R&D

Research and development on new converters are ongoing for future CERN experiment applications.

We have today fund form the EP department and from Technology transfer department (KT) financing research on new converter topology and architectures.

We are also looking in non silicon power devices, mainly Gallium Nitride (GaN).

In this table it is depicted (in green) the R&D projects which are today on-going

rPOL2V5 2.5V resonant DCDC converters

In parallel to the development of the baseline solution for a second-stage converter (bPOL2V5), a side research has been conducted aiming at evaluating the advantages of the modification of the architecture from a simple buck to a much more sophisticated resonant. The design and integration of a quasi-resonant converter prototype has been done in 2017-18, and the results are very encouraging for a first exercise - and given the complexity of the design. The main advantage of this architecture resides in the large decrease in the size of the inductor: from 100nH in the buck to 10nH in the resonant prototype, still keeping a comparable efficiency at load currents below 2A. The difference if size is appreciable from the following picture.

The second prototype, designed by Stefano Caregari is a very advanced prototype and close to production readiness. For more infmation please contact giacomo.ripamonti@cern.ch.

rPOL48 48V resonant DCDC converters

rPOL48V is a resonant converter based on a Switched Tank architecture, able to perform a fixed conversion ratio of 4 with an output current up to 30A. A first prototype with commercial components is under development. In parallel a rad-hard control circuitry at transistor level in the HV-CMOS technology is in design phase at CERN.

As for the rPOL2v5 the main advantage of a resonant converter is the reduction of the inductors size, targeting the converter for application with space and mass constrains.

The size difference between bPOL48V (rated max 12A) and rPOL48V (rated max 30A) is visible in the following picture:

Stage 3.b conversion (On-chip 28nm regulators)

In the R&D WP5.2 the design of regulators in 28nm have been done and submitted in November 2023. These bloks are intended to be Macro blocks that can be used by different designers.

-iPOL5V: a fully integrated resonant converter able to convert from 5V down to 0.9V. All components are inside, including air core inductors and Input/Output capacitor.

-linPOL1V2 is a linear regulator able to provide 200mA from 1.2V down to the 0.9-1V required by the load.

New High voltage CMOS technologies

A new commercial High Voltage technology has been selected with good radiation tolerance, and design of new high voltage converters (up to 48V) has started in 2024.