North Carolina State University engineering professor Jayant Baliga is directing research into a new power supply he hopes will help high-powered PCs keep their cool.
The new device, called the Trench MOS barrier Schottky rectifier (TMBS), swaps out the standard diode - a two-terminal semiconductor that restricts the flow of energy to a single direction - for a new one that reduces the overall power consumption of PCs by 60 percent.
Baliga said the problem with today's power supplies, the central source of power for a PC, is that they lose 18 to 20 percent of the power that passes through their circuits.
To provide power to a PC, a power supply must first convert 120-volt alternating current from a standard electrical outlet to roughly 3.3 volts of direct current. In the process, 5 watts of energy [0.5 volts] is lost as heat, said Baliga, director of the Power Semiconductor Research Center.
The TMBS reduces the heat loss to only 2 watts. Baliga believes this new power supply will allow computer makers to continue their march to progressively faster devices.
The power supplies should be ready for the market within two years.
