It pays to know the distinguishing features of electrolytic, film, and super capacitors when planning applications where energy efficiency is important. MORRIE GOLDMAN, ILLINOIS CAPACITOR INC. RENEWABLE ENERGY SYSTEMS all have a common need for high-efficiency power circuits. Whether the original source of energy is light, heat, or mechanical motion, ancillary circuitry will probably either […]
Maximizing efficiency and safety with rechargeable batteries
Some rechargeable lithium battery chemistries need more TLC than others when it comes to safety precautions. TOM BLAHA, MEMORY PROTECTION DEVICES RECHARGEABLE BATTERY TECHNOLOGY has come a long way, continually boosting performance with fewer annoying memory effects that severely limited the useful operating life of earlier generation cells. The most common rechargeable battery chemistries commercially […]
Wireless I/O avoids mechanical connectors, scales with processor/memory performance
The Virtual Pipe I/O (VPIO) architecture enables I/O to scale with processor/memory performance and allows product designers to develop new classes of product. Unlike almost every other aspect of mobile and computer hardware design, the connector has remained undisrupted for decades which has put a limit on innovations within application designs. EMI, RFI, and ESD […]
LED & diode markation guidelines for PCBs
Duane Benson, Chief Technology Champion, Screaming Circuits Have you ever had an LED or other diode placed backwards? PCB assemblers work hard to place every component, from the largest, highest pin-count logic chip, down to the smallest passive components and micro wafer scale BGAs, correctly every single time. A key element of that accuracy is […]
Prepare for IEC 62368-1, the new hazard-based safety standard
Get ready to evaluate safety measures in a different way. JEFF SCHNABEL, CUI THE FAMILIAR 60950-1 AND 60065 SAFETY STANDARDS for information and communication technology (ICT) and audio-visual (AV) equipment are being phased out in 2020, in favor of a single, harmonized standard based on a more modern approach to safety and testing. OEMs must […]
Transforming ac to dc without transformers
Substituting special capacitors for transformers helps realize ac-to-dc power supplies that are both efficient and compact. JEFF SORENSEN, HELIX SEMICONDUCTORS POWER SUPPLIES that convert ac to dc have been a part of nearly every electronics-based product since the popularization of the vacuum tube radio. While the voltage levels have changed, the conversion process has always […]
Pin-type rechargeable lithium battery targets tiny applications
A Pin‐type Lithium‐ion battery (CG‐425A, nominal voltage 3.8 V, typical capacity 32.0 mAh) has a diameter of 4.7 mm and a weight of 1.0 g (without tabs). This battery is suitable for powering small applications such as wearable devices. This product, in addition to being a small and slim cylindrical-shaped rechargeable Lithium Ion battery, features […]
Isolated high-voltage 4-channel 200-MHz oscilloscope handles SiC MOSFET apps
Improvements to the Cleverscope CS448 — an isolated high common-mode rejection ratio (CMRR) four-channel 200MHz 14-bit oscilloscope — let it measure high voltages – now up to 1,600 V – for fast slew-rate signals such as those in a full or three-phase power electronics switching bridge. Examples of challenging measurement tasks the CS448 can handle […]
Get ready for thermal transistors
A Stanford-led engineering team has developed a way to not only manage heat, but help route it away from delicate devices. Writing in Nature Communications, the researchers describe a nanoscale thermal transistor, something that researchers have been trying to develop for years. Previous thermal transistors proved too big, too slow and not sensitive enough for […]
Economical MSO delivers 350 MHz bandwidth, 8 GSa/sec sample rate, 500,000 wfms/sec waveform capture rate
The New MSO5000 Series Digital Oscilloscope is part of RIGOL’s UltraVision II architecture with its Phoenix chip-set. Two custom ASICs provide analog front end and signal processing performance. These chips are surrounded by a high-performance hardware design including a Xilinx Zync-7000 SoC, dual-core ARM-9 processors, a Linux +Qt operating system, high-speed DDR system memory, and […]