What is it like to experience the integration and innovation of power and data?
From centralized information access through telecommunications giants and wireless broadcasters to the advent of wired telephones and cable television, the way people interact with data changed dramatically 30 years ago. Today, the development of high-voltage power supplies is following a similar trajectory.
The size and shape of products are gradually shrinking, while the power conversion they can achieve is getting higher and higher. In daily life, people have put forward more requirements for power efficiency, intelligence and packaging. At present, the battery storage capacity of mobile devices is already considerable, and it is still working hard to meet people's usage needs and expectations.
In this issue of the Technology Trends column, Ahmad Bahai, chief technology officer of Texas Instruments (TI), introduces the emerging technology trends that are about to change our world and the key innovations needed to make these technology trends a reality.
On a larger scale, we see data centers growing and consuming more than 70 megawatts of power. This is a significant amount of energy consumption, even when they are idle or processing web searches. In the automotive space, electric vehicles can run from an 800V battery source while supporting 12V and 18V rails. To enable applications such as these, new power devices and efficient power conversion between different voltage domains are required.
Electricity is no longer delivered only by large power plants and miles of AC power lines. In fact, people can collect energy from solar panels on their roofs and sell it back to the grid. A battery mounted on the wall and charged daily by solar panels can provide enough power to eliminate the need for power from the grid. Maybe even one day in the future, electric cars will become energy storage centers.
Just as data is no longer centralized but is interconnected and stored in a variety of ways—from cloud-based servers to USB sticks in your pocket—so too will the dramatic changes in power generation, storage, distribution and transmission have a profound impact on the way we live and work.
However, the relationship between data and power is more than just the same. In some applications today, they are beginning to converge and are being transmitted through next-generation USB connected devices while being embedded more deeply into high-voltage applications through isolation barriers in integrated chips. This series of transformations is having a huge impact on innovation within the semiconductor industry.
energy efficiency
We live in an energy-hungry digital world. Every time you check your social media feed, pay a bill, download an e-book or send an email, you use a vast network of servers located in giant data centers.
When these servers are preparing to process or are processing information, they require a lot of electricity. The demand for electricity keeps the servers running, and it also puts more electric and hybrid cars on the road, which has injected new vitality into the rising trend of electrification.
As these innovations become more integrated into our daily lives, our demand for electrical energy will continue to grow. Improvements in energy efficiency are becoming increasingly urgent.
Breakthrough Materials
Similar to data, the development of power supply is also ever-changing. Whether it is high-voltage power conversion from AC to DC, DC to DC, or DC to AC, efficient power conversion modules are required. As the demand for electricity continues to grow, these modules also require more efficient and better performance technology, and can transmit high-voltage power under harsh conditions.
This is where advanced technologies based on gallium nitride, silicon carbide and silicon superjunction come in. These materials generate less heat than traditional silicon power devices, which means they can efficiently transmit high-voltage power between multiple power sources and efficiently convert power from one source to another.
These breakthrough technologies require complex circuit architectures and packaging technologies that are completely different from the architectures that have laid a solid foundation for decades of semiconductor development. In addition, while traditional CMOS technology has generally followed Moore's Law, that is, data transmission and processing rates will double every few years, these new materials will achieve breakthroughs in high-voltage power density approximately every five to ten years.
Improvements like these are critical to a world that is becoming more electrified. In battery-operated systems, the need for greater power efficiency is key, as battery technology has a hard time keeping up with new features. Additionally, improvements and advancements in power management are critical to the growing number of data centers that enable a wide range of connected device applications. The servers in these data centers consume a lot of power, and semiconductor technology will make them more efficient by reducing the amount of step-down power conversion.
In automotive applications, designers are integrating more high-power, high-voltage electronic components into vehicles every year. Interestingly, every additional 100W of power will increase manufacturing costs by $5, and automotive power is increasing at a rate of 100W per year. For electric vehicles, the power increase may be even faster. Advanced power devices such as gallium nitride and silicon carbide will play an increasingly important role in these circuits because they can increase power density. For example, for electric vehicles, this means faster battery charging time, longer battery life, longer driving range, and the ability to run more high-voltage systems.
USB Type-C™ Technology
The convergence of power and data in next-generation USB Type-C connections is changing the way we use these technologies on a daily basis. For example, most laptops currently include several ports for charging, display, audio, and more traditional USB connections.
USB Type-C, which is emerging as a new standard, combines all of these data and power interfaces into a single high-capacity line that doesn't require a reversible plug.
Isolation barrier
Power and data are coming together across the isolation barrier in high-voltage circuits, from air conditioning systems to factory automation applications. The need for independent power supplies is growing rapidly, and while the ability to transmit data across the isolation barrier has been available for several years, the transmission of power still requires a discrete transformer that takes up valuable board space and creates reliability issues.
However, a new device from Texas Instruments (TI), the ISOW7841, has solved this problem by integrating multiple silicon chips and a transformer into a single package. In addition, the ISOW7841 is 80% more efficient in power transmission than other solutions on the market and operates more quietly.
As the economy continues to grow, the technology that powers our cars, data centers, factories, homes, and many other areas that enhance the quality of human life will need to operate more efficiently.
Furthermore, as power management technology becomes increasingly critical to every electronic system, the pace of innovation will continue to intensify and the number of semiconductors in our digital lives will continue to grow.
Ahmad Bahai, Chief Technology Officer, Texas Instruments
Dr. Ahmad Bahai is TI's Chief Technology Officer and Director of Kilby Labs and Corporate Research. He previously served as Chief Technology Officer and Director of Research Labs at National Semiconductor. He is currently a Consulting Professor at Stanford University and a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
Prior to joining National Semiconductor and TI, Ahmad worked as a technical manager in the communications and mixed signal processing research group at Bell Laboratories and was a resident professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He co-founded Algorex, which focused on integrated circuit and system design for communications and acoustics applications.
Ahmad is one of the developers of multi-carrier spread spectrum, which is now widely used in modern communication systems such as 4G and power line communication. In 1999, Ahmad wrote the first textbook on OFDM and served as an associate editor of the IEEE journal for five years. As of 2011, Ahmad has served on the Technical Steering Committee of the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSC).
Ahmad has provided technical guidance for several major energy initiatives in Europe and China, served on the Industrial Advisory Board of the University of California, and was a visiting professor at Chengdu University in China.
To date, Ahmad has published more than 80 articles in IEEE/IEE-related publications, and has 33 patents, and has 5 patents related to systems and circuits applied for. Ahmad graduated from Imperial College London with a master's degree in electronic engineering, and then studied at the University of California, Berkeley and obtained a doctorate in electronic engineering.
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