ST’s tiny, low-power chips and sensors drive key features of wearable tech that helps golfers enjoy and improve their game
New Delhi, September 22, 2014 – The world’s golfers can enjoy their sport even more using the new CaddieON® electronic golf-play analyzer built with advanced sensing, control, and wireless communication chips from STMicroelectronics, a global semiconductor leader serving customers across the spectrum of electronics applications.
Launched by tech startup CaddieON Inc., this personal electronic caddie help golfers automatically track and analyze their game. The easy-to-use system comprises a smart-sensor wrist device, simple RFID tags for identifying each club, the smartphone app, and a player portal in cloud service.
The wrist device reads each club’s tag and automatically records the round stroke by stroke, and sends data to the app via Bluetooth®. ST technologies used in the CaddieON wrist device electronics include the RFID reader IC for identifying tagged clubs, a tiny single-chip accelerometer for accurate stroke detection, and an ultra-low-power microcontroller for system control. “ST’s proven technologies, easy-to-use development tools, and competitive pricing helped us overcome tough budgetary and time-to-market constraints, and achieve a successful result,” said Tuomo Lalli, founder and CEO of CaddieON. “CaddieON will greatly enhance enjoyment of the game for golfing devotees worldwide. I should know, because I am one.”
“CaddieON is cutting-edge in so many ways, not only in technological terms but also in its use of crowd funding and incentives for customers to help map large numbers of popular golf courses around the world,” said Iain Currie, Vice President North Europe Sales, STMicroelectronics. “Our advanced low-power and sensing technologies are perfect for an innovative project like this.”
Further Technical Information
The CaddieON wrist device uses ST’s CR95HF integrated transceiver IC for reading the RFID tags attached to each of the player’s clubs. The CR95HF manages frame coding and decoding for standard contactless applications. It supports ISO/IEC 14443 Type A and B, ISO/IEC 15693 and ISO/IEC 18092 protocols, and also embeds an analog front end (AFE) to provide the 13.56MHz air interface. It can also detect, read and write NFC Forum Type 1, 2, 3 and 4 tags.
Helping ensure faultlessly accurate stroke detection is the ST LIS3DSH ultra low-power high-performance three-axis linear accelerometer. The LIS3DSH operates from a supply voltage as low as 1.71V, and has a dynamically selectable full scale of up to ±16g. It can be configured to generate interrupts according to user-defined movement patterns, and integrates a programmable state machine as well as a FIFO buffer that helps reduce host-processor intervention. It is housed in a tiny 3mm x 3mm x 1mm thin plastic land grid array package (LGA). ST has more than 900 MEMS-related patents and patent applications worldwide.
To manage key features of the wrist device, CaddieON uses an ultra-low-power STM32L1 microcontroller. This industry-leading line from ST combines the low-power and highly efficient ARM® Cortex®-M3 core with innovative power-saving techniques and ST’s low-power process technology. The power-saving features include dynamic voltage scaling, multiple voltage-regulator modes, low-power RUN and SLEEP modes, peripheral gating and a flexible clock controller, as well as hardware encryption engine. The devices are available in packages from a 20mm x 20mm LQFP144 to a 3.3mm x 3.3mm WLCSP64. Designers using the STM32L1 can also take advantage of extensive pin, peripheral and software compatibility throughout ST’s vast family of STM32 microcontrollers spanning a wide performance spectrum, to scale applications and re-use IP resulting in shorter time to market and lower development costs.
