New Industry Products

Summit Intros Four-Channel Power Supply Controller

June 21, 2005 by Jeff Shepard

Summit Microelectronics Inc. (San Jose, CA), a supplier of programmable, mixed-signal, power management platform solutions, introduced its new SMT4504 power supply management controller, which combines voltage tracking, supply sequencing and voltage monitoring in a single chip. The new "loss-less tracker" device eliminates the need for external MOSFET switches by interfacing directly to the converter's TRIM input pin, and a power control circuit can be tailored to system requirements by digitally programming the most essential functions and parameters. The SMT4504 can work with point-of-load (POL) and monolithic dc-dc converters, making it suitable for datacom/telecom equipment, servers, storage and other equipment utilizing multi-voltage CPUs, DSPs and ASICs.

The SMT4504 provides a complete quad supply rail management, and can track or sequence up to four external dc-dc converter ICs with a programmable sequence ordering and delay times, without the need for any external components. In addition, when supplies are assigned to the same sequence position, the SMT4504 allows the rails to be tracked at the same or different (ratio-metric) slew rates. The SMT4504 incorporates Summit's proprietary "Link" function that provides seamless expanding operation when more than four supplies are involved, allowing several SMT4504 devices to control up to 48 power supplies in a single system. It also offers the ability to accurately (1%) monitor each channel for detecting under-voltage and over-voltage conditions.

The voltage trip-points, as well as the fault trigger conditions and output polarities, are programmable, allowing for great design flexibility. Programmable slew rate control is also available to enable power supply rails to rise and fall at different rates. Programming is achieved via an I2C bus, and configuration data is safely stored in non-volatile EEPROM memory – available for user data storage allowing customers to store data, such as board serial number, manufacturing date, revision number, etc. The devices can be programmed during development and then used in a "fixed" configuration, or they may be re-programmed in-system via the I2C interface.

To speed user product development, Summit offers the SMT4504 companion evaluation board, which provides graphical user interface software so designers can quickly see the features and benefits and design a prototype power supply system with the SMT4504. The SMT4504 device can operate directly from a +2.7 V to +5.5 V logic supply rail, or from an 8 V or 12 V intermediate bus. It is offered in both the commercial and the industrial operating temperature range, and packaging is the 48-lead TQFP. Available now in production quantities, the SMT4504 is priced at $6.80 each in the commercial temperature range, and $9.63 each in the industrial temperature range in quantities of 1,000 units.