Arunjai Mittal, senior vice president and general manager, Industrial & Multimarket Div, Infineon Technologies, believes the area of energy efficiency represents the largest growth driver for the power semiconductor business.
Where do you see the greatest potential for
energy savings, and what are the areas Infineon will focus on in the
future?Infineon's technologies minimize power dissipation and maximize energy savings throughout the entire value chain, from energy generation to energy distribution and consumption. The biggest consumers of electric power are motors, lighting and power supplies respectively.
According to the German Electrical & Electronic Manufacturers' Association (ZVEI), if the German industry would convert to electronically controlled drives to a level of 50%, electricity savings of 20% could be achieved. In numerical terms, this would amount to 22TWh annually or nine coal-fired power stations in the 400MW class that could be saved.
The potential that this improvement would allow at global level can be seen from the fact that currently only about 10% of electrical drives are estimated to be electronically controlled. Let us consider the example of power supply. According to various market research institutes, about 30 million servers were installed worldwide at end of 2006.
This figure is set to grow to more than 45 million units installed in 2011. A server consumes an average of 1,200W, which means global consumption of 36,000MW. Enhanced efficiency, for example, through deployment of our CoolMOS MOSFETs, could make a decisive contribution in this regard.
Yes, for the last five years we have maintained our pole position in the field of power semiconductors, according to IMS Research. Electronic controllers in electrical drive systems can yield large savings. There are two principal approaches for drive and motor systems. On the one hand, there is the energy optimization of traction drive systems in combination with braking power recovery.
On the other hand, in the area of conventional electrical drives, inverter technology and power electronics can reduce the individual consumption of such applications by up to 40%.
Environmental awareness and energy costs are growing. But it is not hybrid drives alone that help to reduce fuel consumption and emission of vehicles. Sensors, microcontrollers and power electronics are also contributing to improve conventional powertrain solutions by ideal fuel/air mixture in the engine, independent of the air pressure, and ensuring optimum power transfer and power consumption. Besides the powertrain domain there is significant improvement potential in areas such as tire pressure monitoring, reduced idle current in control units, EPS, fuel/water pumps and more energy-efficient alternators. A further 10% fuel efficiency improvement is estimated to be drawn from these fields. Infineon offers semiconductors for all of these applications.
MIPAQ modules - Modules Integrating Power, Application and Quality -
are a consistent evolution of our power
integration strategy that we have been pursuing for many years now.
After the integration of the rectifier diodes into the IGBT module,
Infineon is now offering products containing shunts for current
measurement (MIPAQbase, MIPAQsense). These shunts thermally benefit
from being mounted inside the module.
I also view the introduction of the MIPAQ family as a steady continued realization of our product portfolio strategy. MIPAQ products enable highly efficient power inverter designs to be used in Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS); industrial drives; solar power plants; and air conditioning systems.
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