The devices provide complete digital power supply monitoring and control functions, utilising I2C for communication. Their unique ability to measure system input current eliminates the efficiency and accuracy issues associated with monitoring output current.
The monitoring semiconductors are ideal for high-reliability environments requiring real-time power intelligence, high-accuracy monitoring and system protection to ensure high performance and zero downtime. Typical applications are in computing, data communications, and telecommunications.
“Real-time power monitoring enables green system operation and addresses the electronics industry's efforts to minimise power losses in high-power systems,” stated George Paparrizos, Summit marketing director. "At the same time, high-performance systems implement voltage margining to ensure maximum run-time under all conditions. Summit's new environmental monitors address both requirements while maintaining low system cost.”
The monitors allow input current and differential output voltage monitoring via integrated, high-accuracy, 10-bit A/D conversion. This allows systems to obtain real-time power information and adjust operating modes for achieving maximum efficiency. The SMM151/2/3 measure input current. This eliminates the side effects of the output sense resistor adding directly to the output impedance of the supply and resulting in higher voltage drops.
The SMM151 and SMM152 devices provide output voltage margining with a range of 0.3V to VDD (up to 5V) or a wider range via an external resistor divider. The high-accuracy (1% or better) control of the output voltage ensures signal integrity of digital chips, even when low-accuracy DC/DC converters are utilised.
The SMM151/2/3 family provides Digital Power Management via an I2C interface and non-volatile memory allowing the user to retrieve real-time parametric information (voltage/current) and configure power functions, such as: glitch filter duration for ignoring spurious noise signals, margin delay, margin high and low limits, GPIO power-up polarity, voltage monitoring mode (under-voltage or over-voltage) and device handling of fault conditions.