New Industry Products

Universal 5-Output PMIC for Low Power FPGAs and SoCs

April 16, 2018 by Paul Shepard

MaxLinear, Inc. announced a Universal PMIC specifically designed to power a broad range of low power FPGAs, DSPs, and microprocessors. This perfect power companion is a great fit for FPGAs and SoCs used in embedded computing systems, IoT clients, industrial control systems, POS terminals and test equipment.

The MxL7704 includes four synchronous step-down buck regulators that provide system, memory, I/O and core power from 1.5A to 4A. An on-board 100mA LDO provides clean 1.5V to 3.6V power for analog sub-systems. This PMIC utilizes a conditional sequencing state machine that is flexible enough to meet the requirements of virtually any processor.

The MxL7704-X and MxL7704-A are the first standard configurations to be launched based on this unique universal PMIC.

The MxL7704-X has been optimized for powering the Xilinx® Zynq® Ultrascale+™ ZU2 and ZU3 MPSoCs.  The bucks are pre-programmed to provide the core rail (0.85V up to 4A), LPDDR3 memory power (1.35V), I/O and system power (1.8V and 3.3V).

Sequencing is tailored to the unique needs of the ZU2 and ZU3 MPSoCs, offering accelerated time to market with Xilinx® Zynq® Ultrascale+™ ZU2 and ZU3 devices. The MxL7704-X adds to the existing selection of MaxLinear power delivery solutions available at www.xilinx.com and www.exar.com/xilinx.

The MxL7704-A is designed to power a wide range of ARM® Cortex®- based processors (A7, A9, and A53) which use a more conventional sequencing scheme where the I/O rails power up first and core is last.  The bucks provide the 1.2V core rail, 1.35V LPDDR3 power, 1.8V and 3.3V rails for I/O and system power.

"We created the perfect companion PMIC by working very closely with high profile lead customers," said Tuomas Hollman, MaxLinear Senior Director of Marketing, Power Management Products.

"The MxL7704 provides system designers with 5 rails pre-optimized for ease of use with a host of features that allow monitoring, telemetry and additional flexibility," conluded Hollman.

This PMIC offers a high 1MHz to 2.1MHz switching frequency and utilizes a current mode architecture with internal compensation.  These features enable a very fast transient response to line and load changes without sacrificing stability or board space.

An I2C interface allows dynamic voltage control on all outputs, status monitoring by channel, input voltage status, sequencing control and PGOOD routing.

In addition, an on-board 8-bit ADC has 2 external inputs and die temperature monitoring. It operates over an input voltage range of 4V to 5.5V and includes fault protection features such as input under-voltage, overvoltage, overcurrent protection, and thermal protection.

Features include:

  • Input voltage range: 4.0V to 5.5V
  • 4 Synchronous Buck Regulators
    • Internally compensated current mode
    • 1MHz to 2.1MHz switching frequency
    • Buck 1: 3.0V to 3.6V, 20mV step, 1.5A
    • Buck 2: 1.3V to 1.92V, 20mV step, 1.5A
    • Buck 3: 0.8V to 1.6V, 6.25mV step, 2.5A
    • Buck 4: 0.6V to 1.4V, 6.25mV step, 4A
  • 100mA LDO 1.5V to 3.6V, 20mV step
  • ±2% maximum total dc output error over line, load and temperature
  • 3V/5V 400kHz I2C interface
    • Dynamic voltage scaling
    • Status monitoring by channel
    • Sequencing control
    • Input voltage status register
  • Highly flexible conditional sequencing engine with external input
  • 2 configurable PGOOD outputs
  • Adjustable switching frequency
  • 5mm x 5mm 32-pin QFN package

The MxL7704-X and MxL7704-A are available now in a RoHS compliant, green/halogen free, industry standard 5mm x 5mm 32-pin QFN packages. Evaluation boards and samples are available.