Power

Power Integrations starts sourcing wafers in Europe this quarter, and sues Fairchild over patents

French company also acquires US software firm Spatial Wireless

University of St Andrews wins backing to spin out a fuel cell company

Fuel cells that can replace batteries are in development, with the Japanese leading the pack

American Superconductor claims "significant manufacturing development benchmarks" for HTS wire

Power density conundrumsRichard WilsonOne of the myths of electronics has been that power supply design was always the lastbit of a project to be tackled, implying that it was thrown together in haste. This mayhave once had the ring of truth about it, but not any more. High processor speeds, evermore restrictive space constraints, not to mention the trend for ...

Liion roars …at a priceSteve BushLithium ion batteries are in all the best phones and camcorders, so why are they noteverywhere, in every bit of portable test equipment for instance? A simple answer is cost.Liion batteries are more expensive to buy than NiCd or NiMH cells. “Lithium batteries are lighter than nickel cadmium or nickel metal hydride,”says Robin Cloke, MD ...

Low down on DC-DCsRichard WilsonProcessor and logic manufacturers continue to place power supply design under a lot ofpressure, especially where low voltage devices are concerned. With supply voltages forleading devices such as microprocessors dropping sub-1.0V, maintaining efficiency of powersupplies is tremendously difficult. As supply voltages approach 0.6V they are getting dangerously close to the voltage dropacross the diodes typically used ...

Running a happy chipHarry Yeates Likebabies, microcontrollers, microprocessors, and memory need looking after. Unlike babies,this care regime involves reset ICs, voltage regulators and monitors, power failurewarning circuits, and watchdog timers. Babies only need a woolly hat and a bottle of milk. However, similarities re-emerge when you consider that babies inevitably grow up andbecome more complex. While the traditional approach to ...

The latest funding is going into 24 projects resulting in 650kWp of generating capacity