PowerSource

Steve Taranovich - March 21, 2012

Senior Technical Editor, Steve Taranovich, will bring you the latest news, opinions and technical breakthroughs in power management on PowerSource, sometimes with a touch of sarcasm or humor to spice up your day.

Enpirion integrated power solutions merge with Altera FPGAs

05.16.2013

Altera FPGA designers can now coordinate with their new power management team for a synergistic, optimized and complete power solution for their ASICs. Read More...

Ultracapacitors in light rail regenerative braking system

04.30.2013

We all want to reduce fossil fuel consumption by using a cleaner, greener technology to reduce greenhouse gases. Here is one good example of how it is being done in Oregon. Read More...

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Alex Lidow book signing at DESIGN West 2013

04.17.2013

Alex Lidow will be having a book signing at UBM’s booth at DESIGN West 2013 from 1 PM to 1:45 PM. The book is “GaN Transistors for Efficient Power Conversion” Read More...

Gain power management prowess at DESIGN West 2013

04.11.2013

EPC CEO Alex Lidow, co-inventor of the HEXFET power MOSFET, will be speaking as part of the DESIGN West Low-Power Design track. Read More...

A must see Intersil webcast: High performance power converters on the first design pass

04.10.2013

By utilizing readily available simulation tools, essential board testing and layout techniques a reliable, high performance power design can be achieved on the first design pass. Read More...

Power inverter output with only odd harmonics

04.02.2013

A good question was raised recently on a site I frequent, ResearchGate----Why are only odd harmonics present in inverters? Read More...

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Boeing 787 battery/charging system solutions---Good design or not?

03.16.2013

Boeing officials have detailed their proposed fixes for the lithium-ion batteries aboard its 787 planes, and the changes include better insulation between the eight cells in the battery, gentler charging to minimize stress and a new titanium venting system. Read More...

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Helium-3 and Lunar power for Earth reactors

03.15.2013

The moon has Helium-3 which can be a great resource to commercial fusion power on Earth Read More...

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Lidow shares GaN transistors experience

03.07.2013

At DESIGN West, Alex Lidow will discuss GaN transistors, which have infiltrated many applications previously monopolized by the aging silicon power MOSFET. Read More...

Arc fault circuit interruption solution in solar inverters

02.27.2013

In a series arc-fault a conductor is interrupted, creating a gap in the conductive path while current is flowing. This creates a spark that ionizes the surrounding air, producing plasma. If the current is sufficiently high, enough plasma is created to keep the current flowing across the gap in the conductive path. The current is now conducted via the plasma and is visible as an electric arc. Read More...

New world record for organic solar technology with a cell efficiency of 12%

01.23.2013

The following is important because with flexible organic photovoltaic cells, we are nearing a new era of development for practical solar-based solutions can be implemented with clever usage of these devices. Efficiency needs to be higher, but technology is progressing in the right direction and a breakthrough is inevitable. Read More...

Power semiconductor pioneer Eric Lidow passes

01.21.2013

Eric Lidow, a pioneer in power electronics and the founder of International Rectifier, has passed away. Read More...

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Boeing 787 and Lithium Ion battery failure

01.17.2013

San Francisco Chronicle reported this morning that the Federal Aviation Administration grounded Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner Wednesday, January 16, after an All Nippon Airways 787 made an emergency landing at Takamatsu airport in Takamatsu, Japan. Read More...

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Google power experts share power efficiency techniques at DesignCon 2013

01.02.2013

Conference track highlights include a session on “Board Power Distribution Techniques Utilizing Higher-than-Traditional Voltages to Exceed Best in Class Efficiency” by Google power experts Neilus O'Sullivan, Manager Power Group; Uday Ammu, Power Engineer and Mobashar Yazdani, Strategic Silicon Manager. Read More...

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Wind beneath our wings for energy

12.21.2012

I recently became aware of a company called Windlift, a mobile airborne wind energy company in Raleigh, N.C. from an IEEE Spectrum article. Windlift’s objective is to provide distributed, cost effective renewable energy systems using AWE (Airborne wind energy) that are competitive alternatives to existing fossil fuel energy systems Read More...

Digital Power by Ericsson

12.12.2012

I was pleasantly surprised at how deeply Ericsson had penetrated the Digital Power market. Read More...

Energy storage (ES) software: The key to Smart Grid success

12.12.2012

I recently spoke to John Jung, CEO of Greensmith Energy Management Systems, a leading provider of intelligent, distributed energy storage control systems. I wanted to understand the key benefits of his “battery agnostic” approach to distributed energy storage Read More...

Argonne National Laboratory wins research grant for battery technology

12.01.2012

An Argonne lab hub research team near Chicago beat competition from a partnership of the University of Texas and Oak Ridge National Lab as well as a New York partnership led by Stony Brook University and Brookhaven National Laboratory to work toward a major breakthrough in car battery technology for EV’s. Read More...

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Building backup power from a Chevy Volt used battery pack

11.19.2012

National Geographic reported about the “Second Life for Old Electric-Car Batteries: Guardians of the Electric Grid” Read More...

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An alarmingly interesting alternative to batteries

11.02.2012

Mark Bedol, designer of the Bedol Water Clock, has developed the eco-friendly, battery-free Squirt Alarm Bedol Water Clock. Read More...

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Call for abstracts at Design West—deadline tomorrow Nov. 2

11.01.2012

Call for abstracts at Design West—deadline tomorrow Nov. 2 Read More...

Then and Now: Solar panels track the sun

10.30.2012

The October 1956 edition of EDN showed this “News from the Field” article about an experimental solar energy converter built by Hoffman Electronics. The “Big Bertha” device shown in the photo allowed the panel to “follow” the sun. Read More...

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Building the perfect robot power supply

10.09.2012

An outline of the important aspects of a power supply architecture for most robotics. Read More...

Ziplining at the top of the world

10.04.2012

At least 18 million people ride commercially operated ziplines per year, according to the Association for Challenge Course Technology. Read More...

The future of information tech and exchange by Corning

09.18.2012

Check out this video from You Tube February 2012 by Corning. I have worked with them back in the 90’s during the fiber communications boom and they will find a way to make this an affordable and viable technology with the right partners. They got involved in making the best fiber as well as the electronics like repeaters, so they are no strangers to technology. Read More...

Avnet power forums

09.14.2012

On September 19, 2012, Avnet is hosting its third annual online PowerForum. With 30+ technical webinars to choose from, engineers can get expert assistance on a variety of topics – from advanced point-of-load power architectures to EMI mitigation---on demand. Read More...

Regenerative air energy storage

09.08.2012

LightSail Energy in Berkeley, CA has come up with an almost-too-obvious, but clean energy source---compressed air. Read More...

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Heat-Pipe technology

09.02.2012

Although most of the technology details for the Curiosity Rover are proprietary, we can guess that various heat-pipes of sorts may be on the Rover on Mars because of the efficiency and effectiveness of this process in harsh space environments. Read More...

The rover's energy

08.09.2012

Let’s examine what power the rover requires to move, use its science instruments, and communicate with Earth. Read More...

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Petaflops and Megawatts

07.27.2012

Power efficiency doesn’t scale in the same way as Moore’s law: It’s one of the areas of electronics design that can move quite slowly. But in the world of megawatt-guzzling supercomputers it’s important ... really important. Read More...