Thermal management is the ability to control the thermal environment of an electronic system. It is often associated with cooling heat-generating electronics, but it also encompasses generating heat in cold environments to maintain optimal system operation or power wax-based linear motors. As a result of the many uses for thermal management, a wide variety of […]
FAQ
Fuses, eFuses, thermistors, and fusible resistors – which and when?
Fuses, eFuses, various types of thermistors, and fusible resistors can provide varying levels of circuit protection. Fuses offer only the most basic level of overcurrent and short-circuit protection. Thermistors can be added to provide inrush current control, and a fusible resistor can provide both inrush current control and overcurrent/short-circuit protection. The most comprehensive protection is […]
What are TENGs and PENGs and what are they good for?
Small self-powered systems, including wireless sensors and small robots currently under development, can use triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) and piezoelectric nanogenerators (PENGs) as prime power sources. TENGs and PENGs offer large open circuit voltages, low materials cost, ease of fabrication, and good energy conversion efficiencies. TENGs use triboelectricity, commonly called static electricity, to convert common mechanical […]
Surge voltage protection considerations
Unmanaged surge voltages can cause disruption or damage to systems or even danger for users and operators. Surge protection devices (SPDs), also called transient voltage suppressors (TVSs), are commonly used to protect against voltage surges and spikes by limiting or blocking the energy. SPDs can be found in electric distribution networks, building wiring, and in […]
How does Cat 5e cable handle Hi PoE?
Look at just about any kind of network connection today and you’ll find Cat 5e cable. It’s been the most widely used network cable since 2001 and handles signals up to 100 MHz. So you find Cat 5e handling 10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, and 1000BASE-T Ethernet networks. But the actual power levels that Cat 5e sees when […]
EMI control for power and signal lines
Trends including the emergence of 5G telephony and the continued expansion of the Internet of things (IoT) are causing the density of electronic devices to increase dramatically. That increases the density of potential sources of electromagnetic interference (EMI) and the dangers associated with a lack of electromagnetic compatibility (EMC). The result is likely to be […]
Advanced power electronics packaging
The trends in advanced power electronics packaging mirror the overall packaging trends in the electronics industry. Those trends include adopting chip-scale packaging (CSP), 3D packaging, 3D printing (also called additive manufacturing), and advanced thermal management materials. These trends are being heavily influenced by the adoption of gallium-nitride (GaN) and silicon-carbide (SiC) wide bandgap power semiconductors […]
Battery pack protection keeps EVs on the road
A few best practices for handling transients and over-currents help make electronic drivetrains more reliable. James Colby • Littelfuse, Inc. Automotive market analysts predict that by 2025, high-end vehicles will contain more than $6,000 in electronic components. Most of these advanced electronics will be in the growing number of electric vehicles (EVs). To ensure robust, […]
Distributed power architectures and distributed power control
Distributed power architectures (DPAs) are many and varied. DPAs, including the dynamic bus architecture and the intermediate bus architecture, are evolving as a result of new power demands from FPGAs, CPUs, GPUs, ASICs. And the concept of a DPA has extended into distributed power control architectures (DPCAs) being developed for electric vehicle charging stations, renewable […]
Technology trends for increased PoL power densities
The power density of point of load (buck) converters (PoLs) has been increasing for several decades. It is driven by a combination of component improvements and advanced power conversion technologies that produce the increases in power conversion efficiencies needed to support higher power densities. Where are we now? And what’s next? Power density is an […]