National Semiconductor's Online Webench Designer Tools

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National's New WEBENCH Design Tool

Author:
Reported by Cliff Keys, Editor-in-Chief, Power Systems Design

Date
09/18/2010

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WEBENCH Power Architect accelerates design of multi-output DC-DC power supplies

I attended the launch of this new design tool in London and had the opportunity to discuss its features with Phil Gibson, National's VP of Technical Sales Tools. These design tools are already well known and accepted by the power design community but with the new WEBENCH® Power Architect the Design of multiple rail, multi-output DC-DC power supplies can be executed in just seconds.

Phil presented the expansion of its industry renowned WEBENCH® Designer tools with the introduction of WEBENCH Power Architect which is the industry's first design tool that allows engineers to rapidly create, model and implement multiple-output, high-performance DC-DC power supplies for an entire system.

With WEBENCH Power Architect, system designers can instantly optimize multiple power supplies across several performance parameters including topology, intermediate voltage rails, footprint, efficiency, component count and bill of materials (BOM) cost. "WEBENCH Power Architect is the first tool to make it easy to quickly design power supplies for all of the loads in a system," said Phil Gibson, Vice President of Technical Sales Tools at National Semiconductor. "Depending on the tool's optimizer dial setting, a typical system with eight power loads will have a BOM count ranging from 50 to 150 components. This is the only tool that lets you instantly compare performance and cost for many alternative system combinations, and quickly implement them."

Many companies are under extreme resource pressure and may not have dedicated advanced expertise in power supply engineering on hand to be able to design and simulate the most cost efficient solution. WEBENCH Power Architect enables engineers to very quickly pull together a design to fulfill the total design criteria. WEBENCH Power Architect supports National's recently announced SIMPLE SWITCHER® power modules. They provide highly integrated and easy-to-use solutions for power supplies requiring low parts-count, small footprint, thermal resistant and low electromagnetic interference (EMI).

From the �bad old days' of time-intensive trial and error we have seen a decade of ever more sophisticated design tools from National. Using WEBENCH Power Architect's library of 21,000 components from 110 manufacturers, designers have a wide range of system alternatives for creating large scale complex systems:

System input sources (VIN) from 1V - 100V
Up-to-20 system loads (VOUT) from 0.6V - 300V
Power per load up to 300W
System efficiency greater than 90%
Per-supply footprints from 14mm by 14mm

When engineers finish "dialing-in" their preference for footprint, system BOM cost and power efficiency, National's WEBENCH Power Architect's graphical analysis capability instantly identifies major sources of power dissipation, cost and footprint area. It allows the user to edit individual power supplies and loads to further model and optimize the overall system for thermal and electrical performance design goals.

Optimization is fast and thorough. Everything is under the control of the designer. From the design specification, a power system can be developed, shared with design colleagues, securely saved and fine-tuned as necessary. WEBENCH is a truly �real world' design environment. When the design is complete, the tool generates a system summary report including schematics, BOMs and electrical operating values. Multiple international distributors provide pricing and the WEBENCH "Build It!" feature offers complete BOM prototype kits with overnight shipping. To view a video demonstration or begin a design with the WEBENCH Power Architect, go to www.national.com/powerarchitect. www.national.com