Bringing digital power to mainstream applications

The next generation 16bit dsPIC dscs are said to provide up to twice the performance than Microchip's first SMPS range. Microchip believes that the digital power market will grow at an annual rate of 40% and is seeking to increase its share within the sector. The seven new dsPIC33F "GS" series digital power dscs have been designed to enable digital control loops with four to eight high speed, one nanosecond resolution pwms, up to four 20ns comparators, each with an integrated digital to analogue converter and one or two 10bit, on chip ADCs, providing 2 to 4million samples per second. They range from 18 to 44 pins and 6 to 18kbyte Flash memory and are pin to pin compatible with Microchip's initial digital power dsc family. The devices incorporate interconnected analogue comparators, pulse width modulators and analogue to digital converters that are specialised for digital power applications. They can be software configured to adapt to a variety of topologies. This allows power supply designers to optimise for specific product applications and with the dsPIC33's in circuit programming capabilities, common SMPS platforms can be differentiated late in the production process.