Digitally-controlled PoL converters housed in high-density packaging

Murata Power Solutions has added an expanded range of digitally controlled, PMBus compatible OKDL products to its Okami series of non-isolated point-of-load (PoL) DC-DC converters. The OKDL-T/6-W12, OKDL-T/12-W12, and OKDL-T/18-W12, delivering 6, 12, and 18A respectively, are capable of being monitored and configured via PMBus™ communications. Exhibiting versatility, the new models accept input voltages from 4.5V to 14V and have an adjustable output voltage range from 0.6V to 5V (1.8V max for 18A model). Designed for a minimal footprint, the high-power-density LGA modules measure just 12.2mm x 12.2mm x 8mm. The OKDL converters offer a typical efficiency figure of 91.6% at 12Vin, and are able to operate in a temperature range of -30C to +95C. The wide operating temperature range of the OKDL products makes it ideal in applications such as networking, computing, servers, telecom, industrial, and other applications of distributed power. The OKDL products are designed to power low-voltage silicon devices such as CPUs, FPGAs, microcontrollers, logic circuits, memory, and other analog / digital devices in mixed voltage systems. With their digital control and PMBus compatibility, the converters offer easy user configuration and monitoring. All power management functions can be reconfigured for user-specific needs using the PMBus interface. Included as standard features are short circuit, over current, over voltage, over temperature, and input under voltage protection, voltage margining and tracking, power good, remote sense, and remote on/off. The converters employ adaptive compensation of the PWM control loop, a phase spreading feature to reduce input capacitance, synchronization to reduce EMI filtering, and an optimized dead time control. The OKDL converters are delivered with a default firmware configuration suitable for a wide range of input voltage, output voltage, and load. The OKDL products comply with the new 'picoAMP' standard from the Architects of Modern Power (AMP) group of companies, which 'guarantees' multiple sources of interoperable products, says the company. Product manager, Bill Smith, said: “In the ever-changing and complex world of electronics, power systems are becoming more and more complicated. Power systems engineers face difficult challenges delivering low voltage, high current rails to FPGAs, ASICS, and other critical electronic circuits. The OKDL series of PMBus compliant PoLs delivers unmatched versatility for precise control and monitoring of the most sophisticated power systems,. Murata is pleased to deliver the OKDL series to our customers and support the AMP alliance with these ‘picoAMP’ compliant products.”