PSMA Update

ecently PSMA published its biennial Power Technology Roadmap, The PTR 2015. Beginning in 1994, this is 9th edition of the Roadmap. Though originally started as a triennial project, the roadmap is now published once every two years, because of rapidly changing technology, quick obsolescence of existing technologies and ever widening scope of power/energy landscape.

The Technology Roadmap is an extensive report that not only projects forecasts of various power supply-related parameters, but also provides essays and presentations on various power supply-related technology topics. It is a multidimensional document that covers a wide spectrum of power supply related subjects in both a quantitative and qualitative manner. It is an anthology of power supply related technologies.

At the heart of the Roadmap report are the quantitative trends of important technical parameters such as efficiency, power density, control topologies and many other in four different power supplies. For the 2015 Roadmap Edition, these power supplies are: AC-DC front end, AC-DC external power supplies, isolated DC-DC converters and non-isolated, point of load converters (POLs). These four types of power supplies are selected because they currently represent the majority of product spectrum. They are offered by many power supply companies and widely used in many applications. The parametric trends are time-based and projected out to 2019. This is very useful for learning the trajectory of the power supply technologies for various aspects of product development. Though these are mostly technology related parameters, they are also useful in the marketing of power supplies. From that perspective, the Roadmap provides inputs for future product development and successful business practice.

The data and trends included in the Roadmap report are not easily available in the power supply industry, as it mainly consists of many small private companies. The information is generally not publicly or widely available and that can lead to wrong forecasts and computations. For example, not too long ago, during a Server Consortium meeting, some participants were using the baseline efficiency of a front-end power supply at 77 percent, and showed that an efficiency gain of 92 percent would result in "significant saving" in electricity use and resulting carbon emission. It was unknown to many of the participants that the front end power supply efficiency had already reached 88 percent at that time and the gain in efficiency would be of 4 percent instead of 15 percent, as initially forecasted. So the savings in electricity use and carbon emission would be less than predicted. A document like the PSMA Power Technology Roadmap would have come handy in their assumption, methodology and computation. Most participants in this meeting were server manufacturers, university professors and government agency representatives and their assumptions about existing power supply efficiency were arbitrary and not up to date.

The PSMA Power Technology Roadmap provides the time relevant objective market information, because the organizers and contributing participants are part of the power supply/electronics industry; the market data is from a wide number of sources directly involved in the respective industries.

Interestingly, the 2015 Roadmap also provides some retrospective analysis. An analysis was made of the projected data from previous roadmaps and checked against the current data to see if the projections were on track. For example, they looked at the efficiency projections forecasted in 2010 versus actual efficiency achieved in 2015. It was projected that for a 48 VDC front end power supply, the efficiency in 2015 would be 93 percent, while the actual efficiency in 2015 turned out to be 96 percent. So the projections were pessimistic in this case. Depending on the parameters, some projections were pessimistic and while others were optimistic. But the retrospective analysis provides a deeper understanding of various trends that should be helpful in future forecasting. In that respect, the PSMA 2015 Roadmap is an important report that can provide companies with technology data for benchmarking their current products, and technology trends for strategic planning.

In addition to the trend analyses, the PSMA 2015 Roadmap also contains essays and presentations on a wide variety of technology topics including: 3D packaging, power SoCs, additive manufacturing, high frequency magnetics, wireless charging, smart grid, energy storage and smart buildings. The scope of this report is very extensive and can be viewed in the table of contents at: www.psma.com/sites/default/files/uploads/psmaptr2015toc.pdf

Producing the biennial Power Technology Roadmap is one of the crowning achievements for PSMA. It is no easy task to organize and energize many participants to volunteer their time and efforts to produce a document that is as complex and comprehensive in a wide variety of power supply related technologies. Participating in this project in a true volunteer spirit as well as a great learning experience for the participants and the industry and is invaluable in understanding the technical evolution and applications of power supplies.

The views expressed in this article are solely of Mohan Mankikar. They do not represent the views of PSMA. Mohan Mankikar has been a part of the power supply industry for over thirty years. An active member of the PSMA since its founding, he had been a board member of the PSMA and currently serves on the Advisory Council. He can be reached at:
Micro-Tech Consultants
(707) 575-4820
MicroMohan@AOL.com