The File - Sep 16, 2008 - (Page 3)

News Power ICs address green energy demands continued from page 1 Mode Controllers is facilitating the conservation of power mainly in the consumer world. More scrutiny Energy usage the world over is coming under a scanner. Various certifying agencies such as Energy Star, Blue Angel, Nordic Swan and California Energy Commission are trying to bring about awareness among the masses. These organisations are educating the people about the impact on the environment of buying a car, refrigerator, air conditioner or any other electronic equipment. The Government of India also has an initiative under Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) and is mainly targeting the growth markets in India that are power-hungry. One of them is data centres. Data centre servers use power depending on data/voice traffic that they handle. This power per server can run in kilowatts and servers are loaded to 100 per cent of their capacity in order to get better return on investments. If one can help achieve 2 per cent better efficiency per power supply that powers a blade server, it will result in savings of 20W per blade server in a 1KW power supply. For a million servers, this would result in 20MW of power savings, which is a conservative guess. This 2 per cent improvement is possible with some of the new key products that semiconductor companies have released in the last year or so. In our endeavour to transform India into a developed nation, we need to start accounting for all those globe warming watts that result in no incremental GDP. More with less The conservation does not stop at just reducing the losses in the power conversion circuits. It begins here. Every piece of circuitry in consumer devices today is trying to do more with less power. For example, we have cell phones that have multiple features such as MP3 players, FM radio, Cameras, GPS, etc. But the cell phone battery, while retaining the same size as before, has become more powerful to support all these additional features. The relevant sections of the cell phone are turned off to conserve battery power, the ICs have less leakage current and the power converters that supply power to these chips are as much as 96 per cent efficient today. One of the power conversion chips that powers the various parts of these modern cell phones has less than 7.5mA of leakage current and has shutdown current of less than a microamp. In the long run, renewable energy is another area from which India would greatly benefit. For instance, solar energy, which is one of the major forms of renewable energy, is not usable as is. Whether you want to charge the batteries with the power available from these solar panels or run an inverter that feeds the power back to the grid and gets you power credit, you need power processing circuitry that can help achieve either of these tasks. “Carbon footprint” is something we should be aware of. Energy efficiency of cell phones, TVs, incandescent lamps, air conditioners, water pumps and other appliances have a footprint associated with their design and usage. Semiconductor companies are playing a pivotal role in making our carbon footprint smaller so that we can keep this earth greener for a longer period of time. This is an endeavour in which everybody has to participate for it to succeed and make world a better place for our future generations. Online A practical guide to low power efficiency measurements Efficiency and size: challenges in power management for portable devices EETI_mother.indd 1 1/14/08 5:17:49 PM 3 EE Times-India | September 16-30, 2008 | www.eetindia.com http://www.eetindia.co.in/SEARCH/SUMMARY/technical-articles/GPS.HTM?ClickFromNewsletter_080916 http://www.eetindia.co.in/ART_8800514083_1800003_TA_38df7a18.HTM?ClickFromNewsletter_080916 http://www.eetindia.co.in/ART_8800512947_1800000_TA_f8bf5ade.HTM?ClickFromNewsletter_080916 http://www.eetindia.co.in/STATIC/REDIRECT/Newsletter_080916_EETIreg.htm http://www.eetindia.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The File - Sep 16, 2008

EETimes India - September 16, 2008
Contents
National Semiconductor
Legislation Drives Move to Low-power Design
Tech Insights
Innovations Clean Up Design From Start to Finish
Texas Instruments
National Instruments
Microchip Technology
Use Non-maskable Interrupt to Manage Dynamic Power in MCUs
DigiKey

The File - Sep 16, 2008