Capacitors

Duke Engineering is now the official home of the most fuel-efficient vehicle in history, a hydrogen fuel cell car that gets the equivalent of 14,573 miles per gallon. Duke Electric Vehicles (DEV’s) record-breaking run took place on Saturday, July 21 at Galot Motorsports in Benson, North Carolina. Guinness World Records has confirmed that the attempt to set a new…

Traditionally, small chip antennas used in RF-enabled medical devices have required a designated ground “keep out” area to minimize interference from other components and ensure the ideal radiation pattern for wireless signals. In some cases, this reserved space can eat up as much as 15 x 20 mm of the printed circuit board. However, with…

AVX Corporation has extended its range of space-level ESCC QPL 3009/041 X7R base metal electrode (BME) multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs) — the first range of ESCC BME MLCCs fully qualified for use in European, Asian, and American space market applications — with new 0402 and 2220 case sizes. Now available in seven case sizes spanning 0402…

Engineers with the University of Cincinnati are leveraging a partnership with Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to create clothing that can charge your cell phone. Move over, Iron Man. What makes this possible are the unique properties of carbon nanotubes: a large surface area that is strong, conductive and heat-resistant. UC’s College of Engineering and Applied…

Though not a complete list, following are some tried-and-true methods some have unintentionally used to destroy variable frequency drives (VFDs). Avoid the following situations to help your VFD live a long and fruitful life. By Paul Avery | Product Training Engineer at Yaskawa America • Drives and Motion Division You once loved your VFD. Shiny […]

UC Berkeley engineers have given new meaning to the term “working paper.” Using inexpensive materials, they have fabricated foldable electronic switches and sensors directly onto paper, along with prototype generators, supercapacitors and other electronic devices for a range of applications. Research to develop paper electronics has accelerated in the last 10 years. Besides its availability…

GE announced its new 60.8-square-millimeter (mm) Femto DLynx IITM voltage regulators. The FKX003 and FKX006 DLynx II buck converters offer GE’s smallest PoL footprint to date and are available in either 3-ampere (A) or 6-A modules. With the addition of the two new converters, GE’s DLynx II product family can now be used to power customer…

AVX Corporation is celebrating the continuing success of NASA’s Curiosity rover (also known as the Mars Science Laboratory), which has spent roughly 2,100 Martian solar days — or sols, which comprise 24 hours, 39 minutes and 35.244 seconds — investigating the planet’s Gale Crater since it landed on August 6, 2012. AVX developed and supplied…

A small group of students recently got to experience a rare, spaceflight thrill: seeing if the tiny satellite, called a CubeSat, they designed and built not only survived a rock A small group of students recently got to experience a rare, spaceflight thrill: seeing if the tiny satellite, called a CubeSat, they designed and built…

Although designed for use in conjunction with AVX’s new 2.5-mm no-wire-stop 70-9296 series STRIPT poke-home contact, the new 10-9296 Series BTB pin jumpers from AVX Corp. are drop-in compatible with competitors’ jumpers and offer a shortened insulator, a unique insulator geometry that achieves watertight connections, and the only ~38-mm pin length currently available. This new […]

The aircraft of the future flies electrically and autonomously, is feather-light and can be conveniently produced in a fully automated manner. While the electrification and permanent autopilot are still in their infancy, lightweight construction is already indispensable today. Digital manufacturing processes are about to be applied. Fraunhofer will present new automated production technologies for lightweight…

Bel Power Solutions and Protection, a Bel group company and manufacturer of power management devices, announces the RCM150 (150 W) and RCM300 (300 W) chassis-mount DC-DC converters, which are designed for railway applications where compactness and high reliability are required. These new RCM Series products are fully isolated and highly efficient over a broad operating…

New MTR2 series IronHorse general-purpose rolled-steel ac motors from AutomationDirect come in 1-phase and 3-phase versions and offer better performance specifications, improved cosmetic appearance and quieter operation. New single-phase MTR2 rolled-steel motors come in 1800 RPM, 115/230 Vac models. The motors are 56C frame, TEFC, and provide rigid base or C-face mounting. Nameplates include 60 […]

Just as magnets attract iron particles in sandpits, permanent magnetics only attract one type of ion in an electrochemical solution, constituting the basis of magnetically controlled electrochemical transistors. Electrochemical devices find application in many technologies, including batteries, capacitors, sensors, and transistors. For such electrochemical devices to operate, they need an electric field that causes ionic transport…

The market for e-textile clothing is forecasted to reach $5 billion by 2027, according to the market research firm IDTechEX. And while graphene is expected to be one of the most prominent materials in wearable e-textiles, currently there is no good way to manufacture graphene-based e-textiles on an industrial scale. To address this problem, a…

Supercapacitors can store more energy than and are preferable to batteries because they are able to charge faster, mainly due to the vertical graphene nanosheets (VGNs) that are larger and positioned closer together. VGNs are 3-D networks of carbon nanomaterial that grow in rows of vertical sheets, providing a large surface area for greater charge…

Electric motors are indispensable to industrial drive technology and today’s automated production processes. At constant speeds, their control is quite simple. However, it is often necessary to regulate the motor speed, which adds a layer of complexity. Speed regulation in the larger power classes is handled with IGBT semiconductors. These devices can switch large loads […]

Ironwood Electronics introduced a QFN socket addressing high performance requirements for custom size devices – CBT-QFN-7056. The contactor is a stamped spring pin with 14.5 gram actuation force per pin and cycle life of 50,000 insertions. The self inductance of the contactor is 0.98 nH, insertion loss of < 1 dB at 31.7 GHz and capacitance 0.067pF.…

NASA has launched four small research satellites, or CubeSats, developed by four universities as part of a broader mission launching the next generation polar-orbiting satellite to space. These CubeSat missions were selected through the CubeSat Launch Initiative (CSLI) as part of the 14th installment of the Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) missions. The ELaNa XIV…

Ironwood Electronics recently introduced a new QFN socket addressing high performance requirements for custom size devices: CBT-QFN-7056. The contactor is a stamped spring pin with 14.5 gram actuation force per pin and cycle life of 50,000 insertions. The self inductance of the contactor is 0.98 nH, insertion loss of < 1 dB at 31.7 GHz…

Intersil has announced the ISL70321SEH and ISL73321SEH quad power supply sequencers designed to drive point-of load (POL) regulators that power high performance FPGAs and complex, multi-rail power systems. Highly scalable, up to four power supplies can be fully sequenced by a single device or multiple devices can be easily cascaded to sequence an unlimited number of…

Ironwood Electronics has recently introduced a new high performance elastomer socket for 0.4mm pitch BGA packages. The SG25-BGA-2042 socket is designed for a 4.47mmx4.34mm package size and operates at bandwidths up to 40 GHz with less than 1dB of insertion loss (GSSG configuration). The contact resistance is typically 20 milliohms per pin. Network analyzer reflection…

Ironwood Electronics recently introduced a QFN socket addressing high performance requirements for custom size devices – CBT-QFN-7055. The contactor is a stamped spring pin with 31 gram actuation force per pin and cycle life of 125,000 insertions. The self inductance of the contactor is 0.88 nH, insertion loss of < 1 dB at 15.7 GHz and…

Introduction Interest in wireless devices has increased demand for smaller gadgets and electronics, along with higher security communication and more efficient power transfer. Far electric fields are susceptible to stray signal interference and malicious remote read.  Furthermore, the required antennae length limits miniaturization. Magnetic induction offers the promise of higher security due its field strength…

Resonance occurs when the resonant frequency (also referred to as the natural frequency) of an object or system is equal or very close to the frequency at which it is being excited. This causes the object or system to vibrate strongly and can result in unexpected – and sometimes catastrophic – behavior.  When one oscillating object or system (a […]