Zilker Labs Introduces New 3A Power Management and Conversion IC

Zilker Labs Inc. introduced a single-chip 3A power conversion solution that integrates full digital power management capabilities. The ZL2105 extends Zilker Labs' innovative Digital-DC™ technology into lower power applications and combines a synchronous step-down converter including synchronous power MOSFETs with key power management funtionality in a tiny 6 x 6 mm package. A ZL2105 circuit with full digital power management capabilities requires less than two square centimeters of board space, representing size and component count reductions of up to 50%. Like all Digital-DC ICs, the ZL2105 is designed to be a digital building block that can be seamlessly combined with other Digital-DC devices to provide a comprehensive solution for board-mounted power management and conversion.

"The ZL2105 is a key addition to our Digital-DC product family and advances our goal of making advanced power design simple. The ZL2105 combines the digital power management capabilities, simple configurability and high efficiency of our existing ZL2005 into a part that is ideal for lower power applications," said Jim Templeton, Zilker Labs' Vice President of Marketing. "Customers can combine multiple Digital-DC devices on a given PCB and easily configure the parts to simplify a complicated power design. Ours are the only solutions to offer this 'plug and play' experience for board-level power."

Zilker Labs' Digital-DC products are fully configurable with simple pin-strap connections, resistor selection or via the device's on-board serial port using the industry-standard PMBus™ command set. The single-chip Digital-DC products provide the configurability, control and monitoring capabilities of digital power technology without compromising efficiency. Additionally, they eliminate the requirement for user programming. To combine multiple Digital-DC ICs in a given application, the designer simply configures each IC via pin-strap selection and connects the serial bus (SMBus) of each device. The devices then communicate with each other via the SMBus and can operate independent of a host controller. The devices can be monitored and controlled individually or as a system.

Zilker Labs began sampling the ZL2105 in July to select customers. The ZL2105 is available in a 6 x 6 mm 36-lead QFN package. Pricing starts at $2.80 in quantities of 1,000. An evaluation kit, the ZL2105EVI, is also available.