New York, New York, March 4, 2014 – A joint collaboration between the University of Toronto and Sendyne Corp. has yielded a new circuit that enables a smaller, lighter battery and power subsystem for tablet PCs and other portable devices.
The volume occupied by the power supply circuit has been a limiting factor for miniaturization of the electronics in mobile devices. Current power supply designs occupy anywhere between 20% and 80% of the volume of such devices, depending on the application. A significant portion of this volume is determined by the size of inductors and capacitors used in such power supply circuits.
The circuit to be presented at APEC 2014 addresses these issues. This topology consumes less power than would normally be required to maintain stable DC bus voltage output of the battery subsystem in portable devices, and achieves a 9X reduction in size and cost of the output capacitor. As the trend in new device design is to utilize dual cell batteries for optimization of power delivery and cell life, the new architecture also provides for inexpensive, lossless balancing of the batteries in dual cell systems. Experimental results obtained from an 8-12 V, 20 W, 250 KHz prototype demonstrate a peak efficiency of 93.4%.
The new topology will be presented at the IEEE Applied Power Electronics Conference (APEC) and Exhibition in Fort Worth, Texas, on Thursday, March 20th, 2014. IEEE APEC is considered the world’s premier power electronics event. The presentation is entitled, “Assisting Converter Based Integrated Battery Management System for Low Power Applications.”
Leading the project team is Professor Aleksandar Prodic, from the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department of the University of Toronto. He is the founder of the Laboratory for Power Management and Integrated SMPS, where the development is taking place. Dr. Prodic, a recipient of several IEEE awards and distinctions, is an expert in power system design. During APEC 2014 he will offer a seminar on design of high power density switch-mode power supplies.
About Sendyne
Sendyne develops key semiconductor components and advanced circuits for the management of battery systems used for grid storage and EVs, as well as innovative tools for battery system design and optimization.
About the University of Toronto
The University of Toronto has assembled one of the strongest research and teaching faculties in North America, presenting top students at all levels with an intellectual environment unmatched in breadth and depth on any other Canadian campus.
University of Toronto faculty co-author more research articles than their colleagues at any university in the US or Canada other than Harvard. As a measure of impact, U of T consistently ranks alongside the top five U.S. universities whose discoveries are most often cited by other researchers around the world. The University of Toronto faculty is also widely recognized for their teaching strengths and commitment to graduate supervision.
Established in 1827, the University of Toronto today operates in downtown Toronto, Mississauga and Scarborough, as well as in nine renowned academic hospitals.
