Industry news

A new, somewhat clever means of managing and improving the efficiency of the power grid was recently unveiled by a coalition of some of the world’s largest automakers. To be precise, this new “means” is in fact simply a technology that allows for the direct communication of utility companies and plug-in electric vehicles, via the cloud. That doesn’t sound like

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Data centers waste an enormous amount of energy because they are designed for peak application workloads and high availability, and not for efficiency. However, there is no need to sacrifice energy efficiency to increase application availability. The ultimate goal of energy efficiency should be energy proportionality. That is, the energy being consumed should be directly proportional to the work being

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Many of the programmable logic, microcontroller and microprocessor IC’s on the market require multiple voltage rails for operation. Many interface standards also require various voltages to power transceivers, line drivers, sensors, data converters, etc. In a perfect world, all of these voltages are the same, have wide regulation accuracy requirements and draw very little current. We, however live in the

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Just in case Night of the Living Dead becomes a reality, zombie enthusiasts across the globe are gearing up to plan for the potential zombie apocalypse. The folks at Architects Southwest have devised a fun contest for designers and architects to create a Zombie Safe House. One horrific entry is a self-sustaining vertical farm that uses a zombie-powered energy system,

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The need for improved energy efficiency is driving demand for better high power semiconductor devices. However, as their performance has improved, characterizing these devices has become increasingly complex. This article uses a typical design and development workflow to highlight important measurement challenges associated with each stage. Figure 1. Typical power semiconductor design and development lab-to-fab workflow. The Design Stage Today,

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Driven by integrated functionality and shrinking size for smart-phone and tablet devices, energy density of lithium-ion batteries have significantly improved during the last few years. Advancements in mobile devices and battery technology have led designers of battery charger to focus on improving power conversion efficiency, power density, operating temperature, charging time and output power with advanced power devices, circuit topologies

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Engineers at Stanford University can already power this prototype medical implant chip without wires by using ultrasound. Now they want to make it much smaller. Medical researchers would like to plant tiny electronic devices deep inside our bodies to monitor biological processes and deliver pinpoint therapies to treat illness or relieve pain. But so far engineers have been unable to

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At electronica 2014 in Munich, Texas Instruments (TI) will showcase how analog and embedded processing semiconductors enable innovative technologies to meet today’s industrial and automotive challenges. Visitors will have the opportunity to participate in hands-on demonstrations that reveal how the right products and solutions for complex systems can make development easy and shorten development times. Main highlights of the TI

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Stem, Inc. has teamed with Kyocera Solar Inc. to offer an integrated solar photovoltaic (PV) and energy storage solution for commercial power users. The new solution automatically reduces demand on the electric utility grid, providing guarantees for significant energy savings now and against possible future tariffs — benefits reinforced by using high-performance Kyocera solar modules. Kyocera is the first solar

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International Rectifier Corp. (IR) today announced the expansion of its portfolio of insulated-gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) with the introduction of a family of rugged, reliable 650V devices optimized for fast switching applications including solar inverters, welding equipment, industrial motors, induction heating and uninterruptible power supplies (UPS). Ranging from 15A to 90A, the IRGP47xx family of IGBTs utilizes trench thin-wafer technology

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