Waste Figure and Waste Factor: New Metrics for Evaluating Power Efficiency in Any Circuit or Cascade

Electrical devices and systems often waste a lot of power as they operate, which is inefficient and bad for the environment. Until now, however, there has not been a standardized way to measure and compare this wasted power across different devices and systems. David Lee/Ernst Weber Professor and Founding Director of NYU WIRELESS Theodore (Ted) S. Rappaport has developed a new metric called the "waste factor" that provides a unified method to quantify the amount of power being wasted. It works in a similar way to "noise figure" which is an existing standard for measuring signal noise in receivers. With the waste factor, engineers can easily identify sources of power inefficiency and optimize designs to reduce energy waste.