Fujitsu figures out way for servers to tell if power supply units need replacement

Source: Fujitsu Labs. Relationship between the progression of electrolytic-capacitor degradation and amount of voltage fluctuations.

Fujitsu Laboratories has developed a self-diagnostic technology to determine when a power supply unit needs to be replaced. This is software that can run on board the microcontroller of a digitally controlled power supply, such as those used in servers and other information and communication technology (ICT) devices.

The power supply units used in ICT hardware have limited lifespans, and maintaining them efficiently is a serious issue in large installations such as data centres.

Using a proprietary model-based development system for power supply units*, Fujitsu Laboratories has successfully analysed changes in signals propagating through controller circuits that are caused by power supply degradation. The method allows the evaluation of degradation of power supply units based solely on information already used by the microcontroller of the power supply controls.

The newly developed method was implemented as software in an evaluation environment using the model-based development systems for power supply units, and it was confirmed that it could automatically diagnose when the power supply unit needs to be replaced, without the addition of additional hardware components that monitor power supply degradation.

In data centres, this technology enables power supply units to be replaced on a planned basis, thereby lowering maintenance costs and improving the reliability of operations.

Fujitsu Laboratories plans to continue operational testing of this technology in actual power supplies used in servers, with the goal of a practical implementation in 2018. It also plans to expand the range of components that can be automatically diagnosed, and to add functions that would allow pending operations on a server needing a power supply unit replacement to be shunted to a different server, to further reduce the costs of server maintenance and further increase reliability.
*A proprietary model-based development system for power supply units. Fujitsu Achieves World's First Model-Based Highly Efficient and Highly Reliable Development Process for Digital Controlled Power Supply Units, October 29, 2014, press release