Page 15 - EngineerIT September 2022

ICT

Possible options and advances in wireless communications grid system. Improvements in power management technology
technology are endless. ADI’s deep domain knowledge are necessary as some data centres consume as much
spans across industries and technologies, electricity as a small city of 80 000 people.
providing perspectives and solutions to 205 Terawatt Hours “ADI brings added value by providing
meet these systems’ growing demands. The amount of electricity the high density, fast response solutions to
Insights include alternative ways of world’s data centres consumed in 2018 power the advanced ASICs, CPU and
system packaging to impact size, McCormick School of Engineering and GPU, which are needed to process all
weight and power that produce a this data,” said Gary Sapia. Application
smaller footprint, lower component Applied Science, specific integrated circuits, custom
count, and smaller board area impact. Northwestern University designed for a particular use, are the
Reducing the board’s size has the added biggest power consumers. For the same
value of freeing up space to include new amount of power, ADI’s solutions help by reducing
technologies or additional functionality such as artificial power conversion losses and lowering heat dissipation.
intelligence (AI) and speech recognition.
What’s in a google search?
Eliminating the noise When you search a picture, for example “all dogs with flat
Electronic technology products require a variety of voltages noses,” the search engine goes out, crunches the information,
and currents to operate. Efficient power conversion is key to a and finds it very rapidly from a selection of perhaps two billion
well-run system and this means that high frequency switching choices. This effort requires a special heavy duty processing
power conversion is needed. A drawback to high frequency engine, searching an enormous data base that employs artificial
switching is the generation of electromagnetic noise interference intelligence (AI).
(EMI) in the RF range. This EMI interference can disrupt the
function of highly sensitive devices such as the RF transceiver
embedded in a 5G network. ADI’s Silent Switcher series of power
converters operate at high frequency while maximising efficiency
– generating the industry’s lowest electromagnetic interference
(EMI). This results in a more robust communication link in
cellphone network equipment.
The 5G radio installation is responsible for delivering cell
and internet services worldwide, allowing workers, friends and
family to stay in touch. The promise of a globally connected
future will undoubtedly have a massive impact on how the
world’s population will live, learn, work and play. Fifth generation All these operations require a network of machines to ramp up
wireless technology will require significant advances in power very rapidly to perform the task, resulting in a rapid spike in power.
electronics to achieve this goal and reliability will be critical, as Spiking power means spiking current. It’s similar to pushing
lives may depend upon it. the pedal of your car’s accelerator – the fuel injector opens up
and sprays gas into the engine, taking you across the finish line.
When clicking ‘search’, you are essentially pushing the accelerator,
fueling many servers with power. These machines need lots of
current to execute your request – and they need it now!
To manage current demand in a very short period of time
requires special systems that operate with high efficiency
and very high bandwidth. ADI’s monolithic integration and
proprietary coupled inductor technology allows these stringent
requirements to be met, while delivering superior efficiency
and reducing power consumption. Whatever your vantage
Many 5G applications are mission critical and always on. Healthcare point, wherever you look, the need to reduce size, weight and
workers and emergency responders rely on technology for critical power remains a constant for data centres and for all of the
communication and incident alert management.
communications industry.
ADI’s system of circuitry and connectivity products includes
Data centres: the backbone of cloud computing integrated circuits (ICs) that manage system information control,
The need for on-demand data and storage by businesses and data collection and translation, high accuracy data sensors,
consumers is increasing exponentially. To meet these demands, RF radio solutions and high efficiency power conversion. All
a significant increase in power will be required by data centres. this is packaged as discrete reference designs and in highly
This means efficient power conversion is a critical factor in integrated application specific module systems solutions known
managing the power demand on our already strained power as µModule.

EngineerIT | September 2022 | 13