Bob Bridge and Jim Templeton founded Zilker Labs (see January 2003 and July 2004 issues) in October 2002. When we first spoke with founder, president and CEO Bob Bridge, Zilker Labs had just two employees, had not raised any capital and was “fishing around” for product ideas. Zilker’s mission is now “to develop innovative mixed-signal power management and conversion IC solutions.” The company has received a total of $14.75 million in seed, Series A and Series B funding spit between Sevin Rosen Funds and North Bridge Venture Partners. Additional capital will be sought in mid. ’06. Zilker has roughly 30 employees.

In sub 90nm processes, the current to power ratio versus logic per mm2 of silicon is exploding. Today’s embedded systems require custom supply voltages, tight regulation, low voltages, high current, fast transients, dynamic requirements, multiple supply voltages, precise voltage ramp-up and more.

Traditional analog power conversion ICs set the performance benchmark, but lack the ability to effectively manage the entire system power hierarchy. Meanwhile, Zilker argues that emerging digital power ICs tout their power management prowess, but come up short on the performance traditionally expected using an analog solution. Today’s digital power conversion products require there own regulated power supply and burn too much power due to embedded processors and ADCs. And they utilize external drivers, which results in conversion inefficiencies.

Zilker Labs focuses on developing power management and conversion ICs that solve the challenges associated with delivering low-voltage, high-current DC power. Zilker’s products are based on an innovative mixed-signal design approach that enables integration, performance and flexibility not available with either traditional analog or newer digital approaches. The result is a universal building block that resolves the issues associated with regulating and managing multiple low-voltage, high-current power domains on a single PCB.

Proprietary Digital-DC technology enables power management and conversion in a single IC, with no programming required. Zilker claims to be the only company to offer a digital power solution that exceeds the efficiency of analog implementations and does not require programming. Additionally, Zilker’s technology minimizes the number of components required in board-level power designs, reducing system costs, board space requirements and design complexity.

Zilker’s mixed-signal implementation delivers the efficiency of traditional analog approaches with the scalability and control of digital implementations. Unlike pure digital solutions, Zilker’s chips have a power conversion (PWM) loop that can operate at a fast rate (Fsw = 2 MHz) while still maintaining high efficiency.

Zilker’s solution is directly powered by a wide input supply range. It has an embedded mixed-signal block with an efficient state-machine, instead of a power hungry microcontroller, and embedded drivers, which adds efficiency. The company has multiple architectural and implementation patents pending on its proprietary Digital-DC technology.

Based on Zilker’s Digital-DC technology, the ZL2005 mixed-signal power management and conversion IC, Zilker’s first product, provides the configurability, control and monitoring capabilities of digital technology without software development while exceeding the efficiency of analog solutions. The ZL2005 integrates a compact, efficient, synchronous buck controller, high-current adaptive drivers and key power and thermal management functions, eliminating the need for complicated power supply manager chips and numerous discrete components.

The ZL2005 is fully configurable for a wide range of applications by simple pin-strap connections, resistor selection or via the device’s on-board serial port using the industry standard PMBus (Power Management Bus) command set. PMBus, an open standard owned by the System Management Implementers Forum (SM-IF), is a standard way to communicate with power management and conversion devices over a digital communications bus (I2C or SMBus).

The input supply range is 3V to 14V and the device can produce an output voltage between 0.6V and 5.0V. The device is designed to be a flexible building block for DC power and can be adapted to designs ranging from a single-phase power supply operating from a 3.3V input to a multi-phase supply operating from a 12V input. Integrated synchronous MOSFET drivers enable output currents up to 25A by selecting the appropriate external power components (MOSFETs, inductor, and filter caps).

The ZL2005 supports configurable soft-start delay and ramp period, voltage sequencing between multiple devices, voltage tracking, and voltage margining. It supports numerous protection features and can monitor a wide variety of input and output parameters including voltage, current, temperature, duty cycle as well as power conversion parameters. Other key features include an efficiency optimization algorithm, non-linear response, operation from Vib, advanced current measurement and online design and simulation tools.

Zilker is targeting a $1B sub-segment of a $6B power IC market in which there are roughly 80 IC companies. Target markets include embedded applications such as voice and data communications systems, data storage, instrumentation and industrial controls and other rack-based systems where size, performance, and ease of use are important. Key competitive advantages include the easiest to use fully integrated power management and conversion IC, which does not require programming, simplifies power designs and saves space and BoM.

For a PoL managed system with a 12V input and 4 unique outputs at 10A each, Zilker requires just 4 ICs, 44 discretes and 1 supply versus 6 to 8 ICs, 52 to 177 discretes and 2 to 3 supplies for competing solutions.

The ZL2005 began sampling in June to select customers and is now available for general sampling. The device is fabricated in 0.25u CMOS. The company has a full line of power management and conversion ICs in the pipeline based on its Digital-DC™technology. Future plans include cost and package optimized pin-strap and PMBus versions, 3A integrated converters, multiphase controllers, isolated controllers, and other board and portable power ICs.

Bob Bridge, Ph.D., founder, President and CEO (previously the founding CEO at 3 startups, entrepreneur in residence at Austin Ventures, VP of marketing at Agere (the network processor startup acquired by Lucent/Agere) and VP and GM for communications ICs at Crystal/Cirrus)

Jim Templeton, founder & VP of Marketing (previously held engineering and marketing positions at Motorola, Analog Devices and Silicon Labs, where he was most recently VP and GM, Optical Networking Division)

Ken Fernald, Ph.D., CTO (most recently one of the first hires at Cygnal Integrated Products)

Scott Herrington, VP of Engineering (most recently VP of Engineering at Server Engines and LayerN)

Linda Maser, VP of Sales (most recently Director of Sales and Marketing for ON Semi’s computing segment)