KR20190058220A - Dual mode voltage regulator for server - Google Patents

Abstract

Disclosed is a voltage regulator for a server with a dual mode. According to one aspect of the present invention, the voltage regulator for a server device comprises: a first circuit unit operating in a first mode; a second circuit operating in a second mode; and a control unit measuring power loss of each of the first and second circuit units by using the first circuit unit for a first setting period and driving the second circuit unit for a second setting period and determining a driving schedule driving the first mode or the second mode using a result made by comparing the power loss of the first second circuit unit with the power loss of the second circuit unit.

Description

[0001] The present invention relates to a dual mode voltage regulator for a server,

The present invention relates to a voltage regulator, and more particularly, to a voltage regulator for a server having a dual mode.

A computing device including a server is equipped with a voltage regulator to adjust the power supplied to the CPU. The voltage regulator is a device designed to maintain a constant output voltage even when the input voltage and the output load change. The CPU of each maker uses different power, and the CPU has various power use modes including standby mode. A voltage regulator is used to adjust the power according to the voltage.

In the case of servers, power management can be more important because it provides services to a large number of users. Therefore, various techniques for increasing the conversion efficiency in the voltage regulator have been studied.

Korean Patent Laid-Open No. 10-2013-0078964 (Published date July 10, 2013) AC / DC combined server power supply for improving power supply efficiency

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Accordingly, the present invention has been made keeping in mind the above problems occurring in the prior art, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a voltage regulator for a server having a dual mode for improving conversion efficiency.

Other objects of the present invention will become more apparent through the following preferred embodiments.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a voltage regulator for a server apparatus, comprising: a first circuit for operating in a first mode; A second circuit for operating in a second mode; And the first circuit section is used during a first set period, and then the second circuit section is driven during a second set period to measure a power loss amount of each of the first set period and the second power loss amount, Or a drive schedule for driving the second mode is provided.

Here, the first setting period and the second setting period may be set to 24 hours.

The controller may determine the drive schedule by comparing the power loss amount by the first mode and the power loss amount by the second mode in the same time zone with each other and setting a mode having a low power loss amount to the drive mode have.

Also, the controller may reset the driving schedule if a voltage is applied after the applied voltage becomes zero.

Also, the controller may measure the input current during the first setting period and the second setting period, respectively, and use an average value of the input currents for each time period to determine the driving schedule.

According to the present invention, there is provided a dual mode having a more efficient conversion control function in different situations, and by monitoring a power loss during a test period and generating a driving schedule, an efficient voltage regulator is provided to a server apparatus having a specific connection pattern There is an effect that can be provided.

1 is a configuration diagram showing a power supply related system of a general server apparatus;
2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a voltage regulator according to an embodiment of the present invention;
3 is a flowchart illustrating a driving schedule setting process for voltage adjustment using a dual mode according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIGS. 4 and 5 are graphs showing power loss or input current amount during a setup period according to each embodiment of the present invention. FIG.

While the invention is susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments thereof are shown by way of example in the drawings and will herein be described in detail. It is to be understood, however, that the invention is not to be limited to the specific embodiments, but includes all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the invention.

It is to be understood that when an element is referred to as being "connected" or "connected" to another element, it may be directly connected or connected to the other element, . On the other hand, when an element is referred to as being "directly connected" or "directly connected" to another element, it should be understood that there are no other elements in between.

The terms first, second, etc. may be used to describe various components, but the components should not be limited by the terms. The terms are used only for the purpose of distinguishing one component from another. For example, terms such as a first threshold value, a second threshold value, and the like which will be described later may be previously designated with threshold values that are substantially different from each other or some of which are the same value, Because there is room, the terms such as the first and the second are to be mentioned for convenience of division.

The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the invention. The singular expressions include plural expressions unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. In this specification, the terms "comprises" or "having" and the like refer to the presence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components, or combinations thereof, But do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components, or combinations thereof.

It is to be understood that the components of the embodiments described with reference to the drawings are not limited to the embodiments and may be embodied in other embodiments without departing from the spirit of the invention. It is to be understood that although the description is omitted, multiple embodiments may be implemented again in one integrated embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Reference will now be made in detail to the preferred embodiments of the present invention, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings, wherein like reference numerals refer to the like elements throughout. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the following description, well-known functions or constructions are not described in detail since they would obscure the invention in unnecessary detail.

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram showing a power supply related system of a general server apparatus, and FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a voltage regulator according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 1, a server apparatus includes a power supply unit 110, a voltage regulator 100, and a CPU 120. Generally, the power supply unit 110 converts AC power to DC power and supplies the DC power to the voltage regulator 100. The voltage regulator 100 converts the voltage supplied from the power supply unit 110 into a voltage required by the CPU 120 .

In the voltage regulator 100, it is necessary to minimize the loss due to voltage conversion. In other words, it is desirable to increase the conversion efficiency. As a method for this, for example, there is a method of determining the number of MosFETs that are turned on according to a load current. That is, a single MOSFET is used under a low load current condition, all MOSFETs are driven in a high current region, and a method of determining the most effective number of MOSFETs per region under a medium load current condition .

In order to increase the conversion efficiency, a dynamic voltage regulator has been proposed in which the number of MOSFETs is varied. In addition, the present invention includes two modes (i.e., dual modes) We propose a method to reduce the power loss rate using either mode.

2 showing a configuration of the voltage regulator 100 according to the present invention, the voltage regulator 100 according to the present embodiment includes a first circuit portion 10 operating in a first mode, a second circuit portion 10 operating in a second mode, A circuit unit 12 and a control unit 30 for controlling driving of each mode. The control unit 30 generates a schedule for driving either the first circuit unit 10 or the second circuit unit 12 (hereinafter referred to as a drive schedule). That is, the control unit 30 determines and controls whether to drive the first circuit unit 10 or the second circuit unit 12 according to the driving schedule according to the time schedule.

Both the first mode and the second mode operate in a different way to increase the conversion efficiency, for example, the first mode is implemented to have higher efficiency at low currents, and the second mode is implemented at higher currents in a more efficient manner Can be implemented. For example, in the second mode, two MOSFETs are used at a low current, but in the first mode, only one MOSFET is used at a low power. Of course, this is not a limitation, and each mode can convert the voltage in a unique manner.

As shown in the figure, the control unit 30 includes a loss amount measuring unit 32, which measures the amount of power loss due to voltage conversion. According to an example, the control unit 30 generates a driving schedule using the amount of power loss, and a detailed description thereof will be described below.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating a driving schedule setting process for voltage adjustment using a dual mode according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. FIGS. 4 and 5 are flowcharts illustrating a power loss amount These graphs show the input current amount.

3, the voltage regulator 100 drives the first circuit part 10 (i.e., drives the first circuit part 10 in the first mode) during the first set period (S310), and then during the second set period, the second circuit part 12 In the second mode. In other words, during the first setting period, the first circuit unit 10 is used to supply power to the CPU 120, and the second circuit unit 12 is used during the second setting period.

The first set-up period and the second set-up period are preferably the same time interval, for example one day (i.e. 24 hours). In other words, one day operates in the first mode and the next day in the second mode.

At this time, the amount of power loss with the passage of time is measured. Referring to FIG. 4 illustrating an example of this, the amount of power loss according to each mode driven during each setting period is measured.

Referring again to FIG. 3, the voltage regulator 100 determines the driving schedule of the first mode and the second mode by comparing and analyzing the respective amounts of power loss (S330) (S340). For example, referring to FIG. 4 illustrating the amount of power loss during the set period from 0 to 24, the amount of power loss during the execution of the first mode is low from t1 to t2, It can be seen that the conversion efficiency is high because the amount of power loss is lower. Therefore, the second mode is executed by the second circuit section 12 from 0 to t1 and from t2 to 24, and from t1 to t2, the first mode by the first circuit section 10 is executed, Can be generated.

Although the general personal computer may be shared by a plurality of users, most of the users use the same personal computer, so that the usage pattern may be uneven. However, since the server is a connection method by a plurality of users, have. For example, a server providing a video streaming service may have a pattern in which a large number of users access from morning to night, whereas a number of users are accessed at dawn. Accordingly, in the case of the server, a pattern of the number of users can be formed according to the time of day, and the power used by the CPU 120 can be changed according to the number of users.

Therefore, according to the present embodiment, patterns of power loss due to each use of two modes are compared with each other, such as a pattern of the number of connected users according to time, thereby selecting a more efficient mode and scheduling. For example, it is possible to execute the first set mode for one week, the second set mode for the next one week, and compare the power loss amounts for a week or a week May be set.

 In this embodiment, a method of determining the driving schedule using the amount of power loss has been described. According to another embodiment, the input current input to the voltage regulator 100 may be monitored and the driving schedule may be determined accordingly.

For example, it is assumed that the first mode is implemented such that the conversion efficiency is higher than the low current, and conversely, the second mode is implemented such that the conversion efficiency is higher than that at the high current. Referring to FIG. 5, The driving schedule is determined using the average value of the input current values for each time period during the two setting periods. For example, by comparing the average input value during two setup periods with the time average as shown in the graph and the average value of the average input values, the time from t3 to t4, which is mainly higher than the average value, 2 mode is executed and the driving schedule is determined so that the first mode is executed in the remaining period.

Then, the controller 30 of the voltage regulator 100 can generate and re-determine the driving schedule, if necessary or periodically. That is, the process described with reference to FIG. 2 is performed again to regenerate the driving schedule. According to an example, when the voltage applied from the power supply unit 110 becomes 0 and then the voltage is again applied (for example, Device down, reset, etc.), and the drive schedule can be reset.

It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made in the present invention without departing from the spirit or scope of the invention as defined in the appended claims. It will be understood that the invention may be varied and varied without departing from the scope of the invention.

10: first circuit part
12:
30:

Claims (5)

A voltage regulator for a server device,
A first circuit for operating in a first mode;
A second circuit for operating in a second mode; And
The first circuit section is used during a first set period, and then the second circuit section is driven during a second set period to measure a power loss amount of each of the first set period and the second power loss amount, And a controller for determining a driving schedule for driving the second mode.
The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the first setting period and the second setting period are set to 24 hours.
The method of claim 2,
Wherein the controller determines the drive schedule by comparing the power loss amount by the first mode and the power loss amount by the second mode in the same time zone with each other and setting a mode with a low power loss amount to the drive mode, Voltage regulator.
The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the controller sets the driving schedule again when a voltage is applied after the applied voltage becomes zero.
The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the controller measures the input current during the first setting period and the second setting period and uses the average value of each input current in the time period for determination of the driving schedule.

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