Power LEDs to create sleek white goods

By replacing traditional halogen lamps with LUXEON® Rebel LEDs, Faber have created a sleeker range of cooker hoods. Solid-state lighting also enabled them to achieve lower energy consumption, longer lifetime and amore modern white colour temperature.

Faber were looking for a distinctive aesthetic for their new range, which was to be dramatically thinner than any previously introduced to the market. The latest power LEDs offer the combination of small size and long operating lifetime that is enabling engineers working with different applications to produce streamlined designs to differentiate from competing products.

 

Online tool for developing sensor signal path

TheWEBENCH® sensor signal-path design tool enables engineers to quickly move from concept, to simulation, to prototyping of sensor solutions. National Semiconductor’sWEBENCH Sensor Designer significantly reduces design time and cost by configuring a complete sensor signal-path solution with just a few keystrokes.

Without this tool, an engineer has to consume valuable development time matching sensor characteristics and performance with an operational amplifier’s DC performance and an ADC’s resolution and accuracy. TheWEBENCH Sensor Designer tool streamlines the sensor interface and data conversion design, allowing the engineer to focus on the other parts of the overall system.

 

Restrictions on use of cadmium and mercury in batteries

On the 26th of September 2008 batteries and accumulators containing more than 0.0005% mercury or more than 0.002% cadmium were prohibited from being placed on the market.

For years VARTA Microbattery has actively contributed to environmental protection, ceasing the production of nickel cadmium batteries in 2002. All batteries and accumulators produced by VARTA are free from mercury and cadmium, and therefore can be used in compliance with these new EU battery guidelines.

 

Thin package for DDR3 temperature sensors

Catalyst Semiconductor has released the first device in a new line of temperature sensors. The CAT6095 is a 12-bit digital output temperature sensor with a 0.55mm-height UDFN package for DDR3 memory module applications.

The CAT6095 provides ±1°C temperature sensing accuracy from 75°C to 95°C, and ±3°C accuracy from -20°C to 125°C. It measures and records the system temperature approximately 10 times per second, comparing readings with three trigger limits stored in the internal memory registers.

 

Extended current range for stepper-motor designs

ON Semiconductor has extended its bipolar stepper-motor control family to include two Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI)motor drivers capable of peak currents up to 800mA. The drivers can be used with an external microcontroller for added flexibility.

The AMIS-30511 and AMIS-30512 eliminate the need formany external components, reducing system cost and the Bill of Materials (BOM). Both of the new mixed-signal ICs contain two embedded H-bridges that can drive two-phase stepper motors with sustained peak currents up to 400mA and maximum currents up to 800mA for short duration.