New PMBus digital controller for comms infrastructure and high-performance computing

Aimed at FPGA, ASIC, and POL power for communications and computing applications, Powervation has introduced its latest high-performance digital DC-DC controller. Designed for key rails that demand precision output voltage regulation and tight control during transient conditions, the PV3105 digital controller provides low jitter and low output voltage ripple, and improved transient response, making it ideal for powering low-voltage, high current rails on leading process nodes for ASICs/FPGAs. Additional hardware and firmware features have been implemented to further improve the control of the output voltage under static and dynamic conditions. “PV3105 delivers faster transient performance by using Auto-Control, a mode of our xTune auto-tuning architecture, and a programmable load-line feature,” said David New, Powervation’s vice president, product marketing. “Additionally, this device provides up to 1.25 MHz switching frequency and implements new digital loop techniques to reduce output voltage setting time.” To meet the power needs of today’s advanced ASICs, PV3105 provides support for latest senseFET power stages, precision telemetry and reporting, and includes features such as voltage tracking, margining, and sequencing. The PV3105 provides temperature compensated fault protection, more flexible protection feature settings, and alerts over PMBus are fully configurable and selectable. Fully scalable, PV3105 can be used in single phase mode or can power multi-phase high power loads using Powervation’s DSS current sharing bus. The PV3105 is designed to flexibly operate with all leading FET power stages, to give the designer maximum flexibility for powering the latest FPGAs, ASICs, processors, and POL. The PV3105 is RoHS compliant and is available now in a 4mm x 4mm QFN package, says the company.