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Microchip Showcasing Demos at PCIM Europe

April 23, 2019 by Scott McMahan

Microchip announced the company's participation in PCIM Europe 2019. The company invites PCIM attendees to visit Microchip in Hall 6 at Booth 316 to meet their power, energy and motion experts.

Explore Microchip Demos

PFC Vienna

At the company booth, Microchip will demonstrate its latest technologies and solutions for a variety of markets and applications. Below is a list of their demos to help you get started with your design:

With the company's next-generation SiC Schottky Barrier Diodes and SiC MOSFETs they produced a 30kW, three-phase Vienna Power Factor Correction topology reference design. The PFC Vienna reference design is suited for fast EV charging and other high-power industrial and automotive applications. (See image of PFC Vienna reference design board above).

CIP Hybrid Power Starter Kit

The CIP Hybrid Power Starter Kit shows how to implement a synchronous buck power supply to run autonomously on a PIC16F1779 microcontroller. Microchip says that this autonomous running of a synchronous buck power supply does not require writing any code. The implementation runs entirely within the Core Independent Peripherals (CIPs) without using any CPU resources. This implementation, therefore, allows a full SMPS to accompany any application, saving cost, development time and board space.

MIC4607 Three-Phase Motor Driver

In this demonstration of a typical three-phase motor drivers topology, the MIC4607 drives a ceiling fan using three pairs of MOSFET half bridges that are combined into a B6 MOSFET bridge. An 8-bit ATmega microcontroller controls the electronic speed control with a six-step control scheme. The feedback loop is sensorless, with three op amps detecting the zero crossings to sense the rotor position.

3-Phase motor driver

RGBW Lamp with Linear Dimming and Color Adjustment Via UART

Microchip will demonstrate four CL88020 sequential linear LED drivers that control the intensity and color of an LED lamp. The drivers achieve four-channel dimming using an 8-bit PIC® microcontroller, which can be configured through an isolated UART interface with a user-friendly Graphical User Interface (GUI) on any Android™ based device. While this demonstration is for 120Vac, the CL88030 can be used to implement a similar application for 220Vac.

Power Solutions

The Aerospace-grade Power Core Module (PCM)—featuring integrated SiC MOSFETs, driver circuitry and a control interface interactively operates an electrical motor. The on-board computer's GUI can be used to change the speed of the motor while the output current from each of the three phases is shown in real time. Suitable for many aerospace applications, Microchip designed and fully qualified the Power Core Module to operate primary flight control actuation surfaces in the new generation of commercial aircraft.

Power core module with SiC half bridge

Digital Power Solutions

dsPIC33 Digital Signal Controllers provide the performance of a DSP while boasting the simplicity of a MCU. The company designed the dsPIC DSC to execute digital filter algorithms and high-speed precision digital control loops. A variety of development boards and reference designs showcase the breadth of capabilities that Microchips' dsPIC DSCs solutions offer.

1600W Automotive Bus Balancer

In order to to add the new 48V bus rail while maintaining compatibility with current 12V systems, new cars will require dual-power domains. A bi-directional dc-dc converter is needed to stabilize these two voltage rails and enable on-demand power transfer between them. Microchip's 1600W Automotive Bus Balancer demonstration shows how the dsPIC33EP DSC is implemented for an automotive power conversion system that includes the 48V bus rail.

Wireless Power and Charging Solutions

The company's dsPIC33 Digital Signal Controller, which includes a DSP Core, high-speed ADCs and high-resolution PWMs, offers a high level of programmability and enables standards-based and proprietary wireless charging solutions.

The dsPIC33 DSC-based 15W transmitter complies with the Qi™ standard and supports CAN, NFC, and Authentication. Targeting applications including industrial robots and power tools, the 200W Transmitter/Receiver solution, which uses a proprietary protocol, offers greater than 90% efficiency, and includes an advanced Foreign Object Detection scheme.

Dynamic Motor Control

The free Scilab/X2C Rapid Prototyping environment helps in the designing of dynamic motor controls. The prototyping environment is fully integrated into MPLAB® X Integrated Development Environment (IDE). This demo illustrates a motor dynamometer/generator for dynamic load testing with graphical visualization and easy parameter updating.

Powering Your Home On and Off the Grid

Power monitoring is crucial for solar, wind, storage batteries, and the grid. Microchip will demonstrate the use of multi-channel dc power monitors to determine power consumption and storage in a mock home powering scenario.

GaNdalf PFC Reference Design Board

GaNdalf is Microchip's high-efficiency GaN-based, fully-digitally-controlled totem pole, bridgeless PFC reference design from Future Electronics. It uses two Panasonic X-GaN HEMT power transistors and features a dsPIC33CH Dual Core Digital Signal Controller. The design targets high-efficiency, high-power density ac-dc power supplies for industrial DIN-rail mount units, platinum- and titanium-rated desktop PCs, and small office servers of up to 1kW.