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ELECTRONICS
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 | Power: Without Wires
Wireless power is transitioning from a technology to an industry, and many questions ranging from what consumers really expect to which technology is the safest and most efficient solution are generating an increasing amount of debate as proprietary products come to market and a wireless power standard is introduced.
by Dave Baarman
Joshua Schwannecke
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 | Shielding & EMI: EMC and Functional Safety
By now everyone has surely seen the video on the web of a cell phone turning a gas oven on at full power. This is a perfect illustration of how electromagnetic interference (EMI) can make products unsafe.
by Keith Armstrong
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 | Electronics: RF Remotes Coming
A recently adopted, low-power, radio-frequency (RF) standard for remote controls has the potential to revolutionize the consumer electronics industry.
by Cees Links
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 | Electronics: Platform Based Design
A major limitation for many manufacturers is the tendency to think about new product design decisions in isolation, or to think only about a single product in the line instead of looking at the entire process of designing new products sequentially. For optimal long-term results, a systems approach to design is required.
by Kim Rowe
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 | Switches & Relays: Coordinated Protection
New, technically advanced appliances can benefit from coordinated circuit protection schemes that help improve equipment reliability, reduce component count, and comply with critical safety agency requirements. A coordinated approach can help protect power supplies, relays, and solenoids from damage caused by excessive currents during a fault or overload condition, as well as voltage spikes or exposure to steady-state overvoltage conditions.
by Barry Brents
Matt Williams
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 | Electronics: The Energy Aware Home
Helping homeowners increase their awareness of energy usage and effectively reducing that usage has been an elusive goal. Achieving it requires a monitoring and control solution that involves makers of home appliances, home controls, and in-home displays. To accomplish the necessary monitoring and control, appliances must be connected to a home area network (HAN). This network would also enable utility companies via smart meters to remotely control and monitor consumer energy usage and directly communicate to homeowners.
by Audrey Li-Brouwer
Steve Nguyen
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 | Switches & Relays: Contactless Actuation
Despite the fact that Edwin Hall discovered the Hall effect in 1879, readily available and cost effective Hall-effect sensors would not surface in the marketplace until the later part of the 20th century. The rapid development and expansion of silicon integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing technologies in the 1970s essentially enabled the modern day Hall-effect sensor. And in recent years, as Hall sensor technology evolves to an even higher level of integration, the popularity of Hall effect sensors is on the rise in appliance design applications.
by Michael Doogue
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 | Power: Battery Boost
Electrochemical capacitors are a relatively new contender in the energy storage ball game. While electrochemical capacitors are related to batteries, they use a different energy storage mechanism. Batteries move charged chemical species (ions) from one electrode to another through an electrolyte. The ions interact chemically, i.e. undergo chemical reactions with the electrodes, to store energy. These reactions take time and limit the peak power batteries are able to provide.
by Mark Daugherty
Kevin Leonard
Wendy Suyama
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 | Power: Cutting Cord Clutter
The promise of wireless power transfer has been around since the 1800s, when it was studied by Tesla, Marconi, and others. Throughout the ensuing years, advancements came slowly. Now, it looks as if that promise is coming closer to reality and the timing could not be better.
by Larry Adams
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 | Shielding & EMI: Noise Suppression
Appliances today must meet global compliance requirements for Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC), and meeting regulatory compliance is complicated by the ever increasing use and density of electronic components. Within a larger appliance are various circuit components and modules that are generators of electromagnetic interference (EMI), and those that are highly susceptible to EMI noise. Each circuit portion must be individually filtered to suppress EMI, or the appliance product as a whole could fail EMC compliance. (See Fig. 1.)
by Dave Anthony
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 | Electronics: Powerline Potential
Imagine a world where the skyrocketing demand for energy, driven by the increasing scarcity of fossil fuels and the rapid economic development of emerging economies, leads to frequent electrical brownouts and blackouts. Now imagine if local utilities could communicate with appliances in homes such as a water heater, air conditioner, clothes dryer, or dishwasher, and instruct each one to cycle down during high-demand periods. This can help minimize power demand across the grid and avoid blackouts. Or better yet, imagine load-management programs that automatically drive down consumer electrical bills by turning off appliances and lights during high-cost peak periods and reinstating them when electricity rates are lower.
by Jean-Pierre Fournier
Warren Wong
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 | Motors: Optimized Power Package
Placing power control electronics on printed circuit boards provides a great deal of design flexibility, while attaching power semiconductors to a substrate delivers excellent thermal properties for motor drives. Designers of such drives can now reap the benefits of both approaches in a recently developed intelligent power module.
by Wolfgang Frank
Peter Stipan
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 | Displays & Indicators: Compelling Color
In a mature consumer electronics market, good engineering alone won’t guarantee a product’s success. To rise above the crowd and win over consumers, a product needs to offer something more: an engaging and appealing user interface. One can appreciate the power of advanced user-interface design by looking at Apple’s iPhone. The iPhone was not the first touch-screen smart phone, but it was the first to add the “wow” factor. The iPhone’s graphically rich, seductive, and simple user interface makes complex technology accessible to a younger, trend-seeking audience, not just the tech-savvy business professionals traditionally targeted by the segment.
by Brian Deters
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 | Electronics: Safe Control
Since October 2007, all new household appliances have to comply with the IEC60335 norm, which is intended to prevent any dangerous malfunction in case of a fault condition. The 4th edition of the standard has garnered attention from designers of electronic controls for home appliances, and more specifically software developers for such controls, with the introduction of software inspection and the notion of software classes. Depending on the class (A/B/C), a list of MCU components (such as CPU registers or memories) have to be tested at power on and monitored during run-time, similar to what is done in industrial or medical segments for safety critical applications, those evaluated according to SIL2/SIL3 levels, IEC61508, or UL1998 standards.
by Vincent Onde
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 | Electronics: Digital Multitasking (June 2008)
Appliance technology has evolved significantly over the years, and two trends are merging to fuel the next round of appliance evolution — digital motor control and digital sensor processing. Digital Signal Controllers (DSCs) are at the confluence of these trends, and they enable digital sensor processing, digital motor control and power factor correction to be implemented on a single chip.
by Steve Marsh
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 | Power: Active Efficiency (March 2008)
While most domestic appliances and office
equipment items are plugged directly into wall outlets and powered from
high-voltage alternating current (AC), nearly all of their internal circuitry
requires a low-voltage direct current (DC). Accordingly, power supplies are
required to convert AC voltage to low DC voltage. According to the research by
Ecos Consulting, roughly 3 billion AC/DC power supplies are currently used in
the U.S. and about 10 billion are used globally [1, 2].
by Hang-Seok Choi
Young-Bae Park
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 | Power: Taming the Li-ion (March 2008)
In the past, high-voltage, battery-operated
products depended upon large, heavy lead-acid type batteries to deliver the
necessary power. The size and weight of lead-acid battery packs often limited
the range of battery-operated products that could be developed. Thanks to
advances in battery technology, high-voltage battery packs can now be found in
cordless power tools, cordless home appliances, mobile medical equipment,
electric bicycles and more.
by Michael L. Coletta
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 | Power: Combined Protection (March 2008)
Metal Oxide Varistors (MOVs) are typically used
for transient over-voltage suppression in AC line voltage applications.
Lightning, inductive load switching, or capacitor bank switching may cause
transient over-voltage conditions. In these applications, there also exists the
potential for a sustained abnormal over-voltage/limited-current condition that
may cause the MOV to go into thermal runaway, resulting in overheating,
out-gassing and possibly fire.
by Philippe Di Fulvio
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 | Electronics: Memory for Micros (Jan. 2008)
Today’s 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit
microcontrollers (MCUs) integrate on-chip memory such as flash memory, SRAM
(including cache), mask ROM, one-time-programmable (OTP) EPROM and electrically
erasable PROM (EEPROM) in memory sizes ranging from a few hundred bytes to several
megabytes (MB).
by Lance Zheng
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 | Electronics: The Connected Home (Jan. 2008)
In today’s highly connected world, both
businesses and consumers are coming to expect connectivity anytime, anywhere,
and on any electronic device. As a result, Ethernet connectivity is rapidly
becoming a competitive advantage, if not an absolute requirement, on a wide
variety of applications, including remote control networking, mobile
point-of-sales terminals, vending machines, security systems and medical
instrumentation, as well as networked industrial and automotive applications.
by Michelle Leyden-Li
Steve Pope
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 | Motors: Extending Efficiency (Oct. 2007)
Advanced motor-control techniques are a practical
necessity because they enable more efficient and quieter appliances. In the
past, these advanced control techniques were only available as proprietary
solutions, and hence were limited in scope to a few high-end appliances. Given
the drive toward efficient appliances running on “green” power, which is
mandated by regulations and customer preferences, these motor-control
algorithms are now being sought by designers of all classes of appliances.
Thanks to the new generation of digital-signal-controllers (DSCs), the
cost-effective implementation of advanced motor-control algorithms has become a
reality.
by Jorge Zambada
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 | Electronics: Using USB (Oct. 2007)
Most
everyone is familiar with USB, the Universal Serial Bus; it is an incredibly successful
technology for providing communication between personal computers and
peripherals, and there are millions of nodes in service around the world. USB
was originally designed to provide the end user with an extremely simple method
for plugging peripherals to a host, such as adding a printer to a PC. USB is
now a family of standards managed by the USB Implementers Forum. (See www.usb.org.)
by Fred Dart
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 | Motors: Double Duty (Oct. 2007)
Advances in power and
digital control silicon technology over the past few decades have enabled a
continuous improvement in motor-drive technology. When permanent-magnet,
brushless-motor drives were first introduced to the market more than 20 years
ago, the control algorithms were implemented using a combination of analog
amplifiers and logic components. Today, highly integrated, mixed-signal
controllers enable the implementation of complex control algorithms that
maximize the efficiency of permanent-magnet AC motors.
by Aengus Murray
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 | Electronics: ZigBee Zings (Oct. 2007)
Ever since the first Internet toaster was demonstrated
at the 1990 Interop conference in San Jose, the concept of the fully connected
home — where all the major home systems and appliances talk seamlessly with
each other — has been met with a mix of amazement and amusement. While
consumers are personally more connected than ever, the various systems and
appliances in our homes remain blissful islands unto themselves, with no
effective means — or apparent need — to communicate. However, the need for
appliances to communicate is rapidly emerging, and fortunately, so are the
means with the advent of ZigBee low-cost wireless platforms.
by Bob Gohn
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 | Electronics: Safe Charging (June 2007)
Recent
breakthroughs in nanotechnology have improved the power density and
charge/discharge rates for lithium-ion cells, thus opening up applications
requiring high power density and high charge/discharge rates. This is, of
course, in addition to the traditional battery capacities used in portable
entertainment and portable computing applications. The high-power cells are
ideal for use in power tools and other motor-driving applications, and deliver
the lithium-ion advantages and the low environmental impact (most types qualify
for disposal in the regular refuse stream).
by Alfredo H. Saab
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 | Electronics: Embedded Linux (June 2007)
By
the Spring of this year, about 20 million Linux-based mobile phone handsets had
been delivered to the market worldwide. This striking achievement occurred
despite many experts all around constantly dismissing the idea that embedded
Linux could play such a role in the market. “Linux is too big, it’s too slow
and it certainly isn’t real-time, so it can’t possibly be a realistic
solution,” they all said. But the fact is, through the efforts of the open
source Linux community and commercial Linux suppliers such as MontaVista, Linux
took the market by storm.
by Jim Ready
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 | Motors: Single-Chip Solutions (April 2007)
Electric
motors are by far the biggest consumers of energy produced in the world.
According to the Department of Energy, of the total energy produced in the
U.S., about 60 percent to 65 percent is consumed by electric motors. Among the
largest components of this are home and commercial refrigeration appliances and
HVAC systems. It is estimated that by building more efficient drives, the U.S.
can save about 25 percent in home refrigeration costs, 80 percent in HVAC costs
and about 60 percent in pump and fan control costs.
by John Pocs
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 | Motors: Efficiency Controller (April 2007)
Many
appliance motors operate inefficiently. Single-phase AC induction motors,
particularly in the fractional horsepower range, are naturally inefficient.
Furthermore, most manufacturing techniques used to improve natural motor
efficiency (iron reduction, improved lubrication to reduce friction, etc.) are
either not applicable or prohibitively expensive for these motors. For these
reasons, most of the effort in improving appliance efficiency has centered on
other areas of the system. For example, most refrigerators are able to achieve
energy reduction (and thus the coveted Energy Star rating) by improving the
seals, insulation, and airflow paths. Until very recently, little effort has
been expended on improving the efficiency of the compressor motor itself. The
same holds true for most appliances using an AC induction motor.
by John Hurst
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 | Electronics: Remote Monitoring (January 2007)
On their weekend off, a group of coworkers went to a gaming arcade to unwind. They were prepared to feed cash into a kiosk that dispensed gaming credits. Unfortunately, the machine refused to take their money. It was broken and did not have an “out-of-order” sign posted on it.
by Howard Henry Schlunder
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 | Motors: Controlling Cooling (January 2007)
Power conversion is being used in many everyday appliance products, including microwave ovens, washing machines, air conditioners and refrigerators. With many more sophisticated applications arising in conjunction with energy saving and cost reduction, more advanced control technologies like field-orientated control or load-adaptive control for motors have been developed. Performance for these advanced controls are generally unattainable via standard 8-bit microcontrollers due to lack of either signal-processing capabilities or suitable peripherals. Recently, however, this situation has changed dramatically through utilization of DSP-based controllers. The architecture of a Digital Signal Controller (DSC), which includes both digital signal processor (DSP) and microcontroller (MCU) functions with sophisticated on-chip peripherals, was designed to reduce component usage and system cost as well as advance processing power.
by Charlie Wu
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 | Motors: Driving Progress (October 2006)
Motor drives in household appliances are becoming increasingly sophisticated to meet the challenges of higher efficiency, increased reliability, and lower cost. Recent developments in the motor drives and the power components that they contain are helping to fuel this trend.
by V. Sukumar
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 | Electronics: Water Watcher (October 2006)
With the price of oil soaring and a worldwide debate raging over how to address the issue, it can be easy to forget that the conservation of another precious resource — water — should be top-of-mind as well.
by Juan Alvarez and Brian Reel
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 | Motors: Compact Control (October 2006)
The transfer molded DIP-IPM (Dual-in-Line Intelligent Power Module) was first introduced by Mitsubishi Electric in 1998 to address the growing demand for cost-effective motor control in consumer-appliance applications.
by Eric R. Motto
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 | New & Notable: Wireless Power
In the development of household devices, designers today are expected to bring new levels of convenience and flexibility to consumers. Some design limitations on achieving those goals can include traditional assumptions for connecting power and establishing communications.
by David Baarman
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 | Electronics: Sharing Solution (June 2006)
Universal Serial Bus, widely known as USB, has revolutionized PC connectivity with its hot plug-and-play simplicity. Not only has USB greatly reduced the complexity of adding peripherals to a PC, it has also fulfilled the need for a high-speed expansion port for many data-rich applications.
by Mark Fu
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 | Electronics: Neater Networking (June 2006)
Beginning in 1990, control networks began the transformation of automation systems from direct digital controls to true networks. Unlike data networks that connect our PCs and servers, control networks connect machines (or devices) to other machines, forming automation systems for our homes, buildings and factories.
by Steve Nguyen
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 | Electronics: Protecting Parts (June 2006)
Cars, refrigerators, portable video games and submarines all have two things in common. One: Each contains electrical and electronic devices that are essential to keeping it working properly. Two: Each is exposed to a wide variety of environmental rigors that can disturb this essential, intricate electrical configuration, causing inconvenient and dangerous problems to arise.
by Kevin Brinker
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 | Motors: Managing by Module (April 2006)
Today's engineers must learn to prosper in an environment that emphasizes a plug-and-play design strategy. Most major appliance manufacturers, for example, have adopted the practice of considering even critical electronic subsystems (such as a motor controller) simply as a component.
by Jeffrey Reichard and Andrew Soukup
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 | Electronics: Cool tips Hot Chips (January 2006)
Thermoelectric, graphite foam technologies target microprocessor heat.
The battle against heat in electronics is not new. IBM began using water-cooling technologies in its systems as early as the 1970s. But as semiconductor manufacturers continue to produce increasingly smaller microprocessors with greater density, both the heat and the battle against it have become more intense, demanding innovative cooling solutions. Two new technologies that are available today seek to alleviate these problems.
by Mary Lowe
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 | Electronics: Innovation with Integration (January 2006)
Putting power chips in single package simplifies design.
Integrating discrete power semiconductors, drivers, and controllers into a single package allows appliance manufacturers to simplify the design process, while ensuring a solid power electronics foundation for their products.
by Jonathan Harper
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