STMicroelectronics has announced its membership in the Power Management Bus (PMBus) Implementers Forum as a ‘PMBus Adopter.’ The PMBus protocol is a collaboration among key players in the industry to establish an open communications standard – operating over the industry-standard SMBus interface – that facilitates programming, digital control, and real-time monitoring of power conversion systems without the need to burden the host system with multiple protocols.
As a PMBus Adopter, ST is now able to offer designers compliant devices for new systems. Already the company has a broad family of MCUs that are ideal for power-system control, and ST ships PWM (Pulse-width Modulation) controllers for Point-of-Load (POL) applications in high volumes. New PWM controllers based on the PMBus protocol are firmly established on the product roadmap, with formal announcements expected in Q2 2007.