TI launches power management devices for AI computing

Texas Instruments Inc. (TI) announced several power management devices and a reference design to help companies meet AI computing demands and scale power management architectures from 12 V to 48 V to 800 VDC. These products include a dual-phase smart power stage, a dual-phase smart power module for lateral power delivery, a gallium nitride (GaN) intermediate bus converter (IBC), and a 30-kW AI server power supply unit reference design.

“Data centers are very complex systems and they’re running very power-intensive workloads that demand a perfect balance of multiple critical factors,” said Chris Suchoski, general manager of TI’s data center systems engineering and marketing team. “Most important are power density, performance, safety, grid-to-gate efficiency, reliability, and robustness. These factors are particularly essential in developing next-generation, AI purpose-driven data centers, which are more power-hungry and critical today than ever before.”

(Source: Texas Instruments Inc.)

Suchoski describes grid-to-gate as the complete power path from the AC utility gird to the processor gates in the AI compute servers. “Throughout this path, it’s critical to maximize your efficiency and power density. We can help improve overall energy efficiency from the original power source to the computational workload,” he said.

TI is focused on helping customers improve efficiency, density, and security at every stage in the power data center by combining semiconductor innovation with system-level power infrastructure, allowing them to achieve high efficiency and high density, Suchoski said.

Power density and efficiency improvements

TI’s power conversion products for data centers address the need for increased power density and efficiency across the full 48-V power architecture for AI data centers. These include input power protection, 48-V DC/DC conversion, and high-current DC/DC conversion for the AI processor core and side rails. TI’s newest power management devices target these next-generation AI infrastructures.

One of the trends in the market is a move from single-phase to dual-phase power stages that enable higher current density for the multi-phase buck voltage regulators that power these AI processors, said Pradeep Shenoy, technologist for TI’s data center systems engineering and marketing team.

The dual-phase power stage has very high-current capabilities, 200-A peak, Shenoy said, and it is in a very small, 5 × 5-mm package that comes in a thermally enhanced package with top-side cooling, enabling a very efficient and reliable supply in a small area.

The CSD965203B dual-phase power stage claims the highest peak power density power stage on the market, with 100 A of peak current per phase, combining two power phases in a 5 × 5-mm quad-flat no-lead package. With this device, designers can increase phase count and power delivery across a small printed-circuit-board area, improving efficiency and performance.

Another related trend is the move to dual-phase power modules, Shenoy said. “These power modules combine the power stages with the inductors, all in a compact form factor.”

The dual-phase power module co-packages the power stages with other components on the bottom and the inductor on the top, and it offers both trans-inductor voltage regulator (TLVR) and non-TLVR options, he added. “They help improve the overall power density and current density of the solution with over a 2× reduction in size compared with discrete solutions.”

The CSDM65295 dual-phase power module delivers up to 180 A of peak output current in a 9 × 10 × 5-mm package. The module integrates two power stages and two inductors with TLVR options while maintaining high efficiency and reliable operation.

The GaN-based IBC achieves over 1.5 kW of output power with over 97.5% peak efficiency, and it also enables regulated output and active current sharing, Shenoy said. “This is important because as we see the power consumption and power loads are increasing in these data centers, we need to be able to parallel more of these IBCs, and so the current sharing helps make that very scalable and easy to use.”

The LMM104RM0 GaN converter module offers over 97.5% input-to-output power conversion efficiency and high light-load efficiency to enable active current sharing between multiple modules. It can deliver up to 1.6 kW of output power in a quarter-brick (58.4 × 36.8-mm) form factor.

TI also introduced a 39-kW dual-stage power supply reference design for AI servers that features a three-phase, three-level flying capacitor power-factor-correction converter paired with dual delta-delta three-phase inductor-inductor-capacitor converters. The power supply is configurable as a single 800-V output or separate output supplies.

30-kW HVDC AI data center reference design (Source: Texas Instruments Inc.)

TI also announced a white paper, “Power delivery trade-offs when preparing for the next wave of AI computing growth,” and its collaboration with Nvidia to develop power management devices to support 800-VDC power architectures.

The solutions will be on display at Open Compute Summit (OCP), Oct. 13–16, in San Jose, California. TI is exhibiting at Booth #C17. The company will also participate in technology sessions, including the OCP Global Summit Breakout Session and OCP Future Technologies Symposium.

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