Cool Wall Warts
Kirt's Cogitations™ #84

RF Cafe University "Factoids," "Kirt's Cogitations," and "Tech Topics Smorgasbord" are all manifestations of my ranting on various subjects relevant (usually) to the overall RF Cafe theme. All may be accessed on these pages:

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Cool Wall Warts

Lots of new technology is being applied to old applications these days. One such example is a more tolerable replacement for the cursed "wall wart" (AC/DC power adapter) that is on the way. Penn State researchers have invented a piezoelectric technology that does away with the traditional iron and copper transformer, and promises to reduce the overall size to a quarter of the existing volume. As a bonus, these piezo devices produce no appreciable heat and do not generate the EMI fields of electromagnetic transformers. This new form factor will even allow the entire AC/DC conversion to reside inside your notebook computer, printer, scanner, camcorder and more. Taiheiyo, of Japan, will begin production in 2005.

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RF Cafe began life in 1996 as "RF Tools" in an AOL screen name web space totaling 2 MB. Its primary purpose was to provide me with ready access to commonly needed formulas and reference material while performing my work as an RF system and circuit design engineer. The World Wide Web (Internet) was largely an unknown entity at the time and bandwidth was a scarce commodity. Dial-up modems blazed along at 14.4 kbps while tying up your telephone line, and a lady's voice announced "You've Got Mail" when a new message arrived...