Are you designing an Intel Skylake system? With Intel planning to officially release the design later this year, now is the time to be thinking about what Skylake can do for you and your systems. The Y- and U-line Skylake variants (SKL-Y and SKL-U) are lower power and ideal for portable embedded systems such as tablets and notebooks.
A common question with such a high-performance processor is the power supply. The very low voltage required (typically around 1V, and frequently less) and high load current slew rates require a proven power solution. Fortunately, TI has you covered with the TPS62134x family, which is specifically designed for Skylake applications.
In portable devices, power consumption and solution size are key. The power supply should be optimized for high efficiency across the load current and input-voltage range. But high efficiency requires a two-pronged approach. The power supply must be efficient as well as the processor. In the TPS62134x, the low IQ of the DCS-ControlTM topology provides a high-efficiency power supply (shown in Figure 1), while the processor’s low-power modes allow it to best use the available power. Compatibility with the Skylake system is further enhanced by dedicated VID and low-power mode (LPM) pins on the TPS62134x, which interface directly with the processor. No external level-shifters or other circuits are required to benefit from the power-saving modes built into the Skylake processor.
Figure 1: The TPS62134x delivers high efficiency across the load current range
Along with the power-saving circuitry, the TPS62134x also integrates both MOSFETs, the entire control-loop compensation and the output voltage divider. In fact, to complete the entire power solution, just add two capacitors and one inductor to the integrated circuit (IC) and you’re done! Or if that’s not easy enough, this TI Designs reference design shows a complete Skylake power distribution scheme for you to use.
What Intel Skylake-based products are you designing?
