A new family of digital temperature and voltage sensors for use in desktop computers and workstations that use the simple serial transport (SST) bus has been released by Analog Devices (ADI). The company's ADT748x family of sensors incorporates a 10-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC) to provide accurate, high-performance communication of temperature and voltage levels over a reliable, high-speed environmental management bus.
In addition to monitoring temperature and voltage, the company says that the new family also allows designers to use emerging features found in next-generation Intel core-logic chipsets to further enhance overall system performance and efficiency.
Explains John Blake, ADI's Power and Thermal Management line director. "By supporting the SST bus, the ADT748x family provides a sensor solution that relays information related to temperature and voltage directly to the core logic, and in realtime. Leveraging the speed and accuracy of the SST bus, ADI's digital temperature and voltage sensors take full advantage of Intel's next-generation chipset features, such as its Quiet Platform Technology, which reduces the number of discrete fan control components in the system, thereby lowering BOM costs."
SST bus
The SST bus is the result of a collaborative design effort between Analog Devices and Intel. The SST bus is used to relay key environmental information, such as temperature and voltage, to the core logic or dedicated ASIC fan-speed controllers, improving the reliability and performance in PCs, servers and workstations. According to ADI, the SST bus is the fastest, most robust, noise-immune and scalable interface available for communicating environmental data. Thermal sensors using the SST bus incur only one error for every billion bits processed. Other high-performance options, such as the SMBus (system management bus), measure about one error every 10 000 bits when tested in the same environment on new PC motherboards, according to ADI.
The ADT748x family
The ADT748x family of temperature and voltage sensors operates at speeds over 1 Mbps and is housed in a small package (8/10-pin MSOP) for easy placement in areas where space is at a premium. The ADT7484A and ADT7486A are simple, 1°C accurate, digital temperature sensors that monitor their own temperature, as well as one (ADT7484A) or two (ADT7486A) remote sensor diodes. The ADT7485A digital temperature sensor and voltage monitor can sense its own temperature, as well as that of a remote sensor diode. The ADT7485A can also monitor four external voltage channels and its own supply voltage using its on-board 10-bit ADC. A single, bidirectional SST data line controls all the devices in the ADT784x family.
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