SBIR Phase I: Energy Efficient and Miniaturized Power Conversion

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project leverages the game changing Transformative Integrated Power Solution (TIPS?) power conversion technology, to bring a radical breakthrough to the traditional tradeoff between efficiency and circuit size, pushing this figure of merit to a new frontier. By storing the required energy primarily electrically (capacitive energy storage) rather than magnetically (inductive energy storage), harnessing a 1000x improvement in energy density, and using the adiabatic (lossless) mechanism to charge and discharge the capacitors, the novel TIPS? power conversion architecture is able to deliver miniaturized products of 30X smaller than the traditional approach, or cut the power losses due to conversion by 50- 75%, at cost parity. The project proposes a radically novel systems architecture for the data center market, and investigates the lower voltage end of the system, namely the 12:1 step down ratio necessary for servers. To de-risk the commercialization path, this project researches, designs and fabricates prototypes based on the TIPS? technology, by pushing the limit along three distinct dimensions: conversion efficiency, size, and cost. This project will generate a feasible 3D space of viable specifications to accelerate bringing this game changing technology to market. The broader impact/commercial potential of this project, enables commercial power conversion products, at no cost to the consumer, data center, or server manufacturer, that can save $1 billion a year in electricity cost, amounting to annual savings of 7 million tons of CO2 emissions worldwide. Data centers emit more heat and green house gasses than the entire airline industry worldwide. By 2020, data centers? energy consumption will exceed 200 billion kWhr per year. While server equipment spending has been declining, electricity spending has increased 10 fold over the last fifteen years, approaching $50 billion annually. More than 50% of this cost is due to power conversion losses and the resultant cooling needs. The TIPS? power converter technology can cut these power losses by 50%. Additionally, by enhancing the scope and technological understanding of this novel technology, and by making power conversion more efficient, significant value flows to numerous other markets, such as increased battery life in Mobile Devices ($3 billion), more power generated by Solar Cells (<$1 billion), extended driving range of Electric and Hybrid Vehicles ($0.2 billion), no standby losses in consumer electronics ($6 billion), and reduced component count and higher reliability in the Industrial and Measurement sector ($4 billion).