Lattice Releases Programmable Power Manager Device to Reduce Cost of Power Failure Protection for Solid State Drives

Lattice Semiconductor Corp. announced power management solutions that the company says will greatly simplify and increase the reliability of power failure protection circuitry in Solid State Drives (SSD). The power failure protection circuitry prevents data loss in the event of input power failure by using the on-board hold-up capacitor to provide supplemental power during that critical period when the data is fully saved into the Flash memory. These circuits traditionally use either a super capacitor or a tantalum capacitor bank along with a voltage boost converter to store the energy.

According to the company, the Lattice Power Manager II device simplifies and reduces the cost of power failure protection circuitry by integrating the charging and power switchover circuit of the hold-up capacitor. In the case of tantalum hold-up capacitor applications, it eliminates the need for a voltage boost converter.

"The power failure circuitry implemented using our Power Manager II devices can be used across a wide range of solid state drive architectures," said Shakeel Peera, Senior Director of Strategic Marketing for Lattice Semiconductor. "These power management ICs can greatly lower system cost and free up board space by reducing the hold-up capacitor size."

Lattice’s Power Manager II devices enable the integration of super capacitor or tantalum capacitor charging and switchover, hot swap control, power fail interrupt and sequencing. The Power Manager’s precision voltage monitoring (0.7% accuracy), fast response (48 microseconds) and on-chip CPLD greatly improve the reliability of the power failure protection circuitry in an SSD. Faster system response, voltage doubler, capacitor voltage monitor and control circuitry reduce the amount of capacitance required to provide backup power during power outages.