Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC) today announced that it has enhanced its portfolio of photocouplers with the addition of a smart gate driver photocouplerk with a peak output current of 4A. Housed in a thin SO16L package, the new TLP5214 is suited to driving medium-power IGBTs and power MOSFETs. Used to protect circuits between electronic devices or to block noise
Adding to its portfolio of SafeTI™ design components, today Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) introduced its latest 32-bit dual-core lockstep Hercules™ RM57Lx and TMS570LCx microcontrollers (MCUs) for developers’ functional safety applications. Unique to the Hercules MCU platform, these two new floating-point devices offer a 50 percent increase in computational performance over any of TI’s current ARM® Cortex™-R MCUs, allowing system designers
Microsemi Corporation yesterday at PCIM Europe introduced its new silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFET product family with new 1200V solutions. The innovative new SiC MOSFETs are designed for high-power industrial applications where efficiency is critical. These applications include solutions for solar inverters, electric vehicles, welding and medical devices. The new SiC MOSFETs provide patented technology from Microsemi and are designed to
Akros Silicon Inc. announced during this week’s PCIM Europe show, the AS1705 digital isolator. Optimized to enable real-time telemetry and control of Power Sourcing Equipment (PSE) controllers used in Power-over-Ethernet capable (PoE) switches and routers, the AS1705’s 3.4 MHz communication speed and integration level are unmatched in the industry. The AS1705 comprises a dual-channel bidirectional I2C digital isolator as well
sPower (Sustainable Power Group) a leading sustainable energy provider, announced the acquisition of Bosch Solar Energy North America entities with projects actively operating in the U.S. The acquisition complements sPower’s existing distributed generation portfolio. The transaction follows sPower’s acquisition of Tioga Energy’s operating assets last year and its recent merger with Fir Tree Partners and Silverado Power. As a result
In a surprising move, Austin Energy has closed its negotiations with SunEdison and signed a power purchase agreement for 150 megawatts with Recurrent Energy instead. The new PPA, signed last week, has a term of twenty years, compared to the 25-year term proposed by SunEdison. Recurrent has confirmed that it was “awarded a 150-megawatt contract by Austin Energy” for the
Tesla CTO JB Straubel was the keynote speaker at the annual energy storage symposium put on by Joint Venture Silicon Valley this week. He was previously the CTO of Volacom, is a Stanford grad and sits on SolarCity’s board. Long before joining Tesla, Straubel built a record-setting electric Porsche 944. “I really love batteries. I might love batteries more than
Modern buildings contain a lot of devices — fans, pumps, lights, motors — that can slow down or speed up, dim or brighten, or otherwise alter their electricity consumption on the fly. Utilities and grid operators are eager for fast-responding energy assets that can shave power usage within minutes or alter second-by-second consumption to help keep the grid humming at
Every time I visit a conventional car dealership to test-drive an electric car, I’m struck by the salesman’s lack of savvy about plug-in cars. The first time I drove a Chevy Volt three years ago, the salesman barely knew how to turn the car on, and had no clue about electric cars in general. The Nissan salesman showing me a
New information on updates for 2015 to the Chevrolet Impala full-size sedan range note that a start-stop system will be fitted to the four-cylinder model as standard equipment. So the 2015 Chevy Impala LS model with the base 196-horsepower 2.5-liter four-cylinder will now switch off its engine when the car is stopped, turning it back on as the driver begins