Automotive & Transportation

January 2020
30 KW Auto-Ranging DC Supply with Energy-Recovering DC Load
Intepro Systems announces the availability of its Model PSB 10000 30 KW programmable digital power supply/load. The PSB 10000 Series is a microprocessor controlled bi-directional supply that features two devices in one: an electronic DC load with energy recovery and an auto-ranging DC power supply. This allows for
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Date:
01/30/2020
Accelerate Design of SiC Power Converters with Eval Platform
Littelfuse, Inc. announced the Gate Drive Evaluation Platform (GDEV). The new evaluation platform helps designers evaluate SiC MOSFETs, SiC Schottky diodes, and other peripheral components like gate driver circuitry, so that they can better understand how silicon carbide technologies will behave in converter ap
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Date:
01/29/2020
World's First Flip-Type MLCCs in 0510 Design
TDK Corporation has developed the new CGAE series, the world’s first flip-type MLCCs in 0510 design (EIA 0204) with capacitances of up to 1 µF, for automotive applications*. Depending on their capacitance, the capacitors are designed for rated voltages of between 4 V and 50 V and they cover a capacitance ra
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Date:
01/28/2020
Metallized Polypropylene Capacitors for Electric Auto Tech
KEMET Corporation has launched the R41T and R76H series AEC-Q200 qualified metallized polypropylene film capacitors. This series builds on the company’s long-standing expertise in power management solutions by leveraging advances in manufacturing technology and new materials to address the stringent requirements of
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Date:
01/28/2020
Real-Time Clocks Offer Low-Standby Current for Infotainment
Diodes Incorporated announced that automotive-compliant versions of its popular, low-power, real-time clock (RTC) solutions, PT7C4363BQ and PT7C4563BQ (with an adjustable timer), are now available. Their wide temperature range makes them suitable for automotive applications, including infotainment systems, dashboard di
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Date:
01/28/2020
Ride Through the MLCC Shortage

Click image to enlarge

Figure 1. Increases in worldwide MLCC use in electric automobiles (a) and cell phones (b), without commensurate increases in production, have led to shortages.

The worldwide supply of multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs) is not keeping up with demand. This is due in no small part to increased electronic complexity of cell phones, increased sales of electric cars, and a worldwide expansion of electronic content across industries. Some smartphones have doubled MLCC us
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Date:
01/26/2020
White Van Man Goes Electric
One great thing about watching new industries emerge is the battle between the traditional companies that previously “owned” the space trying to adapt and the new usurpers causing the market disruption and tackling the issue in unique ways. The current movement from ICE vehicles to electric power has been pa
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Date:
01/26/2020
The Government's Role in Developing Automated Vehicles
If any market sector is the perfect microcosm of the American political dichotomy, it’s the automotive space. More specifically, autonomous vehicles.  And at CES 2020, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao dropped the Grand Canyon of political fissures. In Sin City’s not-so-hallowed halls, Chao’s de
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Date:
01/26/2020
The Versatile Inductor
Traditionally, off-the-shelf power inductors have offered the capability to perform a variety of functions and serve many different applications. The same inductor might have served one circuit as a ripple-smoothing element in an LC output filter and as an EMI suppression choke in another. By contrast, a device
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Date:
01/23/2020
Rectifiers Increase Power Density and Efficiency
Vishay Intertechnology, Inc. expanded its offering of surface-mount TMBS Trench MOS Barrier Schottky rectifiers with 16 new 2 A and 3 A devices in the eSMP series low profile SMP (DO-220AA) package. The Vishay General Semiconductor rectifiers feature a wide range of reverse voltages from 45 V to 200 V, while th
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Date:
01/22/2020
Surface-Mount Fuses with 3.3A, 4A and 5A Options
Bel Fuse-Circuit Protection announces their 0ZCF Series of 2920 chip (package) size surface mount PPTC resettable fuses for automotive and ethernet applications. These AEC-Q compliant fuses have an operating range of 300mA – 5A, a max. current of 100A and a maximum voltage of 6-60 V DC, with an operating temperature of
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Date:
01/21/2020
Understanding the Basics of DC-DC Conversion

Figure 1: DC-DC converters can be isolated or non-isolated

When Allesandro Volta made a battery out of copper and zinc disks and brine-soaked cardboard, it was a novelty and the low power DC produced had few practical applications. As electricity became better understood and it was discovered that rotating magnets could induce AC current in wires, the world of power ge
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Date:
01/20/2020
AI in the Data Center

Figure 1. Powering Artificial Intelligence

In a recent New York Times article, Mark Hung, a VP at Gartner, said that “almost everything Google is announcing these days is AI-related.” He said, “Google has a lead on artificial intelligence over many of its competitors, and it’s going to use that as a weapon to advance their products.” Although
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Date:
01/20/2020
3W ACDC Converter with Transient Output Power Up to 12W
In some applications where high transient communication or drive power is required, such as electrical control systems, automatic meter reading, anti-theft alarms, and access electric lock applications, large amounts of power are outputted in a short time at transmitting and receiving data or driving relays. Therefore,
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Date:
01/17/2020
Gate Drivers Achieve AEC-Q100 Automotive Qualification
Power Integrations announced the launch of its automotive-qualified SID1181KQ SCALE-iDriver gate driver for 750 V-rated IGBTs. The new part expands the company’s range of auto-qualified driver ICs, following the introduction of the 1200 V SID1182KQ driver IC. Compact, efficient and highly robust, the new d
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Date:
01/15/2020
Four-Terminal Current-Sense Resistors Offer High Accuracy
Current sensing for high efficiency can be done easily and economically using current sense resistors, however as resistance values are reduced, the measurement error due to lead resistance becomes more of a problem. For applications desiring high efficiency with the best possible temperature accuracy, the HCSK hi
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Date:
01/15/2020
Optimizing Precision Cell Measurement Accuracy in Automotive Battery Management Systems

Figure 1. Simplified block diagram of the ISL78714 multi-cell Li-ion battery manager

BMS designers have learned how to optimize BMS measurements and achieve high performance in an electrically and environmentally hostile automotive setting. The designers focus is still on cell measurement requiring millivolt and milliamp accuracy, and time-synchronizing these voltage and current measurements to
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Date:
01/11/2020
DesignCore Development Kit Designed Around TI SoC Processor
D3 Engineering, a Texas Instruments platinum design partner, announced their DesignCore RVP-TDA4Vx Development Kit with rugged ECU. The DesignCore RVP-TDA4Vx Rugged ECU accelerates ADAS and autonomous system product design­­­ through production. The production-intent kit features TI’s TDA4VM SoC processor an
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Date:
01/09/2020
Oscilloscopes, Ethernet Switch Meet Wideband Test Conditions
Test and measurement specialist Rohde & Schwarz and semiconductor manufacturer Marvell have demonstrated successful compliance tests and debugging for high-speed digital interfaces on the 88Q6113 multi-gigabit automotive switch platform. Developments in advanced driver-assistance systems are creating a new app
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Date:
01/09/2020
Simplifying Power Supply Design for Auto Camera Systems
Renesas Electronics Corporation announced the ISL78083, a highly integrated power management IC (PMIC) that simplifies power supply design for use in multiple HD camera modules, reducing development cycles, bill of materials (BOM) cost and supply chain risks. The automotive camera PMIC accepts direct-from-battery (3
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Date:
01/09/2020
Bel Fuse-Circuit Protection Announces Slow Blow SMD Fuses
Bel Fuse-Circuit Protection announces their 0680L Series of ceramic surface mount fuses with in-rush current withstand capability in a 2410 SMD package size. These slow blow fuses are designed for automotive and applications which require high DC voltage ratings and high DC interrupting ratings. Bel’s 0680L Ser
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Date:
01/09/2020
TAIYO YUDEN’s All-Solid-State Lithium-Ion Secondary Batteries
TAIYO YUDEN announced today the development of all-solid state lithium-ion secondary batteries (hereinafter referred to as “all-solid-state batteries”) in which various technologies including the process technology of multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs) are capitalized. All-solid-state batteries are s
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Date:
01/08/2020
Automotive Chip Bead Inductor with an Operating Temperature of up to 150°C
TAIYO YUDEN has announced today the mass-production of the AEC-Q200 (reliability qualification test standard for automotive passive components) qualified noise suppression component, power chip bead inductor FB Series Type T, FB TH1608 (1.6×0.8×0.8 mm). This product is a noise suppression component for po
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Date:
01/08/2020
Advanced Metal Etching Launches Aluminum Etching Services
Advanced Metal Etching is expanding its services to add aluminum etching to serve customers in these markets. One of the markets driving the aluminum increase is transportation, specifically automotive and aerospace. According to IndustryARC, aluminum will grow at a CAGR of 4.2% during the forecast period 2019-2025. With these new photo etching metal services, Advanced Metal Etching will better serve existing customers and offer capacity for companies who are increasing their aluminum products or looking to expand the supply chain to mitigate risk. Blake Geer, co-president and CFO of Advanced Metal Etching says, "We experienced an increase in RFQs for aluminum etched components in the past six months, mainly from the automotive, aerospace, and electronics industries. More OEMs and their suppliers are utilizing the unique properties of aluminum, such as the high strength to weight ratio, corrosion resistanc
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Date:
01/07/2020
MEMS-Based

The CH-101

TDK Corporation announces the immediate availability to select OEMs of the Chirp CH-201 MEMS-based ultrasonic Time-of-Flight (ToF) sensor with extended sensing range. This ToF sensor utilizes a tiny ultrasonic transducer chip that sends a pulse of ultrasound and then listens for echoes returning from targets in the
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Date:
01/07/2020
Coilcraft Introduces High-Voltage Molded Power Inductors
Coilcraft has expanded its market-proven XEL Family of high-performance, molded power inductors to include three new higher-voltage series: the XEL401xV, XEL4020V and XEL4030V. All three offer operating voltage ratings of 120 V, 50% higher than the standard versions. They also offer exceptionally low DC resistance an
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Date:
01/07/2020
Mophie Debuts Powerstation Go Universal Battery at CES 2020
Mophie unveiled the powerstation go universal battery at CES 2020. The portable jump starter for any SUV or full-sized car additionally features two USB-A ports, an AC power outlet, and Qi wireless charging for mobile devices and laptops. Lightweight and portable, the powerstation go easily fits inside a bag or
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Date:
01/06/2020
Automotive Ethernet Switch for Time-Sensitive Networking
NXP Semiconductors N.V. has announced a multi-gigabit Ethernet switch designed to help automakers deliver the high-speed networks required for evolving connected vehicles. The NXP SJA1110 is the first automotive Ethernet switch with safety capabilities built in, offering integrated 100BASE-T1 PHYs, hardware-assisted se
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Date:
01/06/2020
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