Tag: news

Elon Musk touting the idea of franchise Tesla dealerships? Sounds about right, doesn’t it? Wait, what? In a rather surprising comment — but I guess he makes those a lot, doesn’t he? — Musk recently noted that as Tesla continues to expand it may need to utilize franchised dealerships, in addition to its Tesla Stores. That’s a bit of a

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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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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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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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Vishay Intertechnology, Inc. today introduced a new series of screw-terminal power aluminum capacitors designed for traction and heavy-duty applications. Devices in the Vishay BCcomponents 110 PHT-ST series offer a long useful life of 10,000 hours at +85 degrees C and high ripple current to 19.76 A at +85 degrees C in large 76 mm by 146 mm and 76 mm

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