TI releasing something "game changing" on Sept 16th

[JoeyP]

That would be "new" enough to make a sensor "game changing" though?

if they would acquire e.g. Silabs or Cypress, then for sure

AAAAAAAAAAAGH! Bite your tongue. It's bad enough that they eliminated competition by acquiring National. It would really suck if they acquired either of those two (of my favorite) companies!

[komet]

We’re sensing something game changing is coming… Stay tuned to hear a big announcement from Texas Instruments on September 16th!

The electronics related words in that sentence are "sensing" and "tuned". They also mention "game". So it is a wireless sensor that would be useful for a games console. What kind of sensor? The word "hear" indicates that it is audio related. But a microphone is nothing to write home about. So it must be something other than that. How about hearing sounds that exist only in the mind? That must be it. It is a sensor that reads your mind.

[ivan747]

They are gonna present a touchscreen calculator with voice annunciation!!! YES!!!

[babysitter]

TEXAS-SHAPED DIES! Better fitting under their logo, saving footprint. With tiny little bibles and barbeque pits in it ?

[Galenbo]

Something game changing? They bought Microsoft AND Nokia?

[Len]

Maybe they're going to stop suing people who hack their calculators. 

[pickle9000]

Maybe they bought "Parker Brothers" and are planning on a Monopoly?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_Brothers

[MacAttak]

Single-chip solution that does everything the Kinect v2 does?

Just add 4 microphones, an appropriate camera module, and IR led w/ diffraction system (or however the hell they achieve that projection grid)?

For $2.50 in single unit quantities?

[Stonent]

This coincides with the iPhone release date roughly.....hmmm.

[hightmare]

Move along, nothing to see here
It's just some stupid msp430 LaunchPad that cost  like Tiva LaunchPad, but offer less.
http://software-dl.ti.com/msp430/msp430_public_sw/mcu/msp430/MSP430_ezFETLite/latest/

But it will be red, not green.
If you don't want to wait, you can buy it now: https://estore.ti.com/msp-exp430f5529lp.aspx
But Tiva LaunchPad is better and you can buy at discount Stellaris LaunchPad  for only $8. You don't need 16bit dev board, we are not 80's anymore.

Edit: I was wrong.
http://e2e.ti.com/blogs_/b/analogwire/archive/2013/09/16/inductive-sensing-meet-ldc-the-industry-s-first-inductance-to-digital-converter.aspx

[Stonent]

Here's the eval board: http://www.ti.com/tool/LDC1000EVM

[tszaboo]

I can actually see some neat design with this chip. I wonder if we can multiplex the input with analog switches, that would be super awesome.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Probably this
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/electronic-product-reviews/other/4421072/Texas-Instruments-inductive-to-digital-converter--LDC--Necessity-breeds-invention

[Alexei.Polkhanov]

Probably this
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/electronic-product-reviews/other/4421072/Texas-Instruments-inductive-to-digital-converter--LDC--Necessity-breeds-invention

So that is an LCR meter on a chip?

[mrflibble]

LC-tank resonance meter. The position resolution claimed in the user guide is pretty impressive, range is a bit on the small side though.

[TerraHertz]

Bah. So much for using it as a general purpose metal detector. Or at least, their 'WEBENCH Inductive Sensing Designer' doesn't envisage such use:

    "ERROR: Distance has to be less than 7 cm. Resolution has to be less than 999 um."

I still wonder if it's possible though. There are products call pin-pointing wands, that are quite expensive. Used for when you have a shovel-full of dirt, and somewhere in it there's a very small metalic object. One way is to pass successive halves in front of the detector coil, discarding portions that don't contain anything. Another way is with a wand, that has only a small area of sensitivity right at the tip.

All the links in one place:
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/electronic-product-reviews/other/4421072/Texas-Instruments-inductive-to-digital-converter--LDC--Necessity-breeds-invention

http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/ldc1000.pdf  chip data sheet

Evaluation module:
The LCD1000EVM is available for $29.00 US
http://www.ti.com/tool/ldc1000evm?DCMP=sva-psp-ssp-ldc1000-en&HQS=sva-psp-ssp-ldc1000-pr-evm-en
http://www.ti.com/lit/ug/snau150/snau150.pdf    LDC1000 Evaluation Module User Guide (PDF 2196 KB)

http://www.ti.com/sva-psp-ssp-ldc1000-pr-webench-en
System designers can create a custom sensor coil and configure the LDC in seconds with TI's new WEBENCH Inductive Sensing Designer. The online tool simplifies the sensor coil design process and provides configuration settings for the LDC based on the coil’s characteristics, application requirements and system performance needs. The optimized design can be easily exported to a variety of popular CAD programs, to quickly incorporate the sensor coil into the overall system design.

[hightmare]

LC-tank resonance meter. The position resolution claimed in the user guide is pretty impressive, range is a bit on the small side though.

So is this better than connecting pins 2.6 and 2.7 of msp430 to LC-tank and measuring ACLK frequency?

[firewalker]

So, what is the "game changing"? 

Alexander.

[mrflibble]

So, what is the "game changing"? 

It's a phrase used by marketing departments to indicate something normal people would describe as "mildly interesting".

Other than that, this might be interesting to measure table vibration amplitute & frequency for setups that are really sensitive to that. Assuming it can update fast enough.

[Len]

So, what is the "game changing"? 

Well, I still had to come to work today, so whatever it was it didn't change the game all that much.

[mrflibble]

That's just life telling you you're in the wrong game...