Technical Features
January 2016
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Figure 1: Two-stage 48 V power architecture for an AI server, showing IBC and downstream point-of-load regulation
1. AI server power delivery raises the density challenge
AI accelerators concentrate more computing, and therefore more electrical power, within limited rack and board space. Supplying these loads is not simply a matter of increasing converter output. Every power‑delivery stage must balance conversion ef
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Date:
08/31/2026
Now that the first generation of mass-market consumer wearables are on the shelves, we can take a step back and analyze the issues that they have encountered and begin to architect a new generation that improves on their design.
Key issues that are apparent are the need for greater battery autonomy – consu
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Date:
01/29/2016
Exacting demands are currently being placed onto the manufacturers of white goods, in what is an increasingly competitive market. Pressures are intensifying to implement design concepts which enable major energy savings while also supporting more streamlined form factors that will attract consumers and offering re
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Date:
01/29/2016
The sub-28 nanometer Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) now available feature the in-dustry’s only hard floating-point digital signal processing (DSP) blocks with speeds up to 1,500 Gbps floating-point operations. Built on sub-28 nm process technology, these FPGAs provide up to 17.4 Gbps for long-reach ba
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Date:
01/29/2016
Current-mode control has been around in one form or another for almost 50 years now, but it is still a topic that creates much confusion in the minds of many engineers and researchers. In this series of articles, Dr. Ridley shows historical reasons for the confusion, and presents for the first time the source of
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Date:
01/29/2016
Ray Zinn, Founder of Micrel
You have likely heard the news that despite economic stimulus, the Shanghai stock exchange dropped over 7% before “circuit breakers” kicked in. Had those government-mandated panic aversion tools not triggered, the one day drop would rival long-term market corrections. None of this, aside from the exact timing, wa
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Date:
01/29/2016
Alix Paultre, Editorial Director, PSD
With all the buzz around optical data transfer technology development lately, especially in light of the push to empower small, low-power intelligent devices for the Internet of Things (IoT). What many forget is that there was and is a technology that is well-suited for final-feet connection between intelligent de
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Date:
01/29/2016
Utilities are in a time of transition. Legacy communications circuits are being discontinued by carriers and there is pressure for utilities to move to new packet-based services. In addition, much of the new smart grid applications and products that are being introduced by vendors are based on Ethernet, adding to
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Date:
01/27/2016
Most systems require multiple different voltage rails. Voltages below the system ground voltage, or zero voltage, are considered to be negative voltages. Such voltages are needed in many different applications. In power electronics, some switch types may not reliably be turned off if ground voltage is applied to
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Date:
01/27/2016
As electronic systems continue to become more compact, temperature plays an increasingly important role in system reliability and power efficiency. Many engineers are already familiar with how temperature can affect reliability; if a system becomes too hot, device operation can become unpredictable. Using a si
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Date:
01/27/2016
From cellphones to electric vehicles and smart grid energy storage, the use of rechargeable batteries is dramatically increasing. Engineers that design products that use these rechargeable batteries must be able to characterize the battery performance in their designs. Programmable bidirectional DC power supplies an
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Date:
01/27/2016
Key criteria for designing power supplies units (PSU) for consumer applications are low cost, high efficiency, good thermal performance and low Electro-Magnetic Interference (EMI). Starting with an optimal power conversion topology assists the design process. Flyback topology is optimal for low and mid power PS
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Date:
01/27/2016
The emergence of commercially available and cost-effective gallium nitride (GaN) power transistors begins a new age in power electronics. There are significant benefits in using enhancement-mode gallium nitride FET (eGaN FET) devices in power converters for existing data center and telecommunications architectures ce
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Date:
01/25/2016
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