CamSemi touts energy efficient power converters

Cambridge-based semiconductor company CamSemi has today announced that it has secured $26m in venture capital funding which it will use to help commercialise its products for enhancing the energy efficiency of electronic devices.

The company, which earlier this month released its first family of products, offers so-called integrated circuit (IC) semiconductors that are used to control power conversion units found in consumer electronic products. It claims that its innovative chips combine with the company's new power conversion unit design to deliver energy efficiency rates of 80 per cent.

"The power conversion units that are needed to produce the lower voltages required to drive or recharge consumer electronic devices are hugely inefficient and turn a lot of the energy going in into waste heat," said Simon McKay at CamSemi. "The established approach is to use low-cost linear [power converter] designs that are just 50 per cent efficiency, while the alternative is to use more expensive SMPS [switch mode power supply] units that are 70 per cent efficient but more expensive."

Consequently, much of the energy drawn by consumer electronic devices is wasted with one study estimating that the standby usage of the UK's 25 million mobile telephone chargers alone consumes enough energy to power 16,000 homes for a year

CamSemi's ICs tackles this problem by enabling an alternative Resonant Discontinuous Forward Converter (RDFC) power unit design that produces more efficient SMPS units at the same price as linear units, McKay said. He added that that this approach also cuts the energy the unit consumes when on standby from the 1W used by linear designs to just 0.1W.

With the technology applicable to around 2.5 billion consumer electronic devices globally CamiSemi is confident it can deliver huge energy savings.

McKay said that latest investment round, which has been led by 3i and existing shareholders Scottish Equity Partners (SEP) and TTP Ventures, sees the Carbon Trust join as a new investor, would be used to develop the market for its new family of ICs and also fund future product development.

He hinted that such product development is likely to focus on energy efficient lighting as well as improved power conversion technologies.

"Our corporate line is to help manufacturers develop cost-effective power conversion and the two major opportunities for that technology is in power units and lighting," he said. "Ninety-five per cent of the power going into conventional bulbs is wasted as heat and while energy efficient bulbs are better, they still need power converters."