Power Supplies

January 2020
Magnetics is the Key to Power Supply Design
A frequent discussion we have regarding power converters is about magnetics.  Usually it goes something like this — they inherited the design of an existing power supply and may or may not be having issues with the design.  They may want to update the design with new components, or they were to
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Date:
01/26/2020
Installation of Open Frame, U Channel AC/DC Power Supplies

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Figure 1: Open frame power supply

AC/DC power supplies are commonly supplied in what is known by the industry as an open frame format. Open frame generally describes a product which is a PCB only construction, component power supply designed to be installed into an end-equipment application which provides the enclosure for the entire product. Another common for
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Date:
01/26/2020
MTBF – A Prediction of a Power Supply's Operating Life?

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Figure 1: Reliability bathtub curve

The definition of MTBF is often open to misinterpretation. MTBF, or mean time between failures, is not a prediction of product or system operating life. Instead, it is a prediction of time between successive failures during normal operation. This is particularly relevant for a system or product that is likely t
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Date:
01/26/2020
Ride Through the MLCC Shortage

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Figure 1. Increases in worldwide MLCC use in electric automobiles (a) and cell phones (b), without commensurate increases in production, have led to shortages.

The worldwide supply of multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs) is not keeping up with demand. This is due in no small part to increased electronic complexity of cell phones, increased sales of electric cars, and a worldwide expansion of electronic content across industries. Some smartphones have doubled MLCC us
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Date:
01/26/2020
Digital Control in Power Supplies Supports Industry 4.0, IoT

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Figure 1. Analogue power supply with digital interface

Digital control in power supplies and power systems broadly fits into two implementations. The more common approach is a digital interface between the traditional analogue control system and the outside world providing signals & alarms and various levels of control via a communication bus. Simple, low-cost
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Date:
01/26/2020
Avoiding Field Failures with Crowbar Protection Thyristors

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Figure 1. SIDACtor I-V Curve. It is a bipolar device with an off-state and an on-state. VDRM is the maximum off-state voltage. In that state, the maximum current, IDRM is the off-state leakage current. When the voltage across the device reaches the breakover voltage, VS, the device switches to the on-state and conducts a large current, IH, the holding current. The SIDACtor maintains the holding current at a low voltage, VT, the holding voltage. The SIDACtor can maintain a large current with its power capacity due to the low crowbar voltage, VT.

Ensuring a product is robust to power line transient conditions is a critical aspect of design that often does not receive the appropriate level of attention during product design. While a product failure due to a high voltage transient is an external event, the failure is due to a design that inadequately protects th
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Date:
01/26/2020
Back to Basics
I’d like to wish you and your families a Happy New Year from all the team at PSD. I hope you had a great break and are back relaxed and refreshed to face the year ahead. Myself, I tried to do as little as possible except see my family and friends and feel much better for it. The first few months of the year al
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Date:
01/26/2020
Kicking Off the New Year in Style
With 2020 upon us, we hope your holiday was grand, your family was bearable, and if you were lucky enough to go to CES, the only thing you brought back is good stories (and most of your money). Welcome to another year of power engineering! And what better way to kick off 2020 than a fundamental topic like “P
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Date:
01/26/2020
The Versatile Inductor
Traditionally, off-the-shelf power inductors have offered the capability to perform a variety of functions and serve many different applications. The same inductor might have served one circuit as a ripple-smoothing element in an LC output filter and as an EMI suppression choke in another. By contrast, a device
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Date:
01/23/2020
Compact, Extended-Range Programmable DC Power Supply
XP Power announced a new single output programmable DC power supply that is ideal for use in a wide variety of applications including laboratory, production, and embedded test & measurement. Multiple interfaces including USB, analogue, and LAN are built-in as standard, enhancing the flexibility and controllability of
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Date:
01/21/2020
Understanding the Basics of DC-DC Conversion

Figure 1: DC-DC converters can be isolated or non-isolated

When Allesandro Volta made a battery out of copper and zinc disks and brine-soaked cardboard, it was a novelty and the low power DC produced had few practical applications. As electricity became better understood and it was discovered that rotating magnets could induce AC current in wires, the world of power ge
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Date:
01/20/2020
3W ACDC Converter with Transient Output Power Up to 12W
In some applications where high transient communication or drive power is required, such as electrical control systems, automatic meter reading, anti-theft alarms, and access electric lock applications, large amounts of power are outputted in a short time at transmitting and receiving data or driving relays. Therefore,
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Date:
01/17/2020
Power Platform Mitigates Voltage Sags and Swells
Legend Power Systems Inc. has continued enhancing its groundbreaking SmartGATE platform. The platform’s management of power quality issues now includes the ability to mitigate the effects of voltage sags and swells, which are key causes of damage to motors, computer system crashes and a general shortening of
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Date:
01/09/2020
Metal Film Resistors Offer High Power to Size Ratio
Stackpole's RNS Series is ideal for designs that require downsizing or added features. It is also a popular choice for new designs that require the smallest form factor possible for a given power rating. Specifically, the RNS 1/2W has a 1/8W body size, the 1W has a ¼ watt body size, and the RNS 2W has a ½ watt bod
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Date:
01/09/2020
Shrink Power Footprint by up to 80% in True Wireless Earbuds
Designers of ultra-low-power portables and wearables can shrink the size of a power and communication interface to the charging dock by up to 80 percent with the MAX20340, the industry’s smallest 2-pin bi-directional DC powerline communications (PLC) device from Maxim Integrated Products, Inc. With power and co
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Date:
01/09/2020
Bel Fuse-Circuit Protection Announces Slow Blow SMD Fuses
Bel Fuse-Circuit Protection announces their 0680L Series of ceramic surface mount fuses with in-rush current withstand capability in a 2410 SMD package size. These slow blow fuses are designed for automotive and applications which require high DC voltage ratings and high DC interrupting ratings. Bel’s 0680L Ser
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Date:
01/09/2020
TAIYO YUDEN’s All-Solid-State Lithium-Ion Secondary Batteries
TAIYO YUDEN announced today the development of all-solid state lithium-ion secondary batteries (hereinafter referred to as “all-solid-state batteries”) in which various technologies including the process technology of multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs) are capitalized. All-solid-state batteries are s
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Date:
01/08/2020
Altair Acquires newFASANT, Grows Electromagnetics Portfolio

The GTD module is used to analyze the propagation and study the coverage of several antennas placed in an urban environment.

Altair announced the acquisition of newFASANT, offering leading technology in computational and high-frequency electromagnetics. newFASANT’s solutions address a wide range of electromagnetic problems in areas such as antenna design and placement, radar cross section (RCS) analysis, automotive V2V/ADAS, and
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Date:
01/06/2020