Brochure

196 HVC ENYCAP™ USER EXPERIENCE:
A CPAP ALARM FEATURE BRINGS BETTER SLEEP
—AND MORE PEACE OF MIND
SUCCESS STORY
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MS7528-1801
www.vishay.com
© 2018 VISHAY INTERTECHNOLOGY, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Joanna’s Story
Just before 2 a.m., Joanna awakened from deep sleep at the sound of the CPAP
machine’s alarm. “It’s the electricity again!” she thought drowsily. She sat up in
bed and removed her CPAP mask. Power outages were a regular occurrence
in her Upper Michigan community. A longtime CPAP user for her sleep apnea,
Joanna used to worry about what might happen if the machine lost power during
the night. Would she wake up on her own? Would her body “remember” to keep
breathing if she didn’t? Although her old CPAP machine worked well, the new
machine was giving her more peace of mind. Already it had woken her up during
three power outages. Just knowing she could rely on its alarm was helping her to
sleep even better.
Matt’s Story
Even with his 15 years of experience engineering various breathing support
devices, Matt had difficulties reconciling the requirements from product
marketing for his company’s
1
new CPAP machine. Marketing had decided that
the new model should be no larger than the previous model, that it should have
a humidifier and a power failure alarm that would sound loud and long enough to
awaken a user, even from deep sleep.
The tank for the new humidifier used up half the volume that was available for
the electronics of the previous model. Originally, Matt intended to use a simple
battery box with a few AA batteries to supply the backup power, but the
humidifier feature made this impossible.
The alarm required only a few hundred milliwatts of power to work for at least
two minutes, according to the specification from product marketing. But if a
rechargeable battery were used, it still had to be fairly large to supply the required
current. Matt was also unsure whether a rechargeable battery could handle the
number of power outage alarm cycles needed for the 10 year life span of the new
model.
At one point it seemed as if the best solution would be a high-value double layer
supercapacitor. Such a device would fit within the available space and could
easily supply the required current, but, to Matt’s disappointment, it would drain
too quickly to meet the alarm duration requirement. Also, Matt didn’t like the fact
that the system voltage went down when the supercapacitor was discharged. At
one point it seemed like he needed an energy storage device that didn’t seem
to exist: small in size, with a high current capability that wouldn’t degrade from
repeated charge/discharge cycles. Then Matt recalled having read about
something called a hybrid capacitor. In fact he had torn the article out of a
magazine and had stored it in his file of “interesting components.” Ah yes. It was
the 196 HVC, one of the ENYCAP™ ENergY storage CAPacitors from Vishay Intertechnology.
GLOSSARY
Sleep apnea: a sleep disorder that caus-
es people to pause their breathing or
breathe in a shallow manner during sleep,
significantly reducing the quality of sleep.
Approximately 3% to 7% of adult men and
2 % to 5% of adult women in the general
population are thought to be affected.
Continuous positive airway pressure
(CPAP) machine: a type of positive airway
pressure ventilator, which applies mild air
pressure on a continuous basis to keep the
airways continuously open in people with
sleep apnea.
1
Name withheld by request