At the 7th EEVIA China ICT Media Forum and 2018 Industry and Technology Outlook Seminar held recently, Lorry, Marketing Director of ADI Power Products China, gave a speech on the development trend and innovation trend of high-performance power technology. And to the industry media to reveal the "home" - ADI power brand Power By Linear's technical home, and different ways of playing in the power field.
1+1"2 ADI "Power by Linear"
ADI's successful acquisition of Linear has made the industry exclaim that the world of analog semiconductors has been re-deconstructed. What changes will be brought about by the convergence of the two high-performance analog technologies? Perhaps this picture shared by Lorry can explain the problem, and the biggest change to the ADI industry layout is undoubtedly the power supply. ADI's advantages in the field of custom power and Linear's traditional strength in the power field form a very obvious 1+1 "2 integration effect. After the acquisition of Linear, ADI has also steadily occupied the second place in the global power market, and has retained the acquired brand (Power's new power sub-brand - Power by Linear). There is no doubt that the power market has become an important part of ADI's global industrial layout. What are the powerful new advantages of ADI after inheriting the powerful technical resources of Linear Power?
The merger with Linear brings the biggest enhancement product line to the power supply, and the new brand of Power By Linear is achieving the 1+1"2 integration effect.
Lorry said that after integrating Linear's power technology, Power by Linear will continue to work in three directions:
lForm Factor - Reduce PCB size and add more features while making high-performance power supplies
lEfficiency - to achieve more energy saving, improve efficiency, and constantly break through the ultimate
lEMI - Improve product reliability and innovation, and design a more perfect noise treatment solution
Yes, power technology can't escape this "old three", but how the key three major indicators achieve new breakthroughs is that the Eight Immortals cross the sea, and Lorry emphasized ADI's exclusive "Shentong" secret in his speech.
Three strokes, "Form Factor" miniaturization
To achieve a highly integrated power supply product and achieve a smaller "Form Factor", the small size, thinness, and high current of the board are key directions.
How do you reduce the board size? "The first thing we need to do is to make power modules that allow product design engineers to focus on system-level design without having to spend time tuning a complex power system," says Lorry. He gave an example of a system IO and core power supply system in the figure below, successfully saving 30 to 100 times the number of components, and the reliability of the entire system will be improved.
How does ADI achieve 30 to 100 times more component savings? "This is mainly due to a series of application modules that ADI has developed over the past few decades to match current boards, including system-level power supplies (3.3V or IO power supplies), low-EMI low-noise power modules, etc." Lorry pointed out "For example, from the LTM8050 (high input voltage 2A) four years ago, it is a package size of 15mm × 9mm × 4.92mm. Up to now, the LTM8063 (high input voltage 2A) is 6.25mm × 4mm × 2.22mm, and the volume is significantly reduced. "Can the future be made smaller?" Lorry revealed in the history of the development of ADI power module dimensions that smaller sizes will be released in the second half or next year.
The second key is how to do thin. For this, Lorry said that ADI has released a 1.82mm product, which is designed to share the same heat sink as the main chip. Lorry also pointed out that the design of the thinned power supply is an extremely important part of the development of ADI power technology to high integration, which is also a major direction for the development of power modules in the future.
Solving the problem of high current is another key point of power supply design. Lorry shared the 0.8V core voltage of FPGA and the output current of 100A as an example: "12 pieces of LTM4601 are needed in 2010; 4 pieces of LTM4620 are needed in 2012; In 2014, the LTM4630 will be released in three pieces; in 2016, two LTM4650s will achieve their goals.†Lorry pointed out, “In July of this year, ADI will release a new product, the LTM4700, which will achieve the above goals.†With a 12-fold increase in the year, Lorry shared this set of data and impressed the media!
So why can ADI support 100A for a single chip? Lorry gave an explanation from the power module packaging technology. ADI's power modules have undergone four generations of technology updates: the first generation is to make PCB bonding capacitors, resistors, and inductors into a plastic package; the second generation is to embed a metal heat sink substrate on the first generation to speed up Cooling; the third generation is to add COP technology to improve its efficiency and thus its performance.
Silent Switcher, EMI Evolution Benchmark
The noise and interference of the power supply seems to be the pain of the design engineer forever. How can we reduce the noise and interference of engineers in the system design? Lorry pointed out that EMI is generally caused by power supply interference. To solve this problem, ADI's Silent Switcher technology is especially optimized for noise and interference metrics. And ADI is now launching Silent Switcher 2 to meet CISPR25 Class 5 EMI with 93% efficiency, and far below international indicators. Lorry said with confidence: "ADI's competitors are still in the next generation of technology, and are following the second generation, and ADI has already begun to develop third-generation Silent Switcher technology."
How is Silent Switcher2 implemented? Lorry pointed out: "Technology itself is not difficult. The difficulty lies in how to make it loop in process engineering and reverse when flowing." The following figure shows: the magnetic field reverses to form a closed loop, such a magnetic field to the outside world. The interference will be much smaller. "The third generation of Slient Switcher will technically solve how to control EMI in ultra-small, high-power mode, and make EMI indicators far lower than Class 5 international standards." Lorry is full of future development of Slient Switcher confidence.
“Low noise and ripple are important for power supplies. LDOs are known to reduce ripple and improve efficiency. However, there are some reference power supplies for the ADC on the board, which have lower noise. However, the application scenarios for benchmarks and LDOs are different. The former pursues initial accuracy and long-term stability, while the latter pursues how to output large currents.†Lorry added analysis. The picture below gives Lorry an impressive impression of Power By Linear's ultra-low noise LDO. The measured noise of the LT3045 is much lower than the noise of the lithium battery power supply!
Beyond 99%, pursue the limits of efficiency
"Efficiency is a power engineering problem in the world, Why? Because the inductor cannot be the ideal inductor, the MOS tube is not the ideal switch. There is a certain loss in both. No matter whether it is DCR or battery conversion, it can't surpass the traditional power supply. The drawbacks." Lorry pointed out, "It is in order to improve efficiency, so there is a switch power supply." Switching power supply more than 10 years ago has reached 90+% efficiency, although it can never be 100%, but can pursue efficiency The ultimate.
"In order to reduce the size of peripheral devices, we have increased the switching frequency. But the increase in frequency will cause the loss of the switch to become larger and larger, and the efficiency will be difficult to improve. What should I do?" Lorry asked himself or herself the question, "Inductance As an energy storage device, there must be a conversion efficiency problem, so we consider removing the inductance in the circuit. The recently released LTC7820 is such a switching power supply without inductance."
Designed with ADI's innovative technology and process methodology, the LTC7820 is a fixed ratio high voltage, high power switched capacitor/charge pump controller that achieves a conversion efficiency of around 99%, even in the output current range of 2A to 20A. It can also maintain 99% power conversion efficiency. A 2:1 step-down ratio can be achieved from an input voltage of up to 72V, a 1:2 boost ratio can be achieved from an input voltage of up to 36V, or a 1:1 negative output can be achieved from an input voltage as high as 36V Conversion ratio.
“Although the voltage conversion required by the LTC7820 is proportional to maintain 99% conversion efficiency, the second generation LTC7821 uses a proprietary architecture that combines a soft-switching charge pump topology with a synchronous buck converter. To provide greater efficiency than traditional switch architectures.†Lorry highlighted the unique architecture of the LTC7821.
Power innovation, looking forward to the power of ADI Power By Linear
The history of human beings pursuing higher efficiency is probably as long as human beings. With the increasing awareness of the environment and the popularity of Internet of Things applications, the trend of portable products and wearables, the small size, low EMI, and high efficiency of power supplies Innovation will continue to emerge. As an integrated strong power brand, combined with ADI's high-performance signal chain technology, Power By Linear can have higher expectations in the future performance of high-performance power.
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