Low-Cost Automotive Power Management Solutions

Designing power management control systems in automotive applications has become quite complex due to the continuous changes in technology. While 5-volt devices are preferred by automotive engineers for the robustness of the I/Os, every new generation of devices require a new, smaller operating voltage. On-board management of all the multiple voltage supplies becomes quite a challenge.

Devices that require their supply voltages to be applied in a very specific sequence to insure correct operation further complicate this challenge. All too often a “traditional” power management solution is applied to these “turbo-charged” power management requirements, resulting in circuit board designs that are inefficient, costly and usually compromised by tradeoffs.

Looking for powerful, cost effective solutions, several automotive customers requested Lattice provide the popular power manager devices in an automotive temperature range. Lattice responded, and in February 2008 announced the release of the automotive temperature LA-ispPAC-POWER1014/A power manager devices. The Lattice POWR-1014/A are the only fully-programmable power managers offered in automotive temperature.

The POWER1014/A incorporates both in-system programmable logic and in-system programmable analog circuits to perform the special functions that are optimized for power supply control, sequencing and monitoring. The POWR-1014A has 10 analog inputs for voltage monitoring, and can control up to 14 outputs. A built-in reset generator is available for control of external microprocessors.

By using a programmable, mixed signal power management device. Automotive designers can standardize on this “power management PLD,” using the device across all the automobile's ECUs, resulting in reduced cost as well as increased reliability.