Xilinx verifies Linear Umodule regulators

These DC/DC Umodule converters are complete switch mode regulator systems incorporating special design techniques to deliver clean power at high efficiency for high-speed RocketIO interfaces.

All four Umodule regulators have passed Xilinx's jitter tolerance, Bert (bit error rate test) and eye-scan tests.

'Our tests on these DC/DC Umodules provided comparable, and in some cases better, noise performance and jitter tolerance than linear regulators for powering RocketIO,' said Panch Chandrasekaran, senior product marketing manager for the Serdes Technology Group at Xilinx.

'Our mutual customers have asked us to develop high-power, high-efficiency and low-noise DC/DC solutions for powering multi-gigabit transceivers because linear regulators dissipate too much heat in some customer applications,' said Afshin Odabaee, product marketing manager for DC/DC Umodule regulators at Linear Technology.

The four DC/DC Umodule regulators are the LTM8023 (2A), LTM4604 (4A), LTM4606 (6A) and LTM4616 (dual output, 8A).

This range addresses output currents from 2A to 8A and operates from inputs ranging from 2.375V to 36V.

Their LGA (land grid array) packages vary in size from 9mm x 11.25mm x 2.8mm to 15mm x 15mm x 2.8mm, depending on their power capabilities and features.

The test setup used eight different Serdes channels - two channels to measure jitter tolerance and six channels in loopback mode.

The test equipment used included the HP461A and Agilent DSO 54855 for TX output jitter measurement and Bert Scope-S for RX jitter tolerance.