On September 19th a lot of 768 ZR167S08 chips was delivered to Exatron Produtos Inteligentes, along with development kits, which are going to be used for evaluating the application of the chip on Exatron's product line of commercial lighting and energy. The ZR16S08 is the first brazillian microcontroller, designed and developed in association by C&P, Santa Maria Design House (SMDH) and Chipus Microeletrônica LTDA. Representing Exatron, were present Regis Haubert (CEO), Jorge Demoliner (P&D&I Director), Marcos Coelho (Innovation Manager) and Ricardo Santos (Project Manager). SMDH was represented by João Baptista dos Santos Martins (CEO) and Carlos Alberto Zaffari (CTO).

ZR16S08's engineering batch arrived at 05/23/2014. The component is currently being tested in our laboratories. Part of the batch will be sent to EXATRON, who'll be making field tests with the product.

The SMDH with its partners Chipus and C&P, take part on the assinature of the intelectual property contract of the new low power version of the ZR16. This new version will be used in the project of "stand by" energy reduction (RESBI) from the company Imply.

This signature has occurred at the office of the Felipe Müller, the UFSM rector. The event has assembled the vice rector, Dalvan Reinert, the Imply Tecnologia Eletrônica CEO, Tironi Paz Ortiz, the Fatec CEO, Thomé Lovato, the Chipus Microeletrônica CEO, Murilo Pessatti, the C&P Projetos Eletrônicos CEO, Carlos Alberto Zaffari, between others.

The wafers from the ZR16 pilot batch, produced by the foundry X-FAB , are in the test fase of the production. Wafers are a thin silicon slice from where thousands of integrated circuits are made. Those tests are being performed by the Aptesic a company hired by the SMDH. After those tests the microcontrolers will be encapsulated and sent back to be performed the field tests by another brazilian company. Considering the develop cicle of the ZR16 this should be one of the last steps before this product starts its production fase.

SMDH was at the 6th Brazilian IC Job Fair, held at Porto Alegre in June/2013. The company was represented by Carlos Zaffari and Fernando Herrmann. The SMDH team's gave a lecture directed to the candidates, showing them the design house and its main products. The company also participated on a interview round of applicants that have interest in work at the DH. This event is part of the SMDH policie's of being constantly searching for new talents at the IC field.

The SMDH successfully tested the first 50 samples of the ZR16, encapsulated directly into a printed circuit board (Chip On Board technology - COB), 10 of those shown in the photo below. The samples were validated in laboratory tests that precede field testing that will be conducted by Exatron with microcontroller embedded in their products.

Download the full paper (in Portuguese): COB-ZR16-mkt.pdf

On March 5th, 2013, two representatives of XFAB visited SMDH. Initially, Alexander Muffler, Product Marketing Manager, from XFAB Headquarters in Germany presented the new features available in 0.35um and 0.18um technologies at XFAB, as well as their roadmap. After that, SMDH team together with Carlos Stahr, Business Development Manager, had a fruitful discussion about the issues that will arise in future versions of ZR16. Finally, Prof. João Baptista Martins, SMDH coordinator, hosted the guests in a visit to GMicro and UFSM campus.

The CentroSoftware attended the first SMDH Project Management Workshop. The companies that participates was Animati (Jean Berni), Chip Inside (Thiago Martins), I3 Tecnologia (José Rui Soares), Megatecnologia (Santos Pedrozo Viana), and the company SRA Engenheria from ITSM (Santa Maria Technology Incubator), the professor João Batista and the speaker Júlio Leão Silva Júnior besides students, professors and technicians from INPE (National Institute For Space Research). The topic shows very opportune considering the needs regarding project management attracting enterpreuners and students.

See the post (in Portuguese) at: http://centrosoftware.com.br .

ZR16 was developed at Santa Maria and delivers competitive cost and power consumption. For the first semester of 2013 we will be manufacturing a pilot pack with 5 thousand units of ZR16. It will also be available to all companies interested in the ZR16 for their products, hardware and software kits with programmer, compiler and simulator, all developed within our country. In the second semester we'll begin high volume production. As far as ZR16 family planning, already in project level is a new version which will have reduced functionalities for a lower price (around R$ 0,50) and power consumption 20 times lower than the first version.

See the post (in Portuguese) at: http://www.gamevicio.com .

See also at CMConsultoria site (in Portuguese): http://www.cmconsultoria.com.br .

ZR16 was developed at Santa Maria and delivers lower cost and power consumption than the imported equivalent. ZR16 also has programming flexibility making it useful for a wide range of applications such as: automation, consumer electronics, electronic toys, industrial control, home and build automation. Just to mention and example of its usefulness, a modern refrigerator has three microcontrollers, but it could reach up to seven.

See the news on the newspaper website (in Portuguese): http://arazao.com.br .

Or download the pdf version (in Portuguese) on the link: A_Razao_ZR16.pdf .

The Brazilian magazine Amanhã published in this month's issue an article about the "Sulício Valley", that way named to make a pun using the words South (Sul, in Portuguese) and Silicon (Silício, in Portuguese). The article maps the development of the region in the semiconductor technology and discuss about the development in microelectronics in Southern Brazil where Santa Maria Design House, among other companies, are establishing themselves.

Download the pdf version (in Portuguese) on the link: revista_amanha_nov12.pdf .

The Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM) attended the event by exposing works in simulation and microeletronics , besides it also presented projects for modernization of tactical engagement simulation devices. The presented works involve research and development efforts of UFSM Microelectronics Group (Gmicro), Signal Processing and Communication Group (GPSCom) and Applied Computational Laboratory (Laca), besides Santa Maria Design House in integrated circuits development.

More details (in Portuguese): http://www.wstm.com.br/.

SMDH presented the ZR16 microcontroller in the Microelectronics Development Seminar . The seminar was focused in the Industry and was organized by ABINEE (Brazilian Electrical and Electronics Industry Association) in Porto Alegre. The seminar was attended by 120 participand being students, professors, enterpreuners and Brazilian government representatives, among them: MCTI, MDIC, ABDI, Apex, BNDES and Badesul. Below, a picture of Carlos Zaffari, SMDH member, with SMDH prototyped integrated circuits.

SMDH make a speech in the Workshop of Technology Innovation for Hardware Integration organized by NSCAD-CT1 in Porto Alegre. The Workshop was attended by 135 people among students and professor of many universisties, like UNIPAMPA, UFRGS, UFSC, PUCRS, UNISINOS, IPA, ESADE, and representatives of enterprises, like DATACOM, SMDH, Intellisistemas, Procempa, CEITEC S.A., APTIC-RS, Ftec, Intellectos, Actia do Brasil e HT MICRON Semicondutores. Below, Professor João Baptista dos Santos Martins making the speech.

Santa Maria Design House will attend the Embedded System Conference Brazil (ESC) on June 26 and 27, 2012. In the conference, SMDH will present its solutions on microelectronics highlighting the ZR16 project. The ZR16 is microcontroller (MCU) basically composed by an 8-bit microprocessor, non-volatile memory with 1024 words and I/O functions. This chip emphasizes the high analog/digital integration and contains analog/digital converter, internal voltage regulator and oscillator, touch sensor input, among others. Functional tests in the prototype will be finished by the end of the first semester of 2012. After that, field tests will be performed by Exatron, a company established in Porto Alegre/RS and market leader on its segment. Software kits containing compiler and simulator, both developed in Brazil, will be available to download in the first quarter of 2013.

ZR16 project is the result of a partnership between SMDH and Chipus Microelectronics.

More details about ESC Brazil in www.escbrazil.com.br.

In partnership with UBM Brazil.