AEK-POW-SPSB081 Automotive power management IC evaluation board with LIN and CAN-FD

The AEK-POW-SPSB081 is a power management IC evaluation board with enhanced power management functionalities, such as various standby modes to minimize power consumption with programmable local and remote wake-up capability.

The board is based on the SPSB081 power management system IC, which embeds one low-drop voltage regulator (V1) to supply the system microcontroller and another voltage regulator (V2) to be used as a voltage tracker of V1 or to supply external peripheral loads such as sensors.

V1 has a fixed rail of 5 V and features an overvoltage detection and protection solution, while V2 can work in two different ways: as a voltage tracker of V1, or as an independent voltage regulator programmable via SPI with 5 or 3.3 V.

Four high-side drivers allow supplying and driving LEDs and sensors. These high-side drivers are driven via SPI and can be configured in four different modes: OFF, ON, TIMED (with programmable time), and PWM (configurable via device registers).

Moreover, you can set the high-side driver output to be driven by the DIR pin. This functionality allows the user to generate custom PWM signals for the high-side outputs.

All outputs are short-circuit protected and detect open-load.

The communication protocol used to configure SPSB0815 registers is the SPI, implemented with four wires (MISO, MOSI, CSN, and CLK).

The AEK-POW-SPSB081 also exploits the LIN and CAN transceivers embedded in the IC, allowing the use of the board as a bridge between the microcontroller and the CAN or LIN communication lines.

An external microcontroller (for example, when using an AEK-MCU-C1MLIT1) has to refresh periodically a watchdog TRIG bit in the SPSB081 register via SPI, to maintain the device in active mode.

In case of watchdog failure, the device enters the V1standby (for energy saving). To wake it up, send a pulse to the WU1IN pin or just press the S1 button.

By placing a jumper on JP1, the device enters the debug mode where the watchdog is inactive.

Three demos are available in the AutoDevKit ecosystem, each of them based on a different SPC58 microcontroller evaluation board plus an AEK-POW-SPSB081.

The demos show how to use the outputs, configuring them in four different modes: OUT 1 for ON, OUT 2 for TIMED, OUT 3 for PWM and OUT 4 for DIR.

V2 is configured as a linear regulator and changes settings alternatively every 2.5 seconds between 3.3 and 5 V.

CAN connector and CANrx/CANtx pins are then connected to the microcontroller board.

The CAN test signals transmitted from the microcontroller every five seconds can be effectively decoded through CANH/CANL pins.