Digital Power System Controllers for Communications and Computing Applications

Leading telecom and server equipment suppliers, such as Sun Microsystems, continue to look for new ways to manage multiple power phases and respond quickly to changes in the system. TI's family of
UCD9240 integrated power system controllers provide the highest density and performance features to quickly adapt to what a system needs.

Tomorrow's servers will require better power management capabilities that increase density and improve the system power efficiency over the range of operating conditions, while maintaining overall system reliability, said Ansu Chakrabarti, senior manager of System Technology
from Sun Microsystems. New developments in digital power technology, such as the UCD9240 from Texas Instruments, will allow Sun to offer servers with significantly improved levels of power system
optimization.

TI's four-output, multi-phase UCD9240 power system controllers implement digital pulse width modulators (PWM) with 250 picoseconds resolution, and are fully configurable via a graphical user interface (GUI) for monitoring, control and management for DC/DC point-of-load power
conversion. GUI configuration allows a designer to intelligently manage the power supply's voltage and current thresholds and response, soft start, margining, sequencing, tracking, phase management, loop response, fan control and many other features. The UCD9240 incorporates the Fusion Digital Power peripheral, which performs full-digital loop control while supporting switching
frequencies of up to 2 MHz. The controller supports up to 100 PMBusT interface commands for control, configuration and management of the power supply, while requiring a minimal supply current as low as 40 mA during operation.

The UCD9240 controller incorporates a unique phase management feature that enables the power supply to operate at high efficiency over the range of the load. Phase management allows the user to turn on or off phases of the power supply so that only the phases required to power the
load are enabled. In addition, the UCD9240 allows the user to optimize the loop response for the operating condition and meet acceptable transient response over the load range.

In addition to the new controller family, TI introduced two new PowerTrain plug-in modules that further simplify the DC/DC converter design by providing a high-degree of configurability when used with the UCD9K family of controllers. The PTD08A010W and PTD08A020W 10-A and
20-A modules integrate the inductor, FETs and TI's UCD7230 driver with current sense capability plus integrated short circuit protection to provide stable and reliable operation of the power supply while
protecting the system.

TI's configurable design tool helps designers configure and set specific criteria to monitor and control the power system - with no programming required. The free design tool works with all UCD9K Fusion Digital Power controllers, and provides real-time monitoring, modeling and simulation features to manage the power system digitally.