iWatt opens Chinese design center

LONDON — Digital power IC vendor iWatt Inc. has opened a design center in the Shenzhen Science Park in Shenzhen, China. The center is inteneded to support Asian manufacturers of solid-state lighting, mobile phone chargers and network adapters, the company said.

Founded in 2000, iWatt (Los Gatos, Calif.) has consolidated two existing Shenzhen design teams at the new location said it plans to add 20 field applications engineers to the team during 2010.

Asia is becoming a leading design center for LED-based solid-state-lighting and is already the established base for mobile phone charger design. The markets iWatt has traditionally served include low-power ac/dc ICs up to 5-watts for mobile phone chargers and up to 40-W for network adapters. With iWatt's recent diversification to include AC-DC LED driver ICs for dimmable LEDs the company is positioned to tap into growing conservation initiatives worldwide to replace existing incandescent bulbs with more energy-efficient LEDs. iWatt estimates that growth markets such as LED lighting and LCD televisions will make up 30 percent of its sales.

iWatt uses adaptive digital control algorithms to replace traditional analog control. This technology delivers size, cost and efficiency improvements, and lowers standby power, the company claimed.