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Google Challenge Results In Astoundingly Efficient Inverters
AmiMoJo writes: A few summers ago, Google and IEEE announced a one million dollar prize to build the most efficient and compact DC to AC inverter. It was called the Little Box Challenge, with the goal of a 2kW inverter with a power density greater than 50 Watts per cubic inch. Typical solar inverters have a density of about 5 W/cubic inch. Now the results are in, with the winners hitting 143 W/cubic inch using GaN transistors, and two other teams meeting Google's goal.
The world is a slightly better place.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
This doesn't seem to be about efficiency at all, but rather about power density (how much power can be converted in a particular cubic volume.)
Not that small isn't a worthy goal, but efficiency is important in any application where available power isn't both free and copiously oversupplied.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
No. We don't. Women and minorities need to study the same shit everyone else does and participate under the same opportunities / challenges everyone else does.
Now take your angsty SJW baggage and get the hell off my lawn.
We should not be generating AC power in the first place. DC is much more efficient.
You want to exploit a bunch of nerds, you turn anything into a competition and sit back while they strive to display their massive egos.
Ka-ching.
I think he forgot the /sarc at the end of his post.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Are guys fucking serious?!?
If you really want to use your old units, why not horse power per cubic inch?
Does any one know what power density the inverters for HVDC transmission lines achieve? I know that this is not a comparable use case, i'm just interested.
Gallium Nitride transistors have a lot of nice characteristics, but low yields and high costs have slowed their introduction. Two tiny laptop chargers, the FinSix Dart and Avogy Zolt, were said to use GaN transistors. The Dart still hasn't shipped, a year past its claimed release date. The Zolt has but is apparently using older Silicon Carbide-substrate transistors instead (Also see here.) (I received my Zolt recently and it is working well.)
It won't be a surprise to anyone following this technology that it can make inverters more efficient - that's what FinSix and Avogy have been claiming/demonstrating for two years at least.
Genuine question. The web site talks about inverters being 1-2 cubic feet in size, and it wants them smaller. I understand that smaller is better. What's the application that requires a 2kW inverter smaller than that?
I wonder how much science vs. engineering (vs. economics) went into this.
I think he forgot the /sarc at the end of his post.
You are assuming GP male. This kind of sexist assumption is exactly the type of thing that needs to be stamped out in the industry.
Now if you need me, I'll be in my safe space. /sarc
We've got supersonic flow to meet the cooling requirements. We win.
There's probably a joke to be made at your expense, here.
Teh G for to-day.
We may have just hit peak Google. Three stories in a row.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Personally, I read it as "Anonymous Coward by its very nature inefficient".
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Google must have gotten Timmay a new wheelchair.
Another nice improvement the winners made above the requirements was that Google asked for 230 or 240 VAC output, but the winning device provides 240 VAC split phase, which means it can also be used to provide two legs of 120 VAC. Not that it's terribly hard to add a 240 VAC -> 120 VAC transformer, but with this design there's no need.
Cubic inches?! So this isn't a project intended to be looking beyond the borders of one country?
-Matt
Sign wave has pure wave's that's more better than sguare wave's one's. Also they cost's more.
Fortunately there is this awesome song which should put and end to public defecation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I think that's the point - to remove some of the challenges not everyone else has so they have the opportunities everyone else does.
Whether any given program actually achieves that is of course debatable.
Thanks to all the AC for clarifying why Trump might become you president....
As a side note: positively discrimination on a goal oriented challenge would be beside the point, after all you want the maximum of "what ever" from the winner...
But not going through a phase of positive discrimination has two drawbacks, you get less talented people from the discriminated group, and you give the illusion to a whole bunch of idiots in the advantaged group that they are actually worth something in their chosen activity, instead of letting them either try harder, or change business.
So as defined in the Hacker's Dictionary Loose Loose !
I'm still puzzled by the economics of these prize driven challenges. Look at the winning design: (pdf) . R&D costs of it (including expertise, etc) well exceed $1mil. And having a lot of teams working on their designs... Assuming that there are at least 3 other good teams means then expected payout is laughable $250k...
As a professional, I expect to be paid for the work I do for hire. Sure, some things are done for fun, but building entire product is rarely is... Like, look at the open source software, for example: many parts of Linux OS are interesting and fun, others are not - so if you need them to be done, you better be ready to pay.
Another angle: even if you don't need money, there are plenty of engineers who do - google can afford paying for these things full sticker.
And charge my EV great at 1 buck a watt for panels all I need now is for inverters to cost about 50.00 instead of 2000.00.
If you started with nothing and had to buy all of the tooling and equipment, recruit people, etc., I could see this easily costing $1 million, but the winner is an inverter company. They already have all of the tooling, equipment, expertise, etc.
They "just" needed to optimize one of their existing designs for size. Also, they only needed a working prototype, not a full production model. How do you figure that costs a million dollars?
Sounds like Google had very specific design requirements and didn't want to spend the money in house doing development. So they dream up a contest and offer a cash prize. Meanwhile Google saves way more than the $1 million they paid out.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
"Google Challenge Results In Astoundingly Efficient Inverters"
Sooo, what is that number? I can't find it anywhere.
Commercial PV inverters are about 97% peak, 93% average. Not a lot of room for movement there.
Hell if I remember correctly half of Japan runs at 60Hz and the other have at 50Hz due to a standards change years ago, and they've never been able to convert even that due to the monumental effort required, and that is AC to AC!
Though I expect the use of things things would be for Cars and Homes, not entire network conversions...
Watts per cubic inch (cm or whatever) is just one measure. It's a fine target for aerospace and automotive applications. But it is of secondary importance for fixed installations like solar. Here, the efficiency I'd be interested in is power conversion efficiency. Particularly across a wide range of loads. And I'd like that efficiency to come at a reasonable price as well. Where I can evaluate the dollars spent to save a Watt of inverter loss vs the dollars per Watt that a larger solar panel will cost me.
The size of inverters used in solar installations has already come down to the point where small single inverters per panel are available. Once these units have come down to the size of a paperback book, their physical volume is no longer much of a factor compared to the panel size.
Have gnu, will travel.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
We're using non-gender specific pronouns now to avoid this problem.
"I think ze forgot the /sarc at the end of zer post.
Because registering a team is somehow hard for minorities or women? The fact they had to use the internet or english? Please describe a change faced by these groups that a white male from Appalachia would not also face?
No sir I dont like it.
Are the results open for everyone? If so, then they're also paying for something which everyone can (potentially) benefit from
Did anyone else read the title thinking that Google was challenging the results of the contest, like they thought they were faked?
The original parent was obviously speaking with tongue-in-cheek to mock the whole concept and your reply while being modded as a troll was completely genuine.
You want the truth? People can't handle the truth!
Google must have gotten Timmay a new wheelchair.
or wired the current one to give 240VAC shocks to the occupant.
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
what would you be able to do with SINGLE phase 240V AC then?
or are we talking about buying this in bundles-of-3 for the home?
I suppose I missed something, but my memory about this subject can be jogged only so much.
thank,
-ac
I think someone is trying to be too politically correct. For ages it's been assumed that "he" and "man"/"mankind" may be used in a generic sense to refer to everyone, because English is already cumbersome enough as it is without having to write out "he or she" just to satisfy the hypersensitive knee-jerk reactionists out there.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
The top 18 finalists' designs are available here: https://www.littleboxchallenge.com/
The winner's design is here: https://www.littleboxchallenge.com/pdf/finalists/56568-Tech.pdf
"GaN transistors have many very interesting electrical characteristics (low Rds_on, low
Qgate and Cds, ultra low Qrr); these create technological advantages over current MOSFET and
IGBT devices (small size and low production costs). Unfortunately, they also have serious
drawbacks due to their very fast switching characteristics: they are challenging to drive and
require sensitive electromagnetic noise management. Another pitfall is the high voltage drop due
to the reverse current when the GaN is turned off. The solution selected to overcome these
difficulties is to control all the GaN transistors using soft switching for the entire operation
range"
Google's claims in that are bullshit! "which is more than 10 times more compact than commercially available inverters" - uh, no, not at all.
Link or it didn't happen? OK, these are CURRENTLY for sale, not vapourware: http://www.ebikes.ca/product-i...
The power density of those is 0.5W / cm3. The competition was for 50W / inch3 = 3W / cm3. That's a 6x increase, not a greater than 10x increase.
Those are also 95% efficiency.
Conclusion: google's claims on this are bullshit. Do they really not know the field, despite a million dollar prize? That seems awfully stupid of them.
You are assuming GP male
This is /., he is statically likely to be correct.
And when AIs start objecting we'd need to write she/he/it.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
i don't think they like being called "it" i believe they prefer "overlord"
Which will promptly be portmanteaud to "shit."
Slobodan Cuk of "Cuk's converter" fame (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%86uk_converter) is not very convinced. From the commentaries:
I could not find anywhere in a number of public announcements the efficiency achieved for any of the top three designs! It appears then that efficiency was NOT a criterion at all in Google's Little Box challenge, but only Power Density and resulting total volume!
I spent 42 years in Power Electronics with the main goal of improving efficiency and reducing magnetics size tenfold without increasing switching frequency! Both are the prime factors enabling smaller size and weight! Without the efficiency objective and novel systems solutions, the glorification of the power density alone sends absolutely wrong signals to Power Electronics industry and misleads young engineers as to what is really important! This is one man’s opinion, I invite yours!
Dr. Slobodan Cuk
As far as I know they didn't. They didn't correct for creepy fellow male students mobbing them nor for creepy professors hitting on them or for creepy co workers mobbing them and hitting on them once they graduate either.
Of course, they do face significant challenges
http://gos.sbc.edu/b/baum.html
A scary finding of the questionnaire was that women reported their high school guidance counselors were very non-supportive of their decision to study engineering. Non-supportive is a nice word, because I got long letters that talked about how they were actually discouraged by people in their high schools. There seem to be many high schools in our country which discourage women from taking advanced math and physics courses, and, in fact, there seem to be very few women who were physics teachers in high school.
Two-thirds of the women who are married say they make more money then their husbands, and in many of those families, that really is a source of tension for women engineers as well as for other women.
They were expected to take care of household duties any way.
And having a child is a challenge - especially since men don't get maternity leave.
--
However, creepy bad behavior and biased doesn't stop all female engineers.
1. Emily Roebling (1803-1903)
Emily Roebling stepped in as the first woman field engineer and technical leader of the Brooklyn Bridge when her husband, Washington Roebling, became paralyzed and could no longer work without the help of his wife. Emily became responsible for much of the chief engineerâ(TM)s duties, including day-to-day supervision and project management. The Brooklyn Bridge was completed in 1883 and holds a plaque honoring Emily and her husband.
Emily_Warren_Roebling
2. Beulah Louise Henry (1187-1973)
Beulah Henry was known as âoethe lady Edisonâ in the 1920s and 1930s for the many inventions she patented, including a bobbin-free lockstitch sewing machine, a doll with flexible arms, a vacuum ice cream freezer, a doll with a radio inside and a typewriter that made multiple copies without carbon paper. Henry made a large fortune during her career by capitalizing on her inventions through manufacturing companies to produce her creations.
Beulahlouisehenry
3. Hedy Lamarr (1913-2000)
Hedy Lamarr might be recalled as a sexy movie star of the 1930s and 1940s, however, few know that she invented a remote-controlled communications system for the U.S military during World War II. Lamarrâ(TM)s frequency hopping theory now serves as a basis for modern communication technology, such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi network connections.
hedy_lamarr
4. Stephanie Louise Kwolek (born 1923)
While working for DuPont, Stephanie Louise Kwolek discovered liquid crystalline polymers, which resulted in the product Kevlar. Containing fibers that are stronger than steel, Kevlar is used to make bulletproof vests, radial tires, airplane fuselages and fiber optic cables. For her accomplishments as a research scientist she received the National Medal of Technology in 1996 and was named to the National Womenâ(TM)s Hall of Fame in 2003. The American Chemical Society awarded her the Perkin Medal in 1997.
Kwolek famous female engineer
5. Martha J. Coston (1826-1904)
Another famous female engineer in history, Martha Coston is credited with developing a signaling flare system thatâ(TM)s used by the U.S. military and known as Coston flares. Coston needed a way to support herself and her children after the death of her husband and discovered a design he had left behind in a notebook. She worked for nearly 10 years revising the designs to include pyrotechnic components to create a long-lasting and multicolored system of flares.
martha coston
6. Lillian Gilbreth (1878-1972)
Lillian Gilbreth contributed to industrial engineering by studying workplace patterns and ergonomics. She became the first female member of the American Soci
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
We need some kind of automatic bounds checking for sarcasm so that these kind of comment overflow attacks can't happen.
Thank you for furthering that ALL unwanted behavior or attention by any make is "creepy". Such nuance!
You found all 8 female engineers!! Well done!!!
No candy ass 150C limit on junction temps for GaN.. When you're trying to reject the heat to something else, either by conduction or radiation, bigger delta T always helps
(of course, the littlebox challenge says 60C max package temp)
When there's 1 of you and 17 others hitting or eeriely friendly towards you- it's creepy.
When you travel with your advisor and they want to go out and get drunk with you, it's creepy.
But I think you pretty much set the standard so I'll just use your words.
ALL UNWANTED behavior or UNWANTED attention is creepy.
I duped the unwanted to make it clearer.
Cheers.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I think this discussion is pretty good evidence of the challenges facing minorities in tech. It's not about registering, it's about getting to the point in one's career when one can register. That is the part more difficult for under-represented groups. This has nothing to do with blame or vengeance, just fixing something obviously wrong.
I do not see that as much different than a white male who grew up in the poorest parts of the US. In many ways a member of a minority or female in the suburbs has a lot more access and opportunity. To often we make the bad leap from correlation that some group has statistically less representation in a field to that they are somehow excluded from that field. Asians/pacific islanders hold nearly twice their percentage in the overall population in new STEM degree's. American Indians/Alaskan Natives only about a third. In any event you have to look as why people are not choosing that field of work, poor education, societal values that do not value those sorts of fields, lack of role models, etc.
In any event thats far far out of scope for a contest to deal with, you can not fix not having enough minorities or women with the appropriate skills as part of a less than two year competitive event. If anything you realy should not give anybody special treatment in a competitive event only the results matter. Initial outreach is probably as far as you can go without biasing towards those minorities or women. Longer term unbiased outreach to younger populations could even things out in the long run and remain fair.
No sir I dont like it.
As far as I know they didn't. They didn't correct for creepy fellow male students mobbing them nor for creepy professors hitting on them or for creepy co workers mobbing them and hitting on them once they graduate either.
Yeah, the same guys that can't get a date to save their lives. They come across as creepy because they don't know how to talk to women, but I guess it is more fun to make fun of the kids with handicaps than to understand that very likely you are talking about people with autism.
A scary finding of the questionnaire was that women reported their high school guidance counselors were very non-supportive of their decision to study engineering. Non-supportive is a nice word, because I got long letters that talked about how they were actually discouraged by people in their high schools. There seem to be many high schools in our country which discourage women from taking advanced math and physics courses, and, in fact, there seem to be very few women who were physics teachers in high school.
When I was in Calc and Physics (ap and regular), the class was half women. My Calc teacher was a woman, my physics teacher was a man, so what? Women far outnumber men in teaching positions, should we start correcting for that next? I'll bet that those same guidance councilors would discourage men from teaching or going into nursing, where is all the outrage? Considering my office (systems engineering) is half women, I don't see an issue, if you personally run against sexism, you should move around it or deal with it, not complain on an internet forum where there will be no effect on the problem.
They were expected to take care of household duties any way.
That is an issue in the household, it sounds like she chose the wrong husband. There are guys that would love to stay home and take care of the house and kids, those guys are considered creepy by woman like you because they are more sensitive instead of being alpha males.
And having a child is a challenge - especially since men don't get maternity leave.
It depends. When men work in white collar employment, many companies offer paternity leave, but I would be seriously surprised if anyone offered maternity leave to a man, as that would be the wrong type of leave.
http://dictionary.reference.co...
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
It has to go a few years as s/h/it.
Amazing. I was quoting from responses to a survey of 4,000 female engineers.
The response- all from males- allege there is no problem for female engineers.
Those silly female engineers just don't understand apparently.
Keep kidding yourself.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Pregnancy. Rape. Institutional racism/discrimination. The complete obliviousness of the average white male to their privilege relative to lesser privileged groups to the point where they have to ask such a question as this.
This comment is my opinion and does not represent an official position of Donald Trump or others I do not work for
So pregnancy is somehow a hurdle? It's a choice at least in the modern world. Rape has something to do with people ability to enter an engineering competition? With their ability to get an education?
What institutional level racism or discrimination would a person of color have to deal with that a white male from appalachia would not have? The "justice" system comes to mind but not a lot else. Comparatively they have a lot of programs in their favor.
Sorry your just a SJW with your check your privilege this or that. I'll give you a hint to check privilege in effect means to pull somebody down from there perceived unfair advantages, to say they have no right to the circumstances they were born and/or raised with. Want equality thats enabling people to rise as equals, additive vs subtractive. That's also a much harder sell, to say they are free to earn it that yes their parents are responsible for not giving them a specific advantage etc.
No sir I dont like it.
Get pregnant and see. Oops. You can't. I'm shocked, shocked that you are therefore unaware that pregnancy can be an impediment to career advancement.
Leaving aside the obvious retort that many women don't live in the modern world, it's a choice that men never have to make. Go ahead. Tell me about that time you had to delay your career for 9-30 months because your wife wanted to have a family.
Obviously you have never been raped. When you're afraid to leave your home, it's rather hard to get to your local institution of higher learning. When you are sexually coerced by your Chemistry professor, it's somewhat difficult to trust your other teachers. I don't expect you to understand; your tone deafness speaks volumes about your ability to empathize, but you might at least try to research the things you say before you allow your biases to blithely dismiss them.
Obviously you aren't a person of color. Lower pay. Fewer employment opportunities. Fewer educational opportunities. Grading biases. Selection biases.
Well! I guess the biases in Justice system can't really do much!
This is where citations would come in really handy!
*You're. As in "You're just a privileged while male attempting to mansplain his way through why the world owes him his privilege because everyone else also has access to it. They're just too lazy/stupid/{state character defect of your choice here} to claim it."
*Their. For example, "White people like to lecture socially oppressed people on their problems without understanding what those problems are". Pro Tip: people are far less likely to dismiss you as an uneducated dolt when you use proper spelling and grammar.
“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”
-- Stephen Hawking
This comment is my opinion and does not represent an official position of Donald Trump or others I do not work for
There it is. Privilege. Was wondering how long it would take.
The operative word in that is, of course, "may". At other times, it may NOT be assumed that (etc). In other words, you don't know.
So I assume that I don't know, whereas if I see someone who writes "he/ she/ it/ they" then I do know that it's someone who does think that it's a significant point they're making.
Part of the point is that it does take an effort.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
There is, of course, "one", but that's a bit contrived for some uses.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Who the fuck are you kidding? All countries in the civilised world have maternity leave for fathers as well as mothers.
Or do you not live in the civilised world? You poor, unprivileged bastard.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"