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Industry News

January 16, 2012

IBM Developing Lithium-air Battery With 500-mile Range for EVs

According to media reports, IBM continues to make progress on what it describes as a breakthrough lithium-air battery that may be able to store 1,000 times more energy than today’s lithium ion battery. The huge jump in energy density could raise your electric vehicle’s range from 100 miles to 500 miles.

Lithium-air batteries don’t use metal to conduct a charge. Instead, the energy flow is created from the air reacting with lithium ions and a carbon matrix. So while you drive, the battery literally breathes in air to produce more energy, which extends the range of a single charge. This research on lithium-air batteries has been ongoing since 2009 when IBM first started the Battery 500 project.

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To make lithium air batteries more stable, researchers tapped the Blue Gene supercomputer in Zurich to analyze electro-chemical reactions to find alternative electrolytes that won’t degrade the battery while recharging, and have identified material that is promising.

With several concepts under their belt, IBM expects to reveal a working prototype of the lithium air battery in 2013. If all goes according to plan, IBM expects full commercial production of their technology in 2020.

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Design Features

October 22, 2012

Energy Efficiency with Class D Amplifier Modules

Class-D switching amplifiers are helping audio designers create personal multimedia devices and home audio/visual systems that demonstrate how compact and stylish equipment can also deliver high sound quality and high audio output power. The key to this breakthrough, providing freedom from the large and bulky boxes housing traditional audio products, lies in the class-D amplifier’s high energy efficiency, which is typically around 90%. This allows designers to reduce or eliminate heatsinks as well as using smaller-sized PCBs and smaller components such as transformers, connectors and power supplies.

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Design Features

October 8, 2012

The Role of Hall Effect Sensors in Power Distribution Infrastructure

Power distribution units (PDUs) form an essential part of modern computing and data communications hardware. They provide multiple outputs for transferring electrical power with maximum efficiency, controlling the power capacity and safeguarding against the possible causes of supply interruption. With an ever increasing need from tech savvy consumers for higher data throughput and greater quantities of data storage capacity, as well as tough international legislation now governing CO&sub2; emissions, the demands being placed on these units are proving challenging for engineering teams to satisfy.

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Product Focus

August 13, 2012

The Year in AC-DC Power Supply Technology

The past year witnessed significant new product releases, technological developments, and industry news related to the field of AC-DC Power Supply technology.

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