Plug-in daughter card simplifies digital power control design

The Texas Instruments (TI) 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 the company's C2000 microcontrollers (MCUs). The BoosterPack is ideal for digital power applications such as power conditioners, uninterruptible power supplies, AC/DC power supplies, solar inverters and more. The Digital Power BoosterPack offers a low-cost daughter card that, when combined with TI’s F28069M LaunchPad, makes it easy to control a buck converter. Developers can leverage TI’s 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 3.46MSPS to enable faster switching frequency power supplies. The BoosterPack also integrates TI’s 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 18W, which eliminates the risk associated with developing high-voltage systems. TI’s Digital Power BoosterPack includes out-of-the-box code examples to help developers quickly jumpstart development. The BoosterPack is supported by several software tools within powerSUITE, which is available within controlSUITE - TI’s 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, says the company. The tools provide an intuitive interface to seamlessly integrate developed code into TI’s Code Composer Studio integrated development environment (IDE): 1 - The Solution Adapter allows designers to easily modify existing code examples for custom hardware using a simple GUI instead of writing development code. 2 - The Compensation Designer enables developers to create compensators of different styles, providing a method to effortlessly tune control loops. 3 - The Software Frequency Response Analyzer enables developers to quickly measure the frequency response of digital power converter control loops implemented on a C2000 MCU. Applied Power Electronics Conference (APEC), Charlotte, North Carolina, March 16-18, Booth 1001.