Tech Articles

The environment contains a number of energy sources that can be harvested to power electronic systems. Heat, light, vibration and even the background RF from cellular and computer networks are potential sources. Extraction of useful power from many of these sources is not straightforward, however, and the available energy is not high.

MEMS manufacturing techniques have enabled the production of high performance and ultra-miniature timing components in small surface mount packages. The higher cost of these components however have encouraged designers to continue to use their old favourite: HC-49 crystals are often the highest components on the board.

The problem with writing or printing on plastic films is well known. You have a plastic bag and you would like to write on it with a pen, but unfortunately the ink doesn't stick to the plastic since the untreated plastic has a structure, which makes it impossible to both write and print on due to poor adhesion.

If you’ve ever sat and impatiently drummed your fingers waiting for video, music or high def images to open from a removable media, USB3.0 is for you. If you’re a power engineer, USB3.0 is for you also, because the new standard can not only deliver 80% more power from the port than USB2.0 but also comes with a range of power management features to reduce power consumption to one-third. It is backward-compatible – so that USB3.0 devices will work with a USB2.0 host and vice versa, though obviously the benefits are only realised if the standard is fully supported at both ends. What’s not to like?

Calculating power loss in a switching MOSFET is not as straightforward as it first seems. Many factors come into play. How do the loss characteristics of trench (or vertical) and lateral MOSFETs differ? How does the relative impact of conduction and switching loss change in applications at low to moderate power levels? And how do the unique characteristics of each MOSFET’s structure impact the development of a high efficiency design?

Hundreds of mobile phones are returned to shops every day because the customer thinks the phone is broken, especially during the warranty period. But how does the shop or a service centre find out if it is really defective or just not operated correctly? Setting up a phone call in a real network for testing is like a finger in the wind to determine the wind direction and speed. This article shows you how these phones are tested effectively and efficiently.

Leakage current (DCL) is an effect common to all capacitors and its value and behavior under varying electrical and environmental conditions are related to the capacitor technology used. The leakage current in tantalum and niobium oxide capacitors consists of the dielectric absorption current and the fault current that results due to impurities and irregularities within the dielectric.

There are a number of good reasons why one might have to re-tin components from the stockroom prior to assembly. For example, let’s say that I'm building a hi-rel assembly that's put together using traditional lead-bearing Sn63 alloy. Unfortunately, one of the components that I need to use in that assembly is only available in a RoHS-compatible finish, in this case, electroplated tin. What do I do? If the component is plated with tin, shouldn’t it be compatible with tin/lead solder?

The development of safety and security-critical systems are two disciplines focused on building technology responsible for protecting peoples’ lives. But despite the two disciplines’ similarity in critical nature, they do exist in very different worlds. With different environmental assumptions, different problems spaces, and different governing legislation, these two disciplines have unique requirements when it comes to selecting foundational technology such as platform operating systems. Safety and security-critical systems are by no means mutually exclusive, but when building critical systems it is essential to have the right tool for the job. There is no such thing as a “One Size Fits All” solution within these two realms without sacrificing some aspect of safety or security. Therefore, LynuxWorks offers two independent RTOS products LynxOS-178 for safety-critical platforms and LynxSecure for security-critical platforms.

Power MOSFETs have been a foundation of electronics design for many decades, serving as a means for providing switching functions to a wide variety of applications, having surplanted simple transistor devices. In the majority of cases they are used to control and regulate the high power section of a system design. Technology advancements and commercial pressures have led to the introduction of more compact, higher density, lower noise and cost effective MOSFETs on to the market, replacing the old bulky and less efficient earlier generations.

A platoon these days carries typically 25-40kg of communications equipment, which compares unfavourably with the 27kg average weight of armour worn by medieval knights. All this needs feeding with portable electrical power; as much as 30% of the 70kg kit carried by today’s soldiers can be power related. However, there is a tension between the drive to realise the benefits of new communications standards and that of reducing the soldier’s burden in order to maintain agility and vigilance; which is why Western armed forces are increasingly turning their focus to the energy density of their systems.

Adding bootloading capabilities to embedded applications provides the framework to update firmware running on a microcontroller (MCU) at any time. This capability is beneficial if the final firmware image contains a bug, if the firmware image needs to be programmed into an MCU after the final product is assembled, or if an application’s firmware needs to be updated in the field. Any communication protocol can be used for bootloading as long as the MCU has a means of communicating using the chosen protocol and enough free code space to store the bootloader firmware.

There’s widespread agreement that achieving zero standby power loss is an impressive goal. Recent studies have indicated that standby power consumption can range as high as 10 percent of all domestic electricity usage. Over the last few years, multiple programs – including ENERGY STAR, the EU Code of Conduct, and the EcoDesign Directive – have attempted to build awareness about the importance of driving down standby energy loss.

Companies in just about every industry are looking to wireless technology to connect serial devices and avoid the high cost of installing cable. Low-cost wireless links reduce installation and maintenance costs and provide mobility. However, designing an effective wireless-networking solution requires an understanding of today’s complex wireless technologies, their benefits, and their trade-offs.

This week, Klaus Scchweizer of Atmel discusses brushed DC motors, brushless DC motors, and BLDC B6 Motor Predrivers with Electronics Components World. He discusses advantages and disadvantages, and considerations made when manufacturing the finished product.

Sales of electric vehicles (EV) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) have grown strongly over the past decade, and internal-combustion/electric hybrids are increasingly proving themselves as a sustainable and mainstream automotive technology. This high growth is creating robust demand from automotive manufacturers for electronic components, as many of these new cars will have parts or functions that were previously purely mechanical, but now are being replaced by electrical or electronic devices.

It’s quite common for a power supply (PSU) designer to work with a circuit designer to realize a system design compliant with international EMC regulations. PSU designers will be well aware of the requirement of the power supply to provide clean DC voltage and not disturb the AC mains voltage. However, they may not have any idea of the noise that can potentially be introduced to the mains through the PSU by the target circuit. Likewise, the circuit designers (digital or analogue) may not know what attenuation the PSU will provide.

It’s quite common for a power supply designer to work with a circuit designer to realize a system design compliant with international EMC regulations. Designers will be well aware of the requirement of the power supply to provide clean DC voltage and not disturb the AC mains voltage. However, they may not have any idea of the noise that can potentially be introduced to the mains through the PSU by the target circuit. Likewise, the circuit designers (digital or analogue) may not know what attenuation the PSU will provide. The aim of this article is to provide a method for testing the DC circuit in isolation from its final power supply and enable additional filtering to be specified.

Roland Gehrmann, Marketing Manager for Consumer and Industrial IC Marketing, Toshiba Electronics Europe GmbH looks at the various connectivity requirements of modern applications and introduces examples of how integrated ARM Cortex-M3 microcontrollers are helping embedded system developers to address these requirements.

Europe’s component distributors are seeing healthy growth – with billings in the first quarter increasing by 20%. Part of the reason for this is that more and more component manufacturers are assigning customers to them that they would previously have supported direct. As a result, distributors are recruiting more and more HND and graduate level engineers to work as distribution Field Applications Engineers (FAEs).