STMicroelectronics ST-ONE power-supply controller

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STMicroelectronics’ ST-ONE chip is designed to increase energy efficiency in a variety of AC-DC adapters, including laptop and smartphone chargers. The chip pairs with ST’s MasterGaN power output modules based on advanced gallium-nitride (GaN) semiconductor technology; the GaN chips enable energy savings and smaller equipment dimensions.

Although laptops provide power-saving settings, every machine can save even more energy if equipped with a more efficient power adapter. The chip is optimised for controlling power supplies that recover energy normally dissipated as heat from conventional circuits. It also simplifies circuit design with a reduction in the number of components.

The product is optimised for designs based on a novel non-complementary active-clamp flyback topology, which allows high power (above 65 W) with higher efficiency than other topologies such as the quasi-resonant flyback. A reduction in materials consumption is achieved by an increase in power density that enables smaller components to manage a larger power delivery; high power density also cuts down recycling and environmental costs.

The digital controller integrates a programmable offline power-supply controller based on Arm Cortex-M0+ core, a high-voltage start-up circuit, a synchronous-rectification controller and USB Power Delivery (USB-PD) circuitry in one package. USB-PD communication is implemented on the secondary side and reinforced galvanic isolation is provided to let the primary and the secondary side circuits communicate while respecting safety requirements.

The chip contains all the peripherals required to control the conversion. Using the MasterGaN integrated power stage with wide-bandgap transistors and optimised drivers, adapters operate at elevated switching frequencies and thus permit smaller-size magnetic components to maximise power density.

The controller comes with 64 KB of embedded flash for designers to customise both the USB-PD protocol and the power-conversion stage. It comes with USB-PD 3.1 PPS certified firmware pre-loaded into the flash memory, presenting users with a turnkey solution for designing standard applications.

For more information: www.st.com/st-one.