LTpowerPlay™ is a user-friendly interactive GUI that allows the designer to connect a PC to the LTC2978 interface connector via a USB-to-PMBus controller and explore all of the LTC2978’s features. The GUI provides a design environment for the power supplies which allows engineers to get up and running quickly, while providing valuable feedback for optimizing supplies. Rich, interactive and powerful, LTpowerPlay™ allows programming of multiple LTC2978s on the same screen in one session. There are multiple views from the system level tree down to the register level. Its easy accessibility includes allowing users to simply enter in a voltage when trimming or margining. Firmware development and writing code to the DACs is drastically minimized thanks to the intuitive LTpowerPlay™ software; it is possible to program and control the LTC2978 without writing a single line of code. Once configuration is complete, the GUI generates a configuration file specific to the designer’s system that can be used to program devices in-circuit using the USB-to-PMBus controller in conjunction with the GUI, via the socketed DC1508A programming board, or submitted to a programming vendor to order preprogrammed parts. The LTC2978 demonstration platform, DC1540, includes the DC1360 and DC1361 demoboards and should be ordered with the USB-to-PMBus controller, to provide a complete system that demonstrates the ability of the LTC2978 to sequence, supervise, monitor, margin, and accurately trim 8 unique power supplies. The DC1360 provided in the DC1540 kit, is the actual LTC2978 demo board housing the 9mm x 9mm IC. The DC1360 connects to the DC1361, which contains eight LTC4603 μModule® DC/DC converters. The USB-to-PMBus controller allows engineers to communicate with the LTC2978 demo board from their PC via a small onboard connector and standard USB cable. Note that multiple DC1360/DC1361 board sets can be plugged together in an array to allow multiple LTC2978s to control additional output voltages; the entire array can then be controlled by a single USB-to-PMBus controller. This screenshot from LTpowerPlay™ illustrates its unprecedented diagnostic and debug power for diagnosing real world problems on a board. The example shown here is for two DC1540 demonstration kits daisy-chained together to control sixteen rails. The GUI manages this seamlessly. This example shows the LTpowerPlay™ telemetry volts vs time plot of the V_OUT values for the eight rails in the second board-set. All eight rails are sequenced off, and then on. Then these eight rails are margined high and then low in unison before returning to their nominal set point voltages. Finally, an output overvoltage (V_OUT_OV) fault condition is induced on the 2.0V rail by momentarily pulling it up to 3.3V. The LTC2978 autonomously handles this fault condition by “faulting off”, disabling the 2.0V rail indefinitely, while the other rails remain operational. The LTpowerPlay™ system tree, telemetry plot window, and other views work seamlessly together to provide a real world debugging environment with unprecedented power for configuring, diagnosing, and debugging real world fault scenarios on a customer’s board.