Технологии

Eggtronic in Italy has launched the first in a series of highly integrated AC-DC converter technologies for simpler, higher efficiency chargers based around a customised RISC-V processor core.

“The QuarEgg technology was born to address the issues from quasi resonant and active clamp technologies,” said Igor Spinella, CEO and founder of Modena-based Eggtronic. This uses Zero Voltage Switching (ZVS) across the whole load, boosting the efficiency for chargers up to 45W.

“Then Q1 next year we will launch SmartEgg which is a single stage power factor correction (PFC) and power converter. Then there is the next one, ClassEgg, the longer term architecture to mimic class E operation which is a fully resonant architecture for higher power and when the load is always 50 percent above the nominal voltage.”

The single chip handles all three modes with different pinouts. “It’s the same chip with different configuration,” said Spinella. “We change the number of pins in the package but the chip has the full capability for PFC. We have in our roadmap a chip with higher performance.”

The RISC-V digital core from the Open Hardware Foundation is customised with extensions for the power conversion architecture. “It’s not exactly built from scratch but we have used extensions for optimisations,” he said. “The extensions are for our use and we are developing a complete environment for power conversion algorithms with ways to develop the control algorithms.”