The digital controllers provide up to seven phases assignable in any combination across two outputs, and combine with smart power stages to provide a scalable solution from 10 to 450A. According to the company, this results in enhanced power optimization and more energy-efficient networking and communications infrastructure equipment.

Adaptive Voltage Scaling Bus (AVSBus) joins the PMBus v1.3 specification and features a 50MHz high-speed bus that connects directly to the processor to communicate telemetry data, with efficiency savings, through adaptive voltage positioning. The DC/DC controllers and ISL99227, a 60A smart power stage, support CPU core voltages, memory, and auxiliary power rails, for customization.

The digital multi-phase family is comprised of three groups. The ISL68137 and ISL68134 controllers use the AVSBus to power and communicate with ARM-based processors in network routers, switches, servers, storage, and wireless telecomms equipment. Two general-purpose controllers (ISL68127 and ISL68124) power network processors, FPGAs, SoCs and graphics accelerators, and eight controllers (ISL69147/44, ISL69137/34, ISL69128/27 and ISL69125/24) add a secondary high-speed interface Serial Voltage Identification (SVID) or second generation SVID (SVI2) to power the latest Intel and AMD processors in cloud computing applications in the IoT.

The ISL681xx and ISL691xx controllers integrate a digital engine with a patented synthetic current control architecture that tracks each phase current with zero latency. This allows the device to respond to any load transient with precise current and voltage positioning, and 30% less capacitance than competitive devices, says the company. Synthetic current control also makes it possible to develop high reliability systems using all ceramic capacitors.

Engineers are able to realize the flexibility and benefit of digital control through the company’s PowerNavigator GUI software tool. The tool connects to development boards communicating across PMBus and AVSBus. Engineers can set up and control parameters, optimize efficiency via precise current thresholds for adding/dropping phases, and adjust the loop tuning. The software eliminates board rework as designs are completed with on the fly changes for stability tuning and optimization, adds the company. The final configuration is stored to non-volatile memory.

The digital multi-phase controllers are available now. The ISL99227 smart power stage is also available, in a 5.0 x 5.0mm, 32-led QFN package.