Hardware design of a high power density point of load power supply

Abstract

In the 21st century, many people would probably scoff off the idea of living without technology. Many people would think that it is a crazy or impossible mission. This shows how we human beings are being over or highly dependent on technology such as laptop, handphone etc. Due to the advanced technology that has been given, our communication and lifestyles have improved greatly. Gone were the days where the only way to keep data records or information was writing manual on paper or book. The invention of servers enables us to get data and information regardless of the location, thus resulting to great demand for server power supplies. As the trend and development of Internet of Things and cloud computing becoming more popular and uprising in the 21st century, thus resulting greater demand of server power converters especially in the telecom base stations, data centres and automotive. These equipments are highly essential especially in these sectors as they rely heavily on it in order for their businesses to operate. Despite all the benefits and advantages, we must not neglect the disadvantages that it would bring. As big telecom companies’ uses server power supplies in big bulk, they tend to use more electricity. Therefore, in order not to waste electricity, Point-Of-Load converters are used in application as they have the capability to step voltages down from 48V to 3.3 and below. However, to match their demand of increasing load requirements, higher power density and efficiency Point-of-Load are needed. In order to meet power density and efficiency requirements, Gallium nitride (GaN) power transistors are introduced due to its ability to reduce losses and increasing operating frequency. In this project, the focus is designing the hardware of a Point-of-Load converter in a printed circuit board (PCB) by using PCB design techniques and consideration to improve the performance of the converter, which aims to have good power density, efficiency and large step-down.