Welcome to the May edition of PSD. Nothing much has changed since I wrote here last month. The UK is still under lockdown, but things look to be easing up in the coming weeks, hopefully allowing the country to get back to a bit of normality. Italy and Spain seem to be over the worst and as I write this, Germany has announced that it is slowly starting to ease up on restrictions. Other European countries may also follow Germany’s lead in the near future. The big question is, can the economy bounce back quickly or not? It is a difficult question to answer, but some economists seem quite optimistic. I’m sure everyone is praying that they are correct on this occasion.
Our special report this month is on power semiconductors. That’s obviously a pretty wide area, and our contributed articles bear that out. Initially we have an article from Microchip discussing the new USB4 standard and the changes it will bring. Although the standard is primarily focussed on increasing the bandwidth for data transfer, it will also make the inclusion of Power Delivery (PD) technology mandatory. The PD specification itself has been revised for the purpose of including new messages that discover and transition to USB4 mode, but the original power scheme is left intact. In the article, Fionn Sheerin, who is a Principal Product Marketing Engineer at Microchip takes us through the new specification and its use cases.
Our next article in the special report looks at SiC technology in the renewables field. Every country in the world is searching for ways to go carbon neutral, and building up renewable energy capabilities has proven to be a good way to reduce the amount of carbon generated, as well as our dependence on fossil fuels. To make these renewable sources as efficient as possible, losses during conversion have to be kept to an absolute minimum, especially since most circuits will have at least two conversion stages between the source and the output. The silicon switches used in these conversions are reaching theoretical limits. Silicon Carbide could offer the best hope for further improvements. The included article from UnitedSIC describes how SiC switches are perfect to form the basis of next-generation conversion switches – increasing efficiency while cutting size, weight and cost.
Finally, Jim Davis, Director of Advanced Solutions & Technical Support at Allied Electronics & Automation looks at 24V DC power supplies for industrial control and automation. With the implementation of IIoT technologies, many businesses will be looking at how their equipment is powered, including the choices they face. In the article, Jim makes the case for 24V DC supplies and tells us how they are specified and how they can be implemented.
As well as our special report, there are also general articles on a variety of power issues throughout the issue. I hope you stay safe and enjoy the issue.
Best Regards,
Ally Winning
European Editor, PSD
