IN Brief:
- TT Electronics will exhibit aerospace and defence power technology at Farnborough from 20 to 24 July.
- Products include Altitude DC converters, AX-Force bidirectional systems, VPX supplies, SiC modules, and custom magnetics.
- Rising electrical loads are pushing platform designers towards higher voltages, modular conversion, and tighter thermal integration.
TT Electronics will present a broad aerospace and defence power-electronics portfolio at the Farnborough International Airshow from 20 to 24 July.
The company will exhibit in Hall 4 on stand 4118, with technology spanning high-voltage DC/DC conversion, bidirectional power, VPX supplies, silicon-carbide modules, planar and additively manufactured magnetics, cable assemblies, human-machine interfaces, and complex printed-circuit assemblies.
Its Altitude DC platform has been developed for high-voltage aircraft electrical systems. A published configuration accepts an 800V DC input and produces a regulated 28V output at 1kW, with efficiency specified at 96%, while the modular architecture is intended to reduce the time required to develop and qualify conversion stages for hybrid-electric, hydrogen, and more-electric aircraft.
The AX-Force family addresses higher-power bidirectional and multidirectional conversion across land, naval, and aerospace platforms. TT Electronics specifies capability to 150kW and efficiency above 96%, with designs intended to support standards including RTCA DO-160, MIL-STD-704, and MIL-STD-461.
Additional exhibits will cover VPX power for rugged embedded computing, customised SiC modules for high-temperature and high-switching-speed conversion, and magnetics engineered around restricted volume and weight. Manufacturing capability for cable harnesses, PCB assemblies, and rugged control panels connects these power components with complete subsystem production.
Electrical load growth reshapes platform architecture
Aircraft and defence vehicles are adding radar, electronic warfare, communications, computing, sensing, actuation, directed-energy, and mission-management loads while remaining constrained by size, weight, cooling, and generated power. Supplying each additional function from a legacy low-voltage distribution system raises conductor current and cable mass, making higher-voltage architectures progressively more attractive.
Higher voltage reduces current for a given power level and can shrink conductors, but it introduces more demanding insulation, creepage, arcing, connector, switching, and maintenance requirements. Those challenges become sharper at altitude, where reduced air density changes insulation behaviour, and on military platforms exposed to contamination, shock, vibration, and wide temperature variation.
Power converters must also remain supportable across programme lives measured in decades. Semiconductor processes, digital controllers, and communications interfaces may change several times during that period, while the qualified mechanical envelope and platform wiring remain fixed. Modular converter blocks and defined interfaces can allow capability upgrades without redesigning the complete electrical installation.
Farnborough is drawing several UK electronics suppliers into the same discussion. Prima Electro’s custom aerospace-electronics programme similarly combines design, qualification, and lifecycle manufacturing, reflecting procurement requirements that extend well beyond catalogue hardware.
As wide-bandgap devices become part of the transition, silicon carbide can improve switching efficiency and support higher junction temperatures, but the package, gate drive, insulation, magnetic design, cooling, and electromagnetic compatibility must be developed to equivalent standards. Poorly controlled high-speed transitions can produce damaging overshoot or interference even when the semiconductor retains ample voltage margin.
Bidirectional conversion is gaining importance as batteries, generators, actuators, and high-energy mission systems exchange power dynamically. A converter may supply a load during one operating phase and recover energy during another, requiring control software and protection schemes that remain predictable during faults as well as normal operation.
Because qualification places further constraints on component choice and packaging, efficiency measured under laboratory conditions must be maintained through temperature, vibration, humidity, altitude, conducted susceptibility, and radiated-emissions tests. Any subsequent component substitution may require additional evidence before the platform can accept it, while cooling hardware, connectors, insulation systems, and control software must remain traceable alongside the converter itself because each can alter fault response or electromagnetic behaviour.
TT Electronics is bringing individual devices, converter platforms, and manufacturing capability together at Farnborough as aerospace power moves towards higher voltage, greater software control, and denser integration. Peak efficiency remains valuable, but long-term continuity, fault behaviour, and the ability to qualify the complete assembly will govern which technologies reach operational platforms.
