Asahi Kasei Microdevices’ CZ39 and CZ3K Current Sensors Featured in Microchip Technology’s Machine Learning-Based Arc Fault Detection Reference Design

TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 8, 2026--

Asahi Kasei Microdevices Corporation (AKM), a subsidiary of diversified global company Asahi Kasei, has announced that its CZ39 series and CZ3K series coreless current sensors have been adopted as key enabling components of Microchip Technology Inc.'s Machine Learning (ML) / AI-based Arc Fault Detection (AFD) reference design featuring a dsPIC33A Digital Signal Controller (DSC). This collaboration demonstrates how AKM's current sensing technology and Microchip's dsPIC33A real-time signal-processing and edge machine-learning capabilities can be combined to support accurate and reliable arc fault detection. The dsPIC33A DSC executes the signal-processing and inference algorithms directly on the controller, enabling local decision making without external processing resources.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260908946869/en/

Arc faults are a leading cause of electrical fires in solar PV systems, energy storage systems, EV charging infrastructure, and industrial and residential power distribution. Conventional threshold-based detection struggles to distinguish real arc events from normal system activity. In residential and commercial AC circuits, everyday loads such as vacuum cleaners, power drills, and light dimmers produce arcing at switch contacts and motor brushes that closely resembles a dangerous arc fault. In DC systems such as solar PV, EV charging, and energy storage, switching transients from relay contact bounce, inverter operation, and capacitor inrush generate broadband noise in the same frequency bands as actual arc faults. In both cases, the result is either false positives that cause unnecessary shutdowns, or relaxed thresholds that miss real faults. Machine learning can close that gap. Microchip's AFD reference design runs an edge ML model directly on its dsPIC33A DSC, leveraging an integrated DSP engine and advanced analog peripherals to enable low latency ML inference. This intelligent approach helps reduce false triggers and improve arc fault detection performance compared with traditional threshold-based approach.

Detection performance depends on multiple factors, including sensor bandwidth and noise performance, signal processing, feature extraction, and machine-learning model training. High-quality current sensing is an important contributor to overall system performance. For high-accuracy detection, the sensor needs to be fast and have little data pollution to capture an arc's signature. A slow or noisy sensor blurs or buries that signature, which precludes effective training of the model. AKM's CZ39 series and CZ3K series coreless current sensors feature a 100 ns response time. Their speed and low-noise signal quality are central to the signal chain behind Microchip's reference design. The engineering team in San Jose at AKM Semiconductor, Inc. (AKMS), AKM’s U.S. subsidiary, worked closely with Microchip on the current-sensing configuration during the development and validation stage.

Chris Baltar, Vice President of Business Development at AKMS, stated, “We were glad to support Microchip as they built out and validated this reference design using the AKM CZ39 and CZ3K families. Our collaboration demonstrates how high-performance current sensing combined with intelligent edge processing can help designers implement advanced protection functions across a variety of power applications. We’re excited to explore how this design could be adopted for data center applications as AI workloads drive the need for higher-power-density and emerging high-voltage power architectures.”

The AFD demonstration, available through Microchip's reference design program, is currently applicable across solar PV, energy storage systems, EV chargers, smart ignition systems, e-Fuse designs, and residential and industrial safety switches.

Asahi Kasei has positioned Electronics as a First Priority business expected to drive earnings growth. The business is expanding its portfolio of materials and components for advanced semiconductors and electronic devices. Within AKM, current sensors are positioned as a future growth pillar, building on their use in EVs while targeting AI and data center applications.

To learn more about the CZ39 series, visit https://www.akm.com/global/en/products/current-sensor/lineup-current-sensor/cz39-series/.

To learn more about the CZ3K series, visit https://www.akm.com/global/en/about-us/news/2026/20260512-cz3k/.

To learn more about Microchip’s dsPIC33A DSC-Machine Learning-Based Arc Fault Detection Demonstration Application, visit https://www.microchip.com/en-us/tools-resources/reference-designs/machine-learning-ai-based-arc-fault-detection-demo-application.

About Asahi Kasei Microdevices (AKM)
AKM, a Japan-based company, operates an electronic components business as a member of the Asahi Kasei Group's Material sector. AKM provides customers with unique products by combining the compound semiconductor technology used in magnetic sensors with the ASIC/analog circuit technology used in silicon semiconductors. AKM’s unique products and solutions are featured across a wide range of markets, including mobile communication devices and consumer products, as well as automotive electronics devices, household equipment, and industrial equipment.

About Asahi Kasei
Asahi Kasei is a diversified global company that contributes to life and living for people around the world. Since its foundation in 1922, with businesses in ammonia and cellulose fiber, Asahi Kasei has consistently grown through proactive portfolio transformation to meet the evolving needs of every age. With 50,000 employees worldwide, the company contributes to sustainability by providing solutions to the world’s challenges across its three business sectors: Healthcare, Homes, and Material. For more information, visit https://www.asahi-kasei.com/.

Machine Learning AI-based Arc Fault Detection (AFD) Demonstration Application

LONDON (AP) — The U.K. government said Tuesday that it's banning trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, where it says “settler terrorists” are carrying out ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said that the U.K. will ban imports of all goods from the settlements, and some services including financing, construction, infrastructure, real estate and advertising for settlements.

It’s a significant toughening of Britain’s stance towards Israel, whose conduct towards the Palestinians under Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has increasingly been criticized by the U.K. and other Israeli allies.

Under Netanyahu’s ultranationalist government, settlement construction in the West Bank has surged. The international community overwhelmingly considers such construction to be illegal and an obstacle to peace.

”The British government agrees that there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank, perpetrated by settler terrorists,” Miliband said. He said there had been “houses bulldozed, roads and public infrastructure destroyed, families displaced from their homes.”

He said that he feels “a deep sense of shame about what has unfolded in Palestine under the eyes of the international community.”

The United Kingdom, a longtime ally of Israel, recognized Palestinian statehood last year in an attempt to revive dwindling efforts to achieve a two-state solution.

The center-left Labour Party government has previously sanctioned some Israeli settlers and illegal outposts over violence against Palestinians and illegal development in the West Bank.

U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham has voiced concerns about the E1 settlement project approved by Israel, which would effectively cut the territory in two. Palestinians and rights groups say it could destroy hopes for a future Palestinian state.

A tougher line on settlements is likely to be welcomed by many Labour voters and lawmakers, who have urged the government to go further in sanctioning Israel and supporting the Palestinians.

But some Labour members expressed concern that the move could boost support for Netanyahu, who is facing a tough battle for reelection in October, or lead to attacks on British Jews.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog said that the ban would be “a grave miscalculation, a decision that will fall on the wrong side of history.

“In the current context, it would be a gross interference in the democratic elections of a sovereign nation,” he said.

Senior Israeli ministers condemned the U.K. government’s impending announcement. Foreign Minister Gideon Saar warned that “if Britain acts against Israel, Israel will act against Britain.”

Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s hard-line public security minister, called on Netanyahu to recognize Argentina’s claim to the Falkland Islands, a British overseas territory in the South Atlantic known in Argentina as Islas Malvinas.

The move was also criticized by the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, who said that it was “discrimination against the Jewish people.” He said that the U.K. could face “repercussions or retaliations” from the U.S. if it imposed the sanctions.

Several U.S. states have laws banning contracts or investments with businesses that boycott Israeli firms, including those based in the West Bank. U.S. Rep. Randy Fines, a Florida Republican, said in a post on social media that the U.K. ban could put at risk “billions of dollars” in trade between British businesses and Florida.

Burnham’s office said that the prime minister spoke to U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday and set out “the U.K.’s commitment to working toward peace and security in the region” and achieving a two-state solution. There was no word on how Trump responded.

Israel seized the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war and which would make up the main part of a future Palestinian state.

Netanyahu’s government views the West Bank as the biblical and historical homeland of the Jewish people and is opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state.

Megan Mineiro contributed to this report from Jerusalem.

FILE - Britain's Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband speaks during a press conference in Madrid, Spain, on July 29, 2026. (Leon Neal/Pool Photo via AP, File)