While the theme of energy efficiency may now be hip among everyone from carmakers to appliance companies, it’s nothing new for chipmakers.

This week in Dallas companies that have made their livelihood from improving the power efficiency of chips and electronic systems are gathering to show off their latest innovations at the Applied Power Electronics Conference (APEC)

Royal Philips Electronics today unveiled two new additions to its GreenChip family of ICs.  While previous GreenChip efforts have been aimed at the consumer electronics space, this new effort targets the compute market -- power supplies for desktop PCs and notebook PCs.

Edwin Kluter, marketing manager with the integrated power product line at Philips Semiconductor, called this new market for Philips one “that is in a very mature stage.

“Cost is number one in this market, but we have seen some drivers in the market that indicate significant change,” he said.  “One is miniaturization.”  Small form factors are being driven not only by notebooks, but also by the demand for media center PCs.

With this new market in mind, Philips has launched two new chipsets. One chipset, targeted to desktop power supplies, increases their overall efficiency to beyond 80 percent.  And the GreenChip SR, a secondary control integrated circuit for notebook adapters, improves laptop computer adapter efficiency by 3 percent to 5 percent, according to Philips.

The new chips from Philips introduce a new topology that makes it easier and more cost-effective for PC power supply makers to comply with energy efficiency specifications such as 80 PLUS and Energy Star.  The Philips technology integrates the standby supply into the main converter, reducing the number of external components required. Local secondary regulation resolves primary side feedback issues and improves cross-regulation, Philips said.

Separately, ON Semiconductor today unveiled a GreenPoint reference design for 90-watt notebook computer power adapters.  Using a single-state approach, the design eliminates the need to implement two power processing stages, ON Semi said, in a statement. According to the company the reference design addresses all functional blocks of the power adapter while achieving low standby power and compliance with CEC, Energy Star and European Code of Conduct (COC) requirements.

"This reference design extends our leadership position of advanced power management semiconductors for efficient notebook power adapters," said Andy Williams, VP of ON Semiconductor's power conversion products division, in a statement. "ON Semiconductor's expertise in high-efficiency power design was used to develop this fully tested notebook adapter solution that can be easily implemented by OEMs intent on delivering energy-efficient end products to the market."

ON Semi said its GreenPoint adapter reference design delivers 90 percent energy efficiency and meets original equipment manufacturers' (OEM) skin temperature requirements and leakage current requirements of less than 100 micro-amperes.

By: DocMemory
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