Technical Features

April 2024
Combining GaN and Liquid Cooling for Greater Energy Efficiency in AI Data Centers

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Figure 1: Projected electricity consumption of data centers (2015 – 2030) [6]

The data center industry is at a crossroads, facing unprecedented transformation due to the surge in generative AI and other emerging technologies. This surge has massively increased the power consumption on servers, putting a strain on data centers around the world. Data centers already account for about 2 perce
Date:
04/30/2024
Evolving EV Battery Technology Challenges Test Systems

Figure 1. A 300 kW battery test system (courtesy of EA Elektro-Automatik)

­Electric vehicle (EV) battery manufacturers and EV manufacturers are working to overcome the two major challenges facing electric vehicles: total travel distance before needing battery pack recharge and recharge time. As a result, battery pack voltages are rising to lower the weight and size of current-carrying co
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Date:
04/16/2024
The Bioenergy Imperative

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Figure 1: Biomass is expected to form an important part of the energy mix in 2050 (copyright International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA))

­Today’s fossil fuels are essentially ancient solar energy trapped in dead plant matter, compressed under rocks for thousands of years, and transformed into concentrated fuels whose embodied energy can now be released through burning or other chemical processes. But what if we could radically accelerate the â€
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Date:
04/01/2024
System-Level Approach to Software Configurable I/O Channels

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Figure 1: An ADP1034 and AD74115H circuit diagram

­When designing system-level, isolated I/O solutions for industrial applications, such as process control, factory automation, or building control systems, there are many areas to consider. These include power dissipation, data isolation, and form factor. Figure 1 shows the system solution that solves power, iso
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Date:
04/01/2024
Enabling IIoT Connectivity for Virtual Power Plants

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Figure 1: Distributed Energy

­Many governments around the world now provide incentives to individuals, industries, and communities who are interested in generating and using power from renewable energy sources such as solar and wind energy. The power grid has seen many changes that have enabled the integration of power from distributed en
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Date:
04/01/2024
Configuring for Power Density and Connectivity

Figure 1a

­The availability of modular, configurable power supplies provides industrial and medical system designers with an approach to develop systems that address application-specific requirements without time and resource consuming custom design or compromising with less optimal standard, off-the-shelf solutions. As the funct
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Date:
04/01/2024
Thermoelectric Module Modeling in LTspice

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Figure 1: Cooling/heating effect at the conductors’ junctions during current flow (Peltier effect)

­Some remote sensors are required to stay active in the field for a period longer than it’s possible for a suitably sized battery to last. In such cases, an energy harvesting system may be added to extend the operating lifetime. Available ambient energy sources can include kinetic energy present in vibrations, li
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Date:
04/01/2024
Passive Components in Modern Switched-Mode Power Supplies

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Figure 1: Sumida covers all inductors for switched-mode power supplies and partially and fully implements application-specific components

­The high-frequency (HF) transformer and other inductors form the core of a switched-mode power supply (SMPS). Located in the input section, the interference suppression components ensure suppression of interference voltages and currents on the power supply lines. Current-compensated chokes (common-mode chokes) s
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Date:
04/01/2024
Space Power Supply for Traditional and New Space Missions

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Figure 1: Simplified power architecture of satellite with SA50-120 series converter

­Space satellites use solar energy as the main source to power its loads. A simplified power architecture is shown below as shown in Figure 1. with Radiation Hardened (Rad-Hard) standard SA50-120 series DC-DC 50 W power converters from Microchip. Some of the commonly used bus voltages are 28V, 50V, 72V, 100V
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Date:
04/01/2024
Isolation Evolves to Keep Pace with Applications

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Figure 1: Typical application of isolator in a motor-drive circuit (Source: WP - NEVs in China, Figure 16)

­Navigating through different forms of isolation requires a comprehensive understanding of the performance nuances inherent in various solutions, coupled with an awareness of evolving architectures tailored to the dynamic requirements of diverse applications. We are seeing changes in different sectors. Within th
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Date:
04/01/2024
DC/DC Flyback Converter

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Figure 1: Power stage of the flyback converter (simplified)

Isolated flyback converters often use optocouplers in the feedback loop to regulate the output voltage. As part of the compensation circuit, its parameters such as CTR influence the control loop and must be taken into account in the flyback converter design. The flyback converter is an isolated switching power
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Date:
04/01/2024
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