Technical Features
April 2014
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Figure 1: Gate driver circuit diagram with a Bourns transformer
While gate driver-based converters deliver improved efficiency, speed and signal integrity, their high frequency switching features can produce elevated levels of conducted electromagnetic interference (EMI), posing challenges to electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) and overall system reliability. To solve this
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Date:
03/29/2026
Isolation has been considered a necessary burden by designers. It is necessary because it makes electronics safe for anyone to use. It is a burden because it limits communication speed and consumes a lot of power and board space. Old-technology optocouplers and even many, newer digital isolators co
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Date:
04/30/2014
Investing in product areas where a company has distinct competitive technological advantages only makes sense in markets where there are also large, sustainable opportunities. Power management has evolved from simple regulation and power control to increasingly sophisticated power management devices providing mo
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Date:
04/30/2014
One of the biggest challenges for automotive lighting systems designers is how to optimize all the benefits of the latest generation of HB LEDs. HB LEDs require an accurate and efficient DC current source with a means for dimming and must include protection features. Additionally, these LED driver ICs must be de
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Date:
04/29/2014
In this age of “green” building systems, it is incumbent upon commercial building owners and operators to reduce their day-to-day operating costs while at the same time ensuring the comfort of occupants. Lighting is one of the factors that greatly impacts human comfort. Too much or too little light can result in
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Date:
04/29/2014
Miniaturization and a low profile are demanded of the semiconductors and electronic components used in portable devices such as smartphones and tablets. Accompanying the lower voltages and larger currents used in semiconductors in devices, DC/DC converters, which have a higher conversion efficiency than linear reg
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Date:
04/29/2014
High voltage normally-off GaN transistors are being introduced into the marketplace, and most of these devices will have low threshold voltages of below 2.5 Volts. This presents a severe challenge to conventional drivers, particularly when these very large GaN devices are used to provide 100 - 400A of switching cu
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Date:
04/29/2014
There are several parking garages in the downtown area of almost every German city, many of which are heavily frequented – in winter more than in the summer. Naturally, lighting these buildings, which are generally several floors high, consumes a great deal of energy, incurring high costs in the process. Gerald St
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Date:
04/28/2014
Many LED failures are temperature related since an LED’s performance and projected lifetime correlate tightly to thermal management and the resulting junction temperature of the LED semiconductor chip. Elevated junction temperatures cause a reduction in light output and accelerated LED lifetime degradation. Pr
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Date:
04/28/2014
The controversy over when, where and who developed the incandescent lamp continues with dates and places varying from the early 1800’s in Hungary to the late 1800’s in Menlo Park, California. What cannot be disputed is that this product brought about a revolution to the lighting industry, leading to the co
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Date:
04/28/2014
The portable power application space is both broad and diverse. Products range from wireless sensor nodes (WSNs) that consume average power measured in microwatts to cart-based medical or data acquisition systems with multi-hundred Watt-hour battery packs. However, despite this variety, a few trends emerge – de
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Date:
04/05/2014
There have been numerous changes to the EU’s directives and regulations concerning the efficiency of electronic devices in recent years, particularly concerning standby power. The Eco Design directive, 2009/125/EC, is the all-embracing directive intended to improve the energy efficiency of all energy related prod
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Date:
04/04/2014
The two-switch forward converter is quite popular with ATX power supplies/silver boxes in 150 W to 750 W output power levels, and also competes with Zero Voltage Switching (ZVS) LLC topologies. It is a hard-switched topology and does not operate in ZVS mode. But for that very reason it offers the benefit of hav
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Date:
04/04/2014
Operating rooms and clinical settings are crowded with instruments that pack in more functions and features every year, such as surgical tools with lights, lasers and video microscopes. The pressure for them to be smaller, lighter and easy to move around continues to grow. Since the AC-DC converter is of
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Date:
04/04/2014
The flyback is the simplest and most commonly used isolated power-converter topology, able to step voltage up or down while providing galvanic isolation from the ac mains in off-line applications. It is the most cost-effective topology for powering many kinds of electronic equipment, having acceptable ef
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Date:
04/04/2014
The classical, centralized power supply grids today face a transition into a so-called smart grid. This smart grid can be understood as a system of systems or the sum of interlinked minigrids with massively decentralized energy generation, storage and consumption. Though today’s large-scale power plants will re
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Date:
04/03/2014
An industrial conveyor belt usually consists of two or more pulleys, with a continuous loop of material (belt) that rotates about them. One or both of the pulleys are powered, moving the belt and the material on the belt forward. There are two main industrial classes of belt conveyors: general material handling (m
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Date:
04/03/2014
MTU Onsite Energy’s state-of-the-art generators power the Tower of Rush University Medical Center’s new 14-story hospital (see Figure 1), the cornerstone of the Rush Transformation, an ongoing effort to build new facilities, renovate existing buildings and adopt new technology. The Tower houses acute and cr
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Date:
04/03/2014
Modern ski resorts are the heart of the tourist trade in mountain holiday locations. Tourists spending their holidays in the mountains constitute a major part of hotel tourism economy in winter along with other activities such as dining, handicrafts, transportation, and access to the ever-increasing fast an
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Date:
04/03/2014
A novel IGBT structure was developed with reverse-blocking capabilities comparable to the forward voltage rating of the IGBT. This new device, known as the RB-IGBT, was used to create a 3 level advanced neutral point clamping power converter that shows better loss characteristics than standard 3 level converters.
The results o
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Date:
04/03/2014
Typical switched-mode power converters today include circuitry for monitoring the current flowing through a switching power MOSFET or IGBT for regulating or limiting peak current levels. This is necessary to protect the switch against high peak currents that can damage components or saturate inductors. A low-ohmic re
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Date:
04/01/2014
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