High Voltage PFC Kit Speeds Digital Power Management Solutions

July 12, 2010

Texas Instrument's High Voltage PFC Kit extends C2000 digital power using dual cores.

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The C2000 DSC and CLA core can distribute the compute load

The carrier board handles high voltage AC to 400VDC conversion

The HV PFC kit uses a Piccolo controlCard module

Digital power control is not easy for analog developers moving to digital or digital developers attempt to attack power control. Analog developers do not usually deal with discrete time approaches while digital developers do not usually deal with analog issues like power factor correction (PFC). The digital approach offers significant advantages such as providing peak efficiency across the load. Analog designs are typically most efficient at a particular point such as 50% load.

Texas Instrument's High Voltage PFC Kit is designed to simplify the task for both providing a basis for developing high voltage digital power control system especially ones that may also tackle application aspects such as motor control. This turns out to be significantly easier by using Texas Instrument's Piccolo C2000 digital signal controller that also includes a CLA (control law accelerator) core that operates independently. It has more limited processing support than the main 32-bit processor but the CLA is tailored towards power management or motor control. Many applications can often be handled by the pair of cores using library modules while still providing headroom for other chores (Fig. 1).

The processor is just the starting point. The key to the design system is the CPU and CLA processor controlSUITE software (see Texas Instrument's controlSuite Streamlines Motor Control Development) libraries and their integration with the Eclipse-based Code Composer Studio IDE. Texas Instrument's offers a three day training session that highlights the kit and the software.

The $249 kit includes high voltage carrier board. It is designed to handle AC while boosting output to 400VDC under control of the F2802x Piccolo controlCard module. Texas Instruments has a range of kits that can utilize this type of module such as the $695 C2000 AC/DC Developer’s Kit.

Texas Instrument

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