The AC Direct DC Enabler silicon chip enables dynamic delivery of DC power on demand.
The AC Direct DC Enabler silicon chip can take a wide range of input from 25VAC – 277 VAC and provide a DC output from 1.8V to 24V.
Amber Semiconductor’s AC direct DC power delivery technology is capable of extracting DC directly from AC Mains without the use of transformers, rectifier bridges, or filtering. The AC Direct DC Enabler silicon chip enables dynamic delivery of DC power on demand, moreover, it requires a lower number of components for achieving power conversion, thus reducing the size, cost and complexity of designing a power converter. The AC direct DC power delivery technology will enable engineers to develop low-cost, compact power supplies or products running on low-voltage DC, it is ideally suited for integration into a broad range of electrical products such as smoke detectors, doorbell cameras, thermostats, smart products, appliances, intelligent HVACR, etc.
“Achieving tape out is a key commercialization milestone for our breakthroughs that is not just important for AmberSemi, but also for our strategic partners and the industry as a whole, signalling a new era of solid-state electrification, a second electrical revolution of digital management of electricity,” said Thar Casey, CEO of Amber Semiconductor. “Our progress into the commercialization of our technologies is built upon a foundation of requirements defined and refined in conjunction with our strategic partners and over 30 successful technical evaluations with customers both in the U.S. and in Europe. These large companies have fully validated the use of AmberSemi’s technologies in discrete architecture, clearing the way to our manufacturing path in silicon.”
The AC Direct DC Enabler silicon chip can take a wide range of input from 25VAC – 277 VAC and provide a DC output from 1.8V to 24V. It will enable the electrical components industry by utilizing smaller-sized silicon chips and replacing the existing bulky electromechanical architecture that has been a bottleneck for power conversion technology for the last few decades. The chip requires 2.5x fewer components for the power delivered versus standard power supplies, thus reducing the electrical and thermal stress of critical components, making the system more reliable, cost-effective and compact.
Amber Semiconductor is a Dublin, CA-based company that develops innovative solid-state technologies for the digital control of electricity. The company’s disruptive breakthroughs change the electrical landscape forever worldwide.
Very cool!
Some more additional information:
The device converts a wide supply voltage range of 25 to 277 V ac, 50/60 Hz input to a regulated 1.8 V to 24 V dc, with a capability of up to 5 W of power across all voltages. In addition, two auxiliary regulated dc outputs providing 5.0 V and 3.3 V, respectively, are available.
Additional flexibility for system developers is afforded by the integrated SPI port, allowing for programmability of default values and accessibility to status bits within a control register file. Configuration of voltages, load current, and status monitoring of protection thresholds for current, voltage, and temperature operating parameters are determined by control bits within the register file, held in non-volatile memory.