Helix Semiconductors
Powering an Energy-Efficient Tomorrow

Challenging the status quo in the power supply industry, fabless power semiconductor company Helix Semiconductors is leading the charge to reduce energy consumption through the development of highly efficient power conversion integrated circuits (ICs). The company is on a mission to replace traditional power conversion approaches and, at the same time, enable innovative ways to provide isolation for data protection and consumer safety. As energy management is gaining sophistication and maturity, companies are looking for solutions that offer higher power density, greater efficiency, and significantly smaller form factors.

“A drive toward cleantech demands less energy wastage and lower heat emissions,” says Harold A. Blomquist, President and CEO of Helix Semiconductors. “Whether it’s microgrids, broadly distributed energy, small campus style power environments, or embedded power subsystems, they all have the same need: to maximize the usefulness of the power they generate, manage or store. Our solutions cater to this need of diverse devices by achieving a much smaller footprint for those power supplies. Our technology allows true ‘zero power’ to be achieved for systems that are trying to save on an immediate level of wasted power. We enable power systems designers to achieve this in transformer-based systems using our MuxCapacitor^® (MuxCap^TM) technology, but also offer the ability to replace bulky, inefficient transformers with our MuxCap + Capacitive Isolation (CapIso^TM) solutions.”

When Blomquist was tasked to lead Helix Semiconductors in 2016, the company already had an impressive IP portfolio. Blomquist was appointed to help the company achieve commercialization of its technology. Helix Semiconductors achieved first revenue and first product revenue shipments in 2017, and in 2018 engaged with Murata Power Systems to help launch its products into high-volume markets.

Helix Semiconductors has shifted from an IP-focused company to a solutions-focused company.

With the early aim of enabling high-efficiency voltage conversion in no-load (vampire), standby and lightly loaded operating conditions, Helix Semiconductors’ patented MuxCap voltage conversion and CapIso capacitive conversion and isolation ICs have evolved to enable highly efficient, high-power density and cost-effective architectures for AC-DC and isolated DC-DC power supplies operating at all load ranges. MuxCap and CapIso facilitate higher peak efficiency from low-load to full-load conditions. “Magnetic-based power supplies’ operating efficiency begins to drop significantly as load levels drop and have much less than 80 percent efficiency, declining rapidly toward zero with lighter loads,” says Blomquist. “MuxCap-enabled power supplies maintain efficiency well above 90 percent at light loads.”

Harnessing switched-capacitor technology for revolutionary applications, Helix Semiconductors facilitates the design of a smaller form factor for a power supply in an electronic product. This helps in the reduction of heat generation across a broader range of applications, making it easier to create a less bulky power supply. “There is no one else on the planet that offers a power supply using switched-capacitor conversion methodology,” adds Blomquist. “We are ahead in the game as the owner of a large pool of patented MuxCap and CapIso IP and are the only supplier of this technology for AC power mains, primary bricks or Ethernet infrastructure.” While companies are driven to increase the efficiencies of power supplies and electronic products to preserve the utilitarian value of the electric grids, Helix Semiconductors helps overcome the problem of over taxation of electric grids by making it possible to build much more efficient power supplies and products.

Helix Semiconductors offers its proprietary MuxCap technology to a wide range of applications including AC-DC power supplies for mobile communications and computing, isolated DC-DC power supplies for industrial and commercial video cameras, and more. However, the company’s value proposition is not just increased efficiency but improved power density as well. In one instance, Helix Semiconductors helped power solutions company Murata to develop a line of AC-DC chargers for laptops. Helix Semiconductors provided Murata with tailored MuxCap chips to build a highly efficient power module is expected to result in significantly higher power density in end-use products.

Scripting similar success stories, Blomquist notes, “Helix is already developing momentum from its roots as an engineering development company to a significant revenue generating company.”