http://www.power-eetimes.com/en/design-center/full-design-center.html  Up until now, thermal analysis of white LEDs has been an imperfect science. Too often LED lamp and luminaire manufacturers rely on insufficient, inaccurate or intangible data to determine the thermal performance of the LEDs in their applications, and, as a result, may over-engineer their heat sink design.]]>  Srinath Balaraman and Anil Khanna of Mentor Graphics provide an overview of the Smart Energy Profile 2.0 (SEP), an emerging standard in the smart energy market, being developed by the ZigBee Alliance.]]>  In General lighting as well as in automotive lighting and many other market segments, LEDs are becoming increasingly popular for their longevity and energy efficiency. Nevertheless there are some obstacles and caveat a user should know to get really successful implementations.]]>  Terry Allinder of Texas Instruments focuses on a novel method to improve the performance of peak current-mode control. ]]>  LED drivers with a poor power factor reflect harmonics back to the mains. As the power consumption of "high-power" LEDs used as light sources increases erratically, there is a risk of "dirty electricity" across the mains. To get to the root of this problem, high-power LED drivers must come with power factor correction.]]>  Robert Kollman of Texas Instruments explains how to save check-out time with a good power supply layout.]]>  Large, high voltage rechargeable battery systems are now common sources of power in applications ranging from electric vehicles to power grid load leveling systems. These large battery stacks are comprised of series / parallel arrays of individual battery cells, and are capable of storing enormous amounts of energy (tens of kilowatt-hours). Lithium polymer or LiFePO4 cells are common technology choices due to their high energy density and high peak power capability. As in single-cell applications, careful control of the charging and monitoring of the cells is essential to ensure safe operation and prevent premature aging or damage to the battery. However, unlike single-cell systems, series-connected battery stacks present an additional requirement: cell balancing.]]>  Keith Bassett, Design Engineering Section Leader, Linear Technology Corp. explains how a synchronous, monolithic step-down regulator has been developed to provide a flexible, highly efficient DC/DC conversion while occupying a small footprint.]]>  Arun Ananthampalayam of CUI examines the pathways for heat transfer and how power supply designs have evolved to enable effective heat dissipation and deliver greater performance.]]>  Tim Morin of Microsemi Corporation examines how to increase functional safety in networked embedded designs.]]>  Bruce Haug of Linear Technology Corp. explains one approach to providing power for robotic surgical systems.]]>  Pawel Duc and Damian Modrzyk, Evatronix together with Aris Aristodemou, ARM examine how reducing display power is able to extend mobile battery life.  ]]>  Lighting comprises approximately 17.5% of global electricity consumption. As the world transitions from incandescent to solid state lighting (SSL) technology, utilities and government regulatory agencies worldwide are concerned that, as this large segment of the consumption base switches to SSL, it will increase infrastructure costs. This is due to the reactive nature of LED-based solid state lighting, which results in higher distribution currents that adversely affect power factor (PF) and, in turn create a larger demand on the power grid.]]>  Robert Kollman poses the question which camp are you in when it comes to the power supply grounding debate?]]>  Christian Petersen of Teklatech A/S explains how to reclaim lost yield by applying a methodical approach to power integrity optimization. ]]>  Federico Politi and Ahmed Elzeftawi of Cadence Design Systems consider several existing approaches to memory characterization and discusses their benefits and challenges. The article also proposes a new dynamic partitioning methodology that addresses the limitations of existing approaches and enables the capacity and throughput requirements for characterization of multimillion-bit memory cells. ]]>  As digital signage projects become ever more ambitious, equipment designers must rely on LED- driver ICs capable of satisfying the unique demands of this application space.]]>  Daniel Acevedo, applications engineer, Texas Instruments explains how a front-end power management unit enables system designers to continue using their single-cell-based designs, while increasing efficiency of subsystems needing higher input voltage.]]>  Vibheesh B of Cypress Semiconductor considers how to manage power in capacitive touch sensing applications.]]>  Robert Kollman of Texas Instrumentsexamines how to design a flyback primary switch snubber.]]>  Nathan Hanagami, Steve Knoth and Marty Merchant of Linear Technology examine why car infotainment systems need multi-output power ICs.]]>  Julio Diez Ruiz explains the silicon limitations to achieving frequency improvements in embedded processors and how they affect CPU performance.  He also indicates how engineers are overcoming this situation with multicore design.]]>  In the development of electric and hybrid vehicles, in particular, the requirements for instrumentation used to measure internal ECU signals are very high. Nonetheless, measurement data rates of up to 30 Mbyte/s and the necessary sampling rates of 100 kHz can be achieved with the latest generations of microcontrollers and an intelligent measuring instrumentation solution. The ECU’s CPU is not loaded here.]]>  Robert Kollman of Texas Instruments examinessome simple formulas for interconnect inductance in free space and over a ground plane. We will find that the ground plane significantly reduces trace inductance and is critical for optimal performance in power supplies.]]>  The switch from analog to digital power supplies brings significant benefits to a system in terms of efficiency and optimization through real-time monitoring, the problems the technology solves are felt by almost all OEMs, regardless of size, but its use has been limited to major OEMs with significant resources. CUI’s Mark Adams looks at emerging industry trend for simplicity that will allow small and medium sized industrial SMEs to make the leap to digital and take advantage of this technology too. ]]>  Compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) are replacing incandescent light bulbs at a rapid rate due to their tremendous energy savings and longer lifetime. Additional energy savings can be achieved by dimming, but the electronic ballast required to control the lamp has a higher cost and is difficult to design. This article explains how a CFL works, how to dim them, and describes a solution for 3-way dimming applications.]]>  Siddharth Guha and Kiran Vittal of Atrenta outlines five guidelines to perform an early power analysis with relevant and available data at each stage to avoid last-minute surprises in the SoC design process. The set of guidelines is applicable to any mobile or wired application and should be easy to adopt in any design implementation flow. ]]>  One of the most interesting features of electric motors when used in drive train application is that they can also behave as generators, and thus recharge the vehicle's battery while braking. Roboteq's motor controllers can easily be programmed to take advantage of this characteristic to create regenerative braking in a controlled and progressive manner. This article describes the theory behind a simple and very effective technique that uses the motor speed sensing. It describes a practical example using a brushless motor connected to a Roboteq controller.]]>  Todd Stonewall and Eric Bleak of Sharp Microelectronics of the Americas examine the design challenges posed by moving a product from a CCFT-backlit module to an LED-backlit module.]]>  Bob Frostholm of JVD Inc. considers who is in charge of determining your power management solutions. Are you in control of managing your power management costs?]]>  Geetha Rangarajan of Synopsys and James Deng of Altera discuss the importance of signal EM and ways to address it in today's complex designs. The article also highlights the EM capabilities in IC Compiler with results from Altera's successful adoption of the solution for its 28-nm high performance IPs.]]>  Bruce Haug of Linear Technology examines the power supply benefits of using a current-mode controller. ]]>  LEDs can be dimmed in two ways: analog and pulse-width modulation (PWM) dimming. Analog dimming changes LED light output by simply adjusting the DC current in the string, while PWM dimming achieves the same effect by varying the duty cycle of a constant current in the string to effectively change the average current in the string. Despite its attractive simplicity, analog dimming is inappropriate for many applications.]]>  Brett Novak of Texas Instruments considers the key requirements for setting safety standards for arc detection in solar photovoltaic systems.]]>  According to the SEAD (Super-efficient Equipment and Appliance Deployment) initiative, televisions are responsible for approximately 3 to 8 percent of global residential electricity consumption. An analysis conducted by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory suggests that advances such as more efficient LED driving can yield major reductions in television electricity consumption in the coming years.]]>  Robert Kollman of Texas Instruments focuses on how to set about compensating a low-noise power supply having a two-section filter.]]>  Clive Maxfield considers how to efficiently implement asynchronous logic in COTS FPGAs.]]>  Shawn McCloud, Bryan Bowyer and Vikas Tyagi of Calypto discuss how to make ESL power optimization a reality.]]>  As hurtle head first into 2013 perhaps it is time to take a quick look at the ten most popular technical articles of 2012 that were featured on EE Times Europe Power Management throughout the year.]]>  Martin Tomasz of Sageloop Designs outlines how a microwatt charge pump is able to boost 1-V to 1.8-V at 90 percent efficiency.]]>  Paul Lee, Director of Business Development, Murata Power Solutions examines the impact of burn-in testing on power supply reliability performance.]]>  With over 600 dimmer types on the market today – almost all designed for incandescent lamps – a major challenge in designing dimmable LED drivers is how to ensure consistent performance. This article explains which aspects of phase-cut dimmable LED lamp electronics should be considered in evaluating performance in terms of dimmer compatibility. A new parameter, “compatibility per watt,” is introduced to take into account factors including increasing LED efficacy and controllability, in addition to stability. The trade-off between electronics dissipation and dimming curve is emphasized.]]>  Robert Kollman, Texas Instruments considers what happens following the decision to use a two-section filter  for low-noise power supplies.]]>  Lawrence Loh  considers formal methods for power-aware verification to achieve a target power consumption objective while limiting the cost. ]]>  Javier Solorzano, Senior Applications Engineer, Touchstone Semiconductor, Inc. describes a simple temperature-controlled fan circuit which can be constructed using a minimal external component count. ]]>  Compromises and workarounds undertaken in an effort to meet the requirements of electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) have had the potential in the past to markedly impair the reliability and efficiency, and increase the total production cost, of the power circuit in an LED luminaire.]]>  Tight vehicle emission regulations and high fuel prices have intensified the demand for fuel-efficient cars. At the same time, customers continue to expect the same vehicle performance that they had when fuel prices were lower. These conflicting demands present an optimization challenge for automotive manufacturers: how to minimize fuel consumption and CO2 emissions without sacrificing performance?]]>  Bruce Haug of Linear Technology Corp. considers why harsh military environments demand high performance power conversion solutions.]]>  Ever increasing energy costs and the global debate about environmental pollution is making society more conscious about the need for adapting its energy consumption behavior accordingly. One obvious way is to use fewer energy guzzling gadgets wherever possible. In addition, government regulations around the world are enforcing energy saving measures through the step by step banning of inefficient light sources, such as incandescent lamps, compelling the industry to invest in developing alternative energy efficient light sources.]]>  Robert Kollman of Texas Instruments focuses on how to P-SPICEcan be used to design a power supply control loop.]]>  For use in demanding environments that call for higher performance under electrical and mechanical stress, AVX developed its TRJ tantalum professional capacitor series. Technical improvements have been made that strengthen the structure of capacitor and make it more robust in such environments.]]>  The rapid expansion of constant-current/constant-voltage (CC-CV) applications, especially in LED lighting and high capacity battery and supercapacitor chargers challenges power supply designers to keep pace with the increasingly complicated interplay of current and voltage control loops. A switch-mode converter designed specifically for CC-CV offers a clear advantage, especially when the supply has limited power, or its power is allocated among several competing loads.]]>  Rufino Olay of Microsemi Corp. explores how to set about enhancing the efficiency of photovoltaic systems. ]]>  Cable companies and service providers worldwide are about to start rolling out a new Fifth Play service offering that makes the connected home more of a smart home.]]>  David Simmons of Linear Technology Corp. explores how to charge high capacity batteries from 5 V sources.]]>  Chau Tran and David Karpaty of Analog Devices Inc. describe a simple circuit that is capable of measuring the RMS value of an AC power line.]]>  Dr. Edward Lovelace of XL Hybrids examines the energy conumption pay off of hybrid electric vehicles.]]>  In the area of power metering, especially in some regions, the following trend is obvious these days: Utilities require a more sophisticated payment infrastructure to facilitate the payment process for energy. This process also reflects the recent trends in improving the security in these systems, including theft prevention.]]>  Andre Hassan of Kilopass outlines a memory solution addressing power and security problems in embedded designs.]]>  Jonathan Domingo, Lumex considers the performance benefits wireless bonded LEDs are able to achieve.]]>  S. Boisseau and J.J. Chaillout of CEA-LETI, Minatec Campus, Grenoble, France and M. Deterre and R. Dal Molin of Sorin CRM SAS, Clamart, France focus on the technical challenges faced when to trying to use heartbeats to power pacemakers.]]>  Philip Lechner, Product Marketing Manager, Power, Avnet Abacus explains how legislation and customer pressure are both working to ensure greener operation of today's power supplies.]]>  In the second part of a two-part series Raymond Ho, Sr. Applications Eng/High Speed Signal Path, and Michael Steffes, Sr. Applications Manager/High Speed Signal Path, Intersil Corp. reviews test methodology and data on a 3rd generation wideband differential driver.]]>  Gert Skriver of Kamstrup explains why wireless systems prevail in smart grid technology.]]>  Materials company Vacuumschmelze GmbH (VAC) is playing a part in the Formula Student Electric by supplying its new advanced alloy VACODUR 49 for performance-optimised electric motors. In partnership with AMK in Kirchheim, VAC is supporting three teams in this year's competition.]]>  Pushkar Ranade, Senior Director, Process Integration SuVolta, Inc. describes the emerging importance of the SoC, its likely technological evolution and its potential impact on the semiconductor industry in a mobility driven age. ]]>  Z-Wave is an international standard for wireless communication in smart homes. It is based on ITU G.9959 specification and defines all aspects of the communication to ensure interoperability of devices implementing the protocol. This article describes the development process for hardware, SoC firmware, host communication and the certification and gives a good overview how to get started developing products for the Z-Wave ecosystem.]]>  Robert Kollman of Texas Instruments considers how advanced circuit techniques have remade the lowly cell phone charger from a clunky wall wart that consumes significant amounts of power to an innocuous device that is not much larger than a wall plug. The power savings from this improvement can be measured in tens of power plants that will not be needed worldwide. ]]>  With light emitting diodes (LEDs) at the forefront of new residential and commercial fixtures, engineers and designers often struggle with ways to protect LEDs from premature failure due to thermal issues. LEDs permanently lose their brightness when thermally stressed and will degrade much quicker than the manufacturer intended. The additional cost of the emitters should be balanced with the thermal design to provide not only an elegant lighting solution, but the long life promised by solid state lighting.]]>  Josh Moczygemba, Marlow Industries outlines an energy harvesting solution that can be customized to fit any pipe diameter and pipe orientation, without modification to existing pipeline infrastructure.]]>  Eric Huang, Synopsys examines how USB 3.0 can heltp to deliver faster, power efficient data transfers on every devices.]]>  More applications for automotive microcontrollers (MCUs) emerge practically every day. Until recently, most of these chips were used to implement and enhance a vehicle’s added-value features. That is no longer the case, however. Today these devices are absolutely essential components in all basic functions: driving, steering, and stopping. Part 1 of this 2-part article describes the chip technoogy as the enabler for new functions.]]>  Wireless is everywhere! It's a mantra that's not new, but perhaps is taking on invigorated meaning with the explosion of wireless devices in seemingly every application space where embedded systems are deployed.]]>  In response to the global energy demands, lighting system engineers continue to develop alternative lighting methods, particularly light-emitting diode (LED) technology. LEDs can provide efficient, cost-effective and low environmental impact lighting solutions that can result in considerable energy savings, which is important in this era of ever-increasing electricity prices.]]>  Reshmi Ravindran, Cypress Semiconductor explains that QDR SRAMs are typically interfaced to application-specific networking processors or high-speed FPGAs which poses design challenges that have to be faced to optimize a system.]]>  Willie Chan of Linear Technology Corp. focuses on the design challenges that need to be faced to improve medical imaging with direct radiography.]]>  Raymond Ho and Michael Steffes of Intersil Corp., describes the required characterization steps for a single port driver into a passive lab load.]]>  Lj. Ristic, Managing Director, Petrov Group focuses on sensor fusion and MEMS technology and how it applies to 10-DoF solutions.]]>  Stephen Ellwood of AnSem explains how to design a MEMS driver ASIC for a contact lens sensor.]]>  In the world of RF and microwave engineering, the design and development of solid-state amplifiers is a speciality. It has always required many years of specialised engineering experience and a suitable collection of test and measurement equipment. While these will always be necessary, to be successful in the marketplace today, it is also essential to use a combination of specialised and general CAD tools.]]>  Robert Kollman of Texas Instruments explains why you need to be wary of capacitor parasitics. ]]>  Guy Brammertz, Marie Buffiere, Yves Mols, Marc Meuris and Jef Poortmans of imec – partner in Solliance, Leuven, Belgium outline the first promising results that pave the way towards an improved solar cell structure that can eventually equal CIGS-based cells in efficiency.]]>  Brian Foster of  B&B Electronics points out that like the Hindenburg, USB has potential trouble designed in.  This article discusses the problem, and what can be done to remedy it.]]>  Amol Agarwal and Priyanka Garg of Freescale Semiconductor decribe thee considerations for designing a robust clock tree structure.]]>  Surges and spikes on data lines can fry your communications boards and garble data. Mike Fahrion of  B&B Electronics describes the operation, installation and selection of what is probably the most common method of data line protection. Surge suppressors divert excess energy away from the port being protected into a ground connection. The operation of these devices relies on a high quality ground connection in order to safely shunt away unwanted energy.]]>  Dennis Scott of Noren Products focuses on ways to streamline thermal management design and production.]]>  Tobias Bjerregaard of Teklatech explains how to achieve power noise reduction by optimizing the dynamic power signature of digital ICs.]]>  Jonathan Harrisof ADI focuses on the JESD204 converter interface and explains the importance of the interface for future designs.]]>  Narayana Koduri of Atrenta Inc focuses on the issues related to power management when considering  RTL design analysis.]]>  As more applications continue to integrate LED technology, developers face the challenge of driving greater numbers of LEDs while lowering system cost and increasing power efficiency. For systems requiring multiple strings of LEDs, TI provides two example solutions illustrating differing power stage topology designs and digital control methods. This whitepaper explores the different LED driver topologies and digital control methods available for driving multiple LED strings efficiently to reduce system cost, lower operating expenses, increase color accuracy, and improve overall reliability.]]>  Robert Kollman of Texas Instruments examines some of the common aluminum electrolytic capacitor pitfalls.]]>  Priya Thanigai of Texas Instruments discusses key technology attributes of FRAM while exploring specific use cases that demonstrate FRAM’s advantages. ]]>  Power Line Communications has evolved into a critical energy control networking technology for the Smart Grid and consequently for Smart Meters. The growth in demand for data that can be analyzed to benefit the utility and the consumer demands a technology that can offer the reliability and performance that can satisfy this demand.]]>  Robert Kollman, Texas Instruments focuses on avoiding common multi-layer ceramic capacitor pitfalls.]]>  The advent of wireless personal area networks (WPANs) and wireless body area networks (WBANs) has created the need for sensing and monitoring solutions that can support continuous data streaming with extremely low power consumption.]]>  Anders Guldahl of Energy Micro examines the consdierations needed to reduce energy consumption in MCU-based systems when looking to monitor outside inputs.]]>  Steve Knoth  Senior Product Marketing Engineer, Power Products Group  Linear Technology Corporation examines the benefits of using charge pumps to provide versatile application solutions. ]]>  Mike Elms, Technical Sales Manager for Uninterruptible Power Supplies Limited, a Kohler company, compares on line and off line UPS topologies, together with a third variant – line interactive topology. ]]>  Soo Man (Sweetman) Kim of Vishay reviews the major parameters that need considering when selecting a power line polarity protection diode for an automotive application.]]>  Yucheng Zhang, Roger A. Dougal, Electrical Engineering University of South Carolina; Sean Burke, Glacial Energy Holdings, Inc. examine the basics of reactive power consumption and the benfits of reducing it.]]>  Pushek Madaan and Rajiv Badiger of Cypress consider different types of rechargeable batteries and  compare the selection criteria of different types of batteries.]]>  Giovanni Torrisi, STMicroelectronics explains how a mechatronic control architecture can simplify the electrical distribution system, improve quality and reliability to lead to reduced power consumption and emissions.]]>  "Smart home", "smart metering" or "smart grid" are the actual keywords for a new type of intelligent technology. From supply of energy, water and heat to intelligent automation and lighting solutions, an efficient, environmentally friendly but also more comfortable operation can be achieved in many areas with the help of new concepts and advanced components. Especially the lighting sector benefits from these new technologies in several ways.]]>  Robert Kollman of Texas Instruments continues our discussion of common-mode currents which started in Power Tip 47. ]]>  Part 1 of this series will describe the individual ADC and amplifier characteristics, show a proposed 19dB gain interface circuit including a 2nd order RLC filter between the amplifier and ADC.]]>  Faheem Sheikh of Mentor Graphics considers a scenario where a symmetrical multiprocessing (SMP) RTOS, multicore hardware, and power management features can be combined to facilitate parallel embedded programming. ]]>  Ludovic Larzul - Vice President of Engineering, EVE explains how power-aware emulation tests can be used to power islands on a SoC.]]>  Guy Wagner, Electronic Cooling Solutions, and Travis Mikjaniecn, Mentor Graphics explains how exhaust-heat thermoelectric generator (EHTEG) can be incorporated into a UAV design to harvest and convert the waste energy into electrical power in flight.]]>  Steve Knoth of Linear Technology Corporation outlines why supercapacitors can be a good choice compared with batteries for backup applications.]]>  Danny Tseng of Cypress looks at ways of optimizing system performance and power management benefits of USB 3.0 technology.]]>  Sean Murphy, Texas Instruments looks at how the smart grid and the smart home network need to evolve to the next level to meet user demands.]]>  Michael O'Loughlin, Senior Applications Engineer, Texas Instruments discusses what leading edge modulation is and how it can improve the efficiency n PFC designs by reducing the high-frequency RMS current in the boost capacitor (IC).]]>  Bosheng Sun and Zhong Ye of Texas Instruments examine the most common methods to reduce the current distortion in a digitally-controlled PFC.]]>  David McTernan of Renesas Mobile takes a look at how to meet power management challenges faced by advanced LTE smartphones.]]>  Buildings are responsible for about 36 percent of Europe's greenhouse gas emissions, and according to the International Energy Agency, lighting accounts for 17.5 percent of global electricity use. Internationally, the trend toward efficiency is highly correlated to economic and infrastructure conditions. Europe and Asia are conservation-minded and open to government programs to limit consumption.]]>   In this Power Tip series Robert Kollman of Texas Instruments continues to focus on the challenges posed by common mode currents.]]>  Fabien Clermidy, Ivan Miro-Panades, Yvain Thonnart and Pascal Vivet of CEA-Leti focus on how to reduce the energy costs associated with intra-chip communications.]]>  Juri Mihhailov, Viktor Strik and Sergei Strik of Texas Instruments decribe a low input low output voltage regulator (LILO), which has a possibility to be used as a post regulated low dropout regulator (LDO). The design incorporates a reference amplifier followed by low-pass filter (LPF) to guarantee superior noise performance.]]>  The increasing popularity of battery-powered consumer electronic devices such as portable media players, smartphones and tablets has led to a host of different chargers and a tangle of wires littering the home. The concept of wirelessly charging the devices, i.e. without any direct-wired connection, has been around for a while but is now rapidly gaining interest to make it more flexible and useable. But what are the different techniques available, and what are the design challenges an engineer needs to deal with?]]>  Bill Laumeister, Maxim Integrated Products discusses how to combine a twisted-pair wire and lowpass filters to produce spectacular rejection of radio frequency interference (RFI) and electromagnetic interference (EMI). The use of a precision resistor array to produce a customizable differential amplifier is also illustrated and shows how to help pull the signal out of the interfering noise and improves FPGA performance. The precision resistors set the gain and common-mode rejection ratios while the frequency response is selected.]]>  Choosing a circuit material for a high-frequency printed-circuit board (PCB) is generally a tradeoff, often between price and performance. But PCB materials are also selected by two key factors: how well they meet the needs of an end-use application and what kind of effort is required to fabricate a desired circuit with a particular material. ]]>  Wonseok Kang, Fairchild Semiconductor considers the power device considerations to optimize designs of a LED power supply.]]>  in part 1 of this two-part article David O'Mara, Kontron discusses primary thermal technologies and their specific features and benefits. In part 2, we will review examples, illustrating how thermal design choices meet the computing challenges of specific military program applications.]]>  Patrick Baginski, Field Application Engineer, Vincotech GmbH describes the differences between modules with and without baseplates, and how the reliability and thermal conductivity is affected.]]>  Peter Blyth, Industry Director, Medical, XP Power considers the challenges posed by the impending changes relating to the 2nd to 3rd editions of the medical standard - IEC60601. ]]>  Bilal Akin, PhD and Daniel Chang of Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) describe a digital power control implementation using line level control (LLC) resonant converters based on a flexible, 32-bit, low-cost, high-performance microcontroller. Key elements of digital power control are explored; including duty cycle control, dead-band adjustment in real time, frequency control, and adaptive thresholds for maintaining different safe operation regions]]>  Peyman Asadi, Amir Rahimi, and Parviz Parto of International Rectifier Co. review the problem of conditionally stable loop design of single-phase voltage-mode-controlled non-isolated synchronous-buck converter with examples, and provide some design guidelines to achieve unconditional stability.]]>   In this Power Tip Robert Kollman of Texas Instruments investigates the importance of timing between the high-side and low-side FET gate drives in a synchronous buck regulator. Timing optimization is becoming increasingly important as engineers strive to eke out the best possible efficiency in their power supply.]]>  Randy White of Tektronix provides an overview of Gallium Nitride and then focus on the test and measurment challenges the semiconductor material poses.]]>  Jess Brown of Wolfson Microelectronics focuses on the challenges faced when seeking to optimize package development during design to maximize PMIC performance.]]>  Sebastien Boisseau and Ghislain Despesse, CEA-Leti examines the challenges facing designers seeking to use vibration energy harvesting for wireless sensor networks.]]>  Preeti Gupta, Director RTL Product Management, Apache Design explains some of the key advantages why RTL delivers the best trade-offs between accuracy and the ability to design for low-power.]]>  John Betten, Application Engineer, Texas Instruments focuses on the single-ended primary-inductor converter - the SEPIC converter - and discusses the impact the type of magnetic windings has on a practical SEPIC converter design.]]>  Jim O'Callaghan, President, EnOcean Inc., examines how to bridge energy harvesting wireless sensor networks to TCP/IP to make buildings more energy efficient.]]>  Liyu Cao of Ametek Programmable Power describes a systematic design procedure is developed to design a type II compensator.]]>  In automotive, industrial and avionic applications, high voltage power supply spikes with durations ranging from a few microseconds to hundreds of milliseconds are commonly encountered. The electronics within these systems must not only survive transient voltage spikes, but in many cases also operate reliably throughout the event. Recent surge stopper designs help to maintain these devices in the safe zone.]]>  The 'Internet of Things' (IoT), in conjunction with wireless connectivity, can deliver a smart wireless Internet-enabled and highly energy-efficient lighting network for use in the home and in commercial lighting applications.]]>  Josh Broline, Bernard Theju, Nick van Vonno, Intersil Corporation focuses on radiation hardened power management products and how they solve new design challenges.]]>  Steve Knoth of Linear Technology Corp. provides some insights into how to employ energy harvesting and battery pack protection from shunt charger IC systems.]]>  David Guo, Applications Engineer, Analog Devices, Inc. discusses the objectives and circuitry of heart rate monitor front ends and focuses on accuracy, and power consumption.]]>  Richard Zarr of Texas Instruments focuses on the interconnect power budgets as connected systems move beyond 10 Gbps interconnects and examines the solutions to lower power consumption in these high-speed channels.]]>  Robert Kollman of Texas Instruments continues to look at how to handle high dI/dt load transients and focueses on the amount of bypassing capacitance required with realistic di/dt requirements at the power supply output.]]>  The rapid rate of growth in usage of LEDs for lighting applications will not have escaped anyone's notice, but while developments in LED technology are there for all to see, less attention has been paid to the technology of LED driving. In fact, techniques for implementing LED control have changed considerably in the past couple of years. These changes have been spurred by the development of advanced mixed-signal semiconductor manufacturing processes which enable the production of ‚smart' LED drivers: these integrate digital control functionality with analogue power circuitry in a single, low-cost chip.]]>  The transition from gas-powered vehicles to gas-electric hybrids or all-electric vehicles presents many design challenges for the circuits and subsystems employed in the vehicle due to transients, extreme temperatures, and many other factors. Particular care has to be taken to the separation of high-voltage and low-voltage segments in the automotive power supply.]]>  Pete Semig and Collin Wells, Texas Instruments explains how poor matching between two input signal currents (or input offset current, Ios) can induce and/or exacerbate a differential voltage at the inputs of a device.]]>  Frederik Dostal, Power Business Technical Manager for Europe at Analog Devices outlines some of the most important procedures required when evaluating a switch mode power supply circuit in the lab.]]>  Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) is gaining increasing significance for the characterization, amongst other things, of lithium-ion batteries. One reason for this may be seen in the fact that it is now possible to integrate a monolithic System-on-Chip solution called MD8710  into a battery system.]]>  Pete Semig and Collin Wells of Texas Instruments examines some of the specifications that affect a solution's accuracy. These specifications include input offset voltage (Vos), common-mode rejection ratio (CMRR), and power supply rejection ratio (PSRR).]]>  Patrick Jankowiak, Field Application Engineer, STMicroelectronics looks at how to design applications that can use the power line for communication despite the noisy neighbors and their 'bad' power supplies and the attenuation of modem signals caused by any transformers in use.]]>  Brian Foster of B&B Electronics Manufacturing Co. examines the requirements to ruggedize USB connections for tough environments.]]>  Junhua He of Avago Technologies explains how optocouplers can be used to safeguard battery systems from transients, shorts, and other faults.]]>  Robert Kollman, Texas Instruments discusses why high di/dt loads require careful bypassing to preserve power supply dynamic regulation.]]>  Fluorescent tubes in general are very efficient in terms of lumens per watt, but their lifetime is very low and this makes them more costly to maintain. LEDs are efficient and have a long lifetime, up to 50,000 hours if they are driven well with appropriate heatsinking.]]>  David Fry, Strategic Applications Manager, Maxim Integrated Products outlines a calibration solution for a power supply that uses a digital pot to create an optimal design.]]>  Pete Semig and Collin Wells, Texas Instruments focuses on the four differential amplifiers that typically are used in direct current sensing solutions.]]>  Pete Semig and Collin Wells of Texas Instruments examines the fundamentals of current sensing, including direct versus indirect sensing, input common-mode voltage, high versus low-side sensing, directionality, and output requirements.]]>  Michael Laflin of Enpirion, and Austin Lesea of Xilinx explain how PowerSoCs can power high speed IO with performance equivalent to or better than linear regulators.]]>  Ani Dimusheva of Power Standards Lab explains how they overcame a frustrating power problem at a radar site located on Red Table Mountain at an altitude of 12,000 feet in Colorado where radar failures are hard to fix.]]>  Helene Goulin and Philippe Merceron, STMicroelectronics examines how to select the best Schottky diode in automotive applications to preserve the low forward voltage drop performance on one side and the ability to pass the ISO7637-2 pulses.]]>  LED-based camera flash lights so far have failed to unfold their potential. The performance bottleneck however lies in the driver circuitry. Here's a proposal to overcome the limitations.]]>  With the increasing variety of wireless technologies available, more sophisticated human interface devices (HID) are coming to market with integrated wireless technology (wireless keyboards, wireless mice, etc). While wireless standards provide the benefit of interoperability, they also introduce complexity and overhead that an application may not require, resulting in a higher system cost. On the other hand, proprietary protocols give developers flexibility to customize applications at the expense of requiring developers to take on the development process. This article compares the Bluetooth Low Energy technology with the proprietary protocols in the HID market.]]>  Michael Harney describes the design of a wide-band buck regulator, which is a standard buck regulator, but with modifications that allow the output voltage to vary across a wider range. This allows it to accommodate electronic devices that also operate over a wide range.]]>  Daniel Feldman of Microsemi Corporation explains why compliance to PoE safety standards is critical when moving beyond 60-W.]]>  Thomas Grasshoff, Head of International Product Management, Semikron explores how innovative packaging technology can overcome power management issues to support smart energy applications]]>  Christoph Fritsch of Altera Corporation examines the design challenges facing design engineers looking to develop industrial systems on a chip that meet stringent global safety standards.]]>  Michele Sclocchi of Texas Instruments in this second part of a two part series continues with a step by step guide on how to approach optimising a flyback design.]]>  Robert Kollman, Texas Instruments continues to examine why discrete devices can make a good alternative to integrated MOSFET drivers.]]>  Paul H. Schimpf of Eastern Washington University continues to see whether a solenoid can be increased by removing some turns from the coil while looking at formulations for inductance, power, energy, and force.]]>  Paul H. Schimpf of Eastern Washington University examines whether a solenoid can be increased by removing some turns from the coil and looks at formulations for inductance, power, energy, and force.]]>  Daniel Pruessner of Fairchild Semiconductor looks at the problem of efficiently and cost-effectively providing hold-up energy typically falls to power supply designers. Here he reviews three options a power supply designer has to solve this problem and evaluate their benefits and costs in a flyback switch-mode power supply.]]>  Karthik Kadirvel, John Carpenter and Brian Lum-Shue-Chan of Texas Instruments focus on the power management considerations of DC energy harvesters which are easier to obtain in high volume quantities compared with AC harvesters.]]>  Anitha TG of Cypress Semiconductors compares the Bluetooth Low Energy technology with the proprietary protocols in the HID market.]]>  Kjartan Furset of Nordic Semiconductor and Peter Hoffman of Energizer examines the impact of high pulse drain on CR2032 coin-cell battery capacity.]]>  Before you wave goodbye to 2011 why not take some time to check out EE Times Europe Power Management's ten most popular technical articles of 2011.]]>  Cuyler Latorraca of Linear Technology focuses on the algorithms and lab tests required to balance hybrid/EV battery packs to extend their operational lifetimes.]]>  Jeff Hooker of Lattice Semiconductor Corp., examines the multi-faceted power management issues relating to computer peripherals.]]>  Cuyler Latorraca of Linear Technology explains what to consider when looking to balance hybrid/EV battery packs to extend operational lifetimes, ]]>  Robert Kollman, Texas Instruments looks at why discrete devices can make a good alternative to integrated MOSFET drivers.]]>  As environmental concerns over traditional lighting increase and the price of LEDs decreases, high power LEDs are fast becoming a popular lighting solution for offline applications. The article describes a solution that solves complexity, space and performance problems by integrating all the required functions for offline LED lighting.]]>  Keith Odland of Silicon Labs explains how to design smart gas and water meters to achieve the ultimate in energy efficiency performance.]]>  Bob Marchetti, Senior Manager, Product Mktg, Brick Division Vicor explains how a new circuit technique using the Sine Amplitude Converter (SAC) architecture offers gains in power density, switching frequency and output power which represent a giant step forward in environmental benefits.]]>  Kevin Tompsett of Analog Devices, Inc. explains how to generate dual supply rails using a high-efficiency SEPIC-Cuk converter.]]>  Flexible, highly efficient power electronics are a central requirement to make electromobility a success. To achieve maximum power density, electric losses and thermal resistances must be kept to a minimum, and maximum component integration is required. Klaus Backhaus of Semikron describes the technological building blocks.]]>  Long operating life is one of the rationales for implementing street lighting systems based on LED technology. In such applications, it is essential that the power supply features the same life time as the illuminant itself. The article describes a lasting, robust power supply for street lighting purposes.]]>  Naixing Kuang and Zhijun Ye of Monolithic Power Systems outlien how to achieve primary-side-control with an active PFC offline LED controller.]]>  Alexander Craig, Principal Application Engineer, Fairchild Semiconductor Corp explains how a voltage-mode CRM PFC for lighting offers higher efficiency and improves reliability.]]>  The development of environmentally-friendly, cost-effective, lighting solutions is becoming increasing important. High-voltage, high-brightness (HVHB) LEDs, present exciting lighting solution opportunities, as well as challenges such as the much higher voltage required to initiate light emission.]]>  Energy harvesting ICs can convert an appropriate transducer's output into an electric current for a battery charger device. The article describes in detail application options for Linear Technology's LTC4070 charger IC which, among other, has been designed for embedded automotive applications.]]>  Jeff Barrow, Senior Director of Analog IC Design, Integrated Device Technology, Inc., looks at two major sources of DC/DC switching-converter ground noise and offers suggestions on how to reduce them.]]>  Dafydd Roche, Audio Engineer, Texas Instruments outlines how to save power and minimize heat with power supply volume control.]]>  John O'Boyle, Maxim Integrated Products examnes the problems caused by the removal of lead from electronics and describes some techniques to mitigate tin whiskers.]]>  Robert Kollman, Texas Instruments takes a look at the issues relating to powering DDR memories. ]]>  Don Gerstle, Director of Global Design Quality, Murata Power Solutions, and Neil Witkowski, Senior Reliability Engineer, Alcatel-Lucent examine some of the design implications of the enhancements of the IPC9592 power standard. ]]>  Tsun-kit Chin and Dac Tran of Texas Instruments examine the different methods to send power through a cable assembly and discuss an implementation to combine both power and data over a shared transmission medium.]]>  Peyman Asadi and Parviz Parto of International Rectifier outlines how to mprove the tracking performance of the PWM voltage-controlled buck converters by using a passive pre-filter solution.]]>