Anablog

I just got a note from the irrepressible Julie Day over at TI about their US and worldwide power seminars beginning next week. Cost is $99 and includes breakfast and lunch. As I pointed out in my blog about the Fairchild power seminars, this is really a deal too good to pass up. The $99 bucks barely pays for the food and the hall, and it costs TI a fortune to send all this talent out on the road for the next few months. I am sure the seminars will teach you a lot but don’t forget all the fellow engineers you will have an opportunity to meet. They can also give you important contacts that can help with a future design or help fill a position at your company. Heck, maybe it is you that will end up with a better job. Lately all we hear is internet, internet, internet, but these old-school personal meetings are still a vital part of your job, and any company with a whit of sense should be glad to give you the day to check it out as well as the 99 bucks. Here are the subjects, with the schedule after that.

• Topic 1: High Power Factor or a High Efficiency – You Can Have Both Authors: Isaac Cohen and Bing Lu Abstract: Past expectations have been that while improving power supply power factor can offer significant and necessary reductions to distribution losses, the addition of an active PFC stage will negatively impact the supply’s internal efficiency. But it doesn’t have to be this way. This topic shows that by understanding the differences between PF and THD and the implications of designing for universal AC line voltage ranges, several new system architectures are possible to minimize system power losses while still meeting power quality requirements.
• Topic 2: Understanding Noise-Spreading Techniques and Their Effects in Switch-Mode Power Applications Authors: John Rice, Dirk Gehrke and Mike Segal Abstract: A downside to all the many benefits of SMPS power conversion has always been the potential for noise generation from the high dv/dt and di/dt of the power pulses. When the many techniques for mitigating the generation of EMI still fail to provide the necessary noise margin, the application of Spread-Spectrum Frequency Dithering may well provide a solution. This topic explores the modulation techniques, models the behavior in SPICE, and examines real-world behavior in two practical examples.
• Topic 3: Under the Hood of a DC/DC Boost Converter Author: Brian Lynch Abstract: Despite having the same number of significant power components as the well-understood buck converter, the boost converter has the reputation for lower performance coupled with a more complicated design. This topic discusses the boost converter in practical terms describing both continuous-mode and discontinuous-mode operation, and presents an easy-to-use mathematical model for the analysis of both voltage-mode and current-mode feedback control.
• Topic 4: Improving System Efficiency With a New Intermediate Bus Architecture Author: Rais Miftakhutdinov Abstract: Ever growing demand for efficient and high quality tele- and data-communication power systems have driven the replacement of centralized power supplies with distributed architectures. Recently, a new Intermediate Bus design has gained popularity by providing lower cost, superior power quality, and higher efficiency while taking advantage of the newest advances in power components. This topic provides a brief overview of the historical evolution of high-reliability power systems, and then focuses on the benefits and design challenges of the Intermediate Bus Architecture with an example illustrating the control requirements for a practical IBA converter design.
• Topic 5: High-Voltage Energy Storage – The Key to Efficient Hold Up Author: Jean Picard Abstract: This topic provides a tutorial for designing a high-voltage energy storage system in order to minimize the cost and size of a storage capacitor bank. The first part of this topic uses the basics of energy to demonstrate the benefits and limitations of high-voltage storage with quantitative illustrations of volumetric reduction and energy density, while the second part describes the critical aspects of a HVES design. Possible topologies and control techniques are compared, design challenges of the recharge and hold up modes and their impact on power losses are discussed, and guidelines for a practical design example are provided with both simulated and measured test results.
• Topic 6: Using a PMBus for Improved System-Level Power Management Author: Kurt Hesse Abstract: This topic provides a brief high-level introduction to the PMBus Standard for controlling a power supply using an enhanced serial interface, and then describes the more common and basic PMBus commands. Several system level tasks are presented with possible ways to implement them using the facilities that may be available to the designer using a PMBus-enabled converter or controller with the salient features of the PMBus highlighted. Finally, an example specification and the PMBus commands required for its implementation are illustrated with an application incorporating a suitable controller.
• Topic 7: Applying Digital Technology to PWM Control Loop Designs Authors: Mark Hagen and Vahid Yousefzadeh Abstract: This topic discusses the application of digital control to dc/dc switching converters and how to model the digitally controlled system. The main blocks that appear in almost every digital controller – the error ADC, the compensator and the digital PWM engine – are discussed and used to model small signal characteristics such as frequency response, stability criteria, and the effects of quantization, as well as the impact of sampling rate and delay introduced by the digital controller to the system. This model is extended to include nonlinear gain and the benefits are shown. Finally, a graphical user interface is introduced and demonstrated for use with the design of a two-phase synchronous buck converter.
• Topic 8: An Introduction to New Products for More Effective Power Solutions Author: Bob Mammano Abstract: This brief topic will highlight some of the more recently introduced products from TI emphasizing their more significant performance characteristics and descriptions of the benefits that they might bring to achieve more cost-effective power solutions with easier-to-design implementations.

Like I said, the seminar starts next week in Boston so get that expense voucher filled out right away. Julie said this was a second mail so I must have missed the first announcement, sorry for the short notice Beantown. Note there are two Boston events.

10 Sep 2008            Boston (North), MA | United States

11 Sep 2008            Waterbury, CT | United States

16 Sep 2008            Boston (South), MA | United States

17 Sep 2008            Bethesda, MD | United States

23 Sep 2008            Parsippany, NJ | United States

24 Sep 2008            Melville, NY | United States

25 Sep 2008            Langhorne, PA | United States

30 Sep 2008            Calgary, AB | Canada

01 Oct 2008            Vancouver, BC | Canada

02 Oct 2008            Seattle, WA | United States

03 Oct 2008            Portland, OR | United States

07 Oct 2008            Rochester, NY | United States

08 Oct 2008            Seoul | South Korea

09 Oct 2008            Toronto, ON | Canada

10 Oct 2008            Ottawa, ON | Canada

10 Oct 2008            Tokyo | Japan

14 Oct 2008            Dayton, OH | United States

15 Oct 2008            Cleveland, OH | United States

16 Oct 2008            Taipei City | Taiwan

21 Oct 2008            Montreal, PQ | Canada

22 Oct 2008            Chicago, IL | United States

23 Oct 2008            Milwaukee, WI | United States

24 Oct 2008            Minneapolis, MN | United States

28 Oct 2008            Orlando, FL | United States

29 Oct 2008            Houston, TX | United States

30 Oct 2008            Austin, TX | United States

04 Nov 2008            Beijing | China

06 Nov 2008            Shanghai | China

07 Nov 2008            San Diego, CA | United States

11 Nov 2008            Raleigh, NC | United States

11 Nov 2008            Mexico City, DF | Mexico

11 Nov 2008            ShenZhen | China

12 Nov 2008            Atlanta, GA | United States

13 Nov 2008            Huntsville, AL | United States

13 Nov 2008            Guadalajara, JL | Mexico

13 Nov 2008            Cedar Rapids, IA | United States

14 Nov 2008            Denver, CO | United States

02 Dec 2008            San Jose, CA | United States

03 Dec 2008            Los Angeles, CA | United States

04 Dec 2008            Orange County, CA | United States

10 Dec 2008            Tucson, AZ | United States

11 Dec 2008            Phoenix, AZ | United States

I will be sure to be at the San Jose seminar December 2^nd and I will rustle up all my power pals as well. This should be a great time.