Data center operators can now approach an ideal power usage effectiveness (PUE) of 1.00 by utilizing the 48V Point of Load (POL) single-stage DC/DC regulator from Maxim Integrated Products, Inc.
Power delivery efficiency in data center equipment is at a tipping point. As cloud service power levels increase to support higher-performance processor and memory requirements, data center operators are striving for a PUE close to 1.00. With a PUE of 1.00, there would be no power loss, so all the energy would be used for data processing. With the most efficient data centers reaching the peak of a PUE of 1.1, the next level of IT infrastructure optimization is to reduce conversion stages and their associated losses. While two-stage power conversion (48V to 12V AC load) is a common architecture, its efficiency has peaked at approximately 90%.
Leveraging its expertise in power management, Maxim's scalable 48V solution breaks through efficiency, density, and transient performance barriers by utilizing integrated power and magnetism. The 48V to PoL (48V to load) conversion eliminates conversion loss and reduces power loss in distribution by a factor of 16 in a rack deployment, compared to 12V architectures.
