Chip measures data center and appliance energy use
New system-on-a-chip by Teridian Semiconductor is aimed at manufacturers of data center equipment and home automation technologies.
Using technology the company developed for its utility smart meters, Teridian Semiconductor’s 78M6612 chip could also play a role in managing IT energy costs. Annual costs for IT departments totaled more than $4.5 billion in the U.S. in 2006 according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) . Those costs are expected to exceed $7.4 billion by 2011.
Teridian claims its chip enables manufacturers to integrate smart energy measurement tools into data center equipment including power supplies, and communications equipment, as well as servers. The company’s system-on-a-chip can also be incorporated into home automation products and appliances, enabling consumers to accurately measure decreases in energy use that result from adding lighting or heating controls.
Teridian says its 78M6612 is a highly integrated, single-phase, power and energy measurement and monitoring system-on-a-chip which includes a 32-bit compute engine, an MPU core,
| Teridian Semiconductor’s 78M6612 system-on-a-chip for energy use monitoring. Source: Teridian Semiconductor. |
and real-time clock. Teridian’s single converter technology with a 22-bit delta-sigma ADC, 4 analog inputs, digital temperature compensation, and precision voltage reference supports a wide range of single phase, dual outlet power measurement applications, with few external components. Features include 32KB of Flash program memory, 2 KB shared RAM, three low power modes with internal timer or external event wake-up, 2 UARTs (universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter), I2C/Micro wire EEPROM I/F, and an in-system programmable Flash. Outlet measurement unit (OMU) and AC power monitor (AC-PMON) firmware is available and can be pre-loaded into the IC.
David Gruettler, chief technology officer at Teridian, emphasizes that the first step towards efficiency is measurement, “In order for consumers or enterprises to learn how to be more energy efficient, they must first have the ability to track and analyze the power they are using.”
– Edited by David Greenfield , editorial director
Control Engineering News Desk
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