News
TI to team with Fulton on developing wireless-power-transfer-control ICs 12/8/2008
Texas Instruments has announced that it is working with Fulton Innovation, developer of the eCoupled wireless-power-transfer technology, to accelerate development of efficient wireless-power technologies that can charge portable devices without traditional power cords.Flexible charge pump offers another means of producing electricity 12/5/2008
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a new type of small-scale electric-power generator that produces ac current through the cyclical stretching and releasing of zinc-oxide wires encapsulated in a flexible plastic substrate with two bonded ends.Coating provides near-perfect absorption of sunlight from all angles 12/5/2008
Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed an antireflective coating that boosts the amount of sunlight that solar panels can capture and allows the panels to absorb the entire solar spectrum from nearly any angle. The development moves the industry closer to the realization of high-efficiency, cost-effective solar power.Engineers develop atomic-scale compositional images of fuel-cell nanoparticles 12/5/2008
Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Texas—Austin, and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory have taken the first images of individual atoms on and near the surface of nanoparticles. The researchers treated platinum and cobalt nanoparticles with acid or treated them with acid and then subjected them to high temperatures.Voices: Avnet LightSpeed’s Cary Eskow: illuminating energy-efficient design 11/27/2008
Cary Eskow is director of LightSpeed, the solid-state-lighting- and LED (light-emitting-diode)-business unit of Avnet Electronics Marketing. A 28-year Avnet veteran, he leads Avnet’s national team of illumination-focused engineers experienced in thermal, drive-stage, and optics design and has worked closely with LED manufacturers, advanced analog IC,In-Depth
Solar’s bright future 12/18/2008
Will solar technology remain a hot issue even with a global economic crisis at hand? Photovoltaic experts weigh in on the technology, opportunities, and future of solar technologies.The Hot 100 Electronic Products of 2008 12/18/2008
EDN's editors offer up their annual list of the year's 100 most significant ICs, components, buses, boards, EDA tools, power devices, test instruments, and more.Powering today's microprocessors: Old myths versus modern technology 12/4/2008
The DC/DC converters powering the CPU these days need to provide 150A at around 1V and must be able to cope with 100A load steps that happen in less than 50 nsec. Five years ago the prevailing wisdom was that multiphase buck converters switching at 1 MHz or higher would be the answer for tomorrow's super fast and power hungry processors. But converter inefficiency at higher switching frequencies may force designers to consider lower-frequency dual edge PWM controllers as a better alternative.Power SOCs: A “crazy” idea that just might work 11/27/2008
For power-management ICs, fitting an entire power supply, including switching, control, and passive components, onto one chip enables greater power efficiency and lower heat dissipation. Sophisticated power-supply topologies, miniaturized magnetics, and faster switching devices may combine to make the power supply on a chip a reality.Driving high-power LEDs in series-parallel arrays 11/27/2008
The light from an LED is proportional to the current flowing through it. The challenge for the drive circuitry for applications using multiple high-brightness LEDs is to get the same current flowing through each LED and to balance the requirements of size, power efficiency, legal/safety standards, and cost. Every branch requires some form of current regulation.Experts
Voices: Avnet LightSpeed’s Cary Eskow: illuminating energy-efficient design 11/27/2008
Cary Eskow is director of LightSpeed, the solid-state-lighting- and LED (light-emitting-diode)-business unit of Avnet Electronics Marketing. A 28-year Avnet veteran, he leads Avnet’s national team of illumination-focused engineers experienced in thermal, drive-stage, and optics design and has worked closely with LED manufacturers, advanced analog IC,Voices: National Semiconductor’s David Anderson 7/10/2008
EDN's Paul Rako talks with David Anderson, National Semiconductor's chief technologist for power management, about his long and distinguished engineering career, his company, and the present and future of power management.Honest energy, part two: Readers respond on low-power-factor loads 5/29/2008
Reader response to the last installment of Analog Domain has been both strong and informative—so much so that I’d like to share some of the feedback with you.Honest energy: The danger low-power-factor loads pose for the energy grid 4/2/2008
As typical household products become more sophisticated, the power factor of the load they represent decays—a trend that is exacerbating a growing stress on our electric-power infrastructure.Voices: GreenPeak Technologies’ Cees Links: wireless-networking visionary 2/21/2008
Cees (pronounced case) Links is an engineer and the chief executive officer at GreenPeak Technologies, an international supplier of low-power wireless-system modules compatible with IEEE 802.15.4 and ZigBee. Based in Utrecht, the Netherlands, Links has been a pioneer in the wireless industry and was involved in the establishment of the IEEE 802.DesignIdeas
EDN's Best of Power
EDN's Best of Best: Power leaders
