DN270 - LTC1840: I2C Fan Control Ensures Continuous System Cooling

I2C Fan Control Ensures Continuous System Cooling
Design Note 270
Dilian Reyes
slowing down due to worn bearings or halted from a
jam will cause an overflow in the internal counter and
a corresponding bit is set low in the fault register. The
system controller can then take action, shutting down
the faulty fan and summoning maintenance.
Introduction
Linear Technology’s LTC ®1840 is a dual fan speed
controller for high availability servers and other rackbased network and telecom equipment. The LTC1840
offers advanced control and monitoring capabilities,
accessed via an I2C and SMBus compatible 2-wire
serial interface. In addition to two fan speed control
channels, the LTC1840 also includes a fan tachometer and fault monitoring, nine slave addresses
and four general-purpose programmable I/O pins
in a 16-pin SSOP package. Adjusting fan speed to
match instantaneous cooling requirements increases
energy efficiency and reduces noise. By operating at
reduced speeds, fan bearings are subjected to less
wear, increasing fan life and reliability.
The chip contains four general purpose input/output
(GPIO) pins that are configured independently. As opendrain outputs, they can be set high, low or to pulse at a
1.5Hz rate. The outputs are rated at 10mA sink current
for compatibility with LEDs. Configured as inputs, the
GPIO pins can monitor thermal switches, push buttons
and switching regulator and Hot Swap™ controller fault
or power good outputs. State changes are detected and
flagged in a fault register.
Internal data registers are read and programmed via
I2C by specifying device address and register address.
DACA and DACB registers control the 100μA current
outputs on a 255-step scale. The STATUS register allows the user to enable the TACHA and TACHB fault data
and set the divisor for the internal counter frequency.
The internal count, which is inversely proportional to
tachometer speed, is stored in the TACHA and TACHB
registers. Unmasked faults set the FAULT pin high as
an instant hardware alert. The GPIO setup and GPIO
data registers configure the GPIO pins, assign output
and fault status and read input state.
Figure 1 shows a block diagram for a fan speed control
system using the LTC1840. The LTC1840 contains two
current DACs used to gain full control over fan speed.
The scaled currents individually adjust the fan-driving
output voltage of a switching regulator. VO increases as
the current IDAC is increased under command of the serial
interface. The number of fans controlled by one DAC is
limited only by the switching regulator output power.
The TACH of the LTC1840 monitors the speed of fans
that include a tachometer output. Internal logic accumulates a maximum of 255 counts between the fan
tachometer’s rising edges. The rate of the counter is
determined by a divisor (2, 4, 8 or 16 chosen via the
serial interface) from the 50kHz internal oscillator. Fans
L, LT, LTC, LTM, Linear Technology and the Linear logo are registered trademarks
and Hot Swap is a trademark of Linear Technology Corporation. All other trademarks
are the property of their respective owners.
REGULATOR
12V
VIN
FAN POWER (1.36V TO 12VMAX)
VO
FB
VFB
1.23V
R1
105k
1%
FAN 1
TACH OUT
FAN 2
TACH OUT
LTC1840
SCL
IDAC
SDA
TACH
I2C
IDAC
(0μA TO 100μA)
R2
1M
1%
DN272 F01
Figure 1. LTC1840 Fan Speed Control Block Diagram
10/01/270_conv
Continuous System Cooling
and Tachometer Monitoring
The circuit in Figure 2 demonstrates the capabilities of
the LTC1840. Power for up to four 12V, 420mA fans is
supplied by each LTC1771 high efficiency step-down
regulator. As shown, the upper LTC1771 drives a single
fan backed up by an idle, redundant fan. In the event
the primary fan fails, GPIO3 turns off the LTC1771 and
simultaneously activates the backup fan which runs
at full speed. These fans operate one at a time, so the
tachometer outputs are wire ORed and only one input
(TACHA) is required to monitor their speed.
Two fans are driven in parallel by the lower LTC1771
and alternately monitored by TACHB. These fans operate
simultaneously, so their tachometer outputs are muxed
by a quad NAND gate. GPIO2 operates in pulsing mode
and serves to clock the mux.
Additional Features
For applications requiring multiple fan controllers, the
LTC1840’s three-state (high, low, no connect) address
programming inputs support nine user-selectable slave
addresses. The FAULT output bypasses the serial interface and brings immediate attention to fault conditions
detected by the LTC1840, including slow downs in the
tachometer and changes in GPIO logic state.
If the BLAST pin is high at start-up or presented with a
high to low transition at anytime, the DAC output currents are forced instantaneously to full scale and the
chip awaits commands from the serial bus. In addition,
when BLAST is set high the LTC1840 guards against
system controller crashes with an internal watchdog
timer. If the device is not accessed for a period of more
than 1.5 minutes, both DAC outputs are set to full scale
to guarantee adequate system cooling.
12V
TP0101TS
12V
3
100k
BAT54
TN0205A
RC1
10k
CC1
220pF
RUN/SS SENSE
LTC1771
ITH
PGATE
VFB
CFB1
100pF
1
RSENSE1
0.05Ω
VIN
4
+
CVIN1
22μF
2
RFB1A
105k
+
Si6447DQ
L1 47μH
MODE
RFB1B
1M
GND
1
SCL
2
SDA
10k
NC
130Ω
FAULT
NC
LED1
3
4
5
3.3V
6
10k
7
-A-
8
SCL
VCC
SDA
IDACOUTA
A1
IDACOUTB
16
15
12V
14
FAULT
GPIO1
TACHA
GPIO2
GPIO4
GPIO3
TACH
OUT
10k
-A-
+
13 SYSTEM
BLAST
RESET
12
TACHB
GND
L1 = SUMIDA CDRH125-15OMC
R1, R2, RFB = 1%
10μF
LTC1840
A0
10k
10k
DC
FAN
TACH
OUT
2-PAPST 4312/2 MULTIFAN
12V DC 420mA 5W
UPS5817
0.1μF
DC
FAN
COUT2
150μF
16V
3.3V
3.3V
3.3V
(4.5V TO 12V)
VIN
RUN/SS SENSE
LTC1771
ITH
PGATE
11
10
9
RC2
10k
CC2
220pF
VFB
CFB2
100pF
3
1
RSENSE2
0.05Ω
MODE
GND
4
+
CVIN2
22μF
2
BYS10-25
RFB2A
105k
Si6447DQ
L2 47μH
+
RFB2B
1M
COUT2
150μF
16V
TACH
OUT
DC
FAN
DC
FAN
TACH
OUT
UPS5817
2-PAPST 4312/2 MULTIFAN
12V DC 420mA 5W
ADDRESS = 1110010
(8 OTHERS POSSIBLE)
TO AUTOMATICALLY MUX TACHB BETWEEN THE
TWO PARALLEL FANS, SET GPIO2 TO BLINK
DN272 F02
Figure 2. Controlling Various Fan Operations with the LTC1840
Data Sheet Download
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