A New Power Architecture with Wireless Feedback Control for Next Generation Server Power System

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With the exponential growth in internet / wireless applications, more and more servers, including data centers, data storage, cloud storage and others, have been built to process the ever-increasing network traffic. Multiple Point of Load power supplies are used in the motherboard to provide regulated voltages to CPU (Central Processing unit), GPU (Graphic Processing Unit), RAM (Random Access Memory), and other digital circuits. It takes long time to design such a power supply system to meet the requirement. In a lot of cases, the design time for the power system becomes the bottle neck in the product development schedule. Therefore, it is very important to reduce the power system design time in order to reduce the product development time.In this research program, a radically new power architecture will be proposed to significantly reduce the power system design time. With the new architecture, feedback signals between the Power Processing Cell (PPC) and Central Control Unit (CCU) will be communicated wirelessly without any Printed Circuit Board (PCB) tracks. Three major benefits can be obtained. The first benefit is much shorter power system design time because all the features of the power system can be programmed with software and no hardware links (i.e. no PCB tracks) between PPC and CCU are needed. The second benefit is lower system cost because standardized PPC and CCU can be designed and made in large quantity, which can reduce the unit cost. The third benefit is extreme flexibility because the functions of the power system can be changed with software and no hardware change is needed.This research program will develop all the technologies to implement the proposed power architecture with wireless feedback control, such as partitioning of PPC and CCU, wireless communication strategy between PPC and CCU, and minimum data transmission technologies to ensure highly reliable operation of the power systems. An experimental power system will also be built to demonstrate the feasibility and advantages of the new power architecture. It is expected that several fundamental patents in the wireless feedback control field will be filed through PARTEQ Innovation (commercialization / patent division of Queen’s University) to protect the intellectual property.In this research program, four PhD students, five master students and ten undergraduate students will be trained in areas of switching power supplies, digital control technology, wireless feedback control, analysis and design of digital feedback systems, firmware and software programming skills, as well as server power system requirement, hardware debugging skills. They will play very important roles in developing and commercializing the new power architecture for next generation server and data center power systems.Power system for server and data center is a multi-billion dollar business. During the transformation from old wired architecture to the new wireless architecture, new business opportunities will be created for Canadian companies and businesses. The HQP trained in this research program will help Canadian power design centres lead the world in developing next-generation power systems with wireless feedback control. Canada will become an international leader in this field with this revolutionary new technology, which will bring job creation and a competitive edge for Canada in this multi-billion dollar industry.