Configuring and monitoring components on a circuit board with a serial or I²C bus is not new. But now and for the first time, a unique lineup of high-current synchronous buck DC/DC converters is available from Texas Instruments that features integrated MOSFETs for space-constrained applications, along with a unique PMBus™ interface.
TI’s new SWIFT™ lineup benefits test equipment that uses performance processors, whether for communications, cloud computing, or storage systems. The SWIFT TPS544C20 delivers up to 30A, while a pin-compatible 20A TPS544B20 and a smaller 12A TPS53915 without telemetry is also available.
Among the many unique features of TI’s new SWIFT point-of-load converter lineup is its small 5 x 7-mm QFN package, which helps it fit into tight spaces with a total solution size of less than 200 mm². The SWIFT lineup also features 0.5% reference voltage accuracy, fully differential remote sensing, and the familiarity of an analog control loop based on TI’s proprietary D-CAP2™ and D-CAP-3™ control modes. All this allows for a very fast transient response without the need for loop compensation.
Power Management Interface
But it’s the PMBus interface that is the main attraction of TI’s SWIFT converter lineup. It provides programmability, fault reporting, margining, and real-time monitoring of voltage, current and temperature. Now, it’s easy to customize and margin the supply, improve system reliability, reduce component count, implement final board screening and optimize new designs based on power consumption and usage data.
The PMBus interface also includes a monitor tab to view readings in real time. Here, warning and fault limits are displayed along with real-time current and temperature data. Output voltage can easily be changed on the fly, so there’s no need to waste time hooking up extra meters and scopes. TI’s Fusion GUI tool even calculates the output power in real-time based on the output voltage and current monitored for each of the PMBus rails.
Design Tools
Design engineers who create a design in TI’s WEBENCH® Power Designer can select a configure tab that displays current and temperature warning and fault limits, which can be adjusted on the fly and even stored within nonvolatile memory. Here, voltage and power-good limits can be modified, while high- and low-margin values can be changed via voltage margining. As well, the reference voltage can be adjusted for adaptive voltage scaling applications.
The new SWIFT converter family with PMBus features high integration with a flexible interface, all packed into a small, elegant solution. To learn more about Texas Instruments’ SWIFT converters with PMBus interface, to request a demo board, or to order samples, visit ti.com/swift.
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