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This Misconception About Power Integrity Can Cost You Big Focus: Many power supply engineers mistakenly believe that power integrity (PI) is mainly a system-
level issue and not a concern for the power supply designer. But the reality is very different.
If you're developing power solutions while working under this misconception, the resulting
problems can be both hard to find and intractable to fix. When power integrity problems occur,
they can cost your company big bucks and significant schedule delays. Ignoring PI issues when
developing voltage regulators or when designing them into systems can lead to malfunctioning
designs, time consuming design iterations and board spins to fix problems, stoppages in
production, and other costly scenarios. These problems can be avoided if designers of voltage
regulators, designers of the power distribution networks (PDNs) that carry the power and
designers of the circuits that use the power take time to consider the impact that these power
generating circuits will have on PI in the intended applications. In this technical commentary,
the author explains the reasons why power IC and power module makers must consider PI issues
and help their customers address these issues.
What you’ll learn: - How to understand why power integrity is a concern for developers of board-level power converters
(linear and switching regulators, point-of-load converters (POLs), and VRMs)
- How to understand why the output impedance of a voltage regulator, POL or VRM should be flat and
matched to the PDN in which it is used
- How designers of board-level power converters can help their customers address power integrity
issues in their applications
View the Source
Author & Publication: Steven M. Sandler, Picotest, Phoenix, Ariz., How2Power Today, Mar 15 2016
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