AmberSemi Announces Successful Tapeout of Silicon Chip for Patented AC Direct DC Power Delivery Technology

Manufacturing Milestone for AmberSemi Represents the Start of Commercialization and Technology Integration with Key Product and Semiconductor Partners

DUBLIN, Calif., March 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Amber Semiconductor, Inc. (AmberSemi™), a leading technology developer of patented, innovative technologies for AC Direct digital management of electricity in silicon chip architecture, today announced that it completed the first silicon tapeout and entered the manufacturing and integration phase for one of its three core breakthrough, patented technologies - the AC Direct DC Enabler™, a silicon solution that extracts DC directly from AC Mains without the use of transformers, rectifier bridges, or filtering. This technology represents a massive global opportunity to revolutionize the way power is delivered to every electrical endpoint on earth.

AmberSemi's AC Direct DC Enabler silicon chip enables dynamic delivery of DC power on demand, and it requires only half the components of today's standard, comparable systems. The impact of coupling dynamic power capabilities with its much smaller system size is transformative, enabling significantly more capabilities and features to be added into electrical endpoints without altering the standard footprints of products. AmberSemi's AC Direct DC Enabler is ideally suited for integration into a broad range of electrical products, including smoke detectors, doorbell cameras, thermostats, smart products, appliances, intelligent HVACR, and more; virtually any electronic device that uses DC and is powered by the AC mains will benefit from this breakthrough technology. In addition, this technology can be paired with key semiconductor devices like microcontrollers and wireless radios for unique AC Direct semiconductor systems, that enable both housekeeping power plus outside sensor power provisioning from the single AC Direct system.

"Achieving tapeout is a key commercialization milestone for our breakthroughs that is not just important for AmberSemi, but also for our strategic partners and the industry as a whole, signaling a new era of solid-state electrification, a second electrical revolution of digital management of electricity," said Thar Casey, CEO of Amber Semiconductor. "Our progress into commercialization of our technologies is built upon a foundation of requirements defined and refined in conjunction with our strategic partners and over 30 successful technical evaluations with customers both in the U.S. and in Europe. These large companies have fully validated the use of AmberSemi's technologies in discrete architecture, clearing the way to our manufacturing path in silicon."

An Entire Suite of Advantages:
AmberSemi's AC Direct DC Enabler technology housed in a silicon chip offers a myriad of benefits to all touchpoints in the supply chain, including the following: 

• Most size efficient – Dramatically smaller system size driven by Amber's silicon chip, opens cost and physical space for more features and/or slimmer product form factors. In addition, it's the industry's most size effective and the industry's highest power density at 5 Watts per 0.18 in³ (1.66 cm³).
• Dynamic, intelligent power delivery – delivers a much more dynamic power delivery capability, through software, enabling configurable output voltage ranges with automated mode switching to optimize efficiency for all power outputs.
• Lowest component count and increased reliability - 2.5x less components for the power delivered versus standard power supplies, reduces electrical and thermal stress of critical components, and reduces the overall system cost.
• Flexible implementations – With 3 output voltage rails (two fixed at 3.3V and 5V and a final that is configurable from 1.8V to 24V DC and up to 5W of power) the AC Direct DC Enabler operates as a highly flexible primary power supply or housekeeping power for a wide range of products and technologies.

A Massive Potential Market:
The global power supply market is one of the world's most critical technology ecosystems, serving virtually every country on earth. AmberSemi's AC Direct DC Enabler™ is specifically in the switching regulator market, which surpassed $10 billion in market value worldwide in 2022 with over 25 billion units shipped. The switching regulator market is nearly half of the $23B* worldwide power management category, which shipped nearly 80B* units worldwide in 2022. This power management category is expected to grow to $25B by 2025* (*WSTS, 2022)

"With an objective to innovate the electrical components industry by utilizing smaller-sized silicon chips and replacing the legacy electromechanical architecture that has been a cornerstone of modern innovation for over 50 years, AmberSemi has positioned itself to play a pivotal intermediary role in the process of modernizing the power delivered to end users," said Mark Vena, CEO and Principal Analyst at SmartTech Research. "Upgrading the electrical grid by addressing the core value propositions of convenience, comfort, energy management, and automation, while reducing costs and easing integration, has the global potential to be a massive technological upgrade event."

Technical Details:
Amber Semiconductor's AC Direct DC Enabler is a new silicon chip-based power delivery architecture that extracts energy directly from the AC power mains to provide non-isolated DC power. It operates as a configurable power converter, without the need for rectifier bridges, input filtering or transformers. The device converts a wide supply voltage range of 25VAC to 277VAC 50/60Hz input to a regulated 1.8V-24VDC, with a capability of up to 5W of power across all voltages. In addition, two auxiliary regulated DC outputs providing 5.0V and 3.3V, respectively are available. The architecture enables a minimum 2/3 size reduction in footprint - or more, depending on the specific power requirements. Additional flexibility for system developers is afforded by the integrated SPI port, allowing programmability of default values and accessibility to status bits within a control register file. Configuration of voltages, load current, and status monitoring of protection thresholds for current, voltage and temperature operating parameters are determined by control bits within the register file, held in non-volatile memory. 

AmberSemi's silicon chip engineering samples will be available for customer demo testing later in 2023 into the start of 2024. The company is currently working with strategic customers to conduct ongoing evaluations of its AC Direct DC Enabler technology under non-disclosure agreements. If your company is interested, contact AmberSemi at [email protected].

AmberSemi will also be showcasing its AC Direct DC Enabler technology and other technologies at APEC in Orlando, Florida on March 21st and 22nd at booth 131. In addition, AmberSemi CEO Thar Casey, will be conducting an education seminar to the APEC audience on Tuesday, 3/21 from 3:45 to 4:15pm in Session Room W203A. Attendees can register at APEC-Conf.org. The title of this presentation is "AC Direct Digitization of Electricity – The NEW Emerging Solid-State Standard for Power Management."

About Amber Semiconductor, Inc.

Amber Semiconductor, Inc is a leading developer of patented, innovative solid-state technologies for the digital control of electricity. The company's disruptive breakthroughs change the electrical landscape forever worldwide. With 37 patents secured around the company's core breakthroughs, its technologies upgrade power management from 1950's era electro-mechanical to safer, more reliable silicon architecture with embedded intelligence. Based in Dublin, California, the company is leveraging the expertise of Silicon Valley professionals to deliver a disruptive enhancement to the value and functionality of the world's electrical endpoints and infrastructure. For more information visit www.ambersi.com.

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SOURCE AmberSemi