Murata Power Solutions and Powervation ally for new digital reference design

CORK, IRELAND & SAN JOSE, USA: Powervation Ltd, the pioneer in adaptive digital power management IC solutions that increase system efficiency, improve field reliability, and accelerate time to market, has joined forces with Murata Power Solutions to co-develop a new reference design for Murata Power Solution’s 45 A Power Block.

The CEB019 digital DC/DC power solution uses Powervation’s newly-launched PV3012 dual phase digital synchronous buck controller with Auto-Control, which provides the industry’s only real-time, adaptive loop compensation that helps to overcome issues related to variations in external components, temperature, and user layouts, without significant design effort and support.

The combination of Powervation’s Auto-Control and precision telemetry, with Murata’s highly integrated high density power stage solves many challenges for customers. Murata Power Solutions’ 45 A dual phase Power Block occupies just 1.0 inch x 0.5 inch, the same footprint as most other Power Block offerings which are rated at only 25 - 35 A. This ultra-dense LGA solution addresses many of the critical steps - layout, component matching, etc. - while providing best-in-class-efficiency.

When teamed with the PV3012 control IC, Power Block users can greatly reduce their dependence on external engineering support when designing the system to their specific needs. Powervation delivers the final piece of the puzzle as the PV3012’s Auto-Control technology eliminates the need for any external loop compensation, automatically dealing with large amounts of additional capacitance – including low ESR ceramics – changes in load steps, degradation in the power train over life, and also providing optimum transient performance.

Furthermore, PV3012 supports >50 PMBus commands and uses the SMBus serial interface to communicate precision real-time telemetry information. With PV3012’s telemetry functionality, users are able to monitor system performance and to implement system level power reduction regimes including power capping, dynamic voltage scaling, etc.

Henry Lee, Product Marketing Manager, Murata Power Solutions, said: “Together, with Powervation, we are developing the first total system solution, a true Plug-and-Power digital DC/DC converter with ±0.50% output voltage reporting accuracy and a fully configurable feature set that supports PMBus commands. No matter which Murata Power Solution’s Power Block is selected, Powervation’s real-time adaptive loop compensation technology will make things simple and reliable. There is no need for any additional tuning and compensation design efforts - it works straight out of the box.”

Powervation’s director of Product Marketing, David New, added: “With this optimized reference design we are enabling more customers to get the full benefits of Murata Power Solutions’ scalable, high efficiency Power Block products, fulfilling the challenging requirements of networking, server, and high-powered FPGA customers.”

PV3012 is available for sampling now, and the CEB019 reference design with engineering samples of Murata Power Solutions’ 45 A Power Block will be available from Powervation in Q4 2011.