Introduction

Temperature measurement, current monitoring, power supply sequencing, fan control and fault logging are typical board control functions used in complex circuit designs. System designers are faced with continual pressure to meet their development schedules, and need to implement control functions with minimal effort and risk while maintaining maximum flexibility. By using a programmable based approach for their designs, designers can accelerate their time-to-market, address system cost and space reduction and ensure a high level of product differentiation.

The following are the general evolving trends in system control applications.

Thermal Management for Improved System Reliability

Due to environmental, cost and reliability concerns, designers need to minimize the total power dissipation of their system. Lower operating power requires fewer board components, which reduces the total system cost. However, as process geometries migrate to smaller nodes for faster performance and lower cost, the power consumption of the device increases. This causes total system power to increase, which in turn decreases the mean time between failures (MTBF) of other devices on the board, thereby affecting overall system reliability.