Motor Drives, Robotics & Controls

February 2022

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System solutions for battery-powered applications: Part 4 of 4 Editorial Series sponsored by Infineon; Innovative solutions for compact and efficient battery-powered applications

John Garcia, Director Applications Marketing, Motion Control, Battery-Powered Systems, at Infineon Technologies

Introduction As discussed in previous installments in this series, integrating power electronics co-located or in close proximity to motors is an important design goal in many battery-powered applications. Faced with increasing functionality and power requirements, as well as the size and weight constraints in

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Date:

02/25/2022

OMRON G8PM High Power PCB Relay Available at TTI

TTI, Inc., a leading specialty distributor of electronic components, is now stocking the G8PM Relay from OMRON. The High Power G8PM Relay is suited for 12VDC motor and resistive control applications and can support a 60A fuse. Its small size and heat resistance enable usage in the engine compartment. It has a

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Date:

02/24/2022

Infineon Invests Over €2 Billion in New Frontend Fab

Ally Winning

There was a time where the trend in the semiconductor industry was to move to a fabless strategy. Why bother with the expense of a fab and gaining the expertise in-house to take care of complex manufacturing, when you could easily subcontract to a specialist who’d make your chips cheaply and with higher yields t

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Date:

02/22/2022

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System solutions for battery-powered applications: Part 3 of 4 Editorial Series sponsored by Infineon; Maximizing integration and addressing EMI challenges in low-voltage motor drive/control applications

Liz Zheng, Senior Staff Applications Engineer, and Peter Green, Lead Principal Engineer, Manager of Product and System applications, both at Infineon Technologies

Introduction Now that the era of the IoT, AI, and 5G has arrived, intelligent, lightweight, and miniaturized motor drives are essential to the next generation of power tools. According to a forecast provided by Grandview Research [1], the global power tool market is projected to reach 40.9 billion US dollars

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Date:

02/18/2022

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System solutions for battery-powered applications: Part 2 of 4 Editorial Series sponsored by Infineon; High power density and thermal management for compact low-voltage (LV) motor drive/control designs

Francesca Pastorelli, Senior Specialist Product Management, Power Discretes, at Infineon Technologies

The challenge Heat management is one of the biggest challenges for motor control and drive designs as it affects the efficiency and lifetime of the solution. In battery-powered applications, more sophisticated cooling mechanisms are adopted, requiring smaller heatsinks as well as different approaches other than PCB cooling. Power MOSFET package innovation is moving towards these new industry´s needs by developing products overcoming thermal challenges. Current state-of-the-art solutions Today most of the power MOSFET

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Date:

02/11/2022

Melexis Gives Robots a Sense of Touch

Melexis has made a major innovation to improve robots’ ability to interact with fragile or diverse objects. The company has unveiled Tactaxis, a fully integrated tactile sensor that is compact, soft and provides the 3D force vector acting on its surface. This improves robots’ hands and grippers, making delicate op

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Date:

02/08/2022

TPI 180 and TPP 180 Series 180 Watt AC/DC power supplies

TRACO POWER’s TPI 180 & TPP 180 are a set of encapsulated AC/DC power supplies coming as open frame and encased versions. They feature a reinforced double I/O isolation (3000 VAC) system according to latest medical safety standards (60601-1 3rd edition, 2 x MOPP). The leakage current is below 300 μA and makes

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Date:

02/02/2022

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Figure 1: Voltage distributes equally across inductor turns

It’s All About Voltage Ratings

Len Crane, Senior Technologist, Coilcraft

Yes, voltage ratings for inductors. The popularity of molded composite core inductors has placed new emphasis on voltage ratings to ensure safe and reliable inductor operation. Molded-core inductors place the core material in direct contact with the windings, changing the way inductor windings are insulated. New circuit

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Date:

02/02/2022