Exar enters digital power market

Ismini Scouras

eeProductCenter (09/30/2009 9:47 AM ET)

Fremont, Calif.—Exar Corp. has entered the digital power market with the launch of its PowerXR system-level products series.

The first two products in the series—the XRP7704 and XRP7740—are two highly integrated field programmable power regulator ICs that Exar claims provide programmable digital power at the same cost as analog with many additional power management features.

The XRP7704 is a 5Amp/channel regulator, and the XRP7740 a 16 Amp/channel version. Both devices offer a wide input voltage range (6.5V to 20V), and output range (0.9V to 5.0V), with a built-in Low-Drop Out (LDO) for standby power, power sequencing capability, and integrated gate drivers. The 5-output, XRP7704 and XRP7740 digital power system controller ICs each contain four digital pulse width modulator (DPWM) controlled power supplies with an effective 12-bit resolution.

Both devices also contain an integrated LDO regulator that provides a fifth voltage supply, which can also be employed as a standby-voltage source. Both chips are fully configurable via an I²C interface for monitoring, control and management of DC/DC point-of-load power conversion. The devices contain integrated gate drivers for the high-current outputs and up to 6 General Purpose Input/Output (GPIO) pins.

Exar's Digital Power Studio enables designers to intelligently configure the power supply's voltage setting and current thresholds, fault monitoring and response, soft start and active shut-down timing, and channel sequencing, phase shift management, and loop response, amongst other features.

The XRP7704 and XRP7740 use a digital PID (proportional, integral, differential) control algorithm, which performs full-digital loop control at switching frequencies to 1.5 MHz. The controller supports I²C interface commands for control, configuration, and management of the power supply.

Both devices are offered in a RoHS compliant,"green"/halogen free 40-pin QFN package operating within the -40°C to +85°C temperature range.

Pricing: In 1K quantities, the XRP7704 is $4 each; the XRP7740 is priced at $5.50.
Availability: Samples of the XRP7704 are available now; samples of the XRP7740 will be available within 30 days.

Exar Corp., www.exar.com