Si8250 Digital Power Development Kit

Si8250DK

The Si8250DK is a comprehensive development kit for the Si825x family of digital power controllers. The kit, available for $299, is a complete hardware and firmware development system that requires users to write little or no software to implement digital power supplies. The tool dramatically shortens the digital power learning curve, enabling analog engineers to rapidly implement digitally-controlled power systems.

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• Half-bridge kernel
• Half-bridge C8051F300 ISO source code

Hardware Overview

The Si8250 target board implements a digitally-controlled, isolated half-bridge current doubler at a PWM frequency of 400 kHz. The target board contains system power stages and digital control circuits with debug connectors for both the secondary-side controller (Si8250) and the primary-side MCU (C8051F300). The user can directly access the Si8250 using SMBus™ by connecting a PC to the target board using the included USB to SMBus bridge board.

Application Builder

The development kit also includes a firmware toolset consisting of a real-time firmware kernel (C-language source code), loop compensation and timing simulator/designer tools, system and MCU configuration wizards and Silicon Labs' MCU Integrated Development Environment (IDE). For more details on the Application Builder Firmware see Digital Power Development Tools.

The Si8250DK contains the following items:

• 35 W Si8250 isolated half-bridge target board
• USB to SMBus bridge board
• USB debug adapter
• USB cable
• Two 9 V, 1.5 A universal power supplies
• Product information CD-ROM
• Silicon Laboratories Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
• Keil 8051 development tools (macro assembler, linker, evaluation C compiler)
• Source code examples and register definition files
• Si825x half-bridge kernel
• Application builder tool suite (waveform editor, compensator, system and MCU wizards)
• Documentation: kernel flowcharts and Si825x data sheet
• Si825x Development Kit User's Guide

Note: Initial versions of the Si8250-TB utilized the LM5101 FET Driver. This driver is susceptible to noise spikes and limits the board's working input supply range to 65 V. Subsequent versions of the board use the LM5101A, extending the board's working input supply range to 72 V. To remedy this issue on existing boards, replace U3 with a LM5101AM.