Abstract
Tools for designing a power supply architecture are not widely used compared to computational and simulation tools. Nevertheless, such tools play a crucial role during the development process of a power supply system for an electrical circuit. Serving as an initial step in the power supply development process, these tools lay the foundation for creating an optimal power supply architecture.
Introduction
Various tools are available for developing a power supply, easing the burden of tedious work for developers. One of these tools is LTspice, a well-known simulation tool from Analog Devices. This can be used to simulate a power conversion circuit. It enables the simulation of different voltage and current waveforms to refine the circuit design and tailor it more closely to specific requirements.
Additionally, calculation tools like LTpowerCAD are available. Unlike LTspice, LTpowerCAD is designed for calculations rather than simulations. It takes into account various specifications such as the input voltage range, the output voltage, the load current, the voltage ripple at the output, and much more, to compute and optimize the circuit. A suitable power converter IC is selected and external, passive components are suggested. Thus, a tool like LTpowerCAD is the precursor to circuit simulation with LTspice.
Another critical aspect in power supply development is defining the power supply architecture or creating a power tree. Such a complete power supply of a system usually requires more than just one power converter. Several different voltages are often required. There are different ways to do this. The differences between the architectures can be calculated and represented excellently with a power supply architecture tool such as the LTpowerPlanner from ADI.
Figure 1 shows the interface of LTpowerPlanner with the repre- sentation of a power supply architecture using a 24 V input. From this, various supply voltages and currents are generated. The different blocks can be easily added and linked with connecting lines. Clicking on one of these blocks defines the efficiency of the respective power conversion. Once these entries have been made, the LTpowerPlanner can perform an overall calculation of the complete power conversion architecture. The architecture in Figure 1 has an overall efficiency of 91.6%.
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