Signality Solutions

Power supply

Signality Solutions has the knowledge and experience to help you get your power supply right by design.

High speed and high density circuitry places particular demands on the design of power supplies.

Switch mode supplies for point of load (PoL) regulation can introduce new sources of crosstalk, conducted and radiated emissions affecting SI and EMC.

The design of multi-rail supplies and power management can present special challenges for stablity and inrush current control.

Breadboarding, testing and FMEA for switching power supplies can be expensive and - with the risk of explosive overheating in some components - even dangerous.

Whether you need a "simple" low voltage, high current supply, a low noise, temperature compensated APD bias supply or a current controlled 10kV inverter, through modelling and simulation, reliable power supply design and testing can be massively accelerated.

• Component value calculation, compensation, stability and transient analysis can all be carried out in a single step; 
• Power supply design and performance can be analysed and tested in detail;
• Power distribution and decoupling schemes can be quickly evaluated and potential resonance effects identified;
• Operation into complex, dynamic loads can be simulated far more easily than on the bench;
• Power dissipation and transient behaviour can be observed non-intrusively;
• The causes and effects of over stress can be investigated safely, beyond where real components would have stopped operating.

If ground and power supply paths, decoupling components and dynamic load impedances and behaviour are included in the modelling then power integrity can be analysed. Where the large, fast switching currents inherent in switched mode supplies meet layout constraints such as confined routing space and plane breaks, power integrity all too often overlaps into signal integrity analysis.

Specialist techniques to reduce simulation times by factors of up to 10⁶ mean that design changes can be analysed in a few seconds instead of hours or even days.

For designs where component models may not be available and something beyond the scope of a cookbook or on-line tools approach to power supply design is required, Signality Solutions can offer custom device modelling and simulation combined with SI and EMC expertise to quickly realise a reliable solution.

Please contact us to discuss your requirements and how we can help you.