EE Web PULSE

EEWeb 

PULSE 

Jeff Crystal & 

Phillip Stearns 

Voltaic Systems 

EEWeb.com 

Issue 17 

October 25, 2011 

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Jeff Crystal and Phillip Stearns 4 

VOLTAIC SYSTEMS 

Interview with Jeff Crystal, COO and Phillip Stearns, Lead Product Development 

and Testing Technician 

Featured Products 8 

Hardcore Micros - Microchip’s PIC10F32x 10 

BY PAUL CLARKE WITH EBM-PAPST 

A look at the new and interesting features coming to PIC Microcontrollers. 

MPLS-TP: Emerging Technology for 14 

Packet Transport Network 

BY RISHI CHUGH WITH ALTERA 

An introduction to Multi-Protocol Label Switching-Transport Profile as a new, emerging 

technology. 

RTZ - Return to Zero Comic 18 

EEWeb | Electrical Engineering Community Visit www.eeweb.com 3 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTERVIEW 

Jeff Crystal & 

Phillip Stearns 

How did you get into 

electronics/engineering and 

when did you start? 

Jeff: I majored in biomedical 

engineering at Tulane, which had 

a big circuits component, but I 

really wasn’t able to put my degree 

to use as I went into management 

consulting and then software 

startups. One of the joys of starting 

with Voltaic was the opportunity to 

get hands-on again with electronics 

and physical devices. 

Phil: I was always curious about 

electronics and started tinkering 

with one of those Radioshack 30 in 

1 electronics labs in grade school. 

Most of that curiosity, however, 

was sated by opening electronic 

devices and prodding about their 

insides. Putting them back together 

in working order, though, was a 

whole other story. I gained all of my 

knowledge of basic theory when 

studying engineering physics at the 

University of Colorado at Boulder, 

before transferring to the Denver 

Jeff Crystal - COO (right) 

Phillip Stearns - Lead Product Development and Testing Technician (left) 

Voltaic Systems 

campus to study audio engineering, 

where I explored the practical 

applications of that theory in music 

production. 

What’s fun about solar? 

Jeff: It’s like flying. You know 

technically how an airplane 

functions but every time I take off 

from a runway, I’m like, “Wow, 

this really works.” It is the same 

thing with solar. I use it every day, 

but when I take a solar panel and 

connect it to a battery or a device 

or a light and it powers it up, I get 

a little thrill. Luckily, learning to use 

solar is a little easier than learning 

how to fly. 

Phil: It is incredibly liberating to 

realize that it’s possible to generate 

power without having to plug into a 

wall. I have the most fun dreaming 

up creative ways of integrating 

small-scale solar in sculptures and 

other artworks. Teaching solar is a 

very rewarding experience too. 

What are your favorite 

hardware tools that you use? 

Jeff: For what we’re doing, a 

multimeter or two is really the 

everyday tool we depend on. 


FEATURED INTERVIEW

INTERVIEW 

Phil: I really like the Array 3710 

programmable load and the Array 

3644 programmable bench supply. 

The two in combination allow for 

detailed analysis of battery charging 

and discharging characteristics. 

What are your favorite 

software tools that you use? 

Jeff: This may sound funny, but we 

use PowerPoint all the time to draw 

up specs on all sorts of things. For 

the most part, we’re not doing circuit 

level design, we’re specifying the 

physical design and the behavior. 

It allows us to work really quickly 

to build specifications on a wide 

range of components. 

Phil: I’m a hardware guy. 

What is the hardest/trickiest 

bug you have ever fixed? 

Jeff: For me, it is the actual 

manufacturing of components. 

We’re dealing with over 15 

suppliers and we’re trying to work 

with them to make the highest 

quality components. Even with 

simple components like phone 

adapters that you’d think should 

have zero problems, it turns out that 

sometimes the supplier solders a 

bit wrong, so it breaks if you bend 

it too far. We’re constantly getting 

samples, trying to break them, 

and making suggestions on how 

to manufacture them for better 

durability. I’d love to say that we 

have “fixed” this, but the reality 

is that we will always be making 

improvements to our components. 

Phil: Charging Apple products is a 

tricky affair, and it took a bit of reverse 

engineering and conversations with 

our suppliers to figure out. All the 

Apple products charge using OEM 

cables and docks, most of which 

plug into an AC power adapter via 

USB. What we learned was that all 

four pins of the USB connector are 

used to communicate to the Apple 

device telling it how much power it 

can draw, and these vary by Apple 

device. For the time being, we 

seem to have it all figured out, but 

with Apple constantly upgrading 

its products and changing its 

standard, who knows how long it 

will be before we have to figure it 

out all over again. 

It is incredibly 

liberating to realize 

that it’s possible 

to generate power 

without having to 

plug into a wall. 

What is on your bookshelf? 

Jeff: A lot of books on economic 

development, plus too many Nordic 

mystery novels. I use the Web for 

most of my engineering information. 

Phil: A healthy mix of electronic 

references, critical theory, sound 

and art theory, modern physics, and 

gardening books: A well worn copy 

of The Art of Electronics by Horowitz 

and Hill, several different selections 

from Don Lancaster’s Cookbook 

series, Baudrillard, Virillio, Zizek, 

Agamben, John Cage’s Silence, 

Harry Partch’s Genesis of a Music, 

How to Imagine by Gianfranco 

Baruchello, and The One-Straw 

Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka 

are just a few of my favorites. 

What online resources 

do you use? 

Jeff: I spend a decent amount of 

time on Adafruit.com—sometimes 

for their technical explanations, 

which are simple, but written very 

well. I also look to them as a model 

for sharing information I’ve learned 

about almost anything, and sharing 

it with the world. We’re not as good 

as them at this and might not ever 

be, but we really love how open they 

are about sharing and teaching. 

Phil: Google. Whenever there’s a 

part (especially ICs) that I encounter 

in the field that I’m not familiar with, 

I pop the part number into Google 

and can usually pull up a datasheet 

a few clicks later. Wikipedia is also 

good for refreshing my memory and 

filling in any gaps in knowledge. If 

the answers aren’t in either of those 

places, I tend to turn to the books. 

Do you have any tricks 

up your sleeve? 

Phil: Unrelated to my work at Voltaic, 

I circuit bend devices (intentionally 

short circuit components) to 

induce erratic output. It’s an 

anti-engineering approach to 

producing art with electronics. 

You can see some images I’ve 

produced with low resolution digital 

cameras http://continentcontinent. 

cc/index.php/continent/article/ 

viewArticle/27. Because we as a 

society haven’t fully dealt with the 

end-of-life issues of our electronic 

devices, fully functional machines 

can be found on the street awaiting 

trash collection. These discarded 

electronic devices are becoming 

fodder for a growing art movement 


FEATURED INTERVIEW

INTERVIEW 

that involves using them as raw 

material for creative projects. 

What has been your 

favorite project? 

Jeff: Recently, getting our iPad solar 

charger (http://www.voltaicsystems. 

com/) out was a lot of fun. There 

are a lot of people doing things 

around phone charging, but no one 

had really done anything close to 

the right design, performance, and 

price for tablets. On the engineering 

side, there were a lot of tradeoffs 

about cost, weight, charge times, 

and device compatibility we had to 

think through. I think we’re happiest 

when we can be building products 

that no one else is. 

Do you have any note-worthy 

engineering experiences? 

Jeff: The first time that we 

connected one of our batteries in 

development to a device and the 

battery started smoking. I think 

we all learned the importance of 

over-discharge protection at that 

moment. We also got more formal 

on the battery testing process to 

make sure the things we specified 

actually made it into the product. 

Phil: When I took on learning how 

to build my own bench supply, I 

connected my first linear supply 

circuit to the mains, and almost 

immediately both of the large filter 

capacitors popped and started 

venting a noxious smelling smoke. It 

took three days and several cans of 

air freshener for the smell to go away. 

It was an important lesson in double 

checking electrical connections 

and matching component specs 

to project demands; a postmortem 

examination revealed that I had 

wired the transformer backwards! 

What are you currently 

working on? 

Jeff: We’re working on solar LED 

lighting. LEDs are getting more 

powerful and cheaper. And to 

some extent, so are batteries and 

solar panels. This means that it 

will become economical for a safe, 

clean lighting source to replace 

unsafe, dirty, and expensive lighting 

sources like kerosene across the 

globe. 

Phil: A big project that we’re 

coming close to finishing is our 

line of laptop chargers. We’ve been 

tweaking designs for optimum 

efficiency charging from solar, as 

well as making sure the batteries 

can supply power for the most 

demanding laptops on the market 

today. We hope to release our new 

high-power systems in the fall. On 

the low power side of things we’re 

taking on NiMH battery charging, 

and are developing a AA battery 

charger optimized for charging 

from solar. 

What direction do you see 

your business heading 

in the next few years? 

Jeff: We think there is a conversion 

happening from AC to DC. If you 

think about LED lighting as well as 

our phones and tablets (becoming 

the defacto TV), you can power a lot 

of things in a home without AC. From 

a solar perspective, this means you 

don’t need an inverter. You don’t 

need a big lead acid battery. You 

need a small to moderate sized 

solar panel and a compact lithiumion 

or lithium-polymer battery. We 

think this will make the economics 

of solar much more effective and 

practical for low and middle-income 

families around the globe. 

What challenges do you 

foresee in our industry? 

Jeff: In consumer electronics, size 

and performance are always an 

issue. People want things smaller 

and cheaper. The issue is that solar 

cells really haven’t gotten that much 

more efficient. So when people 

buy products with a tiny little solar 

panel on it, they may think it is 

cute but the end result is that it just 

doesn’t work that well and they end 

up souring on all of solar. I think 

properly setting expectations and 

educating masses of people who 

have been trained on plugging 

things into perfectly functioning 

wall outlets on how to use solar will 

take some time. 

I think the other challenge will be 

dealing with end-of-life issues. In a 

decade or so, there will be a lot of 

solar panels and batteries that have 

stopped functioning properly. Are 

these recycled properly? Can we 

recover the value from them. I don’t 

think that has been worked out. 

Phil: The challenge of educating 

people is a major issue. I see the 

portable solar market as a path 

toward marketing larger utilitybased 

approaches to solar energy 

production. If many people are 

having poor experiences with 

portable solar charging, then 

that will inform their attitudes 

toward proposals for larger scale 

installations in their communities. 

Sadly, not all of us are convinced 

that solar is worth the expense, 

otherwise we’d see panels covering 

rooftops and southern-facing office 

buildings everywhere. Ultimately, 

the larger scale utility-focused 

installations are where solar’s 

greatest potential lies. Making 


FEATURED INTERVIEW

INTERVIEW 

solar portable means that people 

will carry it with them, which is 

great, except that we spend much 

of our time indoors. This means the 

resources used in making portable 

charging systems are not being 

utilized to their maximum potential. 

Permanent outdoor installations will 

gather and convert solar energy 

whenever it’s available rather 

than only when availability and 

circumstance intersect to place 

the user of portable solar outdoors 

during a sunny day. In addition 

to being able to charge on the go 

(while biking to work), plugging 

devices into outlets powered by 

panels on the roof makes sense. 

A challenge I see is integrating 

portable solar products with grid 

interactive systems so that every 

little watt has the chance to add up. 

Additionally, the manufacturing 

processes used to make portable 

solar resilient and durable also 

contribute to the end-of-life issues. 

Monocrystalline and polycrystalline 

silicon are easily recycled, but 

not if they’re encased in epoxy. 

Newer, more efficient thin film solar 

appears to satisfy the durability 

requirement when mounted on 

a suitable substrate, but will also 

have to address issues of recycling, 

especially due to the increased 

use of exotic materials. As Jeff said, 

there is a lot left to be worked out 

when it comes to dealing with endof-life 

issues. 

What are you doing on the 

environmental side of things? 

Jeff: In addition to the big idea 

that we’re helping people generate 

their own power and helping them 

create street-level conversations 

about alternative energy, the 

biggest change in the production 

of components of the last few years 

has been RoHS standards. We 

select suppliers who comply with 

RoHS and require it any place it 

applies. We’re also trying to get 

more of our own components back 

in-house from customers so that we 

can reuse or recycle them properly. 

I think we can get a lot better here 

though. ■ 

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FEATURED INTERVIEW

FEATURED PRODUCTS 

Oscilloscopes with Waveform Generator 

Agilent Technologies Inc. added optional arbitrary waveform generation 

capability and five new analysis applications to its InfiniiVision 3000 

X-Series oscilloscopes. AWG makes it easy for engineers to capture 

waveforms with their oscilloscopes and instantly convert them to stimulus 

files to simplify stimulus/response testing. Nine months ago, Agilent was 

the first major test-instrument vendor to integrate a function generator 

with an oscilloscope. This integration is popular with manufacturers 

who want to simplify stimulus-response testing, R&D engineers who 

need to simulate missing signals and educators who want a simple 

tool for teaching students about instrument operation. Now the company has become the first to add AWG to its 

oscilloscopes. Agilent is including this software upgrade – which is used with the integrated WaveGen 20-MHZ 

function generator option – at no additional cost. For more information, please click here. 

Embedded Motor Control Dev Kit 

Microchip Technology Inc., a leading provider of microcontroller, 

analog and Flash-IP solutions, and Digilent®, Inc., today announced 

the availability of a Microchip dsPIC33 Digital Signal Controller (DSC)based 

development kit. The Digilent® Cerebot MC7 Development 

Kit addresses the growing interest in embedded motor control from 

the academic and hobbyist markets, and is ideal for learning about 

microcontrollers and solving real problems. The kit includes a 

demonstration board that provides four half-bridge circuits, eight RC 

servo motor connectors, the ability to use Digilent Pmod peripheral 

modules, and an integrated programming/debugging circuit that 

is compatible with the free MPLAB® IDE. Example applications include university embedded-systems and 

communications classes, senior capstone projects, and numerous other academic and hobbyist projects. For more 

information, please click here. 

Improved Handheld Spectrum Analyzer 

Agilent Technologies Inc. announced it is adding new features and options 

to its recently launched N934xC handheld spectrum analyzer (HSA) 

family. The introduction also includes HSA PC software enhancements. 

“The HSA launched in March 2011 delivered a rich, powerful, fieldready 

instrument for engineers and technicians,” said Brian LeMay, 

general manager of Agilent’s Chengdu Instruments Division. “Now we 

have added even more capabilities to make it one of the most versatile 

handheld spectrum analyzers available today.” For more information, 

please click here. 


FEATURED PRODUCTS

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HARDCORE 

MICROS 

Microchips 

PIC10F32x 

Paul Clarke 

Electronics Design Engineer 

As an embedded engineer I’m always looking for 

more and more functions from a smaller and smaller 

package. Over the last six months, Microchip has been 

releasing information about the smallest of its chips— 

PIC10F32x—and in this article we will look at the new 

and interesting features coming to PICs. 

Figure 1 

Up till now when I have looked at the very small end of 

the micro range, the PIC10s have never offered anything 

that would get me excited or convince me that they are 

very usable. At ebm-papst, when I’m designing bottomend 

tiny products, I need at least one PWM, so I have 

been using what I would have called a slightly overspec 

PIC12F615 for my products. 

In the last few weeks however, Microchip has released 

the Data Sheet for the PIC10F320 and PIC10F322. These 

I have been looking at using for some time; however, it 

was the added features of these two new chips that stand 

out to me, and I’m not just talking about the added Flash 

and RAM or PWMs they now have. 

The first new shiny feature is Configurable Logic Cells 

(CLCs). The PIC10 is not the first to have these, as there 

is a new breed of PIC12s and 16s that have these too. 

However, having this and the other features on such a 

small chip is surprising and also powerful. 

CLCs are chunks of combinational logic that can be 

configured to perform high-speed functions without 

needing core processing time. Each block has eight 

EEWeb | Electrical Engineering Community Visit www.eeweb.com 10

TECHNICAL ARTICLE 

CLCxIN[0] 

CLCxIN[1] 

CLCxIN[2] 

CLCxIN[3] 

CLCxIN[4] 

CLCxIN[5] 

CLCxIN[6] 

CLCxIN[7] 

Figure 2 

Input Data Selection Gates 

See Figure 19-2 

lcxg1 

lcxg2 

lcxg3 

lcxg4 

See Figure 19-3 

Logic 

Function 

LCxMODE 

LCxEN 

lcxg 

LCxPOL 

lcx_out 

Interrupt 

det 

LCxINTP 

LCxINTN 

Interrupt 

det 

Q1 LE 

LCxOE 

LCxOUT 

inputs that can come from I/O pins, internal clocks, 

Peripherals, or even from register bits. These inputs can 

then be passed through one of a number of pre-configured 

logic blocks that perform functions like AND-OR, S-R, 

J-K and D type flip-flops. What’s then quite nice is that an 

external pin can be driven directly from this output, read 

internally, or it can even generate an interrupt. It may not 

have the flexibility and programmability of, say, a FPGA 

LAB, but I can see these becoming very useful glue logic 

tools for embedded engineers. 

CLCxIN[0] 

CLCxIN[1] 

CLCxIN[2] 

CLCxIN[3] 

CLCxIN[4] 

CLCxIN[5] 

CLCxIN[6] 

CLCxIN[7] 

CLCxIN[0] 

CLCxIN[1] 

CLCxIN[2] 

CLCxIN[3] 

CLCxIN[4] 

CLCxIN[5] 

CLCxIN[6] 

CLCxIN[7] 

CLCxIN[0] 

CLCxIN[1] 

CLCxIN[2] 

CLCxIN[3] 

CLCxIN[4] 

CLCxIN[5] 

CLCxIN[6] 

CLCxIN[7] 

CLCxIN[0] 

CLCxIN[1] 

CLCxIN[2] 

CLCxIN[3] 

CLCxIN[4] 

CLCxIN[5] 

CLCxIN[6] 

CLCxIN[7] 

Figure 3 

000 

111 

000 

111 

000 

111 

000 

111 

Data Selection 

LCxD1S 

LCxD2S 

LCxD3S 

LCxD4S 

lcxd1T 

lcxd1N 

lcxd2T 

lcxd2N 

lcxd3T 

lcxd3N 

lcxd4T 

lcxd4N 

LCxD1G1T 

LCxD1G1N 

LCxD2G1T 

LCxD2G1N 

LCxD3G1T 

LCxD3G1N 

LCxD4G1T 

LCxD4G1N 

D Q 

LCxG1POL 

(Same as Data GATE 1) 



TRIS Control 

CLCx 

Data GATE 1 

Data GATE 2 

Data GATE 3 

Data GATE 4 

sets 

CLCxIF 

flag 

lcxg1 

lcxg2 

lcxg3 

lcxg4 

AND - OR OR - XOR 

lcxg1 lcxg1 

lcxg2 

lcxg3 

lcxq 

lcxg2 

lcxg3 

lcxg4 lcxg4 

LCxMODE=000 LCxMODE=001 

4-input AND S-R Latch 

lcxg1 lcxg1 

lcxg2 

lcxg3 

lcxq 

lcxg2 

lcxg3 

lcxg4 lcxg4 


1-input D Flip-Flop with S and R 2-input D Flip-Flop with R 


lcxg4 

lcxg2 

lcxg1 

lcxg3 

D 

S Q 

R 

lcxq 


J-K Flip-Flop with R 1-input Transparent Latch with S and R 

lcxg2 

lcxg1 

lcxg4 

lcxg3 

Figure 4 

J Q 

K 

R 

lcxq 

lcxg4 

lcxg2 

lcxg4 

lcxg2 

lcxg1 

lcxg3 

lcxg1 

lcxg3 


D 

LE R 

S Q 

S Q 

D Q 

Another nice feature to find in such a small chip is the 

Complementary Waveform Generator (CWG). This 

allows you generate controllable waveforms for use in a 

half bridge or switching power supply for example. The 

module allows for selectable input sources and have 

some nice and simple auto-shutdown controls. Dead 

time is also programmable for both the rise and fall side. 

I’ve seen similar modules on the larger chips but found 

this much easier to understand and more independent of 

the code that may be running on the core. 

Both the CLC and CWG could be really nice units if only 

you have a clock source that is easy to control and whose 

frequency is easy to set. Well the chips now also come 

with a Numerically Controlled Oscillator (NCO) that can 

be used to feed the above CLC and CWG modules. This 

is no Phase Lock Loop (PLL) but will allow for simple 

clock division. The module works by having a configured 

value added to an accumulator on each clock cycle. 

The overflow is then used as a raw output that can be 

R 

R 

lcxq 

lcxq 

lcxq 

lcxq 

TECHNICAL ARTICLE


NCO1CLK 

LC1OUT 

Fosc 

HFINTOSC 

Figure 5 

11 

10 

01 

00 NxEN 

2 

NxCKS 

NCOx Clock 

Overflow 

NCOx Clock 

Ripple Counter 

used to drive the module in a number of modes. For 

example, simple toggling of the output allows for a fixed 

50 percent duty, or you can use the module for pulsed 

frequencies with output pulse width control. 

The new features could very well be a clue to where 

Microchip is going with new designs, maybe trying out 

these features on the smaller silicon before it makes its 

way up to the 32bit cores. However, these new features 

are a welcome sight to me as an embedded engineer. 

I like the idea of getting more and more features inside 

small chips—my designs do not need a lot of I/O pins 

but they need to be clever. I really don’t want to be using 

GxCS 

Fosc 

HFINTOSC 

GxIS 

PWM1OUT 

PMW2OUT 

N1OUT 

LC1OUT 

CWG1FLT (INT pin) 

GxASDFLT 

LC1OUT 

GxASDCLC1 

GxASE Data Bit 

WRITE 

Figure 6 

2 

2 

cwg_clock 

Input Source 

Increment 

16 

(1) 

Buffer 

16 

∑ 

20 

Accumulator 

20 

1 

Auto-Shutdown 

Source 

GxARSEN 

S Q 

R Q 

set dominate 

S 

Q 

R Q 

S 

D Q 

3 

Reset 

Interrupt Event 


D Q 

Q 

S Q 

R Q 

NxPWS 

EN 

GxASE 

shutdown 

CWGxDBR 

6 

CWGxDBF 

6 

0 

1 

NxPFM 

NxPOL 

GxASDLA 

GxPOLA 

GxPOLB 

“0” 

“1” 

“0” 

“1” 

GxASDLB 

2 

00 

10 

11 

00 

10 

11 

2 

1 

0 

0 

1 

GxASDLA - 01 

GxASDLB - 01 

Set NCOxIF Flag 

To CLC and CWG modules 

To NxOUT bit 

NxOE 

TRIS Control 

a whopping big QFP just to get the features, but suffer 

with the high pin count. 

About the Author 

Paul Clarke is a digital electronics engineer with strong 

software skills in assembly and C for embedded 

systems. At ebm-papst, he develops embedded 

electronics for thermal management control solutions 

for the air movement industry. He is responsible for the 

entire development cycle, from working with customers 

on requirement specifications to circuit and PCB design, 

developing the software, release of drawings, and 

production support. ■ 

EN 

R 

R 

= 

= 

GxOEA 

GxOEB 

NCOx 

TRISx CWGxA 

TRISx 

CWGxB 

x = CWG module number 

TECHNICAL ARTICLE

80V, 500mA, 3-Phase MOSFET Driver 

HIP4086, HIP4086A 

The HIP4086 and HIP4086A (referred to as the HIP4086/A) are 

three phase N-Channel MOSFET drivers. Both parts are 

specifically targeted for PWM motor control. These drivers have 

flexible input protocol for driving every possible switch 

combination. The user can even override the shoot-through 

protection for switched reluctance applications. 

The HIP4086/A have a wide range of programmable dead times 

(0.5ms to 4.5ms) which makes them very suitable for the low 

frequencies (up to 100kHz) typically used for motor drives. 

The only difference between the HIP4086 and the HIP4086A is 

that the HIP4086A has the built-in charge pumps disabled. This 

is useful in applications that require very quiet EMI performance 

(the charge pumps operate at 10MHz). The advantage of the 

HIP4086 is that the built-in charge pumps allow indefinitely long 

on times for the high-side drivers. 

To insure that the high-side driver boot capacitors are fully 

charged prior to turning on, a programmable bootstrap refresh 

pulse is activated when VDD is first applied. When active, the 

refresh pulse turns on all three of the low-side bridge FETs while 

holding off the three high-side bridge FETs to charge the 

high-side boot capacitors. After the refresh pulse clears, normal 

operation begins. 

Another useful feature of the HIP4086/A is the programmable 

undervoltage set point. The set point range varies from 6.6V to 

8.5V. 

Speed 

Brake 

June 1, 2011 

FN4220.7 

VDD 

Controller 

VDD 

RDEL 

AHI 

ALI 

BHI 

BLI 

CHI 

CLI 

HIP4086/A 

CHB 

BHB 

AHB 

AHO 

BHO 

CHO 

CHS 

BHS 

AHS 

VSS 

ALO 

BLO 

CLO 

Battery 

24V...48V 

Features 

• Independently drives 6 N-Channel MOSFETs in three phase 

bridge configuration 

• Bootstrap supply max voltage up to 95VDC with bias supply 

from 7V to 15V 

• 1.25A peak turn-off current 

• User programmable dead time (0.5µs to 4.5µs) 

• Bootstrap and optional charge pump maintain the high-side 

driver bias voltage. 

• Programmable bootstrap refresh time 

• Drives 1000pF load with typical rise time of 20ns and Fall 

Time of 10ns 

• Programmable undervoltage set point 

Applications 

• Brushless Motors (BLDC) 

• 3-phase AC motors 

• Switched reluctance motor drives 

• Battery powered vehicles 

• Battery powered tools 

Related Literature 

AN9642 “HIP4086 3-Phase Bridge Driver Configurations and 

Applications” 

”HIP4086EVAL Evaluation Board Application Note” (Coming 

Soon) 

0 

-60 -40 -20 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 

FIGURE 1. TYPICAL APPLICATION FIGURE 2. CHARGE PUMP OUTPUT CURRENT 

OUTPUT CURRENT (µA) 

200 

150 

100 

50 

V xHB - V xHS = 10V 

Get the Datasheet and Order Samples 

http://www.intersil.com 

JUNCTION TEMPERATURE (°C) 

Intersil (and design) is a registered trademark of Intersil Americas Inc. Copyright Intersil Americas Inc. 2010, 2011 

All Rights Reserved. All other trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

MPLS-TP 


With the ever growing demand for bandwidth 

primarily being driven by the wireless-mobile 

market, the communication equipment suppliers are 

on a quest to transform the existing cell-based grid into 

more scalable and efficient packet-based networks— 

particularly transport. The legacy TDM (i.e., SONET/ 

SDH) has been known for its reliability and manageability. 

These are the current bench marks for packet-based 

technology. Today with 40GE/100GE standardized, 

Ethernet is seen as the most cost-effective and scalable 

architecture for deploying packet-based networks. The 

key advantage which one achieves from packet-based 

networks is statistical multiplexing, whereby multiple 

client information is a single stream of data traffic. 

As there is more deployment of packet-based services, 

carrier operators are looking to reduce CAPEX spending 

and provide scalable solutions. Multi-Protocol Label 

Switching–Transport Profile (MPLS-TP) is emerging 

as a new technology, which is being developed by The 

Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to provide a 

reliable transport infrastructure for any type of client or 

aggregate multiple clients. The objective of MPLS-TP 

Emerging Technology 

for Packet 

Transport Network 

Rishi Chugh 

Sr. Manager, Product Marketing 

is to provide service providers with a reliable packetbased 

technology that is based upon circuit-based 

transport networking, and thus is expected to align 

with current organizational processes and large-scale 

work procedures similar to other packet transport 

technologies. These key objectives to meet the demands 

of transport networks are shown in Figure 1. 

Objective 

MPLS-TP provides a common platform for providing 

reliable transport solutions for packet and TDM services 

over optical networks, thereby leveraging the widely 

deployed MPLS technology. In order to ensure the 

successful deployment of this platform, it is necessary 

to define and support implementation of OAM and 

resiliency features associated with tradition MPLS 

stack. These are essential features for carrier transport 

–performance monitoring, multi-domain, protection, 

scalable operations. MPLS-TP is being deployed in entire 

OTN network food chain, where larger ODU payloads 

are being transported. Vendors today are architecting 

their solutions to handle more finely grained units of 

traffic, carried over the OTN via MPLS. 


TECHNICAL ARTICLE


Key characteristics of MPLS-TP shown in 

Figure 2: 

• Connection oriented platform (Pseudowire architecture) 

• Client-agnostic (L1,L2,L3 clients) 

• Physical layer agnostic (Not specific PMA requirements 

or rates) 

• Enhanced operations, administration, and maintenance 

(OAM) functions 

• Support for various protection schemes i.e., FEC as 

in transport protocol stack 

• Control Plane GMPLS is supported by MPLS-TP 

client or server 

• Multicasting 

Scalable 

Support any number 

of clients within the 

entire network (from 

access to core) 

Transport Network - OTN PIPE 

Cost-Effective 

Low protocol 

complexity (L1/L2) with 

unified management 

& control across 

packets 

Figure 1: Different Demands made on Transport Networks 

Network Stack 

Management Plane 

Control Plane 

Data Plane 

Framing/Forwarding/OAM 

Protection, Restoration 

Figure 2: MPLS-TP Deployment in the Network Stack 

Reliable 

Monitor end-to-end 

performance and 

connection oriented. 

Strong OAM, 

resiliency 

Multi-Client 

Support any type of 

client traffic with 

quality of service. 

Today’s generation of FPGA devices provides a platform 

for implementing advanced MPLS-TP OAM solutions 

(supporting ITU-T G.8113.1 or IEFT standards). These 

solutions enable communication vendors to design their 

systems to be compatible with both IETE and ITU-T standards. 

These system solutions will accelerate market 

adoption to transition to packet transport networks. Protocol 

stack like 1588v2 and SyncE are also supported 

on FPGAs today, thereby providing a complete solution 

stack for telecom equipment vendors. 

Summary 

MPLS-TP is enabling next-generation packet-based networks 

by integrating the routing and transport platforms. 

MPLS-TP-based architecture takes advantage of the 

cost-effectiveness and ease-of-use of Pseudowire and 

adds service features like flow control, Quality of Service 

(QoS) and connection oriented provisioning. The 

key benefit is consistent operations and OAM functions 

across the entire network stack and compliance with interworking 

MPLS platforms. Architecturally MPLS-TP is 

highly scalable due to its multiplexing capability, which 

supports multiple layers. By deploying MPLS-TP, operators 

can add new services, while reducing cost significantly. 

MPLS-TP specifications are well suited for aggregation 

and access nodes of the network, where migration of 

TDM-based network to packet-based network is occurring. 

The OAM enhancements associated with MPLS-TP 

will allow service providers to have better visibility within 

their core network and improve overall performance. 

Figure 3 illustrates how MPLS and MPLS-TP can be deployed 

and their complementary nature. 


TECHNICAL ARTICLE


Option 1 

Option 2 

Option 3 

Option 4 

About the Author 

ACCESS AGGREGATION CORE 

L2 MPLS/MPLS-TP 

L2 MPLS/MPLS-TP 

MPLS/MPLS-TP 

MPLS/MPLS-TP MPLS/MPLS-TP 

MPLS/MPLS-TP MPLS/MPLS-TP MPLS/MPLS-TP 

Figure 3: MPLS-TS Food Chain 

(Static) (Dynamic) 

As senior product marketing manager, Rishi Chugh is 

responsible for product marketing in Altera’s wireline 

business group, as well as leading its specific product 

planning activities. Mr. Chugh joined Altera in March 

2008, and has over 15 years of industry experience with 

LSI and Artisan Components (acquired by ARM). ■ 


TECHNICAL ARTICLE



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