Dec 2001 I2C Dual Fan Speed Controller Increases Efficiency and Reduces Noise

DESIGN IDEAS
I2C Dual Fan Speed Controller
Increases Efficiency and
by Dilian Reyes
Reduces Noise
Busy servers and rack-based network and telecom equipment rely on
hard-working cooling systems to keep
from melting down. The simplest cooling system is a bank of fans running
at full tilt, all of the time. This approach ensures a cool environment,
but overcompensation is neither efficient, nor is it good for the fans. High
output fans that work full time do not
last very long (their bearings wear
out), are not very efficient (they use
power also), and are noisy (especially
when their bearings wear out). The
LTC1840 dual fan speed controller
reduces the wear on bearings, and
noise, by continuously adjusting fan
speed to match the instantaneous
cooling requirements of the system.
REGULATOR
12V
VIN
FAN POWER (1.36V TO 12VMAX)
VO
VFB
1.23V
FB
R1
105k
1%
FAN 1
TACH OUT
FAN 2
TACH OUT
LTC1840
SCL
IDAC
SDA
TACH
I2C
R2
1M
1%
IDAC
(0µA TO 100µA)
Figure 1. LTC1840 fan speed control block diagram
The LTC1840 monitors and controls multiple fans via an I2C and
SMBus compatible 2-wire serial interface. It provides two fan speed
control channels, features fan tachometer and fault monitoring, nine
slave addresses and four general-pur-
pose programmable I/O pins, all in a
convenient 16-pin SSOP package.
Figure 1 shows a block diagram for
a fan speed control system using the
LTC1840. The LTC1840 contains two
current output DACs that control fan
speed. The scaled currents individu-
12V
TP0101TS
12V
100k
BAT54
TN0205A
RC1
10k
CC1
220pF
RSENSE1
0.05Ω
VIN
RUN/SS SENSE
LTC1771
PGATE
ITH
CVIN1
22µF
+
Si6447DQ
L1 47µH
RFB1B
1M
GND
1
SCL
2
SDA
10k
NC
130Ω
FAULT
NC
LED1
3.3V
10k
-A-
3
4
5
6
7
8
SCL
VCC
SDA
IDACOUTA
A1
IDACOUTB
+
14
FAULT
13 SYSTEM
BLAST
RESET
12
TACHB
GPIO1
TACHA
GPIO2
GPIO4
GND
GPIO3
12V
9
RSENSE2
0.05Ω
VIN
RUN/SS SENSE
LTC1771
ITH
PGATE
11
10
10k
L1 = SUMIDA CDRH125-15OMC (847) 956-0667
R1, R2, RFB = 1%
16
15
TACH
OUT
-A-
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)
RFB1A
105k
MODE
VFB
CFB1
100pF
+
RC2
10k
CC2
220pF
VFB
CFB2
100pF
+
CVIN2
22µF
Si6447DQ
L2 47µH
+
RFB2B
1M
MODE
GND
BYS10-25
RFB2A
105k
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
Figure 2. Controlling four fans with the LTC1840
Linear Technology Magazine • December 2001
35
DESIGN IDEAS
ally 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 pin 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
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.
The chip contains four generalpurpose input/output (GPIO) pins,
which are configured independently.
As open-drain outputs, they can be
set high, low or to pulse at a 1.5Hz
rate. The outputs are rated at 10mA
sink current so they can drive LEDs.
When the GPIO pins are configured
as inputs, they can monitor thermal
switches, push buttons and the fault
or power good outputs of switching
regulators and Hot Swap™ control-
lers. A fault register detects and flags
state changes.
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.
Continuous System Cooling
and Tachometer Monitoring
The circuit in Figure 2 demonstrates
the capabilities of the LTC1840. Each
of the two LTC1771 high efficiency
step-down regulators can supply
power for up to four 12V, 420mA fans.
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 at full speed.
These two fans operate one at a time
so their tachometer outputs are wired
OR, and only one input (TACHA) is
required to monitor their speed.
The other two fans are driven in
parallel by the second LTC1771 and
alternately monitored by TACHB.
These fans operate concurrently, 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 threestate (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 slowdowns
in the tachometer and changes in
GPIO logic state.
If the BLAST pin is high at startup
or presented with a high to low transition at anytime, the DAC output
currents are immediately forced 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 go to full scale to
guarantee adequate cooling.
LTC1960, continued from page 16
situations. Accurate wall adapter voltage detection can be critical. The
LTC1960 has a user adjustable wall
adapter input voltage trip point setting with less than a 2% error. For
example, you can have valid AC
present detection with a wall adapter
rated as low as 13.2V and still charge
a 12.6V 3-cell Li-Ion battery.
Simple Serial Interface
The serial connections are based on
the Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI)
protocol, a communications system
that allows a host CPU to communicate with many peripheral devices.
SPI is a very simple TTL level interface
36
that does not require any special interface requirements from the host
microprocessor. A simple bit-banging
method using standard logic outputs
makes the part compatible with any
microprocessor. Given the high level
of LTC1960 functional integration,
the serial interface dramatically reduces the number of required signals
between the host and the IC, freeing
up host pins for other functions.
Conclusion
The LTC1960 represents the first complete dual battery discharge-charge
system solution on a chip. It reduces
solution cost, development time, PCB
space and part count while at the
same time providing more control,
safety, and automatic crisis management relative to any other solution
available today. Combined with a host
microcontroller, it has the flexibility
to work in both user proprietary and
Smart Battery based applications. The
limits of what can be accomplished
with LTC1960 are solely dependent
on the software controlling the IC.
Although the primary LTC1960 market is notebooks and portable battery
applications, its expandability also
makes it a good solution for many
battery backup applications, such as
those in small servers.
Linear Technology Magazine • December 2001