Energy saving: The application scope of power management semiconductors is further expanded

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Energy saving: The application scope of power management semiconductors is further expanded [Copy link]

Semiconductor technology drives the boom in power management

　　A recent short article interestingly described power management semiconductors as the Cinderella of the semiconductor industry, which shows that power management semiconductors have long been considered an insignificant supporting role in the semiconductor industry. However, it has recently been discovered that when the development of the entire semiconductor industry stagnates, power management semiconductors can often continue to maintain double-digit growth and become a very popular role.

　　Many years ago, I mentioned that power electronics is the trump card of energy saving. Over the years, it has been proved that energy saving has always been the reason for the booming development of the power electronics or power management industry. There are currently two major energy-consuming areas in the world, namely motors and lighting. The energy consumed by the two accounts for almost 70% of the global electricity consumption. Whenever the hot summer comes in my country, there is often a shortage of electricity, which shows that air conditioning and refrigeration equipment has become one of our largest sources of energy consumption. Therefore, it has become a very urgent issue to vigorously develop variable frequency air conditioners dominated by power management. In the past, due to the high price of variable frequency air conditioners, its market has long hovered at 70%-80% of the air conditioning market. From the perspective of the entire country, it is not possible to calculate how to save enough electricity bills for each household to quickly offset the price difference between variable frequency and general air conditioners, but to encourage the development of low-energy consumption products with certain policies. For example, the United States has measures for the power sector to compensate for power-saving products.

　　At present, not only air conditioners, but also refrigerators and washing machines are changing to variable frequency, because variable frequency appliances have advantages such as low noise in addition to power saving. In terms of lighting, energy-saving lamps that replace 75 watts of lighting with 20 watts of energy are now available everywhere. And now there are many power ICs that can make these energy-saving lamps have longer life and better performance, including dimming and protection functions, etc. The hybrid power car that is being developed will also be an important direction for energy saving. These are some aspects of power management that are being actively developed.