Inside Electronics

This episode of Inside Electronics explores how a “power renaissance” is reshaping electronic design, with capacitors playing a central role. Host Alix Paultre speaks with Eduardo Drehmer, VP of Product Marketing at TDK Electronics, about rising power demands from AI, data centers, and electric vehicles, and how this pushes efficiency, thermal management, and reliability to the forefront.

Alix and Eduardo explain how multilayer ceramic, aluminum electrolytic, and film capacitors each evolve to manage higher voltages, large surge currents, and harsh automotive environments while maintaining long lifetimes.

They also highlight TDK’s broad portfolio, from board-level MLCCs to capacitors used in fusion power projects and discuss how automotive reliability standards now influence industrial designs. The discussion closes on global manufacturing, supply stability, and safety challenges in EV batteries, with TDK and DigiKey partnering to make the latest capacitor technologies widely accessible.

The Greater Sacramento Economic Council (GSEC) recently spent time in Europe visiting various cities and attending major trade shows in Germany to build bridges and expand contacts in the electronics industry. In this podcast, we talk to Troels Adrian, EVP of the Greater Sacramento Economic Council, about the council’s efforts as well as some of their success stories.

This episode of Inside Electronics features Alix Paultre, Editor at Large for Electronic Design, and Dr. Hugo Guzman, Product Marketing Manager-Integrated Circuits at Littelfuse. Alix and Hugo discuss how smart solid-state relays (SSRs) are reshaping residential, commercial, and industrial building automation.

As engineers pack more HVAC controls, access systems, smart thermostats, sensors, and wireless modules into existing infrastructure, they must meet tight EMC, EMI, safety, and form-factor constraints while often working without a dedicated C‑wire. Hugo contrasts legacy electromechanical relays—bulky, noisy, prone to contact wear, arcing, and limited lifetime—with SSR-based designs that offer silent operation, predictable switching behavior, and improved reliability in inductive-load environments.

Hugo also explains how Littelfuse’s smart SSRs integrate application-specific intelligence, such as load-powered operation and latching for C‑wire–less smart thermostats (CPC1601M), minimizing quiescent current and extending battery life in retrofit designs.

For video doorbells and access control, the CPC2501M adds controlled handling of chime inrush currents up to 5 A for a few milliseconds, while maintaining continuous power to both chime and camera from a compact QFN package. Throughout the episode, Alix and Hugo emphasize how these smart SSRs help designers achieve smaller, safer, and more energy-efficient building automation systems that comply with stringent 24/7 reliability and safety standards.

AI has been a powerful force in the embedded electronics industry, although it is still in its infancy. It has a great promise to automate systems in every facet of the industry, yet it isn’t a silver bullet (yet). In this episode, we talk to Rudy Sengupta, VP & General Manager of Emerson NI, about the company’s latest efforts in the space.

Axelera’s artificial intelligence processing unit is akin to the neural processing units (NPU) and are designed to handle AI inferencing while using very little power. Their quad core Metis AIPUs delivers 214 TOPs at under 4 W. It is available as a chip as well as on boards like their M.2 module. The company's latest Europa delivers up to 629 TOPs and can handle even more streams. Alexis Crowell, General Manager of Americas & Global CMO, talks about Axelera's Metis and Europa chips as well as their Voyager SDK.