SiTel’s ‘Green VoIP’ ICs cut power consumption in half

Energy-efficient processors enable a new generation of environmentally friendly VoIP applications that reduce energy bills

‘s-Hertogenbosch, 24 November 2008 - SiTel Semiconductor today announced that the company's SC14450 processor has been shown to reduce power consumption in VoIP applications by as much as 50%. Tests on a dual 10/100 Ethernet VoIP desktop phone based on this ‘Green VoIP' processor revealed that power consumption during a call was less than 800 mW, approximately half the power specification of any VoIP phone on the market today.

SC14450 processorVoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is rapidly becoming the preferred telephony option for businesses as it offers significant potential to reduce costs. However, unlike traditional phones, VoIP handsets are powered from mains electricity or via routers / servers through Power-over-Ethernet (PoE). This makes VoIP power consumption an issue for companies keen to minimize their electricity bills and carbon footprint. At the same time, many governments are considering limiting the maximum power consumption for devices connected to the grid.

To help manufacturers address these concerns, SiTel has released modified versions of its Enterprise VoIP development kits, featuring hardware and software enhancements that optimize the use of power within VoIP applications. These modifications have been tested in a dual 10/100 Ethernet VoIP desktop phone development kit based on SiTel's SC14450 Green VoIP processor. The phone also includes PoE capabilities, an LCD and keyboard LEDs. The net power consumption measured after PoE was found to be 569.4 mW in idle mode, and 785.0 mW and 796.5 mW during G.711 and G.722 calls respectively.

A recent draft version of a European Commission Regulation on ecodesign (implementing Directive 2005/32/EC) proposes limiting the standby power consumption of domestic and office devices to 2 W if the device has an information or status display and 1 W otherwise. A future second phase will further tighten these limits to 1 W and 0.5 W. Phones based on SiTel's Green VoIP processors and using these latest enhancements meet these proposed requirements today.

"SiTel is committed to reducing the impact our operations have on the environment and delivering best-in-class power consumption," said Mark De Clercq, Product Marketing Manager at SiTel. "These power consumption figures are 50% lower than anything we have seen on the market to date. With the SC14450, manufacturers can easily develop solutions that are cheaper for their customers to run and help reduce global demand for electricity."