any Electronic/ Embedded gurus about?

x in the city

Im trying to see if its possible to implement some low power protocol, possibly on an FPGA and see it in action.

Specifically something like PMBus. Would this be possible, or could it be done on a development kit anyone know?

Thanks.

copacetic

modelling PMBus on an fpga would be pretty easy, assuming all you want to do is implement the protocol and monitor some inputs to trigger alarms, up fan speed etc when power drops etc. PMBus is pretty much just I2C so you'll find plenty of examples to work off. You probably don't need to go that far though, the fpga isn't adding much, you could software model it and it would be as valid?

x in the city

oh really, didnt think it would be so easy to model.

I am looking at I2C also as a worst case senario as it were, but main goal is for PMBus.

Could this be done with say Verilog and an FPGA dev kit? Is there any sites useful for this.?

Im not sure exactly i need to do, the main thing is to implement a PMBus protocol and see it working, with say a load.

so I could have [mpu-----fpga(PMBus)----- load]

does this seem right?

Sorry for all the Q's...

x in the city

I have decided to ditch the PMBus, and just implement some basic power control myself.

I have attached a diagram of what I wish to do.

some questions, I want to program an FPGA on verilog and use it to communicate with a programmable bench supply, so it can alter voltages accordingly

eg: after xxx time units do some math, after xxxx time units step up the power and use a DAC /ADC.

Now, we dont need so much power so step down, etc..

Send some results back to ASIC/FPGA.

all the time monitoring average power etc, so I can tell the unit to shut down completely or whatnot if there is no activity across the bus for xxxx amount of time.

whats the consensus of this?!

copacetic

talking to the power supply is easy enough if you have one that supports gpib or rs232, but much easier to do it from a PC than an fpga. Imo you are better off modelling the system in code and talking to the power supply from the pc, you can make it look fancier and do a lot more and it will be much easier also.

If you have access to labview that would make that incredibly easy as it will likely have the drivers for your power supply built in.

I'm just not seeing what the fpga is adding, except making it a bit harder for you. Unless the key purpose is to learn verilog and get some practise?

x in the city

I see, this is a project. Im meant to be working on some low level/embedded power architectures, and implement my own (if possible).

the goal is to put a power algorithim onto an actual mpu core but thats way down the line.

for now, just writing some easy (ish) code and manipulating voltages is what I need to do.

I am supposed to use an FPGA, i could use like labview also, to monitor bus activity or could i?

i have no idea on programmble bench supplys, where can these be got, as opposed to say dmm's which have rs232s on board.

I have used labview before to communicate across a rs232 on a dmm (interfaced to a mpu).

thanks for the help, much appreciated.