FPGA-Based Power Controllers Offer Greater Speed And Computational Power Than Microcontrollers And DSPs

Focus:

In this article, the discussion of digital power control continues by exploring the specific advantages of using an FPGA rather than a microcontroller or DSP as the power supply controller. After a brief explanation of the differences in structure that distinguish FPGAs from microcontrollers and DSPs, this article describes how those differences lead to specific benefits for FPGAs when applied in power supply designs. The long list of benefits relates mostly to the higher bandwidth and faster dynamic response enabled by the speed and computational power of FPGAs. The article begins by discussing the parallel structure of the FPGA, which allows complex tasks to be executed in a single clock cycle. The article concludes by discussing a number of applications that could potentially benefit from the superior speed and computational power of FPGAs.

What you’ll learn:

• How to understand the advantages of an FPGA versus a microcontroller or DSP when implementing digital power control

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Author & Publication:

Peter Markowski, Envelope Power, Ansonia, Conn., How2Power Today, Jun 15 2014

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