Ally Winning, European Editor, PSD
Welcome to the December edition of Power Systems Design Europe. I think we’ll all deserve the well-earned break that is upcoming. It seems to have been a hectic year for almost everyone that I have talked to at events, and the same people say that next year will likely be even more busy for the power industry. More efficient and compact power solutions are very much in demand, especially for data centres, motor drives and transportation.
This month’s Special Report focusses on probably the most visible of those three - the automotive and transportation industry. The first article in this month’s featured section comes from Infineon and it looks at fuses. Fuses are very important in electronic circuits for the protection of people who use equipment and the components in the circuit, however they do bring their own problems. When they do their job, they need replaced, and that means that the designer of the circuit has to take that into account and locate fuses in an area that is accessible, which often adds to the amount of wiring needed, and therefore weight of the overall solution. In the article, Vasiliki Makantasi, Rene Schwarz, Jan Wiedemann from Infineon talk about how the company’s PROFET Load Guard and PROFET Wire Guard solutions replace fuses in automotive applications with semiconductor solutions that are quicker and safer than traditional mechanical fuses, while adding more desirable features to the system.
The next feature in the Special Report was written by Mark Patrick from Mouser. The article looks at the needs of commercial vehicles. Heavy and medium goods vehicles make up 4% of vehicles on the road, but 40% of the emissions from road vehicles. Here, Mark looks at why the sector has not kept up with the passenger vehicle market in electrification and what needs to happen to speed up this change. Infrastructure and charging play a large part in this slow uptake. Trucks need a lot more powerful charging facilities than passenger vehicles to ensure drivers are back on the road as soon as possible. Hopefully we will see some of the solutions detailed in the article hitting the market soon.
The final article in this magazine’s Special Report was submitted by STMicroelectronics. The article was written by former employee, Giuseppe Di Stefano. It describes how GaN technology is helping in the development of EV on-board charging solutions.
As well as the features in our Special Report, this month’s issue will also include other articles of interest to those who work in power electronics in our Tech Focus section and the latest news and views from the industry. From all of us here at PSD I wish all our readers and their families a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Best Regards
Ally Winning
European Editor, PSD
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