Linear Technology Corporation (Nasdaq: LLTC), a leading supplier of high performance analog integrated circuits, and Primarion, Inc., a leading supplier of digital power conversion integrated circuits, today announced an alliance to produce digital point-of-load (POL) products for the networking, computing and telecommunications infrastructure markets.
Linear Technology and Primarion will dual source Primarion's Di-POL™ family of PMBus™-compliant digital DC/DC controllers, beginning with the PX7510. The PMBus standard enables system-level communications with multiple POL converters for programming and monitoring of complex power systems.
The agreement between the two companies involves dual sourcing and mutual promotion of programmable digital POL controllers targeting infrastructure applications including servers, network switches and routers. These digital power management and conversion products provide flexible, system-level control of sophisticated power management systems. The Di-POL controller ICs provide seamless power management in high availability systems, enabling real-time programming and monitoring of key parameters to optimize performance and maximize system uptime.
"This exclusive agreement with Primarion enables us to offer our worldwide customers state-of-the-art digital power solutions," stated Dave Bell, President of Linear Technology. "Our LTC7510 digital POL controller provides identical features to Primarion's PX7510, and is just the first member in a family of digital power solutions. These PMBus-compliant products provide a new level of design flexibility desired by certain customers, along with Linear Technology's outstanding reliability and worldwide technical support."
Ron Van Dell, President and CEO of Primarion, stated, "This alliance moves digital power management toward mainstream application by ensuring that customers have dual sources for this flexible digital power solution. Our Di-POL products are at the leading edge in delivering the full value of integrated digital power management. We are excited to partner with Linear Technology to jointly advance the application of digital power solutions to an expanding group of high-volume infrastructure customers."
The PX7510 and LTC7510 are single-phase, step-down DC/DC controllers that provide for outputs down to 0.7V. A digital feedback control loop, combined with calibrated analog functions, provides a flexible, high performance solution. The industry-standard PMBus interface is used to implement all control functions via on-chip non-volatile memory, enabling easy design optimization with minimum component count for clean and efficient designs.