Category Archives: Multimedia

January 5, 2012

A Year (and a Name) to Remember

Posted by Around the Circuit Blog Team

2011 was certainly a momentous year for TE Circuit Protection. Here are just some of the highlights:

  • New name-In March, our parent company became TE Connectivity.
  • New website- TE Circuit Protection launched an updated website in May, www.circuitprotection.com, that is dedicated to circuit protection solutions.
  • New products take off- Introduced in late 2010, by 2011 our RTP (reflowable thermal protector) device and the MHP (metal hybrid PPTC) rapidly gained popularity as people learned about their unique benefits. Product of the year win– In December we were notified that the MHP device won a prestigious 2011 “Product of the Year” award from Electronic Products magazine.

Continue reading →

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December 15, 2011

ESD Design Considerations for Mobile Device Applications

Posted by Barry Brents

In the 1970’s, rubbing your feet across the green shag carpet to generate a static charge in order to torture your siblings was fun and would do no damage to the low-tech, large, and robust electronic components of the time. Today, portable devices designed for the increasingly busy, yet very well connected, mobile user has led to the integration of more and more inputs and outputs on our favorite gadgets. Higher current densities, smaller silicon, and limited space available for chip protection all tend to increase the sensitivity of electronic components to transient electrical overstress events such as ESD (electrostatic discharge). Reducing the impact of these transients helps prevent data corruption when devices are talking to each other and improves overall reliability. Continue reading →

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November 15, 2011

Paul O’Shea Discusses Circuit Protection With Our Own Robert Cid at Smart Grid Forum 2011

Posted by Around the Circuit Blog Team

Last month Robert Cid our Product and Application Engineering Manager presented at the Smart Grid Electronics Forum in San Jose, CA. He discussed Concepts and Solutions for Protecting the Smart Grid from Transients and Electrical Faults. While attending the show he was invited to join Paul O’Shea from Electronic Products for an interview. You can find the video on their website in the videos section under the circuit protection tab. Continue reading →

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October 13, 2011

Are Home Theater PCs Finally Ready for Prime Time?

Posted by Patrick Hibbs

Technology aficionados like me have always been drawn to the latest and greatest gadgets and gizmos because it gives us something to tinker with – and using a home theater PC, or HTPC, to watch TV from the computer is no exception. HTPCs may satisfy a hobbyist’s desire to experiment, but it mostly remains a niche interest for a few technology buffs. There are some key reasons why HTPCs been slow to enter the mainstream; namely, complexity of setup and maintenance, high power consumption, high cost, and lack of access to the same TV channels available by using a set-top box. Continue reading →

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October 6, 2011

The Black Swans of Circuit Protection

Posted by Genaro Maldonado

Reading Nicholas Taleb’s “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable” (Random House 2007), the definition of a Black Swan caught my attention.

“…an event with the following three attributes. First it is an outlier, as it lies outside the realm of regular expectations, because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility. Second, it carries an extreme impact. Third, in spite of its outliers status, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact, making it explainable and predictable.”
Could this description be relevant to circuit protection designs? I suggest that it can, based on these observations. Continue reading →

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September 20, 2011

The Circuit Protection Evolution – It’s All About Power

Posted by Faraz Hasan

Power electronic devices are modules which transform and control electric energy into the rated current and voltage as required. Although every modern electronic application takes into account power management and control, this post will focus on consumer electronics and automotive applications. Continue reading →

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September 16, 2011

Circuit Protection FAQ: Can I use a PolySwitch device for overtemperature control?

Posted by Around the Circuit Blog Team

Although primarily intended as an overcurrent protection device, the PolySwitch device can also be caused to trip by thermally linking it to a component or equipment that needs to be protected against overtemperature conditions – such as a motor. If the equipment temperature reaches the PolySwitch device’s switching temperature it will transition to its high impedance state, regardless of the current flowing through it. Continue reading →

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July 20, 2011

Wired For Speed – the New Face of the Electronics Salesman

Posted by Huw Muncer

I have been a salesperson for the electronics industry for more than 20 years. During that time I’ve observed that not only has the industry itself been turned on its head, but that the manner of selling components has also changed dramatically. Continue reading →

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July 7, 2011

Is it Time to Kiss Your Desktop Goodbye?

Posted by Kedar Bhatawadekar

Post-PC Devices are the new hot gadgets – and not always in a good way. The “Post-PC era,” a term coined by Steve Jobs when marketing the iPad device, is slowly allowing consumers to make an apples-to-apples comparison between two separate market segments, namely the one comprising PCs such as desktops, notebooks, and netbooks to the other comprising Post-PC devices, which include everything from high-end cell phones and smartphones to e-readers and tablets. Continue reading →

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May 24, 2011

Determining PPTC Resistance in Your Application

Posted by Barry Brents

As a circuit protection field application engineer, one of the most common questions I am asked is, “What is the resistance of a PPTC when it is tripped?” The short answer is, “That depends.” PPTCs (polymer positive temperature coefficient devices) are constant power devices in the tripped condition. In other words, in the “untripped” condition, the resistance is constant. But in the tripped condition, the resistance will vary as the voltage varies in order to maintain constant power dissipation, as shown along the curve in Figure 1. Each PPTC device has a power dissipation (Pd) specification. Keep in mind that this is a typical number, not a minimum or maximum. Our customers normally see a lot of variation in the device’s power dissipation, depending on things that may act as a heat sink: e.g. circuit board thickness, trace thickness, etc. There are so many variables in the field that we do not specify an absolute minimum or maximum. Continue reading →

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