Industry news

SynQor, Inc. announced the release of its military Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) EXA Series of isolated and fully-regulated dc-dc converters. This new EXA Series offers up to 300W of power in a quarter-brick package. These highly efficient (95% at full load), high power density dc-dc converters have a 28V nominal input voltage (16-40Vin range with a 50V transient for 1 second). They

Read more

Expanding its extensive portfolio of dc-dc converters, Texas Instruments, Inc. (TI) today introduced the its smallest and highest performance 1-A and 4-A buck-boost regulators. Designed to extend battery life in Li-Ion battery-powered designs ranging from portable medical devices to point-of-sale terminals, the 1-A TPS63050 and 4-A TPS630250 single-inductor devices achieve up to 95 percent efficiency in half the solution size

Read more

The new low cost LED funding will be distributed among nine one- to two-year projects in six different states. The total Energy Department contribution adds up to $10.5 million. The recipients will chip in an additional $3.7 million for a total of $13.7 all together. Here’s the breakdown: 1. In Pennsylvania, Carnegie Mellon University is tasked with “Novel Transparent Phosphor

Read more

Before running a formal test with multiple resistance temperature detector sensors, it is often necessary to calibrate and debug a data-acquisition system to verify basic functionality. The brute-force approach would be to wire all the sensors to the front-end board and use an environmental chamber to set the temperature of the RTDs. An easier way is to use a software-controlled

Read more

Analog Devices has added the ADSP-BF70x to the Blackfin processor family. The new offerings incorporate the new Blackfin+ core. It can handle 2 by 16-bit, 32-bit and complex math operations in a single cycle. It is backwards compatible and delivers 800 MMACS for 16-bit operations and half that for 32-bit operations. Versions are available with up to 1 Mbyte of

Read more

Researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) have recently introduced the highest performing III-V metal-oxide semiconductor (MOS) field-effect transistors (FETs) at the 2014 Symposium on VLSI Technology. The UCSB research promises to help deliver higher semiconductor performance at lower power consumption levels for next-generation, high-performance servers. The research is supported by the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), the world’s

Read more

STMicroelectronics has revealed an advanced new product family enabling power supply designers to drive up energy efficiency in applications such as solar inverters and electric vehicles, enterprise computing and industrial motor drives. ST is among the first companies to produce this type of device, a high-voltage silicon carbide (SiC) power MOSFET, and has achieved the industry’s highest temperature rating of

Read more

Natcore Technology, Inc. has engaged the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) to augment what Natcore has accomplished in its own R&D Center and in the Chinese factory of one of the world’s largest photovoltaic manufacturers. “We’ve been building a head of steam,” says Provini. “We want to capitalize on it. We want to accelerate the delivery of black

Read more

Aimtec, Inc. announces the new AM10EW-NZ series. This 10-Watt dc-dc converter operates with an ultra-wide input of 40- to 160-Vdc (4:1) and is housed in a 2×1 DIP package. This new series provides input-to-output isolation of 1500Vdc, continuous short circuit protection, over voltage protection and an operating temperature range of -40 to +85 degrees C. Standard output voltages of 5-,

Read more

Along with 3 billion other viewers around the world, I plan to tune in for the month-long World Cup to see whether the 22-year old Neymar can withstand the colossal pressure that has been put upon his shoulders to deliver a win for team Brazil. Every time I turn on my television set, I’m using World Cup-related energy. And that’s

Read more