USB PD 3.1 high-voltage MCU with higher wattage support

Infineon Technologies AG has launched what it claims to be the industry’s first high-voltage MCU with USB PD 3.1 support. The EZ-PD PMG1 (Power Delivery Microcontroller Gen1) is the company's first generation of USB PD MCUs aimed at any embedded system that offers or consumes power with a high-voltage of up to 28V (140W). The device supports higher power capabilities defined in the USB PD 3.1 specification and employs the MCU to offer further control capability. The new products are excellent for consumer, industrial and communications markets with applications such as routers, smart speakers, power and garden tools.

The family integrates a market-proven USB PD stack to facilitate reliable performance and interoperability. It offers an Arm Cortex-M0/M0+ processor with up to 256KB Flash memory and 32KB SRAM, USB full-speed device, programmable GPIO pins, gate drivers, LDO regulators and high-voltage protection circuits. The MCU also provides hardware and firmware protection, incorporating over-voltage and over-current protection, short circuit and reverse current protection, secure firmware boot and signed firmware update.

To improve ease of use for designers, the new devices incorporate programmable analog and digital blocks to readily customise and integrate intelligent analog sensors into the application. The MCU is also field programmable to provide signed firmware updates for improved efficiency. Programming is supported by the ModusToolbox integrated development environment with the PMG1 software development kit together with prototyping kits and a quick start guide. They make the firmware development and testing easy and simple to further decrease the overall development time and time-to-market.

“As a leader in power semiconductors, we are excited to bring the new PMG1 family to market. It will enable OEMs to further differentiate their consumer, industrial and commercial applications,” said Ajay Srikrishna, senior vice president of the Wired Connectivity Solutions Product Line at Infineon. “Following our mission, this MCU is enabling our customers to bring new products to market that will help making consumers’ everyday lives easier, safer and greener.”