A Fly On The Wall At A Poker Game

Making the laptop ac adapter more efficient is the next problem. Power’s already up to 120 W, they’re inside a block of plastic with no chance of a fan. It’s a tough problem. Synchronous rectification, components with lower switching losses, and turning off PFC at low loads all buy small efficiency gains, but it’s hard to say how far that will go. I asked various experts if they thought it was time for a radical shift in topology, something like Vicor’s factorized power. They told me they could not see the Asian OEMs reacting enthusiastically to any suggestions that might drive up the cost of ac adapters. I’m sure that’s a valid assessment of how the OEMs feel, but my hunch is that some engineers in the back room are playing with alternative approaches to ac-dc conversion. There were other presentations on power devices, magnetics, capacitors, and packaging that I may report on when I get copies of the presentations. But the two presentations that first made me think I was watching a poker game (in which the players were not necessarily showing all their cards) came from a couple of industry analysts.

Jeff Shepard of the Darnell Group and Mohan Mankikar of Micro-Tech Consultants had vastly different presentations, but they conveyed some common ideas. To me, they both seemed to be saying, “Hey, there are too many of you guys competing for slices from the same small pie. You need to look beyond your usual markets.” The new markets they suggested included supplies for compact fluorescent and LED lighting, inverters for alternative power, and controllers for white goods.

All three sounded good to me. For one thing, I’d just had a comprehensive briefing on LEDs from Cree the week before APEC, and I’m looking forward to a similar briefing from Lumileds. For another, while I was in Dallas for the conference, a contractor was installing solar panel brackets on my roof and a dc-ac inverter next to my service entry. And for yet another, I was anticipating the March 30 issue of Electronic Design, in which I had written an article that describes how International Rectifier was more or less betting the company on white goods (see Air Conditioner Chip Set Is Way Cool)

Yet after Jeff and Mohan had finished their presentations and the polite applause had died away, I heard not a peep for the rest of the day about lighting, alternate power, or white goods. Even as we separated into breakout groups to guessticate the next four years of power supplies, it seemed as if people were talking about “more of the same, only better.” Was it poker faces all around, or are power folks just ultra-conservative? Time will tell.