News

MIT Engineers Create Power Supply That Efficiently Sips Energy

A new type of power supply has been created by researchers from MIT which sips energy by utilizing packets of energy rather than a voltage stream. Power supplies generally provide steady voltage which is highly inefficient when it comes to small devices that do not require to be constantly fed power and turned on.

“Typically, converters have a quiescent power, which is the power that they consume even when they’re not providing any current to the load,So, for example, if the quiescent power is a microamp, then even if the load pulls only a nanoamp, it’s still going to consume a microamp of current. My converter is something that can maintain efficiency over a wide range of currents.” said Arun Paidimarri, formerly of the MIT’s Microsystems Technological Laboratories.

The power supply sends power only as needed and reverts to a quiescent state otherwise. This type of power supply is useful with the growing Internet-of-Things devices as it can take a 1.2 to 3.3V input and step it down to 0.7 to 0.9V and only use the amount needed which includes the sensing and the calculation required itself. The control circuitry for the switches includes a circuit that measures the output voltage of the converter. If the output voltage is below the 0.9V threshold, the controllers throw a switch and release a packet of energy. Then they perform another measurement and if necessary, another packet is released. For simple local circuits, the controller might release up to a couple of hundred of packets per second but if the controller is feeding a radio, it can increase the packet released up to a million per second.

The method however, lowers the converter’s efficiency, hence the researchers have outfitted the divider by a block of additional circuit elements which control and limit access to the divider only for the required measurement. The result is a 50 percent reduction in quiescent power over even the best previously reported experimental low-power, step-down converter and a 10x expansion of the current-handling range. The application is wide and the results also open up the possibility of new types of energy harvesting sources due to its efficiency, including body-powered electronics.

Ron Perillo

Disqus Comments Loading...

Recent Posts

Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 5090 Possible Price Revealed

According to a new report, the GeForce RTX 5090 GPU will be very expensive. It…

4 hours ago

AMD Krackan Processor with 6 Zen 5 and Zen 5c Cores for Budget AI Laptops Leaked

A new AMD processor in the form of an engineering model has been leaked in…

4 hours ago

SK Hynix Begins Production of First 321-Layer NAND Chips

SK Hynix has claimed to be the first company to mass-produce 321-layer NAND memory chips.…

4 hours ago

Trust Gaming GXT 609 Zoxa 2.0 PC Speakers

SOUNDS GREAT – Full stereo sound (12W peak power) gives your setup a booming audio…

9 hours ago

PowerA Wired Controller for Nintendo Switch

Special Edition Yoshi design Ergonomic controller shape with Nintendo Switch button layout Detachable 10ft (3m)…

9 hours ago

Logitech G Saitek PRO Flight Rudder Pedals

Fluid Motion: These flight rudder pedals are smooth and accurate that enable precise control over…

9 hours ago