Isolated DC-DC Converter Development Tools Increase Power Density of Modular and Embedded Power Supplies

ELECTRONICS: National Semiconductor Corp. and Silicon Laboratories Inc. announced a new quarter-brick isolated dc-dc converter evaluation board and reference design to help power supply designers get higher power density in networking, communications and high-end server applications.

Featuring National Semiconductor’s LM5035C pulse-width modulation (PWM) controller and Silicon Labs’ Si8420 ISOpro™ digital isolator, the isolated dc-dc converter evaluation board provides power supply designers with a highly efficient 100W reference design in a quarter-brick form factor. The evaluation board reduces the time required for product characterization and design adaptation to the customer’s specific requirements.

The reference design demonstrates a viable 36V to 75V input half-bridge converter for power module or embedded power applications. The design survives input transients up to 100V as commonly required in communications equipment and protects the power distribution system with hiccup-mode fault protection.

National’s LM5035C half-bridge PWM controller delivers power density and performance advantages for small form factor isolated dc-dc converter modules. The LM5035C has been optimized for use with digital isolators to provide further power density improvements.

National’s LM5035C PWM controller includes integrated 2A half-bridge gate drivers and SyncFET outputs that control the secondary-side synchronous rectifier MOSFETs through the Si8420 digital isolator. Dead time between the main and synchronous rectifier on/off transitions is adjustable with a single external resistor.

-Edited by Kelsey Anderson