July 24, 2014, Seoul – STMicroelectronics (ST), a global semiconductor company contributing to customers across various electronic applications, announced that energy efficiency can be improved by applying its newly released Digital Power microcontroller STM32F334 to the cloud, which drives the digital economy.

Currently, the scale of power consumed by digital infrastructure accounts for a significant portion of global electricity consumption. Data center power consumption alone is estimated to account for about 1.3% of total global electricity consumption, amounting to approximately 286,000 GWh annually. According to Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) calculations by the Uptime Institute, only about 40% of this is actually used productively, while the majority of the remainder is utilized to cool data centers using expensive, large-scale cooling systems. As the number of cloud users and cloud service usage surge and are expected to continue increasing, improving energy efficiency is inevitable.

According to the Uptime Institute, technologies such as digital control of computer power supply can improve data center efficiency by more than 60% by continuously adjusting supply according to fluctuations in power demand. ST's new microcontrollers simplify the data center industry's transition to energy-efficient digital power supplies, such as multi-phase interleaved or resonant soft switching (LLC), by providing all major power control functions on a single chip. The STM32F334 features a built-in high-resolution timer of 217 ps (picoseconds), providing superior precision to enable better power supply efficiency, and guarantees safe operation with ultra-fast asynchronous response times. This maximizes the impact of digital power conversion to improve cloud efficiency and, furthermore, can reduce global electricity demand by approximately 280 GWh per day. This is equivalent to the electricity production of the Netherlands.

“We have integrated proven capabilities from the STM32 F3 chip, used in digital motor drives and solar inverters, into the STM32F334 digital power product line and added innovative technologies such as high-resolution timers. This has enabled us to create the industry’s most advanced microcontrollers for digital power applications,” said Michel Buffa, General Manager of ST Microcontrollers. “These new products feature high-speed peripherals with versatile interconnectivity, multiple timer outputs, powerful CPUs, and communication peripherals, significantly simplifying the digital control of complex power supply topologies used in data servers and communication infrastructure, as well as wireless charging points, lighting, welding, and industrial power supply.”

The new STM32F334 digital power product is part of ST's STM32 family. It is fully pin- and SW compatible with the entry-level STM32F301 chip, which offers 7ns PWM resolution, providing the powerful advantages of a single development platform. A development environment is also supported to assist in the design of high-performance digital power devices through the provision of the STM32F334 digital power product family.