Green power takes center stage

Energy conservation has become a major focus for electronic products no matter where they are to be sold around the world. Legislation and customer pressure are both working to ensure greener operation.

In the European Union, for example, under the EcoDesign Directive, manufacturers of energy-related products need to be able to demonstrate they have taken environmental factors into account. The European Commission has introduced a number of ‘implementing measures’ that specify the kinds of actions that manufacturers of electrical and electronic equipment need to put in place to improve their environmental performance.

The first implementing measure to be put in place focused on standby power consumption. The first move was to cut power consumption when devices are switched off to 1 W or less and to 2 W for systems running in standby mode. From the start of next year, these limits are halved to 0.5 W and 1 W, respectively. Other legislation focuses on power-factor correction (PFC) to ensure that electronic devices and lighting systems do not adversely affect the electricity supply.

Power Integrations has developed a range of components to target the increasingly stringent requirements for standby power and PFC. The company’s SENZero and LinkZero devices provide the building blocks needed to cut standby and off-mode power dramatically. For better PFC performance, Power Integrations has developed the Qspeed advanced diodes. These diodes combine an extremely low reverse recovery charge (QRR) with a very soft recovery waveform. By replacing existing ultra-fast diodes with the Qspeed devices, manufacturers can improve the efficiency of PFC circuits and switching power supplies by a significant factor and run cooler by more than 50 percent.