Integrated Gate Commutated Thyristor (IGCT)

The Integrated Gate Commutated Thyristor (IGCT) combines the advantages of the hard driven GTO thyristor, including its dramatically improved turn- off performance, with technological breakthroughs at the device, gate-drive and application levels. Homogenous switching area of the IGCT up to the dynamic avalanche limits. Snubber circuits are no longer needed. Improved loss characteristics allow high frequency applications extending into the kHz range. A new IGCT device family with integrated high- power diodes has been developed for applications in the 0.5-6 MVA range, extending to several 100 MVA with series and parallel connections. A first 100 MVA inverter based on the IGCT has been in commercial operation and confirms the very high level of reliability of this new technology. Other new application using the IGCT platform includes ABB’s new ACS1000 drive for medium voltage applications.

BiCMOS silicon technology:Electronics Seminar

The need for high-performance, low-power, and low-cost systems for network transport and wireless communications is driving silicon technology toward higher speed, higher integration, and more functionality. Further more, this integration of RF and analog mixed-signal circuits into high-performance digital signal-processing (DSP) systems must be done with minimum cost overhead to be commercially viable. While some analog and RF designs have been attempted in mainstream digital-only complimentary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technologies, almost all designs that require stringent RF performance use bipolar or semiconductor technology. Silicon integrated circuit (IC) products that, at present, require modern bipolar or BiCMOS silicon technology in wired application space include the essential optical network (SONET) and synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) operating at 10 Gb/s and higher.

The viability of a mixed digital/analog. RF chip depends on the cost of making the silicon with the required elements; in practice, it must approximate the cost of the CMOS wafer, Cycle times for processing the wafer should not significantly exceed cycle times for a digital CMOS wafer. Yields of the SOC chip must be similar to those of a multi-chip implementation. Much of this article will examine process techniques that achieve the objectives of low cost, rapid cycle time, and solid yield.

Adaptive Piezoelectric energy harvesting circuit

This paper describes an approach to harvesting electrical energy from a mechanically excited piezoelectric element. A vibrating piezoelectric device differs from a typical electrical power source in that it has a capacitive rather than inductive source impedance, and may be driven by mechanical vibrations of varying amplitude. An analytical expression for the optimal power flow from a rectified piezoelectric device is derived, and an “energy harvesting “ circuit is proposed which can achieve this optimal power flow. The harvesting circuit consists of an ac-dc rectifier with an output capacitor, an electrochemical battery, and a switch-mode dc-dc converter that controls the energy flow into the battery. An adaptive control technique for the dc-dc converter is used to continuously implement the optimal power transfer theory and maximize the power stored by the battery. Experimental result reveal that the use of the adaptive dc-dc converter increases power transfer by over 400% as compared to when the dc-dc converter is not used.

Coordinated secondary voltage control to eliminate voltage violation in power system contingencies

In order to achieve more efficient voltage regulation in a power system, coordinated secondary voltage control has been proposed, bringing in the extra benefit of enhancement of power system voltage stability margin. The study is presented by the e.g. with two SVCs and two STATCOMs in order to eliminate voltage violation in systems contingencies. In the paper, it is proposed that the secondary voltage control is implemented by a learning fuzzy logic controller. A key parameter of the controller is trained by P-type learning algorithm via offline simulation with the assistance of injection of artificial loads in controller’s adjacent locations. A multiagent collaboration protocol, which is graphically represented as a finite state machine, is proposed in the paper for the coordination among multiple SVCs and STATCOMs. As an agent, each SVC or STATCOM can provide multilocation coverage to eliminate voltage violation at its adjacent nodes in the power system. Agents can provide collaborative support to each other which is coordinated according to the proposed collaboration protocol.

Molecular Electronics:A new technology competitive to semiconductor technology

Semiconductor integration beyond Ultra Large Scale Integration (ULSI), through conventional electronic technology facing some problems with fundamental physical limitations. Beyond ULSI, a new technology may become competitive to semiconductor technology. This new technology is known is as Molecular Electronics.

Molecular based electronics can overcome the fundamental physical and economic issues limiting Si technology. Here, molecules will be used in place of semiconductor, creating electronic circuit small that their size will be measured in atoms. By using molecular scale technology, we can realize molecular AND gates, OR gates, XOR gates etc.

The dramatic reduction in size, and the sheer enormity of numbers in manufacture, are the principle benefits promised by the field of molecular electronics

Tele-Immersion (TI) :Free full Engineering seminar reort

It is 2010 and you have a very important meeting with your business associates in Chennai. However you have visitors from Japan coming for a mega business deal the same day. Is there any technology by which you can deal with both of them? The answer is yes and the name of that technology is Tele-Immersion. Tele-Immersion is a technology by which you’ll interact instantly with your friend on the other side of the globe through a simulated holographic environment. This technology, which will come along with Internet2, will change the way we work, study and get medical help. It will change the way we live. Tele-Immersion (TI) is defined as the integration of audio and video conferencing, via image-based modeling, with collaborative virtual reality (CVR) in the context of data-mining & significant computation. The 3D effect behind the tele-immersion makes it feel like the real thing. The ultimate goal of TI is not merely to reproduce a real face-to-face meeting in every detail, but to provide the “next generation” interface for collaborators, world-wide, to work together in a virtual environment that is seamlessly enhanced by computation and large databases. When participants are tele-immersed, they are able to see and interact with each other and objects in a shared virtual environment.

Tele-immersion can be of immense use in medical industry and it also finds its application in the field of education