[FAQ] WEBENCH® Tools/WEBENCH-POWER-DESIGNER: WEBENCH(R) Power Designer - Update

Tool/software: WEBENCH® Design Tools

Introduction : 

WEBENCH® Power Designer is a free online power supply design tool, which creates customized power supply circuits based on your requirements. The environment gives you end-to-end power supply design capabilities that save you time during all phases of the design process. 

What is new? 

The new WEBENCH is completely redesigned in HTML5 to be portable, secure, simple and intuitive to use. Design process is simplified to 4 steps  - Select, Customize, Simulate & Export.

The classic Flash based WEBENCH will be sunset by end of 2019 due to Adobe and all major browsers ending support for Flash applications.

This blog post will help you transition to the new tool.

A detailed training video for the new Webench Power Designer (HTML) is available here

What Products does the new WEBENCH Power Designer support ?

The new WEBENCH Power Designer supports single input, single output DC-DC & AC-DC Designs.  Below are some of the common product categories and topologies currently supported in the tool. We continue to add new products in the DC-DC and AC-DC power supplies space.

Products / Topologies supported:

• Step-down (Buck)
• Step-Up (Boost)
• Buck-boost & Inverting
• Flyback
• Active Clamp Forward
• Power Factor Correction (PFC)
• LLC
• Flybuck
• Phase Shifted Full Bridge

While we continue to add more products and topologies in the above product categories, the HTML tool does not support some specialized power supply designs. Below is the list of the product categories which are deprecated.

If you have created any designs using below product categories please go through this e2e post to know the procedure to save your designs and projects.

Products deprecated:

• Battery Chargers
• Motor Drivers
• DDR Power ICs
• Load Switches
• Sequencers
• Hot Swap ICs

• PMUs and Multi-output converters and controllers.
  
  

What features does the new WEBENCH Power Designer support?

The new WEBENCH Power Designer enables you to create end to end power supply designs - from selecting the right TI power supply IC for your requirements to exporting the full schematic, including BOM and reference layout to your favorite CAD tool.

The tool continues to support most of the key features available in Flash, while enhancing some and deprecating some lesser used features. The list below provides additional details on enhanced features and deprecated features:

Features supported:

• Select the right design for your requirements
• Side by Side Comparisons of multiple designs
  
  

• For Each Design Get - Schematic, BOM, PCB layout,Operating Values and Charts
  
   
  
  

• Ability to choose alternate BOM components
• Design Optimization -  Low Cost - Low Footprint - Balanced - High Efficiency
  
  
• Design Options

• • Automatic Compensation
  • Input EMI Filter
  • Transformer Design
  • Thermal issue detection
• Electrical Simulation options

• • Startup

  • Steady State

  • Input Transient

  • Load Transient

  • Bode plot
• Export options

• • PDF Export
  • CAD Tools Export

    • Altium Designer

    • CadSoft EAGLE

    • Mentor Graphics

    • P-CAD

    • TINA-TI

    • Cadence OrCAD

Features Deprecated:

• Thermal Simulation 
  
  
  
  While thermal design is important - accurate thermal simulations is complex and depends heavily on the actual PCB layout and other peripheral circuits in the system. While the Flash version provided simulations based on EVM reference layout - we have deprecated the feature in our HTML version. As an alternative, we provide simple thermal alerts when IC Tj exceeds the specified maximum temperature based on your design options. If you would like to view and preserve any old thermal simulations - please follow this e2e post to save your old designs.
  
  

• Advanced Compensation Designer
  
  The new HTML tool provides an alert when phase margin goes below specified limit and  allows you to perform a simple one-click re-compensation design. Full suite of features including specifying Phase margin, Crossover frequency and comparing multiple compensation options is no longer supported in the new tool. 
  
  

• Output Ripple Filter
  
  The new tool does not have the capability to add additional output ripple filter to reduce the ripple at the output. As an alternative users can manually add additional filters on the exported schematic in their favorite CAD tool.
  
  
• LDO Attach
  
  The new tool does not have the capability to attach an LDO to reduce the noise at the output for low noise applications. As an alternative, users can manually add an LDO on the exported schematic in their favorite CAD tool.
  
  

Actions to take by the Users

• All old WEBENCH designs in supported product categories are backward compatible with the HTML5 Tool. 
  
  • Please report any issues you face on our E2E forum.
• For unsupported products please review this e2e post to save your designs.