, including:

• Deep learning inference acceleration (speech translation): delivers up to 25x lower latency, 10x higher throughput and significantly improved power efficiency per node compared to GPU-only for speech translation performance1;
• Data analytics acceleration (database query): running the TPC-H Query benchmark, Alveo U50 delivers 4x higher throughput per hour and reduced operational costs by 3x compared to in-memory CPU2;
• Computational storage acceleration (compression): delivers 20x more compression/decompression throughput, faster Hadoop and big data analytics, and over 30 percent lower cost per node compared to CPU-only nodes3;
• Network acceleration (electronic trading): delivers 20x lower latency and sub-500ns trading time compared to CPU-only latency of 10us4;
• Financial modeling (grid computing): running the Monte Carlo simulation, Alveo U50 delivers 7x greater power efficiency compared to GPU-only performance5 for a faster time to insight, deterministic latency and reduced operational costs.

What does industry think?
“Ever-growing demands on the data center are pushing existing infrastructure to its limit, driving the need for adaptable solutions that can optimize performance across a broad range of workloads and extend the lifecycle of existing infrastructure, ultimately reducing TCO,” said Salil Raje, executive vice president and general manager, Data Center Group, at Xilinx. “The new Alveo U50 brings an optimized form factor and unprecedented performance and adaptability to data center workloads, and we continue to build out solution stacks with a growing ecosystem of application partners to deliver previously unthinkable capabilities to a range of industries.”

Availability: The Alveo U50 is sampling now with OEM system qualifications in process. General availability is slated for fall 2019. Flash Memory Summit: Xilinx is showcasing the Alveo U50 and other product demonstrations in booth 313 at Flash Memory Summit (FMS) 2019, taking place August 6-8 at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, Calif. Additionally, Salil Raje, executive vice president and general manager, Data Center Group, at Xilinx, will be giving a keynote titled, “FPGAs: The Key to Accelerating High-Speed Storage Systems” on August 7 at 2:40 p.m. PT in the Mission City Ballroom.

“The forthcoming 2nd Gen AMD EPYC processor is ideally suited for data center-first accelerators like the Alveo U50 that combine compute, network and storage acceleration all on the same platform,” said Raghu Nambiar, vice president & CTO of application engineering at AMD. “Taking advantage of AMD’s leadership, first x86 server-class PCIe 4.0 CPU, the Alveo U50 will be the industry’s first adaptable accelerator card with PCIe 4.0 support. We look forward to working with Xilinx to combine the benefits of AMD EPYC based solutions with Alveo acceleration to hyperscale and enterprise customers.”

“IBM is excited about the expansion of the Xilinx Alveo portfolio with the addition of the Alveo U50 adaptable accelerator card,” said Steve Fields, Chief Architect for IBM Power Systems. “We believe the combination of low-profile form-factor, HBM2 memory performance, and PCIe Gen 4 speed to interface with IBM Power processors will enable the OpenPOWER ecosystem to provide cutting edge adaptable acceleration solutions.”

“With the smaller design and advanced features of the Alveo U50, Xilinx is well positioned to expand the markets for acceleration with configurable logic,” said Karl Freund, senior analyst, HPC and deep learning, Moor Insights & Strategy. “The new Alveo U50 should allow them to break through the market noise with demonstrated and dramatic performance advantages in high-growth use cases.”

“We are excited to be collaborating with Xilinx at FMS, showcasing the flexibility and performance of the Alveo U50 and our OpenFlex composable NVMe-oF platform,” said Scott Hamilton, senior director of product management, Data Center Systems business unit at Western Digital. “Xilinx is leading the charge in fabric-based computational storage using NVMe-oF to enable full disaggregation of server resources. We believe the new Alveo U50 will be an important part of the ecosystem as organizations take a truly disaggregated approach to SDS infrastructure.”

@XilinxInc #PAuto @NeeshamPR

Accelerometer has wide frequency range.

The new MEMS (Micro-Electro Mechanical System) miniature, single axis, capacitive accelerometers from Kistler,  have been designed for use in applications in automotive, aerospace, rail and other sectors where challenging environmental conditions may be encountered.

The wide frequency range from DC to 2 kHz and high operating temperature of +125°C combined with six measuring ranges from ±2g to ±200g means that the new accelerometers easily meet the demands of a wide variety of applications.

The sensing element and integral signal amplifier are enclosed in a fully hermetic, lightweight, welded titanium housing with integral ground isolation. A choice of industry standard 4-pin connector or an integral PTFE insulated cable both with temperature output for where external signal compensation is needed. The integrated signal amplifier provides a wide range of industry standard output signal options to interface with most current DAQ systems.

A hard anodised plate on the bottom of the sensor provides ground isolation when using adhesive mounting. For more demanding installations, the sensors are supplied with two screw holes with integral isolation inserts to ensure ground isolation in combination with the hard anodized plate.

The new sensor design is optimized for low frequency applications common to Aviation/Aerospace, Automotive, Civil Engineering Structures, Seismic and other R&D studies, especially where very low frequency measurements need to be made accurately, even under varying temperatures in exposed, outdoor environments.

 #Kistler #Pauto 

Miniature Sensors for force, displacement, pressure, strain and acceleration.

The Micro-Measurements® brand of Vishay Precision Group, industry experts in the design, development, and manufacture of resistive-foil sensors for high-precision strain measurements, has introduced a new range of miniature, lightweight hybrid sensors, offering cost-effective force, displacement, pressure, strain and acceleration measurements within high-volume OEM and test applications.

Design of the new Micro-Measurements hybrid sensor range incorporates the brand’s own renowned precision foil strain gages, adhesively bonded to flat substrates, constructed of either metal, composite, or polymer. Hybrid sensors are manufactured by VPG using the same high-volume production equipment as those used to create its precision strain gages. The result is a cost-effective family of strain-gage based hybrid sensors with consistent batch-to-batch performance characteristics. Customers may further incorporate an optional miniature signal amplifier, as either a stand-alone component or attached to the sensor. Hybrid sensors may be attached via mounting holes with choice of screws, spot welding, or clamping, thereby eliminating adhesive bonding requirements. The hybrid sensors are further optionally available with pre-attached lead wires and connectors, for simplified customer handling without soldering requirements.

New hybrid sensors can effectively support a variety of high-volume OEM consumer product, process control, automotive testing, non-critical medical device, educational research, and industrial requirements. Typical consumer product applications include appliances, sporting equipment, hand tools, and lawn and garden equipment. Process control applications include HVAC, liquid-level sensing, motor control, and vibration monitoring. Automotive testing applications include passenger weighing, foot-pedal pressure, seatbelt tension, emergency braking, suspension control, and engine monitoring. Medical applications include pumps, respirators, and other non-critical devices. Industrial applications include elevators, tank monitoring, bearing insertion, safety systems, gas and liquid cylinder pressures, and load monitoring.

@Strain_Gage @VishayIndust #PAuto 

Vibration filtering accelerometers and tilt switches.

Memsic has announced a unique new family of acceleration and tip-over sensor components that includes four new sensors, the MXD6240 and 41AU, MXC6244AU, MXC6245XU.

These new sensors provide tip-over and acceleration sensing in a wide range of Automotive, Industrial and Consumer applications, such as motorcycle and off-road vehicle tip-over detection, vehicle navigation and Digital SLR camera horizontal position detection.

“For years, high vibration environments have caused problems for accelerometers, forcing customers to widen the full scale range of the accelerometer to prevent clipping and move to a more powerful and expensive microprocessor capable of higher sampling rates and heavy filtering needed prevent aliasing and recover the signal of interest,” said James Fennelly, Memsic Product Marketing Manager. “The 624x family gives customers a new cost effective choice that works well in these high-vibration environments, and is the only accelerometer with these unique vibration-filtering properties.”

The 624x Family uses MEMSIC’s proprietary thermal accelerometer technology that utilizes heated gas molecules to sense acceleration instead of a mechanical beam structure, the transducer exhibits a natural low-pass frequency response with virtually no mechanical resonance and extremely high accuracy over a range of temperatures. This makes the devices extremely well suited to harsh and/or high vibration environments, where competing sensor solutions can exhibit false readings or other errors due to resonance.

The MXD6240 and MXD6241AU are autonomous inclination sensors with 8 built-in, pin-programmable tip-over angle thresholds from 40 to 70 degrees making them ideal for tip-over applications where no microcontroller is available. If the device orientation with respect to vertical exceeds the programmed threshold angle, the digital output changes state to alert the system to a tip-over or fall-down event. In addition to the transducer’s inherent low-pass response, an internal anti-vibration filter provides >45dB attenuation above 25Hz, and >60dB attenuation above 50Hz, setting it apart from all other tip-over sensors in the market.

The MXC6244AU and MXC6245XU are complete 2 axis I2C interface accelerometers each with 1 mg of resolution. The MXC6244AU is ±8g full scale range device. It includes the internal anti-vibration filter and the 8 angle thresholds. They are programmable through the I2C interface.

The MXC6245XU is a ±2g full scale range device and is targeted at cost sensitive applications not requiring the programmable anti-vibration filter or the 8 programmable tip-over angle thresholds. It offers 12 bits of resolution (1 mg) and has the same outstanding over temperature bias performance of typically 0.1 mg/C.

The 624x family offers a full range of functionality, features and performance to serve the diverse needs of different applications. The fully autonomous MXD6240/41 eliminate the need for a micro controller and can replace older mechanical pendulum solutions in motorcycles and off-road vehicles. The MXC6244AU can be used directly in Engine Control Units (ECUs) for the same application thereby allowing for the elimination of a separate tip-over module. For applications not requiring the enhanced vibration rejection or programmable angle thresholds, the MXC6245XU still delivers the excellent over temperature performance of the MXC6244AU at the lowest cost.

 @MEMSsensortech #PAuto 

Selecting an acceleration sensor for high vibration.

MEMSIC has a new whitepaper for heavy equipment design engineers and developers who need to pick the right kind of acceleration sensors.

This new MEMSIC whitepaper discusses various uses for accelerometers used in construction, testing and transportation equipment. 

This whitepaper provides an in-depth analysis of Capacitive and Thermal Accelerometers as well as the differences between these two leading accelerometer technologies; as well as their benefits and advantages.  The paper covers how these two technologies impact device sensitivity, resistance to shock and vibration, and overall performance in demanding real world industrial and construction environments.

“Equipment designers have a choice between capacitive-based or thermal MEMS (microelectromechanical) accelerometers,” explains James Fennelly, MEMSIC product manager. “They need to consider several design variables, including sensor structure, sensor resonance, reliability, stability, bandwidth, and power consumption, together with cost.”

The paper may be downloaded from their publications page!

@MEMS_IC #PAuto

Charge amplifier module!

The new charge amplifier module from Kistler Instruments allows a wide variety of force, pressure, torque and acceleration piezoelectric sensors to be used directly with National Instruments (NI) flexible CompactRIO platform without the use of external amplifiers. The charge signals from the sensors are directly digitized, using Delta-Sigma ADC, for processing by the FPGA and the real-time operating system. For the best possible resolution, four hardware measuring ranges have been implemented and innovations in the analog front-end allow impressively low drift values.

One and four channel versions are available, both with 24-bit analog-to-digital conversion up to 52.7 kSps per channel, providing direct integration into CompactRIOTM systems. Configuration, control & operation, including reset/measure signal, range selection and data transfer, are programmed using the graphical programming tools LabVIEW™, LabVIEW Real-Time™ and LabVIEW FPGA™. Example ”Virtual Instruments” are supplied as standard to facilitate quick integration into LabVIEW™ projects.

Wherever piezoelectric force, pressure, acceleration or torque signals need to be measured and processed in real-time, the new Kistler Charge Amplifier Module in combination with the NI CompactRIO™ provides an easy to implement and use system. The rugged design makes the system equally suitable for use in production environments, mobile data-acquisition applications and the laboratory.

High peak power amplifier!

A new, turnkey high peak power amplifier which provides pulse fidelity and repeatability with high reliability is being introduced by Diversified Technologies.

DTI PowerMod™ Solid-State Klystron Transmitters include a PLC-based controller, pulse transformer, high voltage solid-state switch, and the required protection circuitry to run a Klystron. Featuring > 0.1% pulse fidelity and repeatability, with 100,000 hours MTBF, this Klystron modulator is an ideal building block for high availability applications such as particle accelerators and mission-critical radars.

Minimising the stress on the system in the event of a tube arc or fault, Diversified Technologies’ PowerMod™ high voltage solid-state opening switch technology contributes to long tube life and high availability, with rapid fault recovery. Peak RF power is available to 100 MW, pulse widths from 1 µs to 5 mS repetition rate to 1 KHz, voltage flatness is < 1%, reproducibility is 0.1%, and pulse-to-pulse jitter is < 5 nanoseconds.

Electromagnetic design pioneers celebrate 30 years of success!

Three of the earliest Vector Fields employees still work for Cobham Technical Services
(LtoR) Chris Biddlecombe, John Simkin and Chris Riley.

Coinciding with Cobham’s 80th anniversary celebrations, the developers of the renowned Opera electromagnetic simulation software are celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Vector Fields Software business unit. Initially focused on making the design of particle accelerator magnets practical, their software tools remain at the leading edge of electromagnetic design today. This success is in large part due to continuing development of the founders' pioneering ideas for numerical software - which made possible the first practical commercial solution for solving complex and three-dimensional electromagnetic simulations.

The first major users for Opera software were almost all at the major physics labs around the world. At these sites, Opera was used to prototype advanced superconducting and resistive magnets for high energy and particle physics research - equipment which was too large and costly to prototype and refine in the normal 'cut and try' way. This user base at the very forefront of global scientific knowledge still remains a major strand of the company's business. However, the functionality of Opera and the user-friendliness of the design tools, has evolved almost beyond recognition to offer solutions for a much broader range of design requirements.

Opera has a distinguished track record of technological firsts and pioneering advances in electromagnetic design. Although progress in computing and graphics technology have been of enormous importance and often appear to underpin advances in the field, the background work of Opera developers on fundamental mathematical techniques, on accurately modelling material properties, speeding design entry and analysis, and optimising designs, has resulted in orders of magnitude improvements in the speed and fidelity of the virtual prototyping process. Today, much of the company's research revolves around allowing the software to perform ever more complex multi-physics simulation of electromagnetic design problems - taking into account factors such as mechanical stress and temperature – and improving performance using parallel computing.

"When we started in business, speed of simulation was the most fundamental challenge we faced," says Chris Riley, who was the fifth employee to join the early start-up Vector Fields business. "Even though we now have orders of magnitude more computing power, execution speed is still a critical challenge - because the scale and complexity of design problems also continually expands. It doesn't matter if you're designing a multi-million dollar magnet system for steering particle beams, or a $20 electromechanical actuator - today's users want to squeeze the last fraction of a percent of perfection out of any idea. And that demands capabilities such as 3D modelling, finer resolution of finite element meshing, consideration of multi-physics effects and intelligent optimisation. The challenges keep on coming, and overcoming them to deliver software that can be used to perform optimal electromagnetic design is the driving force behind Opera today."

The technology behind Opera began life at Britain's Rutherford Appleton Laboratories (RAL) who cooperated with CERN in the 1970s to help break down a barrier as particle physics research moved towards higher energy accelerators - the need to reliably design superconducting magnets. After initial work on volume integral formulation software the team looked at solving Maxwell's equations using the more versatile finite element analysis technique. Chris Biddlecombe, now Opera Development Manager, created a program called PE2D (Poisson's Equation in Two Dimensions) using magnetic vector potential, which met with considerable success. However, making a direct transition to three-dimensional analysis would not have been viable with the computer resources available in the late 1970s. This led RAL scientists Bill Trowbridge and John Simkin - who went on to found Vector Fields in 1984 – to develop a new computational technique based on the use of scalar potentials. The commercial electromagnetic finite element 'solver' - named TOSCA for TOtal SCAlar - was a breakthrough and won its developers the Maxwell Premium Award from the UK's IEE. Its ideas still form the basis of much of the Opera suite of tools today.

The core electromagnetic simulation technology was in place. The focus of much of the early work for the fledgling Vector Fields business was the development of a graphical modelling and post-processing environment, and analysis functionality - to create a comprehensive suite of user-friendly tools for the virtual prototyping design process. This all came together by the late 1980s, and it was dubbed Opera. Vector Fields continued successfully developing more application specific tools and advanced analysis capabilities, often in collaboration with prestigious partners, from leading-edge industrials to educational leaders. Vector Fields now trades under the Cobham brand after joining the Cobham group in 2005, where it has continued to grow and maintain its place as one of the world leaders.

Today, thousands of users employ Opera for design and simulation tasks for applications such as electrical machines, transformers, X-ray tubes, ion beam sources, ship signature calculations and non-destructive test equipment. The company's recent annual European User Group Meeting saw presentations on applications as diverse as HEV traction motors to particle accelerators, magnetic gearing to aerospace components.

Recent advances include parallel-processing capability to match modern hardware, the first multi-language versions and enhancements to deliver true easy-to-use multi-physics models.

“In the ever-advancing world of virtual prototyping there is no such thing as resting on your laurels” says Kevin Ward, director of the Vector Fields Software business. “We have an exciting five-year plan ahead of us for Opera, launching into new applications, putting it in the hands of a new wave of engineers, and establishing the technology in emerging markets.”

Compact portable vibration exciter!

Type 8921B reference shaker from Kistler Instruments is a compact, portable vibration exciter designed to calibrate the sensitivity of accelerometers in both laboratory and field environments. The rechargeable battery powered unit with automatic power-off is an easy to use method of verifying the sensitivity of accelerometers weighing up to 600 grams.

The new shaker provides an accurate, controlled vibration level to verify the sensitivity of accelerometers or a complete measuring system traceable to a national standard. The internal control and excitation system provides a constant, precise frequency whilst a closed loop control maintains constant amplitude independent of the mass of the test article. Should the test article exceed the capacity of the shaker, the unit provides an audible and visual warning to the operator and has sufficient power to test sensors from the smallest laboratory accelerometer to large industrial sensors.

In addition to confirming the sensitivity of accelerometers, the reference shaker provides a convenient and accurate means of testing the integrity of a vibration measurement system from end-to-end. The rugged design of the shaker ensures years of reliable operation in factory environments and in the laboratory. The self-contained, rechargeable battery can power the shaker for up to five hours and an automatic shut-off after 10 minutes of continuous operation protects the battery from accidental discharge. Front panel indicators provide information about the sensor sensitivity and the condition of the internal battery.

Dynamic signal acquisition module

Adlink Technology has released a new four-channel USB 2.0 dynamic signal acquisition module, the USB-2405. A built-in IEPE excitation current source provides 2mA on each AI channel, and BNC connectors enable the USB-2405 to provide high accuracy and excellent dynamic performance for microphone and accelerometer measurement in vibration and acoustic applications. Featuring superior accuracy with low temperature drift, built-in anti-aliasing filters, support flexible trigger mode, and USB bus power, the USB-2405 embodies an ideal portable solution for time-frequency analysis and research.

High Accuracy with Low Temperature Drift

The ADLINK USB-2405 supports four analog input channels simultaneously sampling up to 128kS/s, and delivers 100 dB dynamic range and -94 dB THD of dynamic performance. Built-in anti-aliasing filters enable filter cutoff frequency to be automatically adjusted to the sampling rate, suppressing out-of-band noise and avoiding measurement distortion. The USB-2405 also supports auto-calibration for ensured accuracy, and minimizes temperature drift in the field with maximum gain drift of 11ppm/°C, an impressive 50% of the maximum available market performance. The USB-2405’s low DC measurement drift, along with temperature deviation, optimize accuracy in spite of the environment.

Flexible Sampling Rate & Triggering
The ADLINK USB-2405 provides flexible sampling rate, and built-in DDS (direct digital synthesis) generates a programmable sample clock with superior frequency resolution, enabling resolution of 3x10-4 S/s. In addition, the USB-2405 supports external digital/analog trigger source, and flexible trigger modes including post, delay, middle, gated, pre-trigger, and re-trigger, all maximizing convenience of use.

The USB-2405 provides lockable USB to enhance connectivity, and the included multi-functional stand fully supports desktop, rail, or wall mounting. ADLINK's easy-to-use U-Test software is included at no extra charge. With no programming required, the USB-2405 delivers fast, easy instrument setup and quality data acquisition. The USB-2405 supports Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows XP operating systems, and is fully compatible with third-party software such as LabVIEW™, MATLAB®, and Visual Studio.NET®.

MulMultichannel charge amplifier delivers enhanced precision and flexibility

Kistler has launched a new, modular high-end multichannel charge amplifier to provide the precise signal amplification demanded by laboratory applications for extremely accurate measurement of physical quantities. The innovative Type 5080A amplifier is ideal for processing signals from a wide variety of piezoelectric sensors.

The new charge amplifier offers a wide frequency range from 0 to more than 200 kHz, a broad measuring range (±2 to 2,2 million pC), low drift, low noise level, enhanced low-pass filtering and an integral summing processor as standard. AC and DC versions are available with both USB and RS-232C interfaces.

The 19" rack mounting, modular design can accommodate up to eight amplifier modules which may be any combination of charge modules for piezoelectric sensors and dual-mode modules with charge/PiezoTron® input for use with force, pressure, torque or acceleration sensors.

Software for packaging line!

GE Intelligent Platforms has announced the availability of the latest in its line of Proficy® Accelerator software solutions, Proficy Accelerator for Packaging Line OEE. The new solution combines their out-of-the-box software and services offering with pre-packaged proprietary algorithms from SlimSoft Solutions of Canada, to enable line-level analytics and views driving OEE for improved productivity, efficiency, and profitability. This solution leverages preconfigured templates, delivering fast time to solution.

“As manufacturing businesses strive for operational excellence, maximizing asset utilization in the packaging operation is a way to make a significant contribution,” said Coleman Easterly, Product Manager for GE Intelligent Platforms’ Proficy Software. “Systems that provide KPIs such as OEE can be valuable in improvement initiatives when they provide subtle insights such as the impacts of individual machines on the overall performance of the line, with minimal clerical burden on production personnel in collecting the data.”

Proficy Accelerator for Packaging Line OEE includes a portfolio of specialized reports and web parts providing a comprehensive view of the performance of packaging lines, with a wide range of KPIs—allowing in-depth analysis into the details behind those KPIs. In addition, a web-based packaging line operator console provides line staff with easy access to view and modify collected information, providing additional context for later analysis as it happens (such as downtime, waste, etc). And, a real-time scoreboard display communicates machine status for the line, as well as KPIs such as OEE, capacity utilization, and net utilization, to drive operator responsiveness.

Key features of this Accelerator solution are:

· Standard “pre-configured” templates for rapid deployment

· Eliminates the need for developing complex, multi-machine PLC Logic

· Intuitive web-based packaging line Operator Console for improved productivity

· Portfolio of pre-configured Reports and Web Parts to accelerate time to value

· Real-time KPI scoreboard display to drive plant visibility

· Out of the box KPIs for Line and solitaire OEE as well as Capacity, Asset and Net utilization

Proficy Accelerator for Packaging Line OEE also enables users to communicate key performance indicators (KPIs) and business drivers directly to the plant floor in near real time, quickly identify root causes for downtime, waste, and performance rate loss with proprietary algorithms for packaging lines, report and analyze OEE and its sub-components, grouped and filtered by product, shift, crew, etc. and reduce Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) and Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) through increased visibility into the causes of line disturbances.

Proficy Accelerator Solutions leverage proven products and best practices to rapidly demonstrate the value of GE’s Proficy software. These solutions combine the right blend of software and services components for a specific industry application or process. These offerings serve to rapidly prove the value of the solution with faster results than traditional projects for quicker ROI. Other Proficy Accelerator Solutions include:

· Accelerator for Advanced Analytics

· Accelerator for Weighing Operations

· Accelerator for Centerlining

· Accelerator for Production Efficiency

· Accelerator for Change Management

· Accelerator for Manufacturing Energy Management Solution

· Accelerator for Packaging Performance Solution

Proficy Accelerator for Packaging Line OEE is the latest example of how GE’s $4 billion-a-year software and solutions services businesses is helping customers improve productivity.

IMU launched in US

Meggitt Sensing Systems has announced the North American market debut of the Sensorex model SX43040, a rugged, high-performance MEMS triaxial inertial measurement unit (IMU) with integral digital hybrid compensation, designed to provide current rate of acceleration, gravitational force and degree of freedom (DOF) measurements, including changes in roll, pitch and yaw, across three orthogonal axes.

The Sensorex model SX43040 is both lightweight and compact and incorporates MEMS technology with no moving parts, ensuring high-reliability performance within extreme environments. With available measurement ranges from 2 g to 10 g and angular speed ranges from 50°/s to 1500°/s, the model SX43040’s integral digital hybrid compensation (DHC) module allows the IMU to achieve a very high accuracy of <±0.9% FS (gyro <±0.1% FS) after self-compensation of non-linearity, temperature drift, bias and misalignment errors. Bandwidth is fully user adjustable over a range of 0.1 to 100 Hz (-3 dB). Several outputs are simultaneously available, including digital RS485 Modbus RTU, ±5 V analog output and autotest pin, with setup parameters established via the digital interface. The Sensorex model 43040 is designed to reliably operate over a temperature range of -40°C to +75°C (-40°F to +167°F) with a built-in self-test feature on all three axes, ensuring added measurement reliability. In addition, all these IMU’s are accompanied by a two-year comprehensive product warranty and are available thru both Meggitt’s San Juan Capistrano, California, USA and France-based facilities.

With its high-accuracy measurement capabilities, the Sensorex SX43040 is ideal for use a number of testing and on-board applications, such as flight test, road and rail vehicle behavioral studies, control and stabilization, flight control and navigational back-up on aircraft or watercraft, or in any application where rate of acceleration or gravitational force measurements may be required to a high degree of accuracy