Regulators, often, introduce losses and delays making electronics slower. Here is a possible solution.
New Yorker Electronics announced the release of synchronous buck regulator modules, Vishay’s 6A,20A and 25A microBRICK, designed to deliver increased power density and efficiency for point of load (POL) converters.
The regulator modules offer two high performance MOSFETs, an inductor, and a controller, with minimal external components needed for configuration and loop compensation. The regulators’ controllers consume minimum quiescent current, enabling peak efficiencies of up to 97-percent. The company claims that the devices are the smallest such devices on the market (Up to 69% smaller). Compact size increases power density, while high level of integration reduces design complexity and time to market.
The regulators have input voltage ranges from 4.5V to 60V and adjustable output voltages down to 0.3V. The SiC931 features four programmable switching frequencies at 600kHz, 1MHz, 1.5MHz and 2MHz, while the SiC967 and SiC951 offer adjustable switching ranges from 100kHz to 2MHz and 300kHz to 1.5MHz, respectively. All three devices offer an adjustable current limit, while the SiC931 features an adjustable soft start and the SiC951 supports sequential, tracking and simultaneous operation.
The devices’ constant on-time (COT) architecture is expected to enhance transient response with minimum output capacitance and tight ripple regulation at light loads. It enables loop stability including low equivalent series resistance (ESR) ceramic capacitors.
The regulators have protection feature set, output overvoltage (OVP) and under-voltage protection (UVP), cycle by-cycle overcurrent protection (OCP), short circuit protection (SCP) with auto retry, over temperature protection (OTP), and a power good flag.
The SiC951 and SiC967 offer three operating modes: forced continuous conduction, ultrasonic, and power save. The SiC931 provides forced continuous conduction and power save modes. In power-saving mode, when the inductor current crosses zero, the control scheme turns off the low side MOSFET to deploy a diode emulation mode. The switching frequency decreases in proportion to load conditions. There is no minimum switching frequency limitation improving efficiency at light loads.
The targeted applications include POL converters in servers, cloud computing, high performance computing, and desktop computers; industrial automation, motor drives, and tools; surveillance systems; consumer electronics; and 5G telecom equipment. In data centers, the telecom infrastructure, and industrial applications, the regulators help reduce energy consumption by efficient power delivery to FPGAs, ASICs, and SoC core power supplies.
