Analog Devices announces the Power by Linear LTC7106, a new precision bidirectional current DAC designed to control the output voltage of virtually any DC/DC regulator via a PMBus I2C interface.

Through a PMBus-compatible interface, the LTC7106 receives a 7-bit serial code and converts it into a bidirectional (source, sink) output current. When this output current is fed into the regulator's feedback network, the output voltage can be dynamically programmed to optimize load power/performance or to provide margin in response to serial VID commands.

The LTC7106 provides a small and simple solution in a 2mm x 3mm DFN-10 package for a wide range of discrete and modular DC/DC voltage regulators.

The LTC7106 has a built-in power-on reset circuit that keeps the DAC output current at '0' until a valid command is provided. It also provides a variety of bits to allow easy interfacing to virtually any impedance resistor divider, and includes an open-drain output to control the Run or Enable pin of the regulator.

To prevent sudden changes in the DAC output current and the resulting changes in the regulator output current, an internal digital programmable slew rate can be adjusted in steps of 500 ns to 3.5 ms.

The LTC7106 operates over an input voltage range of 2.5V to 5.5V and is supported by the easy-to-use LTpowerPlay graphical user interface (GUI) development tool. Additional features include ±1% output current accuracy over temperature, a wide bidirectional DAC output current range of ±16µA to ±256µA, a wide DAC operating voltage range of 0.4V to 2V, and a precision enable threshold that supports external undervoltage lockout (UVLO).