Dear Sir/Madam

The modern civilised world is extreme power-hungry. Additionally, the more people living on our planet the more power is needed - what results in negative effects to the environment. Increased power efficiency and power saving electronics can help to avoid problems. In this newsletter we collected some of these power electronics. Enjoy!

Wolfgang Patelay
Technical Editor, EPN

At Glance, in this issue

1. Products News 2. Articles 3. Design Tips 4. Book of the Month

1| Product News

Rechargeable battery (BMZ)
The ANR26650M1 rechargeable battery device has a 10x life cycle when compared to conventional lithium ion batteries and allows for much higher power density, or rate of charge and discharge to be realised. The battery has the ability to recharge to 90% of its capacity in five minutes.
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1/4 brick DC/DC converters (SynQor)
The IQ36xxxQTA family of isolated 1/4 DC/DC converters targets predominantly the railway and transportation industry but is also suitable for a variety of other applications due to its very wide 4:1 input-voltage range (18 to 75V).
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Electronic transformer (Puls)
Puls has introduced a new and innovative concept to generate a DC voltage from a 3-phase source. The XT40 family of electronic transformers deliver up to 960W from a lightweight, compact package and is an attractive new method to supply DC motors and other non-critical loads in industrial systems.
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Thermoelectric generator (Nextreme)
Nextreme has developed a miniature thin-film TEG (thermoelectric generator) that converts heat directly into electricity. Designed for waste-heat-conversion applications, the solid-state TEG delivers power-generation densities in excess of 3W/cm², exceeding those achieved using bulk materials.
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2| Articles

Soft-core processor and low-cost FPGAs for industrial control
FPGA solutions with embedded processors are well-suited for today's demanding industrial-networking applications. Now there is also software available that offers runtime control with Microsoft .NET technology for Altera's Nios II embedded processor. ProConOS eCLR opens up the .NET world for embedded platforms that are based on that processor. Frank Hansen from Altera gives in his article an insight in how this approach works.
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Putting RFID to the test
Interest in RFID is rapidly growing as both reader and tag prices drop and global markets expand. Tags are either powered by the reader (passive tags) or contain on-board power sources (semi-active/active tags). As costs for sub-micron passive CMOS tags drop, use in inventory and other industry activities increases. Some estimates indicate that if the price for passive tags continues to fall, at current rates it will not be long before virtually every product sold will have one on it. You´ll find more information in the article by Elaine May from Tektronix.
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3| Design Tips

Voltage timer monitors line-connected ac loads
A simple circuit in the Design Idea by Michael Petersen from Maxim monitors the elapsed time over which a line connected ac load energizes. You can then access the elapsed-time count over a standard one-wire protocol.
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Ceramic output capacitors enhance internally compensated switchers
Integrating compensation components with a power-supply controller and buck regulator's power switches can minimize pc-board area, improve reliability, and eliminate assembly errors by reducing the number of components and solder joints. However, integration also limits a designer's range of choices in the selection of output-filter components. The Design Idea by Robert Kollman from Texas Instruments shows a way to overcome this problem.
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4| Book of The Month

Power electronics and motor drives, by Bimal Bose
Power electronics is an area of extremely important and rapidly changing technology. Technological advancements in the area contribute to performance improvement and cost reduction, with applications proliferating in industrial, commercial, residential, military and aerospace environments. This book is meant to help engineers operating in all these areas to stay up-to-date on the most recent advances in the field, as well as to be a vehicle for clarifying increasingly complex theories and mathematics.
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