Power Integrations Inc. (San Jose, CA), a supplier of high-voltage integrated circuits used in power conversion semiconductor technology, reported that its high-voltage integrated circuits enable manufacturers to comply with energy-efficiency standards issued recently by the China Certification Center for Energy Conservation Products (CECP). The new standards address the energy consumption of external power supplies — the chargers and adapters that power cell phones, portable music players, digital cameras, cordless phones, portable games and many other devices.
The CECP standards are harmonized with standards implemented in recent months by the California Energy Commission, Energy Star and the European Union. The CECP conducts a voluntary program offering manufacturers incentives to produce environmentally friendly products. The standards include minimum operating-efficiency requirements at various levels of output power, and impose a maximum level of "no-load" power consumption. The standards effectively rule out the use of linear transformers, the copper-and-iron power supplies commonly sold as external adapters with many electronic devices.
"The effort to rid the world of the wasteful power supplies known as ‘energy vampires’ has gained considerable momentum in recent months," noted Power Integrations President and CEO Balu Balakrishnan. "Policy makers in many of the world’s largest markets, including China, have coalesced around a common set of efficiency standards that essentially rule out the use of linear transformers in external power supplies."
