Electrical Equipment
Gateway transformation
September 26, 2008 11:25 am | Award WinnersGates control the opening and closing of these transistors, which are insulated from the gate by a dielectric. Intel Corp. (Santa Clara, Calif.) saw an opportunity to reduce this transistor leakage and developed the Intel 45 nm High-k Metal Gate Transistor Technology for its new 45-nm process chips.
Voltage-steady LED leaves DC power problems behind
September 24, 2008 3:11 pm | Award WinnersAceLED, Alternating current light-emitting diode The LED is a semiconductor junction effect device that emits light under a direct current power source of the right polarity and voltage. Unfortunately, LEDs can often only be directly powered in an alternating current environment with bulky and inefficient AC-DC converter sub-asssemblies. With its AceLED, Industrial Technology Research Institute (Chutung, Hsinchu, Taiwan), has designed a way around this and other limitations.
RF test multiplies
September 24, 2008 3:09 pm | Award Winners4x4 MIMO RF Test System, RF test system The 4x4 MIMO RF Test System, from Keithley Instruments Inc. (Cleveland, Ohio), was designed to accommodate the growing test needs for next-generation systems and a wide range of communications standards.
LED headlight illuminates the way forward
September 24, 2008 3:07 pm | Award WinnersAutomotive LED Headlamps, LED headlamp Intensive development in light-emitting diodes (LEDs) for general lighting has yet to yield the reduced energy consumption and long-life lighting necessary to replace incandescent bulbs. But for use in automotive applications, the LED has made great strides. Automotive LED Headlamps from Koito Manufacturing Co. (Tokyo, Japan) mark the first such devices fitted for low-beam use on a road vehicle, namely the 2007 Lexus LS600h/LS600hL.
Fiber-optic sampler cuts out artifacts
September 24, 2008 3:05 pm | Award WinnersUnwanted artifacts are unavoidable in electrical sampling because of non-ideal impedance matching. Typically, oscilloscopes used for sampling high-speed telecom use hardware-based clock recovery and trigger. It’s a costly and power-intensive solution that PicoSolve Inc. (Fogelsville, Penn.) and Chalmer Univ. of Technology (Gothenburg, Sweden) avoid with their Optical Sampling Oscilloscope.
Appliance controller cuts risk of brownouts at the source
September 23, 2008 7:33 am | Award WinnersExtreme voltage fluctuations, caused by electrical faults resulting in a drop in voltage, have the capacity to take down large sections of the power grid. The Grid Friendly Appliance Controller, developed by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (Richland, Mass.), operates within household appliances to reduce stress on the grid by automatically modifying power usage on the fly.
Grid recloser feeds on power faults
September 23, 2008 7:28 am | Award WinnersThe S&C TripSaver Dropout Recloser, from researchers at S&C Electric Co., is a significant improvement, weighing just 20 lbs. The TripSaver saves bulk by exploiting the fault current itself to provide motive and power control through a solenoid which incorporates a secondary winding for control power and a primary winding for motive power.
Measuring net power in welding
August 31, 2005 8:00 pm | Award WinnersAlion Science & Technology, St. Charles, Ill., developed the Power Measurement Calorimetric System (PMCS), the first industrial device for direct net power determination. The device measures net power, the power transferred to a substrate by a heat source, in arc and laser beam welding.
It's plasma, revolutioned
August 31, 2005 8:00 pm | Award WinnersForget your ‘old’ plasma TV’s, researchers at Imaging Systems Technology, Toledo, Ohio, have created the next breed of plasma displays with the Flexible Plasma-sphere Display. In contrast to conventional plasma displays, Plasma-sphere displays integrate gas encapsulating microspheres (Plasma-spheres) as its pixel element.
Blu-ray hits 50!
August 31, 2005 8:00 pm | Award WinnersLooking to TIVO your favorite shows from HDTV? Researchers at Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd, may have a solution with the 50GB Capacity Rewritable Dual-layer Blu-ray Disc Media, Model LM-BRM50. Currently rewritable DVDs feature a capacity of only 4.7GB, corresponding to just over 20 minutes of High-Definition (HDTV) TV programming.
Integrating power measurements
August 31, 2005 8:00 pm | Award WinnersThe MetPod, developed by FieldMetrics, Inc., Seminole, Florida, represents a breakthrough in measurement technology for the power grid for both transmission and distribution. By digitizing sensor signals at the line, data corruption is less likely, system costs are reduced, and capabilities can be modified through software updates rather than by replacing hardware.
Low power electrical characterization
August 31, 2005 8:00 pm | Award WinnersResearchers at Keithley Instruments, Inc., Solon, Ohio, have developed the 6221/2182A AC and DC Precision Current Source with Nanovoltmeter, a system that can source extremely small currents and measure extremely small voltages.
Introducing the Morrison Motor
August 31, 2004 8:00 pm | Award WinnersThe Morrison Motor, invented by Carlos Morrison, a physicist/aerospace engineer at NASA Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio, is an 8-stator-pole, 6-rotor-pole, bearingless switched reluctance motor, which can operate in stator/rotor pole combinations of 12/8, 8/6, and 6/4.
