Case Studies

October 31, 2011

The Effective Use of High-Speed Isolated Data Acquisition Systems for Safe, Accurate Rapid Transient Electrical Measurements

Typical rapid transient electrical applications are often characterized as “mission critical.” In many cases, an engineer or test technician may have just one viable opportunity to capture invaluable diagnostic data for the prevention of damage to machinery, systems and equipment. In many cases, improper data collection could add millions of dollars to project costs and also cause significant personal injury. As such, this very short-duration event requires a high-speed, high-accuracy, isolated data acquisition system to ensure measurement safety, accuracy and reliability.

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June 27, 2011

Premo Designs for Linear Technology PFC Chipset Application High Efficiency PFC Choke

Linear Technology R&D center in California has just developed a new 3.3kW high efficiency and low size automotive battery charger using Premo PFC-001 choke. According to R&D engineer Tage Bjorklund “The results are surprisingly good.

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January 24, 2011

Development of a DC Appliance Connector for Telecommunications Equipment

The requirements from applicable international (IEC) and domestic (UL) standards are studied for the making of a DC power inlet connector for telecommunications equipment with rated nominal voltages from 350V to 400V. Product safety issues relating to protection against electric shock and arc flash for 400 VDC power distributions are discussed. The making and breaking characteristics of a 400 VDC electronic load are investigated by live testing. Results of tests conducted on pilot production connectors to verify product safety and function are presented.

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May 22, 2009

Renewable Energy Options for Data Centers

We have finally reached a point where energy costs have overtaken real estate costs as the primary data center expense. Server density has increased tenfold over the past decade, and the average server's power consumption has quadrupled. A typical data center can easily consume anywhere between 1megawatt (MW) and 20MW of electricity. And, for every dollar an enterprise spends on computing hardware, an additional 50 cents is spent on powering and cooling this hardware. At these levels it is not just the cost of energy, but the stability of that cost that proves worriesome for data center managers everywhere.

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July 24, 2008

Non-Traditional Thinking Improves Efficiency in Cell Phones

One of the customers I work with is a company that designs and manufactures cellular phones. This industry is very competitive, and customers have many stringent requirements in this industry. One concern is battery life, and another concern is the size of the phone. Both of these must be optimized while the cost of the phone is minimized. This demand pressures the designers have to scrutinize the design to eliminate components and current drain wherever possible.

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March 28, 2008

Power System Protection Crucial to Nuclear Weapons Test Simulations at Lawrence Livermore Facility

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), a pre-eminent scientific resource for U.S. defense, science, and industry, is the institution that applies advanced inter-disciplinary science and technologies to ensure that the nation’s nuclear weapons remain safe, secure, and reliable. This is known as the Stockpile Stewardship Program, which entails authentication of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile (a responsibility of LLNL as part of the National Nuclear Security Commission) in support of the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty.

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January 21, 2008

Digital Power Management and Power Control, and its Impact on the Industry

A power supply is no longer a power supply but a system by itself. It has to interact with the system and based on instructions from the system has to sequence and ramp POLs for proper functioning of the system. The power system has to interact with the main system in real time and configure itself based on the line and load requirements. Even a smallest toy uses some form of digital technology in conjunction with some sort of firmware. Any analogue function can be synthesized by digital technology. Even though the benefits of migrating to digital technology are huge, the power industry is still lagging behind the rest of the industry. There is a great need of communication between the main system and the power system for energy efficiency reasons. Depending on the environment, and line and load conditions, a power system has to be configured in various modes to respond to changing conditions. The benefits of going digital are huge including overall cost savings, but the fact remains - a change is always resisted until a time the customer desires functions which can not be accomplished by the old technology, for example Digital photography. As long as the old technology can perform the same functions that the old technology can, the old technology will continue to be used in one form or another. The transition point comes when the cost crossover point is reached and the new technology offers more for less.

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March 26, 2007

Meeting Power Supply Efficiency Challenges

In today's content driven society, the demand for high performance compute, networking and storage horsepower is driving IT equipment power consumption to unprecedented levels. As a result, operational expenditures related to power consumption and the resultant cooling requirements, are spiraling out of control. Enterprises are starting to feel the financial pinch and environmental concerns are leading governments to expand consumer-oriented Energy Star legislation to encompass enterprise-focused equipment. This "Green IT" movement is moving lower power consumption to the top of the list on IT manager's purchasing criteria.

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March 12, 2007

Liquid Cooling for High-Power Electronic Modules

As power modules push new density and power limits, design engineers face greater challenges - and tradeoffs - in their choice of cooling systems. Air-cooled systems remain the predominant solution for low- to medium-power applications. However, as the power dissipation of electronic systems increases, alternative cooling solutions continue to be researched and engineered. The trend will follow Moore's Law, and the limitation of the increased power will be dependent on how many watts (heat) can be removed from a power module.

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Product Focus

January 16, 2012

Recapping Recent Energy Harvesting Developments

The past several months have witnessed significant new product releases, technological developments, and industry news related to the field of energy harvesting.

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Design Features

December 19, 2011

Extending the Life of Electronics

It’s time for a wake-up call regarding power and its role in electronics protection.

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Product Focus

November 18, 2011

Recaps of Recent Capacitor Developments

The past several months have witnessed significant new product releases and technological developments related to the field of capacitor technology.

In June, Texas Instruments Inc. (TI) introduced what it says is the industry’s first fully integrated Li-Ion battery management integrated circuit (IC) for super capacitor charge control. This single device provides comprehensive features for managing charge control; measuring capacitance and effective series resistance (ESR); and protecting either 2-, 3-, 4- or 5-series super capacitors with individual capacitor control, or up to 9-series capacitors with stack control.

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In 1899 and 1900, electric cars outsold all other types of cars in the United States, valued for their quiet and lack of fumes.