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Issue Highlights
Editor's Note
There
are 10 billion motors of every kind shipped every year. With efficiency
becoming the mantra for today's environmental concerns, semiconductor
companies are focused on finding ways to control energy usage and
reduce it by at least 30 percent, according to Texas Instruments execs
who presented at the TI Media Day last week.
Magnetic elements of the rare earth kind are being eliminated and
sophisticated software analytics algorithms are being applied to
control motors. At TI's Kilby Labs, the Motor Lab uses proprietary
algorithms to bring control to motors at the expected efficiency. It is
one of several labs including Communications Systems Lab; Lighting Lab;
Speech and Audio Lab; Solar Lab; System Architectures Lab; Video,
Imaging and Vision Lab. The idea of course is to apply a
cross-functional model facilitating connections across the wide range
of TI products and design teams while also unearthing new uses of
technology in unexpected places, according to the TI website.
On the battery front, a new global battery industry directory is out
and is being touted as an "authoritative annual desktop reference
guide for battery manufacturers, battery dealers and developers of
products utilizing battery technology." It contains an industry-wide
listing of battery manufacturers and distributors broken down by
chemistry as well as vendors and suppliers to the industry. Each
company is coded with the market they serve. For more information, see here.
Speaking of batteries the Windows RT version of Microsoft's new Surface
tablet is said to ship with a 31.5 Watt-hour battery compared to the 25
Watt-hour battery in Apple's iPad 2. Should be interesting competition
once the Surface becomes available.
How Tos
In
Part One of this two-part article, Cypress engineers describe different
types of rechargeable batteries, their differences and how to select a
battery technology for a specific application.
This
piece is a hands-on how to optimize FPGA designs for low power
operation. This is a universal topic but, of course, it is really
important for wireless and mobile military and aerospace applications
that run on battery power. Such applications go from planes, to drones
to frontline soldier communication equipment.
We
continue our discussion of common-mode currents which started in Power
Tip 47.
Essentially
a vehicle's powertrain is the system that powers the car -
traditionally a combustion engine - and transfers that power to the
transmission, drive shaft and finally to the wheels of the car.
The
modern portable product designer of industrial and medical portable
devices has an extremely challenging job – particularly when it comes
to power. Businesses continue to demand features that require more
power and consequently, larger batteries.
VPT
Inc. has produced a slideshow that clearly and simply presents the
SVGA0515 Series of high reliability radiation-hardened hybrid DC-DC
converters for the harsh radiation environment of space applications.
Part
1 will describe the individual ADC and amplifier characteristics, show
a proposed 19dB gain interface circuit including a 2nd order RLC filter
between the amplifier and ADC.
A
smart street lighting system allows to remotely control street lights
while keeping track of electrical power consumption in the lamps and in
the driving circuits
The
niche that supercapacitors (also known as ultra-capacitors or
supercaps) have served in the market space between conventional
capacitors and batteries continues to grow as more new applications are
found.
A
thorough analysis of the entire power subsystem takes time and requires
some simplifications in order to make the problem tractable…
Products
Altera
and Texas Instruments have introduced an RF development kit at the
International Microwave Symposium intended to ease RF prototyping for
systems based on Altera's 28-nm Arria V FPGAs.
Ix
Innovations' PocketPico P200 PowerMate measures current from 10 nA to
30 mA in a single measurement range and charts system energy usage over
time.
Linear's
0V to 18V dual ideal diode controller enables low loss ORing of
multiple power sources with minimal disturbance to supply voltages.
Applications
include BLDC motors, pumps, and cooling systems.
Texas
Instruments has expanded its Webench suite of tools with Webench System
Power Architect, an online tool to speed design of multi-output,
high-performance dc/dc power supply systems.
Analog
Devices says its latest devices are a better alternative to
optocoupler-based gate drivers, with 4X faster timing and 50 year operating
life.
Three-dimensional
animation permits model reuse and quickens analyses.
Samples
of Gecko, Tiny Gecko, Leopard Gecko, and Giant Gecko, delivered
worldwide free of charge.
Reduces
capacitor size, removes boost converter, increases reliability, and
reduces cost of power protection for solid state drives (SSDs).
Ericsson's
latest fully regulated digital DC/DC converters are based on a 32-bit
ARM microcontroller that embeds its most advanced firmware to date.
News
An
Intel dual-core Atom chip will be the first processor to populate a
CPU-agnostic low power server Hewlett-Packard will ship before the end
of the year.
A
three-year research project aims to work on the design of next
generation electric vehicle motors that eliminate the use of expensive
magnetic materials.
Nanoelectronics
research center Imec (Leuven, Belgium) and Panasonic Corp. announced
they have extended a R&D collaboration agreement for a period of
three years to include research in healthcare, wireless communication,
advanced CMOS process and flexible electronics.
Wafer
maker Soitec SA announced it has completed construction and grid
connection of its 1.17-megawatt-peak concentrator photovoltaic solar
power plant in the Belpasso municipality, in Sicily.
At
LFI 2012 in Las Vegas, NXP showcased two wireless smart lighting
solutions based on IEEE 802.15.4 standards.
One
week after Taiwan's Computex, Apple rolled out a new line of notebooks
that will bring the ceiling down on Ultrabooks and ultrathins from PC
makers.
Tech
companies are promoting "intelligent efficiency" as a new way
to leverage smart devices and networks to achieve greater energy
savings.
The
ability to accurately access patient condition via a combination of
advanced testing and telemonitoring creates the opportunity to
intervene when what is called for clinically can make a difference.
Research
consortium Imec (Leuven, Belgium) and Kaneka (Osaka, Japan) claimed
they have demonstrated a 6-inch semi-square heterojunction silicon
solar cell with a certified power conversion efficiency of 22.68
percent with an electroplated copper contact grid on top of the
transparent conductive oxide layer.
The
Patient Status Engine is a cloud-based wireless sensor vigilance system
for real-time and predictive patient status monitoring.
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