Power management architecture supports circuit boards with up to 36 power supply rails

May 08, 2012 // Julien Happich

Lattice Semiconductor announced a scalable, in-system upgradable, star topology power management architecture that can be used across a wide range of circuit boards requiring more than 12 power supply rails.

Power management functions include supply sequencing, monitoring, hot-swap control, reset and other supervisory signal generation. The complexity of power management functions grows significantly when the number of circuit board power supplies increases. The solution often demands the use of multiple power management devices. As a result, designers typically are forced to partition the overall power management task and implement it using distributed algorithms in multiple devices, a costly and time consuming approach.

The inadequacies of this approach become apparent only during the board debug stage, forcing board re-spin and costly project delays. The integrated power management approach made possible by the Platform Manager devices, on the other hand, reduces cost and increases board reliability. Application notes provided by Lattice Semiconductor describe unrestricted access to power supply status indicators and the ability to control all board management functions. Designers are easily able to modify their algorithm to meet unforeseen power management requirements and minimize the need for a board re-spin.

Download the applications notes:

Scalable Centralized Power Management with Field Upgrade Support

Fail-Safe Sequencing During Field Upgrades with Platform Manager

Designs for the Power Manager II and Platform Manager devices are implemented using Lattice PAC-Designer and Lattice Diamond design software tools that are available for download free of charge from the Lattice website at www.latticesemi.com/pac-designer and www.latticesemi.com/latticediamond.

Technical papers     

• High Voltage Surge Stoppers Ensure Reliable Operation During Power Surges
• AR RF/Microwave Instrumentation Field Analyzers
• 16-Bit, 100 kSPS Low Power Successive Approximation ADC System
• Replacing the Candle in the Candelabra

December 15, 2011 | Texas instruments | 222901974

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