Lattice Semiconductor announced the ispPAC-POWR6AT6 device, an addition to its Power Manager II product family. The device provides margining, selectable output levels and voltage monitoring support for embedded or discrete IC-based power supply designs. Providing control for up to six separate power supplies at once, the device has six power supply TrimCell control pins, six differential monitoring inputs, a precision 10-bit ADC for voltage measurement, and an I2C/SMBus compatible serial interface to control device features and communicate power supply levels. The chip integrates a Margin and Trim Block (MTB) that provides a flexible mechanism for both setting and maintaining the output voltage of a power supply to within 1% of its set value ("trimming"), as well as the ability to vary a power supply voltage to +/- 0.5% of its target value for quality control purposes ("margining"). The MTB consists of six TrimCells that simultaneously control the power supply voltages of up to six power supplies.

Each TrimCell has an 8-bit DAC and six DAC registers for margining and trimming flexibility. Accuracy of the trimmed voltage across operating temperature, load and age of the power supply is achieved through a Digital Closed Loop Trim control circuit. The Digital Closed Loop Trim control circuit continuously compares the voltage set point of a given power supply with the output of the on-chip ADC that is monitoring that power supply voltage. The error signal that results automatically increases or decreases the DAC voltage, maintaining the power supply voltage at a constant value. Further, an external microcontroller can monitor the power supply voltage through the on-chip ADC and directly control the corresponding DAC through the I2C interface. The TrimCell also can store four different DAC code settings or configurations that can easily be selected using hardware pins dedicated to voltage profile selection. The ispPAC-POWR6AT6 device can be configured to adjust up to six supplies with up to four pre-configured output voltages that match the operating requirements of the application.

Software Support

Designs for the ispPAC-POWR6AT6 device are implemented using Lattice's Windows-based PAC-Designer Software version 4.5. To simplify interfacing with power supplies, PAC-Designer 4.5 includes proprietary Margin and Trim support that automatically determines the correct circuit configuration for all commonly available power supply types, including discrete board-level implementations.

Volume (10kU+) pricing for ispPAC-POWR6AT6 in a 32-pin QFN and industrial temperature range starts at $2.25. Samples are available now.