LabAdviser/Technology Research/Nanofabrication of Inductive Components for Integrated Power Supply On Chip
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Nanofabrication of Inductive Components for Integrated Power Supply On Chip
- Project type: Ph.d project
- Project responsible: Hoà Lê Thanh
- Supervisors: Flemming Jensen (Main), Anpan Han (Co), Ziwei Ouyang (Co), Arnold Knott (CO)
- Partners involved: DTU Danchip, DTU Elektro
Project description
Power supplies converting high AC power (100-240V) to lower, DC voltages (1-12V), play an important role in products such as LED lightning, intelligent and energy saving control electronics, and computer/cell phone battery chargers. While the electronics have developed rapidly and significantly reduced their physical size and manufacturing cost, the power supply technologies have been lagging behind in the last 10 years. There is a consensus in the electronics industry to make the power supply smaller, lighter, and cheaper. TinyPower is a project with commercial potential with an ambition of developing the world’s smallest SMPS with power density up to 4 W/cm3 It might be a promising bridge catching up with the dramatic growth in electronic technologies and linking to a potentially large market of smart devices. One example is the potential market for small (<5 Watt) off-line (AC to DC) power supplies which has been predicted to grow towards 2020. This project focuses on engineering integrated inductive components using advanced micro- and nanofabrication technologies with the ultimate goal of commercialization of TinyPower’s supply. The inductors fabricated in the footprint less than 5mm2 will operate at ultrahigh frequency (UHF) domain (0.3 to 3 GHz) and will be able to carry the input current of 1A and output power of 5W. Since inductive devices are the most voluminous components in the SMPS, therefore, the reduction in inductor size could therefore enable a significant contribution to the overall system size. Using miniaturized inductors also facilitates manufacture, reducing the manufacturing costs, and thus yielding mass production of power supplies. The project objectives are described as follows:
1. High performance air-core inductors (Q>10, L>10nH) dedicated for operating at UHF domain (300 MHz – 3000 MHz) 2. High power density (efficiency > 90%, > 4W/cm3): manufacture of the inductors able to drive power of 5 W (1A, 5V) in an area of less than 5 mm2 is feasible. 3. Good stability and life-time: the inductors are purely made of copper (conductive winding) and silicon (substrate and anchors) without using polymer-based materials for good robustness and stability.