A signal is an electromagnetic or electrical current that carries data from one system or network to another. In electronics, a signal is often a time-varying voltage that is also an electromagnetic wave carrying information, though it can take on other forms, such as current. There are two main types of signals used in electronics: analog and digital signals. This article discusses the correspond...

The explosive growth of cloud services has driven major advances in datacenters, as well as networking and telecom equipment. Innovative demands impact the servers, storage, and networking switches that process these ever-increasing amounts of data. Infrastructure equipment is being pushed to its limits in terms of processing power and bandwidth. For power designers, the main challenge is how to e...

Last week, the list of the 2018 World Electronics Achievement Awards was unveiled at the Global Double Summit hosted by ASPENCORE, the world's largest media group in the field of electronic technology. The MP2888A from MPS won the title of "Power Management/Voltage Converter of the Year" as the industry's first 10-phase digital controller. MPS becomes one of only three companies that have won this...

PFC converters are widely used in the industry to provide DC output voltage from the main lines, and to maintain a high power factor (PF) and low current distortion at the same time. In some of these applications, such as telecom, server, workstation power supplies, and plug-in electric vehicles, the active input power needs to be measured in real time in order to monitor energy consumption, as we...

Over recent decades, server and computing system complexity has increased alongside power delivery (PD) requirements. This makes regulator design more challenging because it requires a tradeoff between higher efficiency and a fast dynamic response, as well as between reduced power loss and the size of the MOSFETs. Servers require power supplies with high current, low voltages, and fast transient ...

In recent years, the artificial intelligence (AI) and big data industries have rapidly innovated and developed 5G communication technologies, Internet of Everything (IoE), and the intelligent world. For cloud computing applications in particular, the demand for quick data processing across datacenters and private servers has reached unprecedented heights. To meet future demands for these applicati...

Servers and racks used in datacenters have undergone a considerable increase in power, going from a few hundred watts to multiple kilowatts. The distribution of these higher power levels on multiple servers inevitably generates greater power losses and hinders efficiency. This aspect can be mitigated by transiting from a traditional 12V distribution voltage to 48V. The increase in distribution vo...