Power Integration's 8W reference design for appliance PSUs achieves zero standby power rating
Power Integrations, a leader in high-voltage integrated circuits for energy-efficient power conversion, released a reference design for an 8 W, universal-input auxiliary power supply that achieves zero standby power consumption** for appliance applications. Based on a member of Power Integrations’ LinkZero™-LP family of ICs, DER-417 describes a universal-input, 5 V, 1600 mA flyback power supply that consumes less than 4 mW at 230 VAC and provides 1 mW of power in standby mode.
Products such as TVs, appliances, security and monitoring systems and HVAC equipment use power while waiting to be used or while monitoring sensor inputs prior to executing their proper functions. This wasted power amounts to both an environmental cost and an economic cost to households and businesses; in fact, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has estimated that standby power accounts for 5-10% of residential electricity use in developed countries, and is responsible for approximately 400 million tons of global CO2 emissions each year.
According to Edward Ong, product marketing manager for Power Integrations: “We are moving very close to the ultimate in standby power performance. By leveraging recent advances in low-power sensors and processors driven by the mobile-phone market, 1 mW of standby power is more than enough to operate functions such as a digital clock, environmental monitoring, wireless signal reception and infra-red activation. We think that DER-417 will inspire designers to implement zero-standby auxiliary power supplies for their products – leading to an overall reduction in wasted standby energy.”
**IEC 62301 Clause 4.5 describes zero standby as ‘power dissipation below 5 mW’.
