STMicroelectronics has announced a power-factor correction controller for the front-end of ac-dc PSUs from 600W to 6kW. Called STNRGPF02, it implements a two-channel interleaved boost topology as well as in-rush current limiting. Operation is fixed-frequency continuous-conduction mode (CCM) with average current-mode control. “A blend of analogue and digital control combines a hardware analogue PI [proportional-integral] compensator in the inner current ...

The news that Chinese NAND will be on the market in H2 is probably for the birds. Back in October 2016 Yangtze was saying it would be running 48-layer NAND wafers at its Wuhan fab by the end of the year with volume production in Q1 2017. Various other unmet targets have been announced since then and yesterday at SEMICON ...

Spontaneously-hollowing antimony particles could increase the capacity of lithium ion cells, according to the Georgia Institute of Technology. “Intentionally engineering hollow nano-materials has been done for a while now, and it is a promising approach for improving the lifetime and stability of batteries with high energy density,” GaTech research engineer Matthew McDowell. “The problem has been that directly synthesising these ...

Diodes is aiming at automotive point-of-load converters with a 1A buck converter that can run from 5V and 3.3V rails. Output can span 600mV to 3.6V. Called AP61100Q, the chip has synchronous rectification – with a 110mΩ high-side mosfet and 80mΩ low-side mosfet. Operation is across 2.3 – 5.5V and -40 to +125°C (ambient, 150°C junction), as well as at 2.2MHz ...

Frontier is aiming at better-looking DAB+ radio products with a ‘Pro’ range of chips, modules and software. Its Kino 4-Pro chip has a larger memory than its earlier silicon, allowing features to be added without compromising performance. Siena-Pro (see image) is a module built around Kino 4-Pro. To ease migration, Kino 4-Pro and Siena-Pro are pin compatible with the company’s ...

Advantest’s H5620ES engineering test system is designed for burn-in and core testing of DDR4, DDR5 and LPDDR devices in laboratory environments. “Like its sister system, the H5620 production unit, the new tester parallel tests both DDR4 and DDR5 memories. It can accommodate memory ICs with 100MHz frequencies and 200Mbit/s data rates,” said the company, adding that H5620ES streamlines the number ...

TSMC spent $2.959 billion on R&D last year, employing 6,534 R&D staff. The R&D budget was 8.5% of its 2019 sales of  $36 billion- a ratio it intends to maintain. The company expects to increase revenues by 14-19% this year. TSMC expects 10% of its wafer output to be on 5nm this year and volume production on 3nm is scheduled ...

VARTA is to get €300 million via an IPCEI  (Important Project of Common European Interest) project. Funds are coming  from the German Federal Ministry of Economics (BMWi) and the states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. The project will focus o developing small-format lithium-ion cells with higher energy densities.  These new battery formats are to be optimised on a pilot line and transferred ...

The first-ever Wales Tech Week has confirmed more than 50 virtual events as part of the festival, which runs 13 – 17 July and is free to access. It is designed to showcase the Welsh technology industry and its applications in use across the world, and the first keynote is by Lee Waters MS, Deputy Minister for the Economy and Transport ...

Raytheon Technologies has been awarded a $2.3 billion contract, by the US government’s Missile Defense Agency, for seven gallium nitride (GaN)-based AN/TPY-2 radars. The radars will be part of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, which is designed to detect incoming ballistic missiles. Specifically, Raytheon Missiles & Defense – one of the four business segments of the newly-formed ...