Lattice Semiconductor Corporation (NASDAQ: LSCC) today announced that Netezza, an IBM Company and the leader in data warehouse appliances, is using the innovative programmable Lattice Power Manager device - the PAC™ POWR 1220AT8 -- to integrate and simplify multiple power management functions in a board design.
As board designs become ever more complex, the traditional approach to power management using multiple discrete power management ICs from several different vendors is no longer viable from a board cost, reliability and time to market perspective. Instead, what is needed is an approach that integrates diverse power management functions into one power management IC, and Lattice's Power Manager devices are increasingly the "chip of choice" for board designers.
"We chose the Power Manager device to help us deal with several board design and power management challenges," said Ken Schwartz, Netezza Technology Director for hardware development. "For example, the proliferation of voltage regulators due to a distributed power architecture presented us with the challenge of replicating all the individual monitoring, control, and margining circuits. Power sequencing of complex ICs and memories require that almost every voltage rail be individually controlled. Programmability helps during debugging and stress testing. We also wanted finer resolution of margining under computer control, rather than using switches to connect and disconnect two margining resistor values. Further, we needed a power controller that can work with a mix of regulators from different vendors, and the Lattice Power Manager can do that.
"Other Power Manager features that appealed to us were the ability to use the integrated CPLD for small amounts of glue logic and programmable I/O; a way to compensate for voltage drops due to PCB characteristics or load variations; and the voltage feedback control, which could be effective with 24A 1.0V devices that have huge current variation potential. The PAC POWR 1220AT8 was able to solve all these design challenges for three generations of board designs," Schwartz concluded.
Netezza used the Power Manager to integrate several functions, including:
- Voltage Monitoring + Over/Under Voltage Detection and Notification with much higher accuracy
- Voltage Margining: Replaced a discrete switch and two resistors with a table-driven
- DAC approach with up to 256 margin points
- A general purpose I2C I/O register
- Random glue logic
- FET drivers for Power MOSFETS
"Our customers are rapidly discovering the new, innovative way to look at power management," said Shyam Chandra, Senior Product Marketing Manager for Lattice's mixed-signal devices. "Not only does the Power Manager simplify power management through integration, it also reduces board cost and increases board reliability. And, because Power Manager is programmable, changes to the board design are easily accommodated."
About the Lattice Power Manager Family
Lattice Power Manager devices deliver highly accurate, flexible and low cost solutions for power supply and processor/DSP management. By integrating a versatile PLD core with Analog-to-Digital (ADC) converters, Digital-to-Analog Converters (DAC), differential sense analog monitors, I2C communication and in-system programmability, Lattice Power Manager devices increase board reliability, decrease component count and help cut costs.
About Netezza
With the invention of data warehouse appliances, Netezza, an IBM Company, revolutionized and simplified analytics for companies drowning in data and struggling to find the processing speed and power to analyze and understand what it all meant.
Today, Netezza is the data warehouse appliance leader, combining storage, processing, database and analytics into a single system that delivers 10-100x the performance, at one third the cost of other approaches. We are once again resetting the bar on price/performance. Think of Netezza as a Ferrari, with the price and efficiency of an economy car.
With hundreds of customers including Nationwide, Neiman Marcus, Orange UK, The Sherwin-Williams Company, Virgin Media and more, and offices worldwide, Netezza is a proven solution to the rising costs and complexity of data warehousing and analytics. Our impressive ecosystem of global partners, including Ab Initio, Business Objects, Cognos, EMC, IBM, Informatica, Microsoft, MicroStrategy, SAS and others and an expansive list of system integrator, reseller and developer partners worldwide means our customers can rest assured that Netezza will live comfortably within any existing infrastructure they have in place.
About Lattice Semiconductor
Lattice is the source for innovative FPGA, PLD, and programmable Power Management solutions. For more information, visit
www.latticesemi.com
.jpg)
PDF
