Improvement of the power conversion efficiency of a personal computer

Most of the research into low-power PC design focuses on the power consumption of devices in the system, in order to reduce the consumption of the peripheral components while the system is in the idle state. In our design, we improve the power conversion efficiency of the multi-phase PWM power regulator by using the auto phase switching control scheme. We use an external load-sensing circuit both to monitor the output current and to change the regulator to a different operation method automatically. We measure the output current and set the optimized operation phase depending on the different loading. The power conversion efficiency can be maintained between 87.73% to 93.27%, when the load current is changed from 2.48A to 110A.