Power controller takes care of Opteron designs

The NCP5331 is a multiphase controller with integrated gate drivers designed to support AMD Opteron processors.

The NCP5331 is a multiphase controller with integrated gate drivers designed to support AMD Opteron processors.

ON Semiconductor's two-phase pulsewidth modulation (PWM) controller meets the demanding power delivery specifications of the AMD Opteron processor, which can help eliminate the board design complications and prohibitive expense of transitioning to 64bit computing.

When used in combination, the NCP5331 and ON Semiconductor's latest fast-switching, low-on-resistance power mosfets provide a highly reliable and cost effective power management system.

"ON Semiconductor worked closely with AMD throughout the development of the NCP5331 multiphase controller to ensure that engineers designing computing systems with processors based on the AMD64 architecture can easily implement efficient Vcore power supply designs", said Jim Alvernaz, ON Semiconductor Director of Power Management Computing Products.

"AMD and ON Semiconductor technologies can provide the power, reliability and stability our shared customers require", said Ben Williams, Director, AMD's Server/Workstation Business Segment.

"With systems based on AMD Opteron processors, customers can experience both optimised 32bit application and system performance with the ability to migrate to a 64bit environment as needed".

The high level of integration of the NCP5331 simplifies power supply implementation while ON Semiconductor's controller architecture provides fast transient response thus minimising the number of output capacitors required.

The device's lossless inductor current sensing enables precise current sensing without expensive additional components.

Output voltage is set by a highly accurate 5bit DAC - programmable from 0.8 to 1.55V.

The NCP5331 seamlessly supports the requirement for voltage ID shift on the fly, allowing the processor to change the output voltage of the controller without creating any out-of-spec glitches.

Delivering a solution size that is smaller than competitive offerings, the NCP5331 is housed in a 7 x 7mm 32-lead QFN package that effectively conserves board space.

It is priced at $1.97 per unit in 10,000 unit quantities.

Evaluation boards are available to assist and simplify design-ins.

To support the NCP5331 application in systems based on AMD's new microprocessor architecture, ON Semiconductor recommends two of its latest N-channel power mosfets - the 60A/28V NTD60N03 switch for the high side and the 80A/24V NTD80N02 switch on the low side.

The NTD60N03 device is optimised for fast switching while the NTD80N02 is optimised for low on resistance.

Together these characteristics help to maximise system efficiency.

Alternative choices for mosfets are the new NTD60N02R (60A/24V) or NTD70N03 (70A/25 V) for high-side switching and NTD85N02R (85A/24V) or NTD110N02R (110A/24V) for low-side switching.

To further support AMD's processors and other high performance computing solutions, ON Semiconductor plans to launch a comprehensive line of DDR memory power products in June.

The first such offerings include a dual-output DDR controller that contains a highly efficient switcher for VDDQ power and a linear controller for VTT.

For applications requiring more flexibility, ON Semiconductor's NCP1575 synchronous buck controller can be combined with a new VTT terminator to provide a cost-effective solution.

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