Empower Semiconductor has achieved a new transient response times in the Integrated Voltage Regulator family of Power Management devices. The Empower IVR EP7010 is a 10A Regulator that can regulate through a load step from zero to 10A in 500ns with <15mv droop, with no output capacitors.
Empower Semi’s patented digitally configurable hardware platform has simplified the adoption of DC/DC converters for designers. With a single footprint, no external components, extensive programmability, a wide range of current and output configurations, power designers can proliferate the EP70xx across nearly all designs and platforms. By having multiple entire power supplies in a single IC package, the usual concerns of component variation and sourcing, synchronization and stability are all either eliminated or reduced significantly.
With its product platform, the EP70xx, Empower has achieved the total integration of a triple output DC/DC power supply with no external components into a single tiny 5mm x 5mm package, attaining up to ten times higher power density, three times tighter accuracy during transients, and 1000x faster dynamic voltage scaling than leading competitors.
“Fast start-up times can be critical in many applications and being able to offer the world’s fastest transient response times is critical to many customers. With this game-changing speed improving both energy efficiency and performance is having a tremendous impact,” said Steve Shultis, Senior Vice President WW Sales and Marketing at Empower Semiconductor. “We have achieved incredible results in our EP70XX product family that has now delivered the world’s fastest transient speeds from zero to 10A in 500ns with <15mv droop without any output capacitors. This combination of density, speed and efficiency are allowing designers to utilize our products in groundbreaking ways, enabling breakthrough levels of system performance.”
System designers are leveraging the EP70xx’s tight voltage regulation through an ultra-fast load transient by lowering the operating voltage of the system. The power consumption of a system is directly proportional to the operating voltage. By narrowing the window required for the voltage variation without additional components, Empower’s IVRs have enabled 10% or more power savings and corresponding heat dissipation. This results in a two-fold benefit of reduction in cooling costs and improved performance!
“The Empower EP70xx family achieves bandwidths higher than our competitors’ switching speeds. Those experienced in the industry have to do a double-take at the time axis when looking at scope shots – we are used to dealing in microseconds, not nanoseconds. At typical load current ramp rates, our system regulates through the event instead of just trying to catch up. This dynamic accuracy, along with our incredible DVS speeds, allows our customers to confidently drop the operating voltage in their system, providing enormous power savings in addition to the impressive board space reduction that Empower is known for,” said Trey Roessig, Chief Technology Officer & SVP of Engineering of Empower Semiconductor.
The EP70xx family displays peak efficiencies of up to 92% with a nearly flat efficiency curve up through 10A of output current due to its unique architecture. The devices showcase 1,000x faster dynamic voltage scaling than competing products, enabling fast and lossless processor state changes that can save 30% or more of processor power.
EP70xx family is available with nine devices to choose from with up to three regulators per device. Outputs are available from 2A to 10A in a 5x5mm or 4x4mm package with a 0.75mm profile, which is 3-5x thinner than traditional integrated power modules and inductors. The products achieve a level of density and simplicity so high that they are also available in bumped die form for co-packaging with digital ICs, enabling full power management integration into an SoC.
