Murata and Powervation Announce New Digital Reference Design at Darnell Power Forum

Powervation Ltd. announced that it has joined forces with Murata Power Solutions to co-develop a new reference design for Murata Power Solution’s 45A Power Block. Unveiled at the Darnell Power Forum, the CEB019 digital dc-dc power solution uses Powervation’s newly-launched PV3012 dual phase digital synchronous buck controller with Auto-Control®, which provides what the companies say is 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 is said to solve many challenges for customers. Murata Power Solutions’ 45A dual phase Power Block occupies just 1.0 x 0.5 inch, the same footprint as most other Power Block offerings which are rated at only 25 – 35A. According to the companies, 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 states that it 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, commented: "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."

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