Industry’s first highly integrated, smart meter power regulator eases design and lowers cost

SUNNYVALE, USA: Maxim Integrated Products introduced the MAX17497, a one-chip solution for all the power requirements on the communications and metrology boards in smart meters. A high level of integration eases design, adds flexibility, increases accuracy, improves reliability, and lowers the total solution cost and footprint. This single power regulator is ideal for smart meter/smart grid applications as well as factory automation.

Typical competing solutions for smart meters integrate only the flyback controller and high-voltage FETs. This design, by itself, is usually expensive. To it, they add external regulators and other discrete devices to complete the application. As expected, solution footprint and overall cost increase. Today’s utility companies and energy providers want a more compact, more economical alternative.

The MAX17497 has been designed and optimized as a multioutput solution specifically for industry’s leading smart meters. It supports all the power-supply requirements for both the smart meter’s communications board and the metrology board.

The MAX17497 integrates the control circuitry required for the universal-input (85V to 265V), nonisolated flyback power supplies. It adds a secondary-side synchronous buck regulator with integrated MOSFETs.

All these integrated functions support the supplies for a powerline communication (PLC) driver or RF transceiver, the PLC/RF modem (2.5V/3.3V), a circuit-breaker relay, and the tightly regulated supplies for the sensitive metrology and application system on chips (SoCs).

The MAX17497 offers an unmatched level of design flexibility. A designer can configure the device for a smart meter’s power supply regardless of the communication scheme.

Designed to operate at 250kHz/500kHz, the flyback regulator avoids the frequencies used in smart meter communications and thus mitigates frequency interference and delivers robust performance. The high-flyback-regulator and secondary buck-regulator frequency allows for optimization of the magnetic and filter components in the smart meter.

The MAX17497 also improves overall system reliability and accuracy through various user-defined thresholds and protection features. The inputs for undervoltage lockout (UVLO) and overvoltage thresholds are programmable. Overtemperature and short-circuit protection and an output power-ok signal vastly improve the safety of the system.

The innovative MAX17497 fits in a small, 3mm x 3mm TQFN package. It operates over the -40 degrees Celsius to +125 degrees Celsius temperature range and prices start at $1.45 (1000-up, FOB USA).