Page 31 - Power Electronics News - December 2020

Smart Energy Smart Energy

an e-fuse and surge stopper. Designers can easily

implement robust protection in their smart grid
equipment and pass compliance with configur-
able pins to set features such as UVLO/OVLO,
current limit, real-time voltage, current moni-
toring, current thermal foldback, and thermal
shutdown.

An example of a highly integrated protection IC
is shown in Table 1 under the safety and reliabil-

ity category. Table 1 is a summary of the power
management approach for energy distribution
Figure 12: Integrated protection in a single IC. automation.
Figure 11: Unprotected CPU on fire .

tinuous conduction mode (DCM). The advanced sient voltage suppressors of all sizes and shapes. gies. Layers of protection are necessary to handle
feature of the device eliminates the need of an While common issues like ESD protection and these potentially catastrophic events (Fig. 11). CONCLUSION
optocoupler for output voltage feedback and pin-to-pin short-circuits are handled within ICs, As the current trend of automation and data

regulation. No-opto means less board space and there are additional aspects to consider for safe- Protection electronics must handle fault condi- exchange continues, new technologies and ap-
high reliability because the inherently low mean ty and reliability. tions such as overvoltage/undervoltage, overcur- proaches will be needed to achieve higher energy
time between failure (MTBF) optocoupler is out rent, and reverse-current flow within the limits availability, serviceability, and predictive mainte-
of the picture. Along the electrical path, electrical stressors of its voltage and current rating. If the expected nance, as well as fault detection, isolation, and
such as inrush currents due to storage capac- voltage surge exceeds the protection electronics mitigation. The adoption of these technologies
Increased safety and reliability: itors, reverse currents due to power outages, ratings, additional layers of protection are added introduces challenges in terms of energy efficien-
protection overvoltages, and undervoltages induced by in the form of filters and TVS devices. cy, miniaturization, and system reliability.
Protection circuits are the unsung heroes of inductive load switching or lightning, can dam-
today’s electronics. The long electrical chain, age precious electronic loads. This is true for For each challenge presented, we showed how

from the AC line to the digital load, no matter the microprocessors and memories, which are built INTEGRATED SOLUTION more efficient power management can improve
application, is interspersed with fuses and tran- with fragile sub-micron, low-voltage technolo- Fig. 12 shows an integrated protection circuit the design of energy distribution automation
that addresses overvoltage, undervoltage, reverse systems. These power management solutions
polarity, current limiting, reverse current, and overcome the critical challenges faced by today’s
short-circuit protection with all the benefits of energy distribution automation systems.

For More Information

▶ Meeting the power challenges of the smart grid

▶ TVS devices

▶ Smart Grid

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