Technical Article

Keep Pace with Today039s Power Technology

July 01, 2015 by Wolfgang Patekay

This article highlights Texas Instruments' new technologies, products with innovative, powerful, and easy-to-use design for various applications.

As one of the leading electronics companies Texas Instruments fuels power designs with an innovative portfolio and speeds time to market with powerful, easy-to-use design tools. Now the company extends its power product range with some industry first.

According to Dave Priscak, Director, Power Systems at Texas Instruments, is the company committed to help power designers realize the full potential of today’s technologies with advancements in power innovation, including: Breakthrough Wide-Vin DC/DC converters, first zero-standby power PSR solution for AC supplies up to 75 W, first GaN half-bridge power stage in a QFN and accelerating digital power design to meet any power design requirement.

 

Industry’s first 80-V half-bridge GaN FET module

The new LMG5200 is the industry’s first 80V, 10A integrated gallium nitride (GaN) field-effect transistor (FET) power-stage prototype, which consists of a high-frequency driver and two GaN FETs in a half-bridge configuration – all in an easy-to-design quad flat no-leads (QFN) package. It will help accelerate market adoption of next-generation GaN power-conversion solutions that provide increased power density and efficiency in space-constrained, high-frequency industrial and telecom applications. One of the biggest barriers to GaN-based power design has been the uncertainties around driving GaN FETs and the resulting parasitics due to packaging and design layout. This GaN FET power stage will help power designers realize the full power potential of GaN technology by offering them a complete, reliable power-conversion ecosystem of optimized integrated modules, drivers and high-frequency controllers in advanced, easy-to-design packaging.

Typically, designers who use GaN FETs that switch at high frequencies must be careful with board layout to avoid ringing and electromagnetic interference (EMI). LMG5200´s dual 80V power stage prototype significantly eases this issue while increasing power-stage efficiency by reducing packaging parasitic inductances in the critical gate-drive loop. It features advanced multi-chip packaging technology and is optimized to support power-conversion topologies with frequencies up to 5 MHz. 

 

The LMG5200 integrated GaN FET power-stage prototype, consists of a high-frequency driver and two GaN FETs in a half-bridge configuration in a QFN package

Figure 1: The LMG5200 integrated GaN FET power-stage prototype, consists of a high-frequency driver and two GaN FETs in a half-bridge configuration in a QFN package

 

The easy-to-use 6mm by 8mm QFN package requires no under fill, which significantly simplifies manufacturing. The reduced footprint solidifies the value of GaN technology and will help increase adoption of GaN power designs in many new applications, ranging from new high-frequency wireless charging applications to 48-V telecom and industrial designs. In addition to ordering the available LMG5200 evaluation module (EVM), designers can get started faster using PSpice and TINA-TI models for the LMG5200 to simulate the performance and switching frequency advantages of this technology.

 

The LM5175 four-switch buck-boost controller achieves the highest power efficiency with reduced EMI

Figure 2: The LM5175 four-switch buck-boost controller achieves the highest power efficiency with reduced EMI

 

65-V synchronous step-down converter with Fly-Buck capability

The next industry’s first TI launched is the 65V synchronous step-down converter LM5160A that provides isolated bias supplies up to 15 W – without the need for an opto-coupler. As part of the company´s in-novative Fly-Buck power portfolio, the converter improves power den-sity and addresses higher power needs more efficiently and reliably in industrial and automotive applications, such as three-phase AC motor drives, programmable logic controllers (PLCs), smart metering, renewable energy or grid infrastructure, factory automation, power over Ethernet (POE), IP cameras, and electric vehicles. The converter features a constant on-time control that requires no loop compensation and supports high step-down ratios with fast transient response. The innovative converter, which supports a wide-input voltage of 4.5 V to 65 V, can generate positive and negative bias-supply rails in non-isolated designs, or single and multiple isolated outputs, while minimizing solution size and simplifying the design compared to traditional flyback solutions. Used in conjunction with WE-BENCH online design tools, the LM5160A speeds time to market of high-power DC/DC designs. The 4.5V to 65V input voltage range allows the converter to efficiently operate in harsh transient conditions without the need for input clamp circuits, resulting in higher reliability. Constant on-time control provides fast transient response and results in lower component count. Programmable soft start reduces in-rush currents when powering up into heavy loads or large capacitance. Internal ±1% voltage reference and VOUT error correction improve accuracy across line, load and temperature.

 

Buck-boost DC/DC controller achieves highest power efficiency with reduced EMI

The also introduced LM5175, a new wide VIN, four-switch buck-boost controller achieves - according to Priscak - the highest power efficiency with reduced EMI. The controller manages input voltages from 3.5 V to 42 V (60VIN absolute max) and regulates output voltages from 0.8 V to 55 V. This flexibility enables the controller to deliver high-performance designs for industrial and automotive applications such as industrial PCs, USB power delivery, in-vehicle wireless charging, LED lighting, electric vehicles, battery charging and telecom RF power amplifiers. 

The flexible DC/DC controller addresses a wide variety of buck, boost, and buck-boost applications from output power of a few watts to greater than 100W using a single device. A proprietary switching scheme maximizes efficiency in the buck-boost transition region and uses a single inductor to further reduce board space. Its robust gate drive (2A at 7.5V) enables wide VIN MOSFETs to switch faster and more efficiently. Optional hiccup mode short-circuit protection prevents thermal runaway during extended load current faults, reducing thermal stress by up to 30 percent. Optional input or output average current limiting addresses applications requiring a regulated current from the input supply or to the load.

 

Zero standby power PSR solution for high-power AC/DC power supplies

Another industry’s first introduction is the zero standby power controller chipset UCC28730 with the lowest standby power consumption for AC/DC flyback power supplies up to 75W. Taking power supply efficiency to the next level, the new primary-side regulation (PSR) flyback controller with 700V startup switch and UCC24650 wake-up monitor supports 5V to 24V output voltages and helps designers create smaller, more efficient power supplies for TVs, home appliances, AC adapters, heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), and building automation systems. A major design limitation with existing primary-side regulation power supplies today is poor transient response performance while trying to maintain low standby power. 

The UCC28730 and UCC24650 chipset achieves zero standby power consumption while achieving the best transient response performance possible. Besides reducing cost by eliminating feedback components such as an optocoupler and TL431, the voltage droop-detection feature in the UCC24650 wake-up controller enables the use of tiny output capacitors while maintaining a narrow-output voltage-regulation window with zero- to full-load transients.

This chipset solution is designed to work with TI’s ultra-low-power DC/DC converters, sensors, radio frequency (RF) devices (including the SimpleLink CC26xx/CC13xx wireless microcontroller platform) and MSP430 MCUs to keep more system functions alive in standby mode while still maintaining zero standby consumption performance for the entire system. The UCC24650 is also compatible with UCC28633 PSR controller, which enables peak power delivery two times higher than rated nameplates without a proportionate increase in magnetics size, making it optimal for applications such as printers, audio, gaming and industrial power supplies. Speed time to market by entering design parameters to create a custom design using WEBENCH Power Designer or by downloading a fully tested TI Designs reference design for a 12-W, 24-V offline power supply (PMP10927) based on the UCC28730 and UCC24650 chipset. Designers can quickly evaluate and test their power-supply designs with the UCC28730EVM-552 10-W, 5-V evaluation module (EVM), or download the TI Designs reference design based on the EVM.

 

The zero standby power controller chipset UCC28730 helps designers create smaller, more efficient power supplies for TVs, home appliances, AC adapters, heating etc. 

Figure 3: The zero standby power controller chipset UCC28730 helps designers create smaller, more efficient power supplies for TVs, home appliances, AC adapters, heating etc. 

 

Simple control of digital power designs 

Texas Instruments announced also that it has simplified digital power control design with the new, low-cost Digital Power BoosterPack. The BoosterPack is a plug-in daughter card for the C2000 Piccolo TMS320F28069M LaunchPad development kit that makes it easy to understand digital power development using the real-time control architecture of TI’s C2000 microcontrollers. The BoosterPack is suited for digital power applications such as power conditioners, uninterruptible power supplies, AC/DC power supplies, solar inverters and more. To further ease development, it is supported by the collection of graphical software tools in powerSUITE. Combined with F28069M LaunchPad, it simplifies to control a buck converter. Developers can leverage C2000 Piccolo F2806x MCU, which integrates the C28x real-time processing core as well as sophisticated control peripherals, including tightly coupled PWMs with 150ps of resolution and ADCs with speeds up to 3.46 MSPS to enable faster switching frequency power supplies. The BoosterPack also integrates CSD87588N NexFET power block, LM5109B and UCC27424 FET drivers, and OPA353 operational amplifier, all within a small form factor. The low-power Digital Power BoosterPack operates on 18 watts, which eliminates the risk associated with developing high-voltage systems.

The Digital Power BoosterPack includes out-of-the-box code examples to help developers quickly jumpstart development. It is supported by several software tools within powerSUITE, which is available within controlSUITE - the one-stop shop for C2000 MCU documentation and code examples. powerSUITE is a collection of graphical software tools, including the Solution Adapter, Compensation Designer and the Software Frequency Response Analyzer, that enables designers to easily develop and modify their digital power applications and accelerate time to market. These tools provide an intuitive interface to seamlessly integrate developed code into Code Composer Studio integrated development environment (IDE): The Solution Adapter allows designers to easily modify existing code examples for custom hardware using a simple GUI instead of writing development code. The Compensation Designer enables developers to create compensators of different styles, providing a method to effortlessly tune control loops. The Software Frequency Response Analyzer enables developers to quickly measure the frequency response of digital power converter control loops implemented on a C2000 MCU.