“Emerging Power Management Solutions” – Prof. Aleksandar Prodic (University of Toronto)
€745.00
This hands-on course presents emerging power management (PM) systems with improved functionality, increasing interactions with the loads and advanced power savings techniques. There will be a review of standard PM architectures, fundamental principles of main functional blocks, main design trade-offs involving size, power processing efficiency, and cost. Practical implementation challenges will be described and new solutions introduced, including redefined system level architectures as well as novel digital and mixed-signal control methods.
Sample Lecture – “Emerging Power Management Solutions” Online Course (2022)
Power supply systems for mobile devices, computers, consumer electronics, and numerous other applications are going through significant transformations. The changes are driven by numerous factors and, often, conflicting requirements. Those include requests for processing increasing amounts of power and operation with higher voltage conversion ratios while, at the same time, providing high power processing efficiency and improving power density. Also, compared to conventional solutions, emerging power management systems are expected to have improved functionality, increasing interactions with the loads and allowing for implementation of advanced power savings techniques.
To accommodate new requirements, novel solutions on multiple levels are being developed. Those include redefined system level architectures, novel digital and mixed-signal control methods, and replacement of conventional buck and boost converters with more advanced topologies. Also new components and packaging solutions are being developed.
This course will give a brief review of standard power management architectures in several applications and fundamental principles of the operation of their main functional blocks, i.e. switch-mode power supplies (SMPS). Also, the main design trade-offs involving size, power processing efficiency, and the cost of implementation will be reviewed. Then, the practical implementation challenges related to the changing requirements will be described and new solutions introduced.
A special focus will be given to three topics. First is the practical implementation of high-frequency digital and mixed-signal controllers replacing conventional analog counterparts. Challenges and solutions related to on-chip implementation of the main functional blocks of digital controllers will be presented. Also, digital control solutions for improving transient performance, efficiency, and functionality of the SMPS will be presented.
The second topic is related to emerging reduced voltage swing converter topologies (including multi-level converters) replacing conventional buck and boost-based solutions. Basic principles of operation that allow for simultaneous size reduction and power processing efficiency improvements will be presented. Then, specific design and control challenges will be addressed and solutions presented.
The third topic will review latest system-level architectures relying on digital control and utilization of the new topological solutions.
The course will also include hands-on simulation work, sometimes during the lectures and other times as homework assignments, where mathematical modeling methods/tools covered in the lectures will be applied to design and simulate, i.e. verify designs of several switch-mode power supplies (SMPS). The modeling methods/tools will be used for both steady-state analysis and the design of controllers. The simulations will be based on Typhoon – Xyce combination (temporary licenses will be provided), where Xyce is a SPICE-compatible high-performance simulator, and quite useful for power stage simulation and high frequency effects. Typhoon is a supporting graphical user, and model integration, interface. For more information, please see here.
This course is intended primarily for analog designers with some experience in traditional power management architectures who may or may not have experience with digital and mixed-signal controllers. We will assume no familiarity with these advanced power management topologies and introduce them as part of the course. The course will also be of great interest to power electronics engineers, system designers, as well as those with background in control and digital design. Some basic knowledge of circuit theory will be required.
Lecture #1 – Power Management Systems
Topologies, SMPS, linear regulators, converters, SC circuits, design trade-offs, converter modeling.
Lecture #2 –Controller Design – Analog vs. Digital
Analog controller design, motivation & challenges, high-frequency digital controllers.
Lecture #3 – High-Frequency Digital Controllers
Practical implementation, limit cycling & resolution, design methods, compensator design, on-chip implementation.
Lecture #4 – High-Performance Controllers
Advanced digital & mixed-signal controllers, time-optimal & minimum deviation control, on-line efficiency optimization, load-interactive features.
Lecture #5 – Emerging Converter Topologies
Limitations of conventional solutions, reduced voltage swing principle, multi-level (ML) converter topologies, principles of operation & analysis.
Lecture #6 – Control of Multi-Level Controllers – Part I
Design & control challenges, flying capacitor (FC) voltage control, start-up issues.
Lecture #7 – Control of Multi-Level Controllers – Part II
Practical mixed-signal controllers for ML-FC SMPS, advanced features, design example.
Lecture #8 – Advanced Power Management Architectures
Hybrid architectures, design example, on-chip implementation of PM system for mobile applications.
Duration: 16 hours
Format: 8 x 2-hour recorded lectures including interactive Q&A.
Work: Homework assignments (optional) will consolidate the learning from the lectures.
Included:
- Course notes (PDF)
- Homework assignments (PDF)
- Lecture recordings (8 weeks playback access)
- Course homepage
- Class discussion forum (offline Q&A)
- Recommended reading list
- Extra material
Alksandar Prodic obtained his Dipl. Ing. degree from the University of Novi Sad (Serbia) in 1994 and received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from Colorado Power Electronics Center at the University of Colorado, Boulder, in 2000 and 2003, respectively.
In 2003 he joined the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto, where, in 2004, he formed Laboratory for Power Management and Integrated Switch-Mode Power Supplies (SMPS). Prof. Prodic’s general research interest is Power Electronics. Specific research interests include practical advanced control methods for power electronics, converter topologies, mixed-signal IC design for power electronics, low-power high-frequency switch-mode power supplies (SMPS) and power management systems. The applications of interest range from on-chip power supplies for portable devices to power management systems in vehicles. His research also covers use of power electronics in biomedical applications. In this area he has published more than 80 research papers. His research also resulted in more than 20 patents and patent applications, many of them have become commercial products.
