The market for refrigerators, that most typical of home appliances, is rapidly moving toward low energy consumption models. Annual power consumption by refrigerators has fallen dramatically: up to 1/4 to 1/3 compared to models of the same size 10 years ago. Greatly contributing to this progress is the inverter technology employed for temperature control of air conditioners. NEC Electronics supplies inverter control microcomputers, mainly for domestic refrigerators of the larger type, i.e. 400L and over. In addition we are already preparing for the expected emergence of refrigerators as intelligent home appliances.
Figure 1:Functional block diagram of Large refrigerator