Supermicro collaborates with Infineon on green computing

The new dimension of digitalization is enormous and global data volumes will only multiply exponentially in the future with video streaming, virtual conferences, cloud services, cryptocurrencies and many other digital applications. Experts estimate a 146-fold increase in data in just 15 years. According to the US International Trade Commission [1], 175 zettabytes (≙ 175,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes) of data is expected to be reached as early as 2025. Currently, approximately 8,000 data centers process, store and network these huge volumes of data. In addition to performance and security, optimizing energy efficiency is critical to their profitability and sustainability.

To address these requirements and enable decarbonization of data centers, Super Micro Computer, a Total IT Solution Provider for Cloud, AI/ML, Storage, and 5G/Edge, is collaborating with Infineon Technologies AG by choosing their high-efficiency power stages semiconductor products. “When developing our green computing platforms, we choose key vendors that share our focus on energy efficiency to reduce power consumption,” said Manhtien Phan, Vice President, Server Technology, Supermicro. “With Supermicro solutions and Infineon technologies, you can decrease system power consumption, which lowers overall data center power utilization, minimizing impact to the environment.”

“Data center cooling is responsible for a large portion of energy consumption. Our energy-efficient TDA21490 and TDA21535 power stages are ideal for data centers to reduce heat dissipation,” said Adam White, President of Infineon’s Power & Sensor Systems Division. “These semiconductors provide high-temperature tolerance and excellent reliability to enable free air cooling for the server to further improve the power usage effectiveness to the customer’s data center and deliver more energy efficiency.”

The power usage effectiveness (PUE) measurement divides the total power delivered to the data center by the actual power consumed by the IT equipment. An ideal PUE value is 1.0, which means that all the power required for a data center is in the actual computing devices, not in overhead costs such as cooling or power conversion. According to recent research [2], IT and data center managers reported an average annual PUE ratio of 1.57 at their largest data center, indicating there is room for improvement for uncontrolled cooling and power costs, along with reducing the CO 2 footprint.

Supermicro’s green computing platform can significantly improve PUE. Specifically, the Supermicro MicroBlade® family offers the best server density for a variety of processors, up to 112 x 1-socket Atom® nodes, 56 x 1-socket Xeon® nodes, and 28 x 2-socket Xeon® nodes in 6U. This can be effortlessly deployed at scale and provisioned in volume with its data center-friendly features and designs, including free-air cooling and Battery Backup Power (BBP®). The MicroBlade can provide up to 86 percent power efficiency improvement and 56 percent density improvement when compared to standard 1U rackmount servers.

The MicroBlade server uses Infineon’s OptiMOS™ integrated power stages TDA21490 and TDA21535. The TDA21490 enables a robust and reliable voltage regulator design for high-performance xPUs, ASICs and SoCs used in server, memory, AI and networking applications. The device offers best-in-class efficiency with its OptiMOS power MOSFETs in a thermally efficient package. The low quiescent current driver enables a deep-sleep mode to further increase efficiency at light loads, and provides excellent current monitoring that significantly improves system performance. In addition to the robust OptiMOS MOSFET technology, the TDA21490’s comprehensive fault protection feature further enhances the system’s robustness and reliability.

The TDA21535 incorporates a low quiescent current synchronous buck-gate driver IC in a co-package with high- and low-side MOSFETs, and an active diode structure that achieves low values for the body-diode forward voltage (V sd) similar to a Schottky barrier diode with very little reverse recovery charge. The internal MOSFET current measurement algorithm with temperature compensation in the TDA21535 achieves superior current measurement accuracy compared to best-in-class controller-based induction DC resistance measurement methods. Operation at a switching frequency of up to 1.5 MHz enables high-performance transient response and allows output inductance and capacitance to be reduced while maintaining industry-leading efficiency.