Interview with Tom Spohrer, Product Marketing Manager, MCU16 Division, Microchip Technology Inc.
1) What are your considerations for power supply design trends?
More and more power-supply designers are turning to full digital control of their power-conversion stages. Replacing analog controller functions with a digital signal controller, such as one of our dsPIC® DSCs, enables designs to perform at the absolute highest efficiency across widely varying load or environmental conditions. Other advantages of full digital control are that power-supply companies require fewer hardware platforms to support more products, and designs can easily be changed via software to meet changing customer or market needs. Full digital control also means that designers no longer need to “over specify” passive components to account for component tolerance and drift. Lastly, digitally controlled power supplies typically require fewer components than their analog counterparts, resulting in supplies with higher power densities and higher reliability.
2) Tell us about Microchip’s new dsPIC33EP “GS” family announced for digital power applications.
Microchip recently launched our third generation of the dsPIC “GS” family of digital signal controllers that are optimized specifically for digital-power applications. The dsPIC33EP “GS” family offers higher performance, new features, more integration, lower power and smaller footprints than previous generations.
3) What are the key features and how it benefits to customers?
Many of our power-supply customers have requested dsPIC DSCs that offer higher performance, so they can run more sophisticated control algorithms to improve the specifications of their designs. Higher performance makes it possible to run more complex adaptive algorithms to improve efficiency over widely varying load conditions, and to use non-linear and predictive algorithms to improve dynamic response to transient conditions. It also facilitates designs that operate at higher switching frequencies, which can save cost and space due to the ability to use smaller inductors and capacitors.
This new family of devices features up to five 12-bit ADCs that operate at up to 3.25 MSPS each. The ADCs are architected to provide an early interrupt to the CPU, to minimize ISR overhead; include autonomous digital comparators to offload the CPU from requirement to check each converted result, in some cases; and hardware oversampling to allow for conversions with up to 16 bits of resolution.
Another new feature of this third-generation family is the inclusion of programmable gain amplifiers to support the high-precision measurement of small analog signals, such as the voltage across a small shunt resistor for current measurements. These amplifiers can be configured for gains of 4 times up to 64 times.
For high-availability systems, customers want a way to update the firmware in an operating power supply while maintaining continuous regulation. Some of the devices in this new family include our new Live Update feature, which empowers designers to change 100% percent of the firmware in an operating power supply without taking that supply, or the system it powers, offline for the update.
This generation of dsPIC DSCs operate on 80% less power than the previous generation, and some versions are available in a new 4×4 mm package that saves board space.
4) What are the suited applications for this products.
These devices will be used in AC/DC power supplies, controlling both the primary side as well as the secondary side, DC/DC power supplies, LED and HID lighting applications such as automotive headlights and projectors, and a broad range of other applications such as solar inverters, battery chargers, welders and uninterruptible power supplies.
5) What is Microchip market overview for digital power applications MCUs?
The quest for higher efficiency under all conditions, coupled with the need for advanced features, encourages designers to leverage full digital control in new power-supply designs. Many larger-wattage power supplies designed today use full digital control. As the costs for implementing digital control are reduced with products such as our new dsPIC33EP GS family, it becomes possible to deploy digital solutions into lower-wattage, higher-volume power conversion applications.
