Easing EV Range Anxiety Through Faster Charging


The automotive industry is developing new ways to boost the range of electric vehicles and the speed at which they are charged, overcoming buyer hesitation that has limited the total percentage of EVs to 18% of vehicles being sold.[1] Work is underway to improve how batteries are engineered and manufactured, and how they are managed while they are in use or being charged. This extends well b... » read more

Thermally Optimizing A High-Power PCB


The growth of battery-powered applications is presenting new challenges for designers of electronic motor-driven solutions. Targeting higher performance and efficiency, the power stages of these products must manage high currents while meeting strict power dissipation and size requirements. This white paper illustrates a thermally aware workflow with the Cadence® Celsius™ Thermal Solver... » read more

Building High Voltage Automotive Battery Management Systems


To ensure safety, performance and accuracy over the full system lifetime, it is essential to choose the right BMS components. This can also maximize the range and lifetime obtainable from the Li-ion battery, which is a vital differentiator for carmakers. The paper gives a general introduction to Li-ion batteries and BMS, before presenting Infineon’s products and system approach towards offer... » read more

A freeze-thaw molten salt battery for seasonal storage


New research paper from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Abstract "Grid-level storage of seasonal excess can be an important asset to renewable electricity. By applying the freeze-thaw thermal cycling strategy, here, we report Al-Ni molten salt batteries with effective capacity recovery over 90% after a period of 1–8 weeks as a proof-of-concept. We explore three activation methods... » read more

Benefits Of Multilevel Topologies In Power-Efficient Energy Storage Systems (ESS)


In this paper, we discuss the adaption of efficient energy storage systems (ESS) in residential solar and utility-scale applications. System requirements and possible topologies are looked into. For utility-scale, we introduce a multilevel converter topology concept. Click here to read more.   » read more

Integrity Problems For Edge Devices


Battery-powered edge devices need to save every picojoule of energy they can, which often means running at very low voltages. This can create signal and power integrity issues normally seen at the very latest technology nodes. But because these tend to be lower-volume, lower-cost devices, developers often cannot afford to perform the same level of analysis on these devices. Noise can come in... » read more

Rapid Optimization of Electrical and Thermal Characteristics of Electric Vehicle Batteries


Battery powered electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) have been gaining market share as the public’s environmental concerns and the depletion of fossil fuels drive the demand for better fuel efficiency. But great improvements in the mileage one can drive before recharging, a faster recharging method, and the creation of a recharging infrastructure akin to today’s gas s... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Nov 28


Deep learning to detect nuclear reactor cracks Inspecting nuclear power plant components for cracks is critical to preventing leaks, as well as to control in maintenance costs. But the current vision-based crack detection approaches are not very effective. Moreover, they are prone to human error, which in the case of nuclear power can be disastrous. To address this problem, Purdue Universit... » read more

Tech Talk: Comparing Smart Phones


What makes one smart phone last longer on a charge than another? The answer may surprise you. Low-Power Engineering talks with Cary Chin, director of technical marketing for low-power solutions at Synopsys, about what his months of research have shown. [youtube vid=BUefmd_oFp8] » read more

Power Management Trumps Battery Technology


By Ann Steffora Mutschler The lithium-ion battery has the power to ruin someone’s day, especially when it dies and cannot be charged, not to mention occasional thermal runaways that literally cause explosions. For a technology that is about 30 years old, and approaching its limits, it is mind-boggling that the best brains on the planet haven’t come up with a technological superior alternat... » read more

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