DC-DC Controllers meet Energy Star efficiency guidelines.May 20, 2008 -
Models ZL2006 and ZL2004 power controllers include performance-maximizing algorithms that optimize efficiency as operating conditions change, with no interaction or additional components required. ZL2006 integrates 3 A MOSFET drivers that support loads in excess of 40 A, and can be used alone or connected in parallel to address wide variety of load currents. ZL2004 is intended to interface with external driver/MOSFET ICs and power train modules.
(Archive News Story - Products mentioned in this Archive News Story may or may not be available from the manufacturer.)
Original Press release
Zilker Labs, Inc.
4301 Westbank Dr, Ste A-100
Austin, TX, 78746
USA
Zilker Labs Introduces Industry's Most Adaptive Digital Power Controllers for Efficiency-Sensitive Applications
ZL2006 and ZL2004 Dynamically Optimize Efficiency under Widely Varying System Conditions
AUSTIN, Texas - February 25, 2008 - Zilker Labs, Inc., today introduced the industry's most adaptive DC-DC power controllers for maximizing efficiency in power-constrained applications. The ZL2006 and ZL2004 are the next generation of the company's innovative Digital-DC technology products. This new product family extends the efficiency benefits of the Digital-DC(TM) products by including new proprietary performance-maximizing algorithms that dynamically optimize the efficiency as operating conditions change, with no interaction or additional components required. These new algorithms result in a full-load efficiency improvement up to 3 percent and a light-load efficiency increase greater than 15 percent in typical applications, reducing peak power dissipation by up to 20 percent and significantly increasing the overall performance of embedded computing, storage, and telecom/datacom applications. This ability enables the ZL2006 and ZL2004 to address the growing concerns of meeting Energy Star efficiency guidelines, which become progressively more difficult each year.
"Current solutions require the designer to design to a set of typical parameters, knowing that the end system will often operate outside of those conditions. Zilker Labs' newest ICs use embedded intelligence to monitor and adapt to changing load conditions by autonomously adjusting its performance in situ," said Jim MacDonald, vice president of product marketing at Zilker Labs. "This unique capability ensures that a system's power performance is maximized at all times, resulting in
significant efficiency gains across the entire load spectrum. When that per-load savings is extrapolated to a data center that can have hundreds of servers that each have more than twenty loads, the impact on the overall power consumption and thermal performance of a data center is dramatic."
Zilker Labs' latest product family allows designers to deploy one flexible device in multiple power applications due to the integration of active, accurate current sharing. The ZL2006 is a universal power building block that can be used alone or connected in parallel to address a wide variety of load currents with a single IC. Additionally, both the ZL2006 and ZL2004 support accurate, robust current sharing
between paralleled ICs through a proprietary single-wire Digital-DC bus. This high-speed bidirectional bus provides a simple, robust communications channel over which multiple Digital-DC devices can share current information to provide N+1 redundant operation in mission-critical applications. If one device is subjected to a fault condition, the current sharing master duties can be transparently passed to another IC to provide continuous operation. The Digital-DC bus also provides a flexible means for Zilker Labs' devices to perform autonomous, event-based sequencing and fault spreading between connected ICs while eliminating the need for interaction by a host processor or introducing a secondary master on the SMBus interface.
The ZL2006 integrates 3A MOSFET drivers that can support loads in excess of 40A with no external driver needed. The ZL2004 is intended to interface with external driver/MOSFET ICs and power train modules. Zilker Labs new family of controllers enable seamless compatibility between multiple power rails on a given system board regardless of whether the driver exists inside the controller IC or on a separate module.
The ZL2006 and ZL2004 can be seamlessly combined with other Digital-DC ICs to provide a comprehensive and intelligent system power solution. Zilker Labs' Digital-DC products are fully configurable with simple pin-strap connections, resistor selection or via the device's on-board I2C/SMBus compliant serial port using the industry-standard PMBus(TM) (Power Management Bus) command set. To combine multiple Digital-DC ICs in a given application, the designer simply configures each IC via pin-strap selection and connects the serial bus (SMBus) of each device. The devices can be configured and monitored individually or as a system through the I2C/SMBus interface. All of Zilker Labs' Digital-DC products support monitoring of voltage, current, temperature, and other system parameters with no additional components necessary.
Already sampled to key customers, Zilker Labs' ZL2006 and ZL2004 are now available for general sampling. The ZL2006 is available in a 6 x 6 mm 36-lead QFN package and the ZL2004 is available in a 5 x 5 mm 32-lead QFN package. Pricing starts at US$2.95 in quantities of 1,000. Evaluation kits are also available for both products. Please contact Zilker Labs for more information.
About Zilker Labs, Inc.
Zilker Labs enables unprecedented performance and design benefits with efficient, flexible, easy-to-use IC solutions. The company was founded in 2002 with the intent of applying unique mixed-signal techniques to resolve the growing challenges with implementing board-level power systems. The result is the company's patented Digital-DCTM technology and its family of innovative power conversion and management ICs targeted at embedded applications such as datacom, telecom, industrial control and other high-density electronic systems.
Zilker Labs is based in Austin, Texas, and has sales offices and engineering centers throughout the United States and Asia.
For more information on Zilker Labs and its innovative Digital-DC technology, please visit http://zilkerlabs.com
For more information, contact:
Jim MacDonald
Zilker Labs, Inc.
512-382-8482
PR@Zilkerlabs.com
zilkerlabs.com
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