Digital power
Last year, EDN's power supplement discussed the still-young digital-power market in terms of overall market potential for digital controllers. Digital power has now matured to the point at which Gartner breaks out products by application type.
By Margery Conner, Technical Editor -- EDN, October 22, 2009
Last year,EDN's power supplement discussed the still-young digital-power market in terms of overall market potential for digital controllers. Digital power has now matured to the point at which Gartner breaks out products by application type (Table 1). One of the most promising applications is in consumer appliances, which includes washing machines and dishwashers. For these applications, growth will follow implementations of the Smart Grid and residential smart utility meters. The smart meters will communicate over wireless connections, such as ZigBee, or wired BPL (broadband power line) and manage home power use by, for example, ramping down the agitation speed on a clothes washer to conserve energy and reduce home electric bills during times of peak power usage.
Note that this forecast assumes that revenue for digital-power management will grow by cannibalizing revenue for some types of straight analog voltage regulators—mostly controllers but also some ac/dc and dc/dc converters.
