CamSemi unveils power supply control IC

LONDON — Fabless startup Cambridge Semiconductor Ltd. has unveiled details of its first product, a mixed-signal controller IC for switched-mode power supplies that it expects will help companies produce much more energy-efficient equipment.

However, the company has opted not to integrate the control circuitry with power transistors, the capability the company was founded to exploit in August 2000 and subsequently branded as its PowerBrane technology.

"We are continuing to develop the PowerBrane technology and we see it as part of the long-term value of the business," David Baillie, CEO of CamSemi (Cambridge, England), told EE Times. He added: "We have demoed it and we can provide parts but it's not a product."

Baillie said that when the company approached early-adopter customers the demand for the control technology persuaded the company to bring it to market in advance of other product developments.

As a result C2470 series of controllers is already in volume production. The parts are being deployed within a resonant single-switch, feed-forward power supply topology, an architecture CamSemi claimed has never been applied in an integrated form for off-line ac-to-dc power conversion.

This use of SMPS for the 6- to 40-W range should allow manufacturers of chargers, adapters and embedded power supplies to achieve operating efficiencies in excess of 80 percent and 100-mW standby power consumption, CamSemi said.