With all the attention given to low-power design and products, we tend to forget that there's another world out there with power levels that are tens of orders of magnitude greater—and working with them is a radically different world in every respect. A recent article in IEEE Spectrum, &......

Measuring physical variables is a major challenge along two dimensions: when ever-greater precision and accuracy are required, or when the variable—such as distance, time, or temperature—is at an extreme end of the range. It's always read about new ways of measuring "common&qu......

We all know those self-contained AC/DC converters – often called “wall warts” – which power many small devices, often running 24/7/365 at load levels ranging from quiescent to nearly full rating. These devices, which typically have DC outputs anywhere between 5 and 30V and ......

Do you remember the original role of the USB port? It was to replace the many diverse and incompatible ports used for the personal computer's keyboard, mouse, printer, and other basic peripherals. Now look at where USB is today – it's fair to think "hey, USB, you really have gro......

I recently read an analysis column "Watch Out Intel, Here Comes Facebook" in Barron's which offered the premise that Big Web operators like Facebook and Google are demanding radically different chip designs rather than the traditional architecture typified by Intel's CPUs. Instea......

Most electronic, mechanical, and thermal engineers think of how to keep the temperature of their IC or printed circuit board below some maximum allowable value. Others are more worried about the overall enclosure, which can be range from a self-contained package such as a DVR to a standard rack of......

Solar-based energy is often associated with electricity-generating solar cells; solar-based heating systems using a working fluid; solid-state thermoelectric-based conversion; or perhaps a solar-concentrator which liquefies some salt-based compound for storage .   Now there's a new entran......

Engineering choices are usually initially dictated by conventional wisdom—after all, who has time to examine every assumption, given the pressures of time-to-market and product margins? This is true in all niches of design, including the vital and very vibrant power-related sector. While we ......

Some products, such as the latest smartphones, get lots of attention and have a lot of glamour associated with them. Yet there are large groups of products which are extremely beneficial to specific audiences and require a diverse and multidisciplinary set of engineering and production skills, but......

Today's internal combustion (IC) and EV/HEV cars are already pulling kilowatts from the battery and power subsystem, and the drain is clearly going to increase. The power train control, infotainment, ADAS (advanced driver assistance systems), and other functions each need "juice." Te......