Fan-Speed Controller Family Meets Large and Small System Needs

Four devices comprise the EMC230x fan speed-controller family, which addresses the increasingly complex thermal-management needs of larger system with overlapping thermal zones. The family delivers advanced thermal management in systems requiring as few as one fan or as many as five fans. Whereas most fans in today’s market only provide ±20% fan-speed accuracy for a given drive signal, the EMC230x family is designed to receive drive signals from the central host and hold fan speeds to within 1% accuracy. The EMC230x family of devices does this by actively monitoring the fan’s tachometer feedback and then adjusting the speed, as needed, to hit a given target. By accurately controlling fan speed, better acoustic and thermal performance can be maintained, yielding a more reliable and predictable design. When using multiple EMC230x devices within a system, fan speeds can be synchronized for optimal performance of a clock output. If the designer chooses not to synchronize clocks, this option can be utilized as a more accurate clock input to yield 0.5% fan-speed accuracy. On smaller systems, a designer may simply need to extend the architecture by one fan driver to obtain optimal performance. For these instances, use of the EMC2301 controller is ideal, since the fan drive instructions can be issued over the I2C bus to the EMC2301 to drive an additional fan. For improved system reliability, all devices in the fan speed controller family can issue important system alerts. Samples of the EMC230x family are available now and range in price from $0.60 to $1.60 each in lots of 10,000. SMSC, Hauppauge, NY. (631) 273-5550.