Atmel
Let's start with Atmel. Its Power Management and Analog Companion product line, or PMAAC, consists of a set of analog companion chips supporting the company's microcontrollers. PMAAC wares integrate power supplies and supply components such as linear low-drop-out regulators (LDOs), dc-to-dc switching converters, and chargers for lithium-ion chemistry batteries.
You can also zero in more closely on Atmel's development tools by following the links on their Web pages. The supporting documents and software for these eval kits are also on-line, and no registration for the docs or code is required.
The company's AT73C209-EK2 product, for example, is a general-purpose evaluation and demo platform for a 3-channel power supply. Fully assembled, it’s slated for portable applications, and optimized for minimum ground bounce and EMI. This example kit also includes an audio interface that can be supplied by a single-cell alkaline or nickel-metal hydride battery. Software is included.
There’s a similar evaluation platform for Atmel’s AT73C224, a chip that’s popular for supplying the required voltages and currents to the main sections of generic 32-bit microcontroller applications. The AT73C224-EK1 board-level kit is connected to your PC, where you bring up Atmel's Windows-hosted software. Giving you the ability to evaluate a 4-channel power supply packaged in a 5 x 5-mm surface-mount package, the kit consists of two dc-to-dc converters and two LDOs, as well as backup battery management features.
Similarly, Atmel's AT73C239-EK1 eval kit is for evaluating a 4-channel power management unit.
Fairchild Semiconductor
The venerable firm of Fairchild Semiconductor offers on-line toolsets, too. However, like many vendors, the company wants to know about you. As such, you'll have to register to gain access to most of its on-line tools. Once you opt to log on, Fairchild's FETBench pages will present information on more than 300 of the company's most popular MOSFETs.
Not a trivial resource, Fairchild's FETBench incorporates both electrical simulation and thermal simulation tools. These tools provide analyses beyond that which you might derive from conventional, printed, data sheets.
Fairchild also offers extensions that build on the company's existing Power Supply Design Toolkit. These are interactive tutorials and product selection aids that are downloadable for Windows PCs. Using a step-by-step approach, the Power Supply Design Toolkit can help you craft fixed-frequency flyback off-line power supplies based on quasi-resonant converter topologies. This toolset requires registration.
If you're looking for power-factor correction (PFC) circuits (last reviewed here in March 2009), you'll want to check out Fairchild's PFC pages. There you’ll find a tutorial about control methods, as well as lots of information on pertinent agency regulations. Naturally, a product selection module is included. To use these tools, you'll need to log in and download the latest version of Macromedia Flash Player.
Finally, although Fairchild says it offers more than a dozen evaluation boards for 13 different significant semiconductor devices, we discovered that most of the company's development kits and evaluation boards were listed as "Out of stock." In fairness, datasheets for the missing 13 were on-line.
Freescale Semiconductor
Freescale Semiconductor's on-line facilities are billed as energy efficient and green, although you’ll discover resources for developers of conventional embedded applications and automotive applications as well as renewable energy systems. In the automotive category, for example, there are tools for optimizing hybrid engine control, and for designing gasoline direct injection subsystems. There are also tools for designing all-electric cars. Freescale abets its support tools with dev kits, evaluation boards, and simulators. Click here to access lists of Freescale's toolsets.
The company's reference designs are also listed by application.
International Rectifier
Another major semiconductor company offering reference design kits is International Rectifier. IRF's kits support the development of dc-to-dc synchronous buck converters, dc bus converters (reviewed here in December 2007), and synchronous PWM (pulse width modulation) controllers. Click here to access more info about reference designs.
IRF also offers lighting ballast control kits supporting the design of circuits for fluorescent and halogen lamps.
If you're seeking proven reference designs for ac-to-dc power conversion applications, IRF has a number of these available, too.
IRF also supports designers incorporating small (up to 1/2-hp) motors, such as appliance motors. Reference designs for fractional horsepower ac induction motors can be found here.
Take The Tour:
While you're perusing IRF's on-line wares, don't miss the opportunity to look over the company's MyPower Web site. It links to five distinct guided tours. Among these, the Power Factor Correction pages let you calculate part values for PFC circuits that are claimed to slash circuit board space by half over competitive designs.
You'll also find more PFC design tools at IRF's Web site, but you will have to register to use them.
IRF also offers point-of-load (POL) design tools. These can simulate power circuits and let you compare the characteristics of the company's discrete MOSFET line. The guided tour begins here.
Additional POL tools can be accessed here.
IRF's bus converter pages can be accessed here.
A selection of bus converter design tools can be found here.
If you're designing lighting systems, you can use IRF's software to draw schematics and generate bill-of-materials (BOM) lists for ac-input or dc-input designs. Again, registration is required to download the software. IRF's ballast design guided tour can be accessed here.
If you're interested in synchronous rectification, you can use IRF's guided tour to learn how to compare MOSFET choices and calculate component values for optimum efficiency. Click here for the guided tour.
If you want to proceed to lay out a synchronous rectifier board, click here (you must register).
Intersil
Intersil has re-invented itself over the years. At the moment, Intersil offers a number of IBIS, SPICE, Saber, and similar simulation models on-line, but doesn't offer hardware development kits. But, you can access the list of simulation models for Intersil products here.
Linear Technology
Linear Technology Corporation offers numerous eval kits, quick-start guides, and reference designs for power management. For example, its Demonstration Circuit 1029 lets you evaluate the performance of the company's LTC2928 Multi-channel Power Supply Sequencer and Supervisor chip. The LTC2928 sequences and monitors up to four power channels in power-up and power-down, and it monitors those outputs.
LTC's other kits target a variety of power supply applications. Its wares are too numerous to list in entirety here, but you can click to access details and documents for these support tools.
Maxim Integrated Products
LTC competitor Maxim Integrated Products offers an almost bewildering array of power products. Indeed, the company is known for releasing new products just about every week. Maxim's offerings include battery management, charger, fuel gauge, and battery ID devices, as well as power supply sequencers and voltage trackers, and battery-backup ICs.
Maxim also offers capacitor charge pumps, charge-pump inverters, and step-up and step-down dc-to-dc switching regulators. Still other power-oriented ICs from Maxim are display and LED power drivers, hot-swap and power switching devices, current limiters, current sense amplifiers, over-voltage protectors, USB and CardBus switches, relay drivers, and Power-Over-Ethernet devices.
Maxim also has a line of ICs for isolated power supply applications, and a host of linear regulators, some with re-set circuits. The company also offers high-voltage regulators, MOSFET drivers, FET controllers, and half-bridge circuits.
Simulate On-Line
For support tools, Maxim's EE-Sim Tool lets you create and simulate circuits on-line. Based on details of your input requirements, Maxim's Web tool can generate an interactive schematic complete with components you can adjust.
To evaluate your schematic, EE-Sim features a simulation engine that permits iterations to be simulated: usually in mere minutes. The resulting waveforms, Bode plots, and voltage graphs are available for analysis in a waveform viewer. Ultimately, the circuit and component requirements, your schematics, results, and BOMs can be printed and saved.
You can access EE-Sim either on-line or download it to your PC. Both versions are free, but you will need what Maxim calls Maxim Membership to access the tool. Registration is free. Click here to log on.
Micrel Semiconductor
Micrel Semiconductor also offers circuit designers power management ICs, battery chargers, display drivers, hot-swap controllers, low voltage and high voltage ICs, power switches, and single and multiple output LDOs. To support these chips, Micrel has evaluation boards. Its MIC410X kit, for example, can be used to exercise Micrel's 100 V MOSFET drivers. Click here to read the documentation for this board.
National Semiconductor
A time honored IC maker with on-line tools backed by hardware design aids is National Semiconductor. Its Web Bench power supply design tool lets you examine waveforms, change component values, and view a history of simulation results to fine-tune a power supply design based on any of 73 different National chips. Once you are done with your design, you can buy all the parts (passive and active) and, in many cases, a reference design PCB to build a prototype. The same system permits you to order samples of National’s semiconductors (typically up to five units).
All of this material is free, including the samples, but if you register you can also create a personal workspace not accessible by others. National's Web Bench toolset is available in both HTML for a Web browser, or as a Macromedia Flash Player presentation. Click here to begin:
National also offers evaluation hardware. Its LM3410XMFLEDEV, for example, priced at about $38, is an LM3410 boost circuit eval board. Similarly, the company’s $160 LM5035AEVAL eval board is for a National PWM controller with integrated half-bridge and FET drivers. The LM3881EVAL is a $30 board for an LM3881 power sequencer IC. You can get more information on these boards and others by clicking here.
ON Semiconductor
ON Semiconductor brings a lot to the on-line party, too. The company has dozens of downloads supporting design-in of its devices. These tools are mostly in the form of spreadsheet analyzers that can help visualize the applicability of components for voltage regulators, buck-boost converters, and power management applications. Click here to access these spreadsheets.
ON Semi also offers some sample kits as well as evaluation boards. For example, its CS51411 demo board runs a 1 A 3.3 V buck regulator based on ON Semi's CS51411 or CS51413 chips. Similarly, the company's CS5171BSTEVB demo board is for 1.5 A current-mode architecture switching regulators. Click here to access information about these sample support products.
ON Semiconductor also offers a variety of simulation models for its products. Models are available for SPICE, PSPICE, ISPICE, and OrCad engines. Click here for details on downloading these free resources.
Microchip PIC Proliferation
A microcontroller company offering an exceptionally wide variety of power-oriented products is Microchip Technology. Well known for its PIC Series of very low cost microcontrollers, Microchip Technology also has an extensive power management product line.
The company's products include PWM controllers, digital signal controllers (last reviewed here in March 2009), precision supervisors and regulators with industry-standard functions and pin-outs, very low-power voltage monitors, linear voltage regulators, step-down and step-up dc-to-dc controllers, low-dropout precision voltage references, and inverting and doubling converters. Other Microchip power-oriented wares include MOSFET drivers, smart battery managers, and hot-swap controllers.
To support these devices Microchip has a Web-based circuit design and simulation tool called Mindi. You must register to use it. Click here to access the Mindi tool.
Microchip Technology has additional development tools based on its popular PIC microcontroller MPLAB IDE (integrated development environment) and its optimized MPLAB C18 and MPLAB C30 C language compilers. Microchip also offers a variety of stand-alone and PC-compatible development programmers, in-circuit debuggers, demo boards, and eval kits. All of these can be accessed and downloaded from the company's Design Center.
NXP Semiconductors
Formerly Philips (and often still referred to by that name), NXP Semiconductors now has a focus on energy-efficient power electronics. NXP's free SimPort tool, for example, lets you calculate efficiency, predict real-word performance, simulate a design, and track your findings. You will have to register to access this tool. Once in hand, this so-called active datasheet will let you vary test conditions and re-draw many of the graphs typically provided in a conventional datasheet.
NXP's on-line Buck Designer is available at the same URL. It will prompt you for a few basic parameters and then calculate the most efficient MOSFET combinations for a given synchronous buck regulator. Pre-designed analog simulation features let you tweak component values to reflect different passive device choices, such as inductors and capacitors.
NXP's Buck designer also lets you generate input, output, and switching waveforms. And, when you're done, a Design Summary tab gives you a summary of all design parameters and waveforms.
Power Integrations
Power Integrations has been a pioneer in developing so-called green (high-efficiency) power systems, as well as design tools and reference designs that are easy for even novice power engineers to customize for an application. PI reference-design kits, called DAKs, provide resources for power supply design using the company's ICs. PI's kits include samples, functional reference boards, and documentation. Clicking here can access a listing of the kits and documentation.
If you are involved with green power designs, PI offers literally hundreds of design examples, including those meeting the efficiency requirements set by the California Energy Commission and EnergyStar, as well as other regulatory agencies worldwide. We’ve reviewed several of their reference designs (including an EnergyStar-compliant audio power source in April 2009), but you can click here to see more examples of what PI offers.
Don't forget to visit PI's on-line Green Room, too. The Green Room's External Power Supply Efficiency Compliance Calculator can help you check the efficiency compliance of an EPS design. To use the Compliance Calculator, you need only enter your data to see if your design complies with current worldwide energy efficiency regulations.
Semtech
Semtech's C-SIM is an interactive Web-based tool for selecting and simulating devices from the company's product portfolio. Based on input and output parameters you choose, C-SIM will help find suitable devices for an application. C-SIM also permits you to capture schematics, and create reference designs along with associated BOMs. The tool also lets you view waveforms.
Currently, C-SIM is only available for a subset of Semtech's power management devices. You must register with Semtech to use the toolset.
STMicroelectronics
Like its competitors, STMicroelectronics has a range of boards that can be used to evaluate its products and slash development times. ST classifies its boards into three categories.
The first are product evaluation boards to help evaluate features and performance of the company's products. In this category, for example, ST's EVAL4971 board supports its L4971 1.5 A step-down switching regulator chip. Similarly, ST's EVAL5970D board is for its L5970D 1 A step-down switching regulator.
The second class comprises system eval boards that can be used to propose optimized and tested approaches to an application. ST's third class of boards are sample and promotion kits. These propose a selection of similar or complementary products. You can learn more about 30 of these boards by accessing a list here.
Texas Instruments
No compendium of on-line resources would be complete without Texas Instruments. Like National Semi, Freescale, ON Semi and others, TI offers extensive Web pages with documentation for ac-to-dc and dc-to-dc supplies, linear and switching regulators, battery management circuits, references, multi-channel power management ICs, hot-swap devices, power distribution devices, lighting, displays, and more.
TI backs its silicon with a variety of dev kits, including ones for green applications. For example, its Renewable Energy Developer's Kit, based on the TI C2000 digital signal controller (DSC) (last reviewed here in May 2009) assists with the development of digitally-controlled energy systems. The kit features a scaled down dc-to-ac inverter capable of synchronizing to an external ac line and supporting battery charging and management. Click here to view a video about the Renewable Energy Developer's Kit.
Similarly, TI's dc-to-dc Digital Power Developer's Kit targets multi-rail and multi-phase applications. This $325 kit includes what TI calls a control CARD packing an F28044 DSC (digital signal controller) chip.
In operation, this kit demos the capabilities of the DSC as a 16-rail digital power controller. The control CARD is a board-level module in an industry-standard DIMM form-factor. TI's dc-to-dc kit also includes a motherboard using eight of TI's digital non-isolated PowerTrain modules. They're useful for prototyping dc POL power control. Click here to access details.
Texas Instruments also offers a C2000 Digital Power Experimenter Kit. Priced at about $230, the DPEK is for hardware or software engineers who want to explore digital power supply design. The DPEK contains a 2-rail dc-to-dc eval board based on TI PowerTrain modules. It also includes a DMM (digital multi-meter) and an active load. C2000 application software, with example code, is also supplied. Digital Power Supply Workshop teaching material and lab software is also available, but a JTAG emulator is required, which is sold separately. Click here for details.
If you're designing higher-power ac-powered supplies, TI has an ac/dc Developer's Kit that comprises an 80 W rectifier development platform. It’s useful for prototyping communications server farms, radio basestations, telecom racks, and related higher power consumer equipments.
This reference design comprises a 2-phase interleaved PFC front-end and a phase-shifted full-bridge secondary. The system is controlled by a single F2808 controlCARD. The ac/dc Developer's Kit is complete with Code Composer Studio IDE, C2000 applications software, and example code. Like the DPEK, it too requires a standalone JTAG emulator.
If you're designing dc-to-dc converters, TI's C2000 Resonant dc/dc Developer's Kit is designed to show you how to craft a digitally controlled resonant converter. Based on a single transformer LLC resonant converter, this eval module can demonstrate four different feedback methods. The module also has on-board USB JTAG emulation, but requires no external JTAG emulator.
Unplugged Energy
For designers of smart building systems or other wireless sensor networks, TI offers its eZ430-RF2500-SEH development tool (reviewed here in January 2009). This specialized tool lets you build solar-powered wireless sensor networks. It is based on a combination of Cymbet's Enerchip batteries, along with TI's MSP430 microcontroller and its CC2500 RF technology.
A Solar Energy Harvester module includes a solar cell that enables indoors operation under low-intensity fluorescent lights (read our review). Naturally (no pun intended), inputs are also available for external energy harvesters such as thermal or piezoelectric sources, or other solar panels. The system also manages and stores additional energy in a pair of thin-film rechargeable EnerChips, which are capable of delivering enough power for 400 transmissions.
Vishay Siliconix
At Vishay Siliconix you'll find a variety of downloadable design tools. The company offers reasonably priced demo boards, backed up with documentation files. The company's Si786 Notebook Dual Power Supply Demonstration Board, for example, can be purchased for about $125. The Si786 chip is pin-and function-compatible with Maxim's MAX786 dual-output power supply controller, and is a drop-in replacement for that circuit. Vishay's support tools and demo boards will suffice for many Maxim ICs.
Other boards include a Programmable Duty Cycle Controller Demonstration Board for the firm's Si9118 chip; a Notebook Power Supply Demonstration Board for its Si9130 device; a Multiple Output Power Supply for Notebook PC demo board based on the Si9136 chip; a controller for high-performance process power supplies for Si9140 ICs; a Power Amplifier Boost Controller board for the company's Si9160 device; and a 600-mA Synchronous Buck Converter for 2-cell lithium-ion cellphone applications based on a Vishay Si9167 IC.
There are many more demo boards. Each is pre-assembled and configured, and these packages include application notes and user's guides, replete with suggested board layouts and BOMs. New demo boards will also debut as new power ICs are released by Vishay. For access to the demo board documentation links, click here.
