Technical Features

September 2013
Future-Proof Automotive High-Voltage-to-SELV Conversion

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Figure 1 A single Vicor module is a complete DC-DC converter consisting of hundreds of tiny, integrated and optimized components

­The legacy 12V architecture that has supported vehicles for decades is no longer capable of sustaining the rising electronic load in automotive systems. Current-generation vehicles rely on high-performance ADAS computers, multi-sensor perception stacks, electric chassis systems, zonal controllers and high-p
Date:
12/30/2025
What is the Smart Grid, really?

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Figure 1: Escalating installations of renewable energy sources are likely to be distributed far and wide

The Smart Grid - a changing landscape of supply, demand and storage Definitions of the "Smart Grid" range from highly technical descriptions to purely commercial interpretations, but whichever one
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Date:
09/26/2013
Understanding power factor and the need for power factor correction

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Figure 1: An ideal waveform with a power factor of 0

Until the era of switching power supplies, Power Factor - and power factor correction - wasn't a big concern for all but a handful of electrical engineers working with large electric motors, and other,
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Date:
09/24/2013
Selecting the Right MOSFET for Power Factor Correction Applications

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Figure 1: PFC schematic

Power factor is the ratio of the real power (P = Watts) to the apparent power (VA = Volt Ampere); the goal is to achieve a power factor as close to 1 as possible. A load with a lower power factor
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Date:
09/19/2013
Online Design for FPGA Power

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Figure 1: High-level schematic showing the power tree for an Altera Stratix III FPGA.

The Internet has become a key resource used by engineers to obtain information. In spite of the wealth of data, the assimilation and practical application of information remains a challenge. Cloud
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Date:
09/05/2013
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