Through the new power management technology innovation trends

Industry trends often driven by not fully meet the demand. Whether it is fashion, entertainment, politics, or power management also, there is such a phenomenon. Once a trend has been developing opportunities for public recognition, innovation also came into being. Although some trends like a flash in the pan, but there are also some trend is enduring. Perhaps because of problems related to the latest power management technology, or the conservative nature of the power management industry, trends in the field of power tend to have a long life cycle. But we can not just because the presence of an inherent tendency in the industry to a halt. When there are no opportunities for innovation, the so-called trend loses its essential meaning; however, when technology enables new innovations, some of the underlying trends will be awakened. There are some differences between the trends and guide the trend of technology.

Will focus on the three most important trend, we will witness the fastest growing areas of innovation: higher power density, intelligent power, energy harvesting, power density.
      Competitive power density areas like the 1980s, the "arms race" in that time, many companies spend a lot of R & D funding to make their stay ahead. These companies do everything we can to minimize the volume of the device to handle the maximum power. However, this trend has also brought many challenges, such as the new topology (bridgeless power factor correction), higher switching frequencies, of course, include improved efficacy. Auxiliary devices, it also has a new technology: such as wide band gap (WBG) gallium nitride device (GaN) and silicon carbide (SiC) switching devices. Also we need the support of the ecosystem for this trend, including a faster drive and controller to manage those drives and switching devices functions. Minimum pulse width of 10ns or less and shorter propagation delay in the realization of those devices with higher power density topology can support trends played a key role. Many high power density demonstrate the use of high-performance digital power controllers, which in itself does not consume a lot of power, but it needs a very good edge control and fast data converters to achieve loop control. In addition, they need to be able to quickly calculate the response time for the next switching cycle circuit. Therefore, it is easy to see, a significant improvement of power density for the innovation provides a fertile soil.

Smart Power

     Smart power is a major innovation trend, by allowing the system to manage power subsystem efficiency to meet system requirements. In the past, the power subsystem is basically a self-management. System requirements, power supply designers can configure the power in terms of sequencing, soft start and stop, and fault detection, etc. According to the response, but these are basically belong to the basic configuration. The current system requires more real-time between the power subsystem and the main systems of cooperation and collaboration. Such as power management bus (PMBus) industrial interfaces help to standardize interfaces and data protocols, but when the system works in conjunction with the power it will play a real advantage. In most cases, the system will often know in advance when to change the mode of operation, which will require the operation mode of the power supply system to make the appropriate changes. Sharing this information with the power supply system so that power can make the appropriate response.

     When the system power subsystem can be at a higher level of communication, it will usher in huge opportunities for innovation. The current system uses dynamic voltage scaling (DVS), the system tells the power subsystem to change the output voltage. While this method is effective, but can do more than just that. A higher level of information to deliver more information to more extensive multi-dimensional power, which better meet the needs of the response. Mixed-signal processing technology allows designers to achieve optimal partition. Power Integrated Circuit (IC) designers to digital intelligent devices and the best analog circuits closer together. This makes the integrated power converters to meet the needs of the more intelligent power subsystem, so that it can more easily work together with the main system. Future devices will speed up the solution of the development trend of the overall system efficiency.

Energy Acquisition

      Energy acquisition is a major contributor in achieving the development trend of Things (IoT) is. Many IoT devices rely on innovative wireless connectivity, but in order to achieve truly efficient operation, these IoT devices require the use of wireless power supply. Of course, for IoT battery power, but the battery replacement in the subsequent use would be a problem. As long as they provide all the power needed to harvest energy from the environment it will be a wise choice. Energy collection environment provides many opportunities for innovation. Improved energy efficiency of collection is a major field of study, but how to manage the collected energy is equally important. Environment, energy not always so stable, it is imperative that sufficient energy when energy stored up, to prepare for contingencies. To achieve this object, the energy management unit should be collected as little energy consumption.

IoT Another problem is that in order to minimize the total energy required, peak to average power ratio tend to be more extreme, often more than 1000 to 1. Energy management unit needs while maintaining low power consumption, with a very short delay to deal with these requests. Perhaps they do not realize that digital power control become a popular trend and cause power management in APEC is a matter of hot debate has been a decade ago. This indicates that digital power control is not a new trend, but because technology innovation and rejuvenated. In this technology innovation, high performance digital circuits can be integrated on the same chip with high-performance analog circuits. We can find the same situation in some areas applications. For example, in an IC package with integrated high-performance low-cost way of passive components.

     Difficult to distinguish between cause and effect, like the chicken or the egg problem, it is hard to give an answer. Technology trends opened a prelude to the birth of a trend or a technology? But one thing is clear, we can not sit the other innovative trend. Like Google's "little boxes Challenge" (Little Box Challenge) tells us that, if we do not promote innovation in the industry, then other people will do it.