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SAN
JOSE, CA -- February 2, 2005 --
Summit Microelectronics has
announced a solution to improve
the performance and reliability
of enterprise server, data
communications and
telecommunications equipment
through precision power subsystem
control. The SMM150
is a digital power supply
marginer that can easily be
designed to work with either
point-of-load (POL) DC-DC power
modules or monolithic embedded
DCDC converters. The device
margins the output voltage of the
power supply, above or below the
nominal set-point from +300mV to
VDD, at +/-0.75% accuracy.
Designed for applications where
product quality is paramount to
avoid costly downtime, the SMM150
is ideal for servers, switches,
routers, and base stations.
The SMM150 uses a highly accurate
on-board reference, a 10-bit ADC
and control loop to measure and
control the output voltage of the
DC-DC converter. When a margin
request is received, the SMM150
will adjust the trim pin or
feedback pin of the converter, to
provide the correct margined
output voltage from +300mV to
VDD. During this period the
SMM150 controls the output
voltage very accurately to
+/-0.75%. The SMM150 can margin
by either a remote I2C command or
by driving the margin up/down
pins. Additionally the SMM150
provides status flags- 'Ready'
provides an indication if the
margined voltage has been
reached, and 'Fault' provides an
error flag.
Accurate Power Regulation and
Control are Vital in Digital
Systems
Accurate power regulation and
control in advanced digital
systems is more critical than
ever because the signal integrity
of high-performance digital
semiconductors is increasingly
dependent on the quality of
associated power supplies.
Unfortunately, most off-the-shelf
power supplies cannot provide
this level of performance on
their own. High-accuracy voltage
margining is needed to extract
the most performance and
reliability from these digital
systems. For example, if a DC-DC
converter is 2% below its nominal
set point due in inherent error
and then it is margined to -5%,
the test will be conducted at 7%
instead of the -5%, as
specified.
Additionally, as the number of
voltage rails for these systems
continue to increase, the
difficulty in testing for
worst-case combinations of power
supply tolerances is dramatically
compounded. Finding components
and/or subsystems that do not
meet these worst-case conditions
in development or production is
becoming vital to ensure product
quality, and reducing field
failure return rates.
Control and Monitoring Via I
2C Bus
The SMM150 is programmed via the
I2C bus to set margin high and
low voltages. These values are
held in a nonvolatile store on
the device and are absolute
values. By storing absolute
values and having a digital
control loop, the engineer can
guarantee the board is tested to
the correct voltage unlike other
passive solutions on the market.
The 10-bit ADC can be used to
monitor the absolute value of the
DC-DC output via the I2C bus for
system diagnosis purposes. The
I2C bus is also used to access
the E2 Memory
integrated into the SMM150.
Evaluation Support
Summit provides an evaluation
system, SMM150EV,
which comprises an evaluation
board, a programming cable, and
Graphic User Interface Software
that is downloadable from the
Summit website.
Price and Availability
The SMB150 operates directly
from +2.7V to +5.5V and the
operating temperature range is
+0C to +70C. It is available in
5mm X 5mm QFN-28 and a 2.7mm X
3.6mm CSP packages that are
lead-free and RoHS-standard
compliant. Available now in
production quantities, the device
is priced at $2.60 for QFN-28
packaged units in quantities of
1,000 units (CSP package pricing
available from factory).
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About
Summit Microelectronics --
"Programmable analog for a
digital world".
Summit Microelectronics supplies
semiconductors that manage and
provide power functions in
networking/communications,
storage/computing, industrial,
military, and consumer products.
Customers can very rapidly tailor
Summit's programmable analog
technology to multiple
applications by programming the
same part.
Founded in 1997, Summit is
headquartered in San Jose,
California. The Company is ISO
9001 certified.
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