View the complementary 70 A Power Stage here.

Intel® Enpirion® ED8401P0xQI device is a highly efficient digital multi-phase controller with a PMBus* communication interface and a high-performance non-linear digital control loop.  The device is scalable and can be configured for 2, 3, or 4 phase operation. It also features independent, per-phase temperature and current monitoring and reporting.  The ED8401 device is performance- optimized to power high current FPGA, ASIC, and ASSP core voltage rails and support Intel Programmable Solutions Group SmartVID power savings feature.

The ED8401P0xQI device features a non-linear state machine based digital control loop that enables a combination of very fast load step response with low ripple, low jitter steady state operation. The non-linear transient loop reduces output capacitor requirements. The ED8401 device is a stable solution with all ceramic implementations that limit the use of large and expensive bulk capacitors. The DC and AC accuracy meet the most stringent tolerance requirements for FPGA, ASIC, and ASSP.

The ED8401P0xQI is designed to power the ET6160LI 70 A Driver+MOS power stages from Intel Enpirion Power Solutions, which include both current sense output and temperature sense outputs.  The ED8401 device has the capability to monitor each phase’s current and temperature signals instead of an “OR” of the temperature signals.  Current sensing for each phase is accomplished via a differential sense scheme thereby reducing the impact of common mode noise and ground bounce, which decreases sensitivity to PCB layout.

The ability to operate with two, three, or four phase configurations allows the power engineer to optimize for space, efficiency, thermal optimization, or cost and support currents from 40 A to greater than 200 A. Multi-phase operation spreads heat for thermally challenged applications such as 5G RRU.  The ED8401 device comes pre-configured for either 500 KHz or 1,000 KHz operation to further enable optimization around space and efficiency.  For high-current applications, a programmable load-line is available.

You have the option to configure the ED8401P0xQI device to suit specific applications, using the Intel Enpirion Digital Power Configurator Graphical User Interface (GUI) ecosystem. This tool has several tabs with options to program the device for settings, such as output voltage, output capacitors, start-up slew rates, fault settings, and allows for a single resistor-based compensation (RTUNE) that makes designing for tight static and dynamic specifications intuitive and easy. The tool also provides real-time telemetry of input voltage, output voltage, and per phase current and temperature.