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An exotic material called gallium nitride (GaN) is poised to become the next semiconductor for power electronics, enabling much higher efficiency than silicon.
In 2013, the Department of Energy (DOE) dedicated approximately half of a $140 million research institute for power electronics to GaN research, citing its potential to reduce worldwide energy consumption. Now MIT spinout Cambridge Electronics Inc. (CEI) has announced a line of GaN transistors and power electronic circuits that promise to cut energy usage in data centers, electric cars, and consumer devices by 10 to 20 percent worldwide by 2025.
Power electronics is a ubiquitous technology used to convert electricity to higher or lower voltages and different currents—such as in a laptop's power adapter, or in electric substations that convert voltages and distribute electricity to consumers. Many of these power-electronics systems rely on silicon transistors that switch on and off to regulate voltage but, due to speed and resistance constraints, waste energy as heat.
CEI's GaN transistors have at least one-tenth the resistance of such silicon-based transistors, according to the company. This allows for much higher energy-efficiency, and orders-of-magnitude faster switching frequency—meaning power-electronics systems with these components can be made much smaller. CEI is using its transistors to enable power electronics that will make data centers less energy-intensive, electric cars cheaper and more powerful, and laptop power adapters one- third the size—or even small enough to fit inside the computer itself.
"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change electronics and to really make an impact on how energy is used in the world," says CEI co-founder Tomás Palacios, an MIT associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science who co-invented the technology.
[...] While GaN transistors have several benefits over silicon, safety drawbacks and expensive manufacturing methods have largely kept them off the market. But Palacios, Lu, Saadat, and other MIT researchers managed to overcome these issues through design innovations made in the late 2000s.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Gravis on Thursday July 30 2015, @05:51PM
the only thing this will result in is faster chips in servers. if there is one thing to be learned it's that data centers will use as much power as allowed as long as it's not cost prohibitive. that said, data centers should be forced to invest in solar panels to go on the roof because it's one place where they will be able to use the power without storing it.