Power supply monitor

Linear Technology has introduced the LTC2978 power supply monitor and controller for digital management of up to eight 0 to 6 V supplies.

It provides easy access to an onboard EEPROM, giving users supply configuration, fault response and logging capabilities. In addition, an array of supervising, margining and sequencing functions simplifies the design and reduces the component count.

The device is suitable for digital power control in a wide variety of motor vehicle, medical and telecommunication applications. An integrated 15-bit ADC and 9:1 ADC MUX allow the IC to accurately monitor and servo eight output channels and one input channel. The primary PMBus operations include sequencing the start-up of supplies, adjusting point-of-load voltages using voltage-buffered 10-bit current output digital-to-analog converters, margining voltages to programmed limits and supervising output voltages, as well as the device’s die temperature, for overvalue or undervalue conditions.

The configuration settings are all user programmable and can be stored in EEPROM, along with any faults, allowing for discontinuous system use. A programmable watchdog timer is also provided to supervise an external microcontroller, FPGA or ASIC.

For applications that monitor more than eight supplies, it can be cascaded using two connections.

The monitor is available in a 64-lead 9 x 9 mm QFN package that is RoHS compliant and is specified over the commercial and industrial temperature ranges.