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Renewable Energy

October 2016
Read the November issue of PSDE Now!
To read the November issue of PSDE, simply click here
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Date:
10/31/2016

Driving SiC FETs and IGBTs
Kathrin Felten, Rutronik

The quest for energy efficiency has focused attention on those components of the power electronics that can connect hundreds of volts and amps in inverters with exceptional efficiency. We are talking about modern power switches – IGBTs and SIC-FETs – and how the voltage supplied to the respective gate drivers is
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Date:
10/30/2016
Powering portable products
Sal LaRussa, Texas Instruments

Oftentimes, designers of mobile medical devices, digital cameras, and portable consumer electronics choose to power their device from two, series-stacked, Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion) batteries, yet still desire the capability to charge from a 5-V universal serial bus (USB) port. Boosting a 5-V USB input to charge two se
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Date:
10/30/2016
ASM vs. MCU
Nathan John and John McDonald, Silego

When designing portable battery powered systems, size and battery life constraints are often the most severe challenges to overcome. One traditional way to pack a lot of functionality into a small size and power budget is to use a low power microcontroller such as TI’s popular MSP430. These types of ultra-low po
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Date:
10/30/2016
Driving advanced cars
Bruce Haug, Linear Technology

With fuel economy regulations tightening and autonomous-driving capability with connectivity proliferating, the old-fashioned 12-volt automotive electrical system has reached its usable power limit. Furthermore, a vast increase in automotive electronic systems, coupled with related demands on power, has created an
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Date:
10/30/2016
The Best of Both Worlds
Corey Antoniades, KEMET

Multi-Layer Ceramic Capacitors (MLCC) in chipscale surface-mount packages are widely used in electronics for consumer, medical, industrial, automotive, and other applications. Their combination of affordability, compatibility with high-volume assembly, high capacitance values within small dimensions, and high re
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Date:
10/29/2016
On reverse-conducting trench-IGBT modules
Infineon Technologies

High-voltage IGBT-modules usually consist of two types of IC, an IGBT for the transistor and a diode for the freewheeling functionality. A device that combines both functions in a single die is known as a reverse conducting IGBT (RC-IGBT). These modules exhibit a lower thermal resistance when compared to an IG
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Date:
10/29/2016
JJPlus and EPC join forces for wireless charging

EPC and JJPlus Corporation Partnership

JJPlus and EPC join forces for wireless charging
In an effort to aggressively address the rapidly emerging wireless charging applications, JJPlus and Efficient Power Conversion announced their collaboration to design GaN-based wireless power solutions. JJPlus Corporation is a designer and manufacturer of industrial grade and high power WIFI solutions. It is a 2
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Date:
10/28/2016
Engineering matters
Alix Paultre, Editorial Director, PSD

People don’t think about engineers much, and in general engineers are looked upon in a positive light. Unless something goes wrong with something. In the marketplace, engineering is usually the first direction people point fingers when problems occur in a product. Unsafe and/or malfunctioning products are proble
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Date:
10/28/2016
Implementing a PWM controller
Ray Ridley, Ridley Engineering

Here we’ll look at how a rugged and flexible control can be rapidly implemented using an 8-bit microcontroller with analog blocks. For many custom power supplies, this provides an optimum combination of noise immunity, high performance, short development time, and digital flexibility. Analog PWM control circu
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Date:
10/28/2016
Finding the right balance
Jon Cronk, Exar

Equipment designs increasingly utilize advanced MCU, DSP and FPGA devices to deliver the functionality and performance demanded of them. With this sophistication comes the challenge of providing the multiple power rails these devices require. The use of carefully chosen power modules can significantly ease this ta
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Date:
10/28/2016
The next big renewable energy source could be at our feet

Associate Professor Xudong Wang holds a prototype of the researchers’ energy harvesting technology, which uses wood pulp and harnesses nanofibers. The technology could be incorporated into flooring and convert footsteps on the flooring into usable electricity

The next big renewable energy source could be at our feet
Will Cushman

Flooring can be made from any number of sustainable materials, making it, generally, an eco-friendly feature in homes and businesses alike. Now, however, flooring could be even more “green,” thanks to an inexpensive, simple method developed by University of Wisconsin–Madison materials engineers that allo
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Date:
10/27/2016
HydroGEN consortium to accelerate advanced water splitting tech
The Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has formed a new consortium with five other national labs intended to accelerate the development of commercially viable pathways for hydrogen production from renewable energy sources. The consortium, named HydroGEN Advanced Water Splitting Materials Con
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Date:
10/24/2016
Ecoplexus to build 30 MW of solar in North Carolina

The Baker, Benthall Bridge, and Turkey Creek Solar Parks represent a combined investment of more than $45 million

Ecoplexus to build 30 MW of solar in North Carolina
Ecoplexus, a leading developer of solar photovoltaic (PV) projects, announced today that it has begun construction on three more ground-mounted installations in North Carolina. The Baker, Benthall Bridge, and Turkey Creek Solar Parks represent a combined investment of more than $45 million. These facilitie
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Date:
10/21/2016
Envision Solar to build EV ARC transportable solar-powered EV chargers for New York State

EV ARC solar charger

Envision Solar to build EV ARC transportable solar-powered EV chargers for New York State
Envision Solar International, a leading renewable energy and EV charging product company, announced that New York State has issued a purchase order for the Company's EV ARC product. Envision Solar has previously delivered the EV ARC product to New York City, but this is the first purchase order from New York
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Date:
10/20/2016
Energy storage on track to best 2015's record-setting growth

Navigant Research's third quarter report sees a growing role for residential installations

Energy storage on track to best 2015's record-setting growth
Critics called 2015 a "banner year" for energy storage. Now after a year of unprecedented growth, energy storage could be poised to best that performance, according to Navigant Research’s third quarter energy storage tracker. “The North American market this year definitely has the potentia
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Date:
10/17/2016
Creating a USB Li-Ion battery boost charger
Sal LaRussa, Texas Instruments

Oftentimes, designers of digital cameras, mobile devices and other consumer electronics choose to power their device from two, series-stacked, Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion) batteries, yet still desire the capability to charge from a 5-V universal serial bus (USB) port. Boosting a 5-V USB input to charge two series-stacked Li
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Date:
10/12/2016
Maximizing battery life in wireless systems
Rich Miron, Digi-Key Electronics

A key consideration for wireless sensor nodes that will populate the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is battery lifetime. The sensor nodes, in many applications, will need to be installed in locations that are difficult to reach and, consequently, service. Because it is too costly and difficult to run power li
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Date:
10/12/2016
For want of a nail
Alix Paultre, Editorial Director, PSD

Continuing the old story-telling tone which began the issue, I would like to point your attention to the centuries-old proverb “For want of a nail” which describes a chain of events and their consequences from a small error snowballing into catastrophe. There are many lessons to draw from this, from the im
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Date:
10/11/2016
PoL power packaging progress
Bob Cantrell, Ericsson Power Modules

LGA package technology can deliver important advantages for the high-performance Point-Of-Load converters needed to feed power-hungry, fast-reacting data centers and network infrastructure. As the power demands of high-performance Cloud and telecom computing systems continue to increase, converter modules that of
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Date:
10/11/2016
Modern DC power source analysis
Howard Peat, Microlease, & Giacomo Tuveri, Keysight Technologies

Having a good grasp of how measurement tools actually operate can provide valuable insight into how test methods can be improved. Setups can subsequently be made simpler and more effective, plus test performance parameters can be significantly raised. This is true for any sphere of technology that requires the ca
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Date:
10/11/2016
Increase in renewables causing changes in energy ecosystem

The energy landscape has changed

Increase in renewables causing changes in energy ecosystem
The energy landscape has changed with most countries achieving a more diversified energy mix as well as a growth in community ownerships and an evolution of micro grids. A new report launched at the 23rd World Energy Congress on 12 October reveals that the unexpectedly high growth in the renewable energies market, in
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Date:
10/11/2016
Analyzing a tightly-coupled Sepic converter
Dr. Ray Ridley and Dr. Vatché Vorpérian, for Ridley Engineering

Here we’ll explore the analytical transfer function for the tightly-coupled Sepic converter. It is shown that the control-to-output function is just second-order, not fourth-order like the conventional Sepic converter [1]. The coupling capacitor of the converter has no effect on the control, and it can be ma
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Date:
10/10/2016
Read the October issue of PSDE Now !
To read the October issue of PSDE, simply click here
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Date:
10/08/2016
Read the October issue of PSDNA Now !
To read the October issue of PSDNA, simply   click here  
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Date:
10/08/2016
Efficient I/O drastically reduces heat
Nazzareno (Reno) Rossetti and Tony Partow. Maxim Integrated

Automated factories employ sensors and I/O modules to control their industrial processes. As they increase in sophistication and shrink in size, they are enabling the fourth industrial revolution, dubbed Industry 4.0. A single module (see Figure 1) can have up to 64 channels, and a typical factory floor may uti
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Date:
10/07/2016
Using EMC filters
Using EMC filters
Carsten Jürgens, TDK

EMC problems in frequency converters occur not only at the input, but also at the output. To ensure reliable elimination of any kind of interference at the output as well, companies like TDK, for example, offer a wide range of EPCOS filters and reactors. Frequency converters are used for regulating the speed
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Date:
10/07/2016
Diesel rotary vs. Static UPS
David Johnson, HITEC Power Protection

The role of an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) is simple in concept: provide a temporary power bridge to support the load between the loss of the utility and the transfer to diesel generators. Even though the task is easy to define, the best way to achieve the goal is often clouded in obscurity as the benefits be
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Date:
10/07/2016
Power and packaging are evolving
Philip Lechner, Avnet Abacus

Industry 4.0, the latest industrial revolution, is changing the way manufacturing organizations think about production. The aim of Industry 4.0 is to make manufacturing more flexible and responsive to customer needs, providing the ability to make small batches that are tailored to individual customers. The quantity
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Date:
10/04/2016
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