SBIR Phase I: Switching-Free DC Voltage Conversion

该小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛影响将是为受电气噪声，电磁干扰，大尺寸影响的电气元件引入革命性的新技术，以及与某些元件相关的高物料成本。 这将对要求苛刻的军事、医疗和通信应用中的噪声敏感电路产生重大影响。大幅减少的占地面积和元件数量将使电子电路更小，更轻，成本更低，对便携式消费电子产品和物联网设备等广泛的技术产生积极影响。该项目开发的独特创新将使集成电路在更低的发热和更高的系统效率下具有更好的性能。这项新技术可以用现有的工艺制造，从而实现大批量、可靠和低成本的商业组件。拟议的项目将创建第一个能够提供高效电压上转换和下转换而无需开关的稳压器电路的演示。该技术使用光子在一种新颖的电压调节器架构中倍增或分压。该研究将解决实现高效率的主要技术挑战，包括光子产生，光子转移和光电器件内的电能转换。最小化光和电损耗对于实现高效率电压调节器电路至关重要，这对许多DC-DC转换应用至关重要。该研究将研究半导体光发射器的非辐射损耗，减少光损耗的光子管理策略，以及最大限度地减少载流子收集和串联电阻损耗的电气设备设计。最后，这些方面将被组合成一个功能齐全的电压调节器电路，旨在展示效率高达85%的纯直流电压上变频。为了实现这一目标，该项目采用了先进的光电器件设计和建模、商业外延、先进的化合物半导体制造、半导体材料和器件表征以及模拟电路建模和开发。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will be the introduction of a revolutionary new technology for electrical components affected by electrical noise, electromagnetic interference, large footprint, and high bill of materials costs associated with certain components. This will have a major impact for noise-sensitive circuits in demanding military, medical and communication applications. The dramatically reduced footprint and component count will enable smaller, lighter and lower-cost electronic circuits, positively impacting a wide range of technologies, such as portable consumer electronics and Internet-of-Things devices. The unique innovation developed in the project will enable integrated circuits with improved performance at lower heating and higher system efficiencies. This novel technology can be manufactured with existing processes, enabling high volume, reliable and low-cost commercial components.The proposed project will create the first demonstration of a voltage regulator circuit able to provide efficient voltage up-conversion and down-conversion without switching. The technology uses photons to multiply or divide voltage within a novel voltage regulator architecture. The research will address the main technical challenges to achieving high efficiency, including photon generation, photon transfer and conversion to electricity within optoelectronic devices. Minimizing optical and electrical losses is crucial to achieving a high efficiency voltage regulator circuit, critical to many DC-DC conversion applications. The research will study non-radiative losses in semiconductor light emitters, photon management strategies to reduce optical loss, and electrical device design to minimize carrier collection and series resistance losses. Finally, these aspects will be combined into a fully functional voltage regulator circuit, aiming to demonstrate purely DC voltage up-conversion with efficiencies as high as 85%. To accomplish this, the project uses advanced optoelectronic device design and modeling, commercial epitaxy, advanced compound semiconductor fabrication, semiconductor material and device characterization, and analog circuit modeling and development.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.