Legislation & Skills

Electric vehicle chargers installed in the UK after the end of 2027, along with heat pumps and grid-connected domestic storage batteries, will have to be remotely controllable by power companies. This is according to the UK government’s response to its 2024 public consultation on ‘energy smart appliances’ (ESAs), which has just been published. “The government will, subject to Parliamentary approval, ...

The IPC, the trade association for electronics assembly companies, has released the findings of recent research into the industry’s approach to sustainability. Each year, electronic waste accounts for $57 billion in losses including the disposal of iron, copper, and gold.  The survey finds that sustainability is inspiring changes to every aspect of electronics manufacturing, said Dr John W Mitchell, the IPC’s ...

JEDEC has published a new JESD318 Compression Attached Memory Module (CAMM2) Common Standard, which defines the electrical and mechanical requirements for Compression-Attached Memory Modules. It covers both Double Data Rate, Synchronous DRAM Compression-Attached Memory Modules (DDR5 SDRAM CAMM2s) and Low Power Double Data Rate, Synchronous DRAM Compression-Attached Memory Modules (LPDDR5/5X SDRAM CAMM2s). The standards body highlights that DDR5 and LPDDR5/5X ...

Software designed to detect child abuse images on smartphones, which could be mandated by governments in some counties, can be covertly repurposed to intrude on personal privacy, according to research at Imperial college. ‘Client-side scanning’ (CSS) is an image analysis technique based on ‘perceptual hashing’, and is mooted as a way to get around the legitimate problem of criminals hiding ...

The lighting protocol DALI now includes emergency lighting control. Paul Drosihn, of the DALI Alliance, explains DALI-2 Emergency. When there’s an emergency in a building occupants need to be able to see their surroundings and escape from danger. Sudden darkness puts them at risk of injury from an accident and can trigger panic. If the main power supply fails and ...

Analog Devices has had its wirelessly-linked electric vehicle battery management systems certified to the new ISO/SAE 21434 standard for whole-life cyber-security risk management. It is “the highest standard of automotive cybersecurity engineering and management”, according to ADI, managing security “from concept, product development and production, to operation, maintenance, and decommissioning of electrical and electronic systems.” The company’s wireless battery manager ...

Microchip is offering information packages assist the development of products to ASIL B and ASIL C automotive functional safety levels of ISO 26262. “As the level of sophistication and electronics increases in cars, functional safety requirements are becoming much more rigorous in automotive designs,” said Microchip v-p Joe Thomsen. “To help our clients develop safety applications, Microchip has greatly expanded ...

Following on from February, the UK Government has published the second version of draft rules governing digital identities – with the aim of making “it faster and easier for people to verify themselves using through a process as trusted as using drivers licenses or passports”. The rules are in a ‘trust framework’. “The framework incorporates extensive feedback from an on-line ...

The Government is planning to boost the legal status of digital identities to make them “as widely recognised as driver’s licences and bank statements”, according to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), which is seeking “Easily recognised trust-marks to be issued for digital identity products to build public confidence.” Such digital identities will allow people to “easily and ...

JEP181 from JEDEC is a neutral file XML-based standard for thermal models. The chosen file format is ECXML, for ‘electronics cooling extensible mark-up language’. “A de facto standard for a number of years, ECXML is now published by JEDEC as the JEP181 guideline,” according to Siemens, which participated in the creation of the standard. “The standard was created to meet a ...