new 30MHz to 300MHz switcher - worlds smallest laptop adapter

Hi,

Here's a new SMPS switcher apparently coming out next year for laptops:

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It apparently has a "power reclaiming scheme" for higher efficiency, would this be conventional sync rectification or some other thing?

It looks like power electronics is in for a big (r)evolution once the

300MHz+ designs start to spread!

cheers, Jamie

Reply to
Jamie M
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On a sunny day (Tue, 24 Dec 2013 20:29:14 -0800) it happened Jamie M wrote in :

After following the links and reading up on the professor, it seems they use some transformerless on chip converter. Obviously there must be some magnetics somewhere for mains isolation... But maybe at these high frequencies charge can be stored in on chip caps, and diodes replaced by switching transistors (synchronous rectifiers).

He got 9 million $ funding, has to sell a lot of cheap converters to break even, not counting his own pay. Laptop converters go for 12$ or so on ebay, And not 2 models are the same.

be a while before his chips are on ebay ?

Maybe at 300 MHz just air coupled transformers (just a few turns) would work, no magnetic losses. But that could be done with a current sine wave resonant design. Not sure anybody wants to fork out 9 M$ for me to design one, :-)

Reply to
Jan Panteltje

There are "universal" converters, that apparently more-or-less work fairly well.

Not sure that follows.

You could try crowdfunding if you were interested. Those bricks are a real PITA. A lot of people would shell out $50 or $100 if it made the problem disappear. It wouldn't have to be revolutionary technology, just a different trade-off (and probably some kick-ass styling and slick videography/photography to sell it).

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

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Reply to
Spehro Pefhany

Ordinary MOSFET at 300 Mhz?

Reply to
Artem

On a sunny day (Wed, 25 Dec 2013 06:54:40 -0500) it happened Spehro Pefhany wrote in :

Yes, but then will be overkill for some lower power devices. Will his efficiency hold at lower power levels? Does he have a way to realize different output voltages and current limits?

In the sixties I build a 14 MHz(?IIRC) 500 W linear (tube) amp with the tank coil of just a few turns on a ceramic former. The losses in that 'transformer' were null, zero, you could put a screwdriver in it though, and it would get really hot. I once put a neon tube in the tank coil, and it got to some exited state all of the sudden, that night I dreamt about lasers...

So it could, at 30 to 300 MHz be just some PCB coils on each side of the PCB for mains side and low power side, PCB as safety barrier.

Yes good idea... but the bricks do not bother me, my laptop is much bigger... And I am now working on my air speed meter....

One thing that professor may also have to solve, is that his 'invention' looks like a 120 V gadget. Finding those same semiconductors and using the same methods for rectified 230 V may be a different story.

Reply to
Jan Panteltje

On a sunny day (Wed, 25 Dec 2013 04:27:09 -0800 (PST)) it happened Artem wrote in :

No need for a MOSFEt, transistor would do.

Reply to
Jan Panteltje

RF transistors usually low voltages.

Reply to
Artem

On a sunny day (Wed, 25 Dec 2013 04:46:36 -0800 (PST)) it happened Artem wrote in :

Yes true, but high voltage type exist, for example the old video output drivers, although low current, 100 mA at 230 V is already 23 W. There are better ones too these days. No need for high power transistors on the mains side, especially if losses are low, like he claims.

Reply to
Jan Panteltje

  1. It's only for 110v power grid.
  2. Bandwidth TV only 6.5 Mhz.
  3. Efficiency will be low because transistor in linear mode.
Reply to
Artem

On a sunny day (Wed, 25 Dec 2013 05:14:48 -0800 (PST)) it happened Artem wrote in :

That is too small a market for an adaptor to break even on the 9 mega $.

CRT drivers for the late SVGA video monitors go way above 250 Mhz (pixel clock).

Normally everybody screams: 'switcher switcher switcher'. Switcher transistors have an efficiency problem if they cannot switch fast enough, power is dissipated during the on and of switching times.

I was proposing (I dunno about that professor), to use a SINE wave converter. I grew up with sine waves in high power, stabilizers too (was it not called 'Westat'?), the energy is in the LC. I have designed that kind of converters with really good efficiency for lower frequencies, with magnetic (pot, E) cores. But those are for one fixed output voltage, not easy to adjust, except perhaps by using taps on the coils and different capacitor values, mechanical voltage selector switches would be required.

But hey, I want 4.5 mega dollars in advance, and teh other 4.5 mega dollars on delivery of a fixed voltage prototype,... ;-)

Seems to me the whole thing is just a student project they should figure it out some day.

Remember MIT is the same club that re-invented Tesla's wireless power transfer (and sold it to Boeing IIRC). Not seen it used yet. So, what shall I do with 9 million, I have already eaten enough for the Christmas, not hungry, I need some winter boots, in case it ever snows here again in winter.

Oh and a yacht to sail around the world too of course, come to think of it I could want to drive one of those new Tesla electric cars, and next year I should buy more Christmas candy, as it was already all eaten up before today. So.. :-)

Reply to
Jan Panteltje

Yes. And main benefit of resonant converter is decreasing switching losses by switching when current is minimum. For linear amplifier theoretical efficiency only 78.5%

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Reply to
Artem

On a sunny day (Wed, 25 Dec 2013 06:00:53 -0800 (PST)) it happened Artem wrote in :

It is interesting, I have read the discussion by Einstein and the guys who came up with the Copenhagen interpretation, see quantum mechanics.... And Einstein said: "God does not play dice", the reply from the QM club was: "Do not keep telling God what he can do and cannot do." So in that context, lets talk about the laws of nature. Can we change the laws of nature?: "No" Is God corrupt? Well, for 4.5 million dollars up front he _could_ change some laws of nature. No? "Do not keep telling God what he can and cannot do"

Anyways I personally do not believe in the Copenhagen interpretation... But a lot of people have played with that theory and been funded by much more.

MIT is payed with public money, and where is the circuit diagram?

And we are not designing a linear amplifier...

Reply to
Jan Panteltje

However annoying patents are, these things are always patented, and have to be. These guys filed in 2009. Without patents it wouldn't make sense to do all that work--make all that investment--only to have it ripped off the nanosecond you ship.

The front end is a capacitive charge pump that charges many capacitors and switches in series, then flips another set of switches to discharge the caps in parallel, creating a raw output. A synchronous buck efficiently regulates the rough voltage thus created down to the desired output.

It runs the switches and caps at HV in series, so only low voltage switches are needed. Ditto for the finishing regulator.

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The main inventive notion here seems to have been getting the operations within the range of fast, low-voltage elements.

I haven't looked at it in depth yet..time for Christmas!

Cheers, James Arthur

Reply to
dagmargoodboat

On a sunny day (Wed, 25 Dec 2013 06:32:57 -0800 (PST)) it happened snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote in :

The main problem with that kind of circuit is getting it approved from the point of view of mains insulation. Couple of kV spike on the mains should _not_ make it through to the device powered from it.

The Tesla wireless transfer re-invention would not meet any local regulation in Europe for RF field intensity. I doubt this invention would, without any real transformer, be allowed. Would it survive a few kV test between input and output? Remember the output power connector can be touched by the user.

Pity I cannot see the pictures in that patent in my browser.

Reply to
Jan Panteltje

Sounds like yet more MIT vaporware. I doubt that 0.1% of MIT's press-release inventions ever work.

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John Larkin                  Highland Technology Inc 
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Reply to
John Larkin

Tulane doesn't even have vaporware >:-}

Tons of MIT's "vaporware" patents can be found in modern flat-screen TV's, mostly from MIT's Media Lab. ...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | 
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

..

Or, Google patents.

Joe Gwinn

Reply to
Joe Gwinn

Or this one (my favorite)...

Wild looking front end in Patent 8212541... that must be the "vaporware" that larkin can't understand >:-} ...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | 
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

On a sunny day (Wed, 25 Dec 2013 12:12:59 -0500) it happened Joe Gwinn wrote in :

Thank you, that is cool, forgot all baout that site. Yes it is like I thought it is, no mains isolation, this will never even pass a real test for certification here.

Or am I missing some alien physics?

Reply to
Jan Panteltje

Unless they replace the synchronous buck with some sort of isolated converter, there's nothing but silicon between the AC line and the customer. That will never pass CE or UL, or a simple hipot test.

And there's nothing about this "new circuit" that lets it run efficiently at 300 MHz. All I see there is a synchronous buck with a step-wise pre-regulator.

These gee-whiz inventions mostly fade away in a couple of years. It would be interesting to do a long-term study of the ratio of press-release inventions to commercial products.

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John Larkin                  Highland Technology Inc 
www.highlandtechnology.com   jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com    
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Reply to
John Larkin

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