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Potentia Upgrades PowerCenter Designer Software

August 24, 2005 by Jeff Shepard

Potentia Semiconductor Corp. (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) has upgraded its PowerCenter Designer software. The enhanced Version 4.0 software now supports the company's complete range of second-generation devices, including its latest six-rail, secondary-side, power system controllers. Available as a free download from the Potentia website, the PowerCenter Designer V4.0 offers a complete design flow for the configuration of distributed power systems. In a point-and-click software environment, the topology, sequence, parameter, GPIO, and margining configuration screens aim to substantially reduce design time.

The new chips supported by PowerCenter Designer V4.0 include the PS-2606 and the soon-to-be-announced PS-2607 power system controller ICs. Providing comprehensive voltage monitoring and control of up to six point-of-load converters and an intermediate bus, the ICs offer the option of an isolated data link to companion primary-side devices. One of the enhancements introduced by the Version 4.0 software is full support for negative voltage rails. Once a negative value has been specified, the PowerCenter Designer automatically sets all the necessary controller device registers for negative rail management.

A more comprehensive strategy has also been implemented for configuration error handling. The latest PowerCenter Designer software disallows power system configurations that it determines are likely to result in undesirable long-term effects in complex power architectures.