Intersil digital controllers offer ATR

Intersil Corp. announced two new six-phase, digital controllers with I?C bus communication that are touted to be the first in the industry to offer active transient response (ATR), which reduces the number of output capacitors by as much as 50 percent when compared to non-ATR systems, lowering system cost and reducing board space.

Applications for the ISL6592 voltage regulator (VR10.X) and ISL6595 VR11.0 controllers include Intel and AMD servers, high-end graphics cards, small form factor voltage regulator modules (VRMs), and intelligent, multiphase POL (point-of-load) modules. "The ISL6592 and ISL6595 provide superior load line accuracy through internal calibration that measures and corrects current-sense error upon start-up," said Bob Lucas, marketing manager of Intersil's Computing Power group. "These devices also have programmable current-sense temperature compensation that allows the designer to tailor the response for the best load line accuracy over temperature. Superior load line accuracy reduces component count and provides cost savings in the design," Lucas added.

Both the ISL6592 and ISL6595 offer ATR control modes that result in high-bandwidth/low-output-capacitance designs, as well as a digitally calibrated RDS(on) (on-state resistance) current-sense feature for very high load line accuracy, and an I?C communication interface that enables programming and monitoring of the power system. Additional features of the ISL6595 include an integrated temperature sensor and digital temperature load line compensation, 6-bit voltage identification (VID) codes, dual-edge clocking, and digital current balancing.

The ISL6594x and ISL6596 are high-frequency MOSFET drivers specifically designed to drive upper and lower power N-Channel MOSFETs in a digital synchronous rectified buck converter topology. These drivers, combined with the ISL6592 or ISL6595 digital controllers and N-Channel MOSFETs, form a complete core-voltage regulator solution for advanced microprocessors.

The ISL6592 and ISL6595 are available in a 48-pin LQFP Pb-free package and are priced at $2.75 in 1,000-unit quantities.