CES 2012: Chip boosts adoption of digital control in ac/dc power conversion apps

The company will use a virtual 90W QRC power adapter to demonstrate its Green Power Processor (GPP) mixed signal controller, which is optimised for power conversion applications. According to Green Plug, using GPP's embedded tools to configure major design elements in real time, helps reduce power product development cycle time without increasing manufacturing costs. In contrast, changes to analogue circuits can take weeks. Frank Paniagua, founder and ceo of Green Plug, said: "Green Plug's approach is a novel architecture where a single controller can be rapidly adapted to meet the requirements of many different power supply topologies, including QRC, LLC, Half Bridge, Full Bridge and more. The GPP also offers the potential to use programming and high performance computing capability to develop new ways of delivering power. In the future, high switching frequencies for GaN devices may be ideal candidates for superior control algorithms possible with the GPP." Jeff Shepard, president of Darnell Group, a source for worldwide power electronics strategic information, added: "Digitally controlled architectures for power conversion have been used primarily in high end applications, but it is particularly efficient in applications featuring power factor correction (PFC). There is a growing correlation between PFC and digital power ICs designed for ac/dc power supplies. PFC is becoming a requirement in a growing number of ac/dc power supply applications, with efficiency gains possible when implementing advanced PFC topologies with digital control components."