Articles & Blogs

Want Fresh Food in Space? NASA Turns to LEDs

Using LED lighting, NASA has figured out how to make space food more palatable.

How the University of Minnesota and DigiKey Quickly Designed Ventilators for COVID-19 Use

This is how the University of Minnesota and DigiKey collaborated to quickly bring to market a usable mass-market ventilator for COVID-19 patients.

Design Power for Harsh Environments Using TDK-Lambda’s PFH500 Power Modules Publish Date: 2020-03-19

TDK-Lambda’s PFH500 power modules meet industrial design criteria for harsh environments.

The Fundamentals of IO-Link and How to Use It to Enable the Industrial IoT Publish Date: 2020-01-15

Understand and apply IO-Link to efficiently and cost effectively deploy and communicate with intelligent sensors and actuators in an IIoT application.

Understand Drone Design Trade-Offs Before Piling on the Sensors Publish Date: 2019-11-19

Adding sensors to drones requires a careful balance of power consumption, functionality, and cost, but here are some suitable options.

Artificial Intelligence in Power Management Systems: What’s Plan B? Publish Date: 2019-10-17

MPPT, remote sensor monitoring, and a GaN transistor in a power supply PoL are among the options designers can use to back up an AI-based power system, just in case.

Power Modules and Devices to Support Intermediate Bus Architecture Designs Publish Date: 2012-05-01

Almost three decades ago, the "brick" DC/DC converter power module was developed, which eventually led to the distributed power architecture (DPA) becoming the de facto standard for point of load (POL) designs.

An Engineers Guide to Power Inverters for Solar Energy Harvesting Publish Date: 2012-04-04

Home energy systems based on renewable sources, such as solar and wind power, are becoming more popular among consumers and will gain increasing support from governmental bodies.

Flow Sensors Calculating Volumetric Flow and Mass Flow Publish Date: 2012-03-29

Flow sensors are used to measure flow velocity, volumetric flow rate, or mass flow of a liquid or gas. Mass flow for gases is specified in units of standard liters per minute (slm) or standard cubic centimeters per minute (sccm).

Distributed Power Architecture DPA Choices Using Power Modules Publish Date: 2012-03-06

What once was a straightforward act of transforming an AC waveform into a DC source to power downstream devices is now greatly affected and driven by the power grid to maximize its available power.

AC/DC Power Module Line Filtering Publish Date: 2012-01-17

Powerline filters protect expensive circuitry from potentially damaging power surges, as well as protecting the AC line from excessive noise conducted back into it from a noisy power converter.

Challenges and Solutions to Powering DSPs ASICs and FPGAs Using Power Modules Publish Date: 2012-01-10

Modular, high-density POL (point-of-load) power DC/DC converters have some excellent advantages over other power management architectures.

Conducted and Radiated Emissions Reduction Techniques for Power Modules Publish Date: 2011-12-27

DC/DC converters are a great high-frequency noise source. Designers must take careful steps to minimize and contain this noise near and around the converter to keep it from affecting other system components or the AC mains.

Optimal Power Management Techniques in Energy Harvesting Designs Publish Date: 2011-11-30

Battery size constraints in energy harvesting systems necessitate creativity and innovation in order to maximize efficiency of the power source.

LowCost Ambient Light Sensor ALS Solutions Using Analog Output Devices Publish Date: 2011-11-10

Ambient light sensor (ALS) products are quickly becoming one of the most effective solutions for power management and display quality enhancement in electronic products and systems.

Focus on Power Module Margining and Pre-Bias Startup Features Publish Date: 2011-10-18

As newer applications and systems tend to have multiple voltages to power DSPs, µCs, FPGAs, and ASICs, modern power supply designs must be able to control how and when these voltages ramp to their final values after the power switch is activated.

Humidity Sensors and Signal Conditioning Choices Publish Date: 2011-10-13

Relative humidity (RH) is defined as the ratio of the partial pressure of water vapor (in a gaseous mixture of air and water vapor) to the saturated vapor pressure of water at a given temperature.

Proper Use of Thermal Derating Curves for Power Modules Publish Date: 2011-10-04

Designers using modular power converters for their systems know how critical a thermal derating curve is to the success of their design.

RTDs, PTCs, and NTCs: How to Effectively Decipher This Alphabet Soup of Temperature Sensors Publish Date: 2011-09-14

Need a temperature sensor for your next application? You'll first need to sort through the three-letter acronyms before arriving at any BOMs.

Environmental Sensor Solutions: Gas Detection Publish Date: 2011-09-08

A gas detection sensor’s function is to measure the concentration of gases. These devices have different methods to convert the gas detection element’s output to voltage.