Power Systems Design (PSD) empowers global innovation for the power electronic design engineering community.

Current

Flexible Power Islands Solve Difficult Power Problems in Mobile Devices

Nathan John, Director of Marketing, Silego Technology

Power system design in the age of mobile devices, and especially wearable devices, is more challenging than it has ever been. The end users of these devices want them to continue to get smaller, lighter and cheaper, while at the same time having bigger screens and longer battery life. These opposing

. . . Read More

Date:

06/05/2017

The Main Causes of Power Supply Failure â€

The CoolX 600 Series fanless power supply offers very high input and surge-withstand built in.

The Main Causes of Power Supply Failure – And How to Avoid It

Kevin Parmenter, Excelsys Technologies, Vice President Applications Engineering, N. America

Power supplies are the underpinning of any electronic system. This article presents the five main reasons power supplies fail. It also describes the necessary precautions design engineers should take to avoid systems failures. The article is based on data spanning all markets and

. . . Read More

Date:

06/11/2017

Performance Inverters used in Railway Applications

Tailor made solutions in capacitor markets

Giorgio Cambiaghi - ICAR Export Area Manager

More and more customers in different markets require customized solutions for power electronic capacitors. Last generation of high performance inverters used in Railway, (See Figure 1) Renewable Energy, Heavy Industry applications, to name a few, need more and more customized capacitors to satisfy their

. . . Read More

Date:

06/11/2017

An FPGA-based motor control system (Source: Altera)

Controlling high-speed motors with an FPGA

B P Jeppesen and A Crosland, Altera

The increasing use of electric motors spinning at up to 100,000 rpm, in applications ranging from electric turbochargers to surgical instruments, is creating new challenges in the design of control circuits. The IGBT switches used in many power converters cannot switch quickly or efficiently enough

. . . Read More

Date:

06/11/2017

The creepage distance is the shortest path between two conductors along the surface of an isolator (typically a PCB)

Safety and thermal management

Srivatsa Raghunath, Infineon Technologies

When designing a switch-mode power supply (SMPS) operating losses and the ability to dissipate heat are critical selection criteria for MOSFETs. This is especially critical in the area of intelligent solid-state lighting systems, as the cramped environment and limited ventilation opportunities can significantly

. . . Read More

Date:

06/11/2017

Wireless Power Transfer from a Primary Transmit Coil (Tx) to a Secondary Receive Coil (Rx), Including the LTC4120

IoT can use WPT

Tony Armstrong, Director of Product Marketing, Power Products, Linear Technology

Background & Introduction The term “Internet of Things” (IoT) refers to the ongoing trend to connect not only people and computers, but all sorts of “things” to the Internet and each other. By way of example, consider if you will applications

. . . Read More

Date:

06/10/2017

LEM ATO split core current transformers

Smart Building energy disaggregation Submeter with LEM Split-core CT (ATO)

Submetering equipment allows real-time in-house metering

Industrial companies, factories, multi-tenant commercial and residential building owners install submetering equipment for the purpose of real-time in-house metering. This allows for accurate allocation of costs, calculation of internal billing and enables the implementation of new energy efficiency

. . . Read More

Date:

06/10/2017

AVX’s six-terminal FFLC Series power film capacitor is ideal for DC filtering in wind turbines.

Power Film Capacitors Prove Effective in Renewable Energy and Smart Grid Technology

John Gallipeau, Technical Marketing Manager, Power Film Capacitors, AVX

The cost of renewable energy technology has significantly decreased since the early 1990s due to continual developments in enabling technologies, and the relatively recent evolution of smart grid technologies has allowed renewable energy sources to legitimately contend with fossil fuels. The primary advantage

. . . Read More

Date:

06/10/2017

Inductors, shielded and semi-shielded in addition to conventional unshielded inductors

The Behavior of Electromagnetic Radiation of Power Inductors in Power Management

Herr Ranjith Bramanpalli, Application Engineer Technical Marketing

This article focuses on the Electromagnetic (EM) radiation behavior of power inductor(s) in DC-DC converters, which is dependent on several parameters such as ripple current, switching frequency, rise & fall time of a switching device, the core material and its frequency dependent complex permeability and

. . . Read More

Date:

06/10/2017

Technical Features