The broader impact/commercial potential of this project will enhance scientific and technological understanding in the power electronics industry and has the potential to improve performance, electrical efficiency, and provide space and cost savings. This control-based solution will provide a new option for the power electronics community at a time when electronic devices are increasing in complexity and experiencing greater performance demands. There are numerous applications for this technology, including consumer electronics, smartphones, portable computers, telecommunications equipment, servers and data centers, electric vehicles, renewable energy systems, and defense applications. The technology is power level agnostic, and can be applied to chip (semiconductor) devices as well as high voltage grid power systems. For these sectors, energy consumption, cost and the physical size of the power circuitry are of paramount concern. Even the smallest reduction in these areas is highly sought after.
This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project seeks to improve efficiency, save space, and lower the overall cost of power circuitry by eliminating power architectures composed of multiple converters and replacing them with high performance multiple-output converters, converters that can do the job of 2-4 individual converters. Currently, power architectures in electronic equipment use multiple individual converters, sometimes as many as 60-100 depending on the application. Other attempts at multiple-output converters have been extremely complicated designs with low performance. This approach focuses on the mathematical fundamentals of power conversion by creating a new power control methodology that simultaneously controls each voltage output, while also providing high stability and performance. This research is expected to produce a 3 output digitally controlled buck converter that uses a single inductor and has better electrical efficiency, requires less space, and costs less than 3 separate converters.
