General Semiconductor Inc. (Melville, NY) reported results for the quarter and year ended December 31, 2000. Sales increased 6.3 percent, to $119.9 million, from the $112.8 million recorded in the fourth quarter of 1999. Sales of $493.7 million for the year increased 18.4 percent over the $417.1 reported in 1999 and reached a record high. […]
Exide Technologies (Reading, PA) recently announced that Heinrich Meyr has joined the company's board of directors. Meyr is a professor of electrical engineering at Aachen University of Technology (Aachen, Germany). With a M.S. and Ph.D. from the Eidegenossische Technische Hochschule (Zurich, Switzerland) Meyr has spent more than 12 years in research and development, largely in […]
The semiconductor products sector of Motorola (Schaumburg, IL) announced that, in a continuation of cost-reduction measures that began in the fourth quarter, further steps to boost efficiency and improve profitability are being taken. These measures will include a substantial reduction in capital spending and operating budgets, further business and manufacturing consolidations, and the elimination of […]
Moltech Power Systems (Gainesville, FL) has expanded its product family with a new NiMH Cs cell designed for high-temperature applications and back-up...
National Semiconductor (Furstenfeldbruck, Germany) announced a new family of supervisory ICs with a variety of factory-programmable features that can be configured in hundreds of possible combinations. Housed in the chip-scale micro SMD package, the LM3700 family uses EEPROM technology and is designed to monitor power supplies in intelligent instruments, cellular phones, computers, PDAs, pagers and […]
di/dt Inc. (Carlsbad, CA) recently launched the Q Series, a comprehensive portfolio of next-generation open-frame 24V- and 48V-input quarter-brick dc/dc converters for...
Solectria Corp. (Wilmington, MA) announced that it has received an equity investment of $11.0 million from Singapore Technologies Kinetics Ltd. (ST Kinetics), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Singapore Technologies Engineering Ltd. This investment follows a previous investment by ST Kinetics two years ago, and the formation then of a strategic alliance by Solectria Corporation and ST […]
International Rectifier (IR, El Segundo, CA) announced a 1,000V radiation-hardened (rad-hard) power MOSFET. IR claims that the IRHY7G30CMSE rad-hard power MOSFET improves...
FedEx Corp. (Memphis, TN) has teamed with the Alliance for Environmental Innovation (Boston, MA) to develop a hybrid vehicle which would cut their delivery trucks' fuel use in half and emissions by 90 percent. FedEx, which runs a fleet of around 45,000 trucks, hopes to have the vehicle designed by the end of 2001, construction […]
Tyco Electronics Power Systems (Mesquite, TX) announced a new Galaxy Power System, the GPS4812, which is suitable for use in -48Vdc applications. The GPS4812 provides power ranging from 100A to 400A in a half-height cabinet for mounting on top of VRLA batteries, up to 800A in a full-height single cabinet, or up to 1,200A in […]
GreenVolt Power Corp. (Ontario, Canada) announced it will commence field-testing of its alkaline fuel cell supercapacitor power system in a custom-designed, zero-emission, four-door electric vehicle. The vehicle incorporates a compact supercapacitor to enhance the fuel cell power delivery when accelerating or hill climbing. The present 14 lead-acid, deep discharge batteries, which weigh approximately 950 pounds, […]
Matsushita Battery Co. Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan) has developed a rechargeable coin-shaped lithium-ion battery for high-current discharge. The company plans to begin volume production of the new battery, the CGL3032, in October 2001, planning 500,000 units monthly. It will be used a power source for wrist-worn GPS, compact portable terminals and card-type information tools. The external […]
Exide Technologies (Reading, PA) announced plans to invest $8.4 million in updating their Malpica, Spain, manufacturing facility. The company wants to convert it from an exclusive producer of after-market transportation batteries to one which manufactures both industrial and transportation batteries. Exide plans to produce TEBUS Front-Access, sealed-technology industrial batteries and AGM sealed-technology industrial blocs in […]
IdaTech Corp. (Bend, OR) announced an agreement with Atwood Mobile Products Inc. (Elkhart, IN) to develop a portable fuel cell system for the recreational vehicle (RV) industry. According to Alan Guggenheim, president of IdaTech, "Atwood understands RVs, and we understand fuel cell systems, which provide compact, quiet and environmentally friendly sources of power well-suited to […]
Infineon Technologies (Munich, Germany) has begun producing its thinQ! family of Schottky diodes based on silicon carbide (SiC) technology. The company claims that, compared with conventional power diodes in silicon or gallium arsenide technology, SiC Schottky diodes allow significantly lower switching losses and higher switching frequencies, while offering much higher operating voltage ranges. The company […]