Figure I'd chime in since I currently work in this industry. We make power supplies that have many thousands of lines of custom-written flashed firmware on a microcontroller that's a switching buck regulator. With it you can do all sorts of crazy tricks with the control loop to reduce the number of components and increase efficiency. I'd say most of the design meetings are about testing ideas about the control loop.
There have been a bunch of startups in this space over the past 10 years, although most eventually get acquired by a bigger IC vendor to deal with foundry sourcing.
Many computing companies have slowly been getting rid of power supply design engineers, and shouldering the burden onto the IC vendor's application's engineer to help with the design. Dealing with a giant company (like apple, dell, etc.) requires a lot of effort, as they'll negotiate down your margins heavily, have a backup design with your competitor, and require your field apps engineer to be waiting at your service if something goes wrong. It's not uncommon to have apps engineers dedicated to a really big customer and stay at their offices.
I really appreciate the work that power supply makers do to improve efficiency. Besides the direct costs of energy usage, the PSU is a major source of heat and noise in desktops, so better efficiency can also directly benefit the user experience.
Yeah, something stuck in my mind when I read "Fundamentals of Power Electronics" - I don't have the exact quote, but it basically mentions most efficency gains are primarily done to add features, not as part of any conservation effort.
As a power/software guy, i'm mostly looking forward the development of more non-backlit/outdoor readable screens, along with direly needed revolutions in hvac design.
There have been a bunch of startups in this space over the past 10 years, although most eventually get acquired by a bigger IC vendor to deal with foundry sourcing.
Many computing companies have slowly been getting rid of power supply design engineers, and shouldering the burden onto the IC vendor's application's engineer to help with the design. Dealing with a giant company (like apple, dell, etc.) requires a lot of effort, as they'll negotiate down your margins heavily, have a backup design with your competitor, and require your field apps engineer to be waiting at your service if something goes wrong. It's not uncommon to have apps engineers dedicated to a really big customer and stay at their offices.