Power Supply Simulator

Introduction

The Flexstar Power Supply Simulator (PSS) is a unique tool which can simulate an infinite number of D.C. power quality conditions. The purpose of the PSS is to test device functionality with a poorly behaved power supply or battery power source.

The Flexstar PSS is the marriage of a precision programmable power supply, arbitrary waveform generator, sine wave ripple and noise generation, and high speed current and voltage sampling engine. Additionally the user can inject external signals to accurately replicate sawtooth, triangle, square waves, white noise, etc. Also included in the feature list is the ability to simulate sudden open-circuit or short-circuit conditions. Another feature present is the precise control of slew rates.

These features make this product an indispensable tool for design and quality verification for a wide variety of devices such as storage devices, automotive electronics, semiconductor test, medical equipment, aerospace, etc. Virtually anything powered by D.C. power supplies or batteries can be tested using the PSS.

The PSS consists of a motherboard with up to four power channel cards. The motherboard contains a microcontroller with an embedded USB interface, an FPGA which implements the high speed sampling and digital control for the power channels, and a large array of SRAM memory used to store arbitrary waveform data and voltage and current samples. Also present is a high speed A/D converter used for voltage and current sampling. Each power channel contains a precision voltage regulator, a digital sine wave synthesizer, and voltage and current measurement circuits.

The PSS is available in two basic configurations:

• Integrated PSS: Product integrated with Flexstar storage device test system.
  
• Desktop PSS: Product supplied as a stand alone system with enclosure and power supply.
  
• The PSS requires a host computer for control and analysis of power samples.

Feature Summary

• Up to 4 voltage outputs programmable from 0 to 15V in 0.25 mv steps with excellent accuracy
• Up to 35W output power per channel.
  
• Arbitrary waveform generation with up to 100K points rendered at up to 10K points/sec.
  
• Hardware ripple/noise injection DC to 20 MHz and programmable up to 1V P-P.
  
• Signal injection from an external source (DC coupled).
  
• High speed voltage and current measurement and sampling.
  
• Open circuit or short circuit simulation.
  
• High speed USB 2.0 interface.
  
• Voltage slew rate control from 10 us up to 1 second in 10 us increments.

Precision Programmable Power Supply

The PSS can have up to four programmable outputs each of which can range from 0 to 15 volts in steps of 0.25 millivolts. Each channel can provide up to 35 watts of continuous power. Accuracy for each channel is typically better than 0.5% of the desired output. Sense feedback maintains the accuracy at the load.

• Number of output channels: 1, 2, or 4.
  
• Input voltage: 18V +5% -0% @ 8A maximum.
  
• Output voltage range: 0 to 15V.
  
• Voltage resolution: 0.25 millivolts.
• Accuracy: < +/- 0.5% of set point.
  
• Current capacity: Up to 5A continuous.
  
• Absolute current limit: 6.5A.
• Power limit: 35W.
  
• Quiescent regulator noise & ripple: < 50 mv P-P at 2A.
  
• Settling time: < 40us.
  
• Load regulation: < 1% for a 1A change.
  
• Negative voltage excursions: Not to exceed -0.3V below ground.
  
• Operating range: 0 to 50 C, 10% to 80% RH.
  

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