Bench Talk

In this week's New Tech Tuesday, we'll examine GaN power amplifiers from Analog Devices Inc. and Qorvo and a high-electron-mobility transistor from Wolfspeed/Cree.

Design engineers can employ WBG semiconductors in diverse applications, ranging from motor drives and power supplies to automotive and transportation systems, including hybrid and electric vehicles, aircraft, and ships.

White LEDs used in street lighting may consist of packaged combinations of Red, Green, and Blue LEDs, but more often than not employ blue LEDs, which are built generally from indium gallium nitride (InGaN) and have a yttrium-aluminum-garnet (YAG) (Y3Al5O12) phosphor coating placed on their emitter or emitter’s optic. From the base color of blue light, white light can be realized and utilized for white LED streetlights. But does this blue light found in LED streetlights make humans experience any negative impacts?

For most of us, it’s what we have to do to pay our bills so that we can live the lifestyle we want. We have to wake up and go to work.

I live in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. From time to time I find myself on the major road artery that takes drivers from downtown Dallas out towards its suburbs. This heavily trafficked highway is known here locally as North Central Expressway; a freeway section of U.S. Highway 75 between downtown Dallas and McKinney, TX. On a recent Friday afternoon, just after 5 p.m., caught in the chaos and rush and what felt like the entire city of Dallas attempting to get onto this road and get back to respective homes, I saw a large billboard off in the distance. Due to my slow pace as a result of the rush-hour grid lock I could make out a light bulb on the far away billboard. But as of yet it was too far away for me to make out what the message of the sign was really about.