About UsST's New High-Efficiency Smart Charger Chip for Mobiles and Laptops
The ST-ONE has the potential to save almost 100 terawatt-hours worldwide in charging costs
STMicroelectronics have released the new ST-ONE power-supply controller for improving energy efficiency in a wide variety of ac-dc adapters, including laptop and smartphone chargers. With improved charging efficiency, the energy required to charge devices is reduced, leading to savings in costs and reduced CO2 emissions.
The new ST-ONE chip combines with ST’s MasterGaN power output modules, which are based on advanced gallium-nitride (GaN) semiconductor technology. The GaN chips enable significant energy savings and smaller equipment dimensions.
Although laptops provide optional power-saving settings, every machine can save even more energy if equipped with a more efficient power adapter. The ST-ONE chip is optimized for controlling power supplies, reducing the energy normally dissipated as heat from conventional circuits and chargers. It also simplifies circuit design with a significant reduction in the number of components, enabling this type of power supply to become more robust, affordable and more widely adopted throughout the market.
“If every power adapter achieved at least 1% higher efficiency, which is possible using the ST-ONE energy-recovery circuit design, the world could save about 93 terawatt-hours of energy, equivalent to the output of 15 nuclear plants,” said Domenico Arrigo, Industrial and Power Conversion Division General Manager at STMicroelectronics. “In addition, if one billion chargers worldwide were to use our technology, 0.2 million tons of plastics and raw materials could be saved.”.
The reduction in consumption of materials such as plastics is achieved with the increase in so-called power density which reduces the size of the charger and subsequently, the amount of plastic required to manufacture the charger. A high power density also cuts down recycling and environmental costs.
Features of the ST-ONE Smart Charger Controller include:
- ZVS non-complementary active clamp flyback controller with synchronous rectification and USB-PD 3.1 PPS interface
- ARM® MCU for digital power control and USB protocolFW programmable secondary side MCU controls both synchronous rectifier and ZVS Active Clamp flyback on the primary side to improve system efficiency in every condition.
- High switching frequency operations in companion with MasterGaN power stage allow to use small size magnetic components, including planar transformers
- Reinforced galvanically isolated dual communication channel compliant with IEC 62368
- 800 V high voltage startup with integrated input voltage sensing and Brown-in/out functions
- Active input filter capacitor discharge circuitry for reduced standby power compliant with IEC 62368-1
- Fully Integrated USB-PD PHY with 24 V tolerant protection, and integrated load switch driver
More information on the ST-ONE Smart Charger Controller is available on the ST website at STMicroelectronics ST-ONE product page.
The STMicroelectronics website address is www.st.com
[Reprinted with kind permission from STMicroelectronics - Release Date, 20th June, 2022]