STMicroelectronics chips improve energy efficiency in consumer electronics

STMicroelectronics chips improve energy efficiency in consumer electronics

STMicroelectronics, the world's leading semiconductor company serving multiple electronics applications, is enhancing the sustainability of personal computing products with its next-generation innovations. The new chip, called ST-ONE, will improve the energy efficiency of a variety of AC-DC adapters, fully compliant with the USB-PD 3.1 standard, including laptop and smartphone chargers. New adapters with ST-ONE reduce CO2 emissions and plastic consumption.

New chips from STMicroelectronics improve energy efficiency in consumer electronics

Although laptops offer optional power saving settings, each machine can save energy when equipped with a more efficient power adapter, thereby improving environmental conditions and CO2 emissions. The ST-ONE chip is optimized for power control, recovering the electrical energy normally dissipated as heat in conventional circuits. The product also simplifies circuit design and greatly reduces the number of power components, making this type of power supply more robust and economical, and will be more widely adopted in the market.

General Manager of STMicroelectronics Industrial and Power Conversion said: "If each power supply is designed with ST-ONE energy recovery circuits, the energy efficiency of power adapters can be improved by at least 1%, and the world can save about 93 trillion watt-hours of power. Equivalent to the output power of 15 nuclear power plants. “Furthermore, if 1 billion chargers in the world use our technology, 200,000 tons of plastic and raw materials can be saved. "

The reduction in consumables such as plastics is achieved by increasing so-called power density, which allows smaller components to handle higher power outputs. High power density also reduces recycling and environmental costs.

At the recent Embedded World trade fair in Nuremberg, Germany, STMicroelectronics showcased the EVLONE65W, a 65-watt USB-C laptop power adapter reference design that is the size and weight of a standard 20-watt smartphone charger Again, an ultra-high power density of over 1.8 watts per cubic centimeter was achieved.

Technical Information

ST-ONE is optimized for the new non-complementary active clamp flyback topology design, supports higher power, and has higher efficiency performance than other flyback topologies such as quasi-resonant flyback above 65W.

The chip is the world's first digital power controller that integrates a programmable offline power controller based on the Arm Cortex-M0+ core, a high-voltage startup circuit, a synchronous rectification controller and a USB power delivery (USB-PD) circuit in a single package.

ST-ONE contains all the peripherals needed to control power conversion. USB-PD communication is on the secondary circuit and provides reinforced galvanic isolation, allowing the primary and secondary circuits to communicate while complying with electrical safety requirements.

Also paired with MasterGaN, which integrates advanced wide-bandgap transistors and optimized GaN drivers, the adapter can operate at higher switching frequencies, allowing the use of smaller magnetics and maximizing power density.

ST-ONE is equipped with 64KB embedded flash memory for designers to customize USB-PD protocol and set power conversion parameters.