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Powering growth
Commitment to innovation is necessary to achieve growth – even in a challenging economy, says Linear Technology's SamNork
In recent times, the global semiconductormarket, likemany industries, has endured a steep drop in business activity, followed by varying signs of recovery. Despite the depressed climate however,many new technologies continue to advance at a brisk pace. Power technology, for example, has seenmany significant new developments. The high cost of energy, plus environmental concerns, have increased demand formore efficient power use. Meanwhile emerging technologies in alternative energy and improvements in power utilisation have the potential to enhance performance in diversemarkets.
A range of low power industrial products are turning to
alternative sources of energy as the primarymeans of supplying power. Ideally, such 'harvested' energy will eliminate the need for wired power or batteries altogether. Transducers that create electricity fromphysical sources such as temperature differentials, mechanical vibration and light are becoming viable sources of power formany applications. Numerous wireless sensors, remote monitors, and other low power applications are on track to become 'zero' power devices by using only harvested energy.
Electric and hybrid electric vehicles have become quite popular
due to reduced emissions and gasoline consumption. Lithium based batteries are favoured in these applications due to their high energy and power densities. Asmost suppliers of consumer electronics already know however, lithiumbased systems require extreme care due to safety and lifetime issues associated with these batteries. The need formulticell, high voltage stacks of batteries in an automotive environment compounds these problems and introduces new requirements such as precision monitoring and high current balancing of each cell – all in an extremely noisy environment.
4 | September 2011 Communications
and data storage systems are pursuing newbackup and power ride-through architectures using supercapacitors in place of traditional battery backup. Supercapacitors afford greater cycle life,much faster charge times and higher peak power output at a competitive cost compared tomost battery technologies. Aswithmost new technologies, these benefits do not comewithout newchallenges. Newsupercapacitor charger products are required to charge, protect, and balance stacks of these capacitors. Extractingmaximum energy fromthe capacitors requireswide input range boost and buck-boost regulators, but the newarchitectures are designed to help systems operatewith greater reliability, longer lifetimes and an overall reduction in stored energy and power consumption.
Power technology continues to advance at a brisk pace, says Linear Technology's SamNork
If the current recovery continues, the global semiconductor
industrymay approach pre-downturn levels by the end of 2012 in mostmarkets, but remember, growth will come fromnew solutions using new and compelling technologies. Linear Technology has a history of innovation in a variety of new and emerging areas, with several new products optimised for the power problems and opportunities discussed above andmany new products to follow. Such commitment to innovation is necessary to realise the full potential of new technologies, differentiate end products and achieve growth – even in a challenging economy.
www.linear.com www.electronics-sourcing.co.uk
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