New Industry Products

Primarion Adds Dual-Output, Four-Phase Digital Controller

June 17, 2007 by Jeff Shepard

Primarion today announced the addition of the dual-output, four-phase PX7542, with 100 picoseconds pulse width modulation (pwm) resolution, to the Primarion Di-POL™ product family of fully programmable digital power conversion and power management ICs.

The highly configurable PX7542 is a power conversion and power management IC for synchronous dc-dc converters in the telecom, datacom, computing and storage markets, compliant with PMBus™ 1.1 specifications. The IC simplifies design and increases density of system level power management architecture with its minimum footprint, by controlling two independent outputs with two phases per output, or one to four phases in a single output mode. The control function handles both DCR and RDSon current sense topologies and a programmable output range of 0.5V to 8V.

“Datacom, telecom, computing and storage market OEMs look for increased flexibility, efficiency, cost savings and density in managing their power systems,” said Deepak Savadatti, vice president of marketing for Primarion. “The numerous features of the PX7542, combined with the easy to use GUI, address these key attributes while improving overall system reliability. With the introduction of the PX7542, Primarion has become a one-stop-shop for OEMs, offering cost-effective digital solutions with controllers featuring single output from one to four phases and dual outputs from one to two phases per output.”

Configurations for the PX7542 are easily loaded, edited and saved to von-volatile memory (NVM) over the device’s I2C serial interface using Primarion’s graphical user interface (GUI). With configurations stored on the IC, the controller can perform real-time adjustments to the designer’s previously configured settings and thereby optimize performance accuracy, without the delay of accessing outside memory storage.

The PX7542 is driven by a single +5V supply and operates over a frequency range of 150kHz to 1MHz. Precise current sharing between phases allows the flexibility to regulate multi-phase operation for higher output loads. The PX7542 maintains accuracy through internal calibrations, which assess and improve system-level current sense error sources upon startup. The programmable current sense temperature compensation allows designers to tailor responses for accuracy over temperature.

Already sampling with customers, Primarion’s PX7542 power system controllers are available for general sampling this quarter. The PX7542 is available in a RoHS-compliant, 6mm-x-6mm 40-lead QFN package.