Application of Embedded Systems in Power Supply Design

In today's information age, as people's requirements for system performance and cost control continue to increase, embedded systems have gained more and more favor with their excellent cost-effectiveness and unique convenience. This article takes the embedded control system based on AT91RM9200 as an example, focusing on the design ideas and methods of the system power circuit and the installation and debugging process of the system power supply. Combined with the problems encountered during the debugging process, the debugging methods and precautions of the embedded system circuit are analyzed. With the widespread application of embedded systems, the design and debugging of power circuits are particularly important, and the design and debugging ideas of this article are worth learning from.

1 System Hardware Structure

In the design of welding machine control system based on embedded system, AT91RM9200 is used as the core microprocessor of the system. SDRAM, SRAM and Flash are expanded according to the requirements of the control system. The keyboard and LCD display circuit can adjust and display parameters in real time and alarm when errors occur. RS485 serial interface completes data transmission and communication, and infrared remote control operation can be performed. The hardware structure of the system is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 System hardware structure diagram

2 System Power Design

2.1 System Power Supply Working Principle

AT91RM9200 is a system chip built entirely around the ARM920T processor. It has a wealth of system and application peripherals and standard interfaces, making it a low-power, low-cost embedded industrial-grade product. AT91RM9200 provides a full-featured power management controller (PMC) to optimize the power consumption of the entire system, and supports normal, idle, slow clock and Standby operating modes, providing different power consumption levels and event response delay times. In idle mode, the ARM processor clock is disabled and waits for the next interrupt (or master reset); slow clock mode is the mode selected after reset, in which the main oscillator and PLL are turned off to reduce power consumption; Standby mode is a combination of slow clock mode and idle mode, which enables the processor to respond quickly to wake-up events and maintain low power consumption. When the system is working normally, it is powered by an external DC power supply and charges the battery. When the external power supply is disconnected, it automatically switches to the internal backup battery for power supply.

2.2 Power Circuit Design

AT91RM9200 has five types of power pins: VDDCORE pin is used to power the core, usually 1.8 V; VDDPLL and VDDOSC are used to power the PLL or oscillator, usually 1.8 V; VDDIOP and VDDIOM are used to power the peripheral I/O port line, USB transceiver and external bus interface I/O port line, usually 3.3 V. In addition, the power supply voltage of the system's keyboard and display circuit requires a +5 V power supply. Therefore, this control system needs to use three sets of power supplies. By analyzing the control requirements and performance of the entire control system, it is determined that the load current of this system is about 3 A. Therefore, the voltage regulator chip of the system power supply uses ON's LM2576 series regulator to stabilize the external DC power supply into the +3.3 V and +5 V power supplies required by the system. Since the system core power supply requires 1.8 V, the system should use a secondary power conversion circuit. This article uses TI's micro-power, ultra-low voltage dropout PMOS regulator (LDO chip) TPS72518 as the core power conversion chip to stabilize +3.3 V to +1.8 V to provide working power for the processor core. The system power circuit is shown in Figure 2. Figure 2 shows the PCB design methods such as embedded system power decoupling. C3 and C6 are electrolytic bypass capacitors of the voltage regulator chip. Connecting them in the circuit can make the circuit work stably; C2, C5, and C8 are output stabilizing capacitors, which have a good effect on reducing output ripple, output noise, and the influence of load current changes. According to the working requirements of the regulator itself, the capacitors are 10 μF and 100 μF electrolytic capacitors respectively.

Figure 2 System power circuit diagram

The performance of embedded systems based on 32-bit microprocessors depends largely on the stability and reliability of the clock circuit, and the stability of the clock circuit mainly depends on the stability of the system phase-locked loop (PLL). Therefore, a filter circuit should be used in the power supply of the PLL analog part to ensure the stability of the power supply. The parameters of key components such as the clock, power supply and reset control inside the microprocessor play an important and even decisive role in various operating modes of the system. Therefore, in order to ensure that the parameters set in various operating modes remain unchanged, a backup battery power supply circuit is usually provided in the embedded system design. As shown in Figure 2, TI's battery charger BQ24200 is used as the backup battery for the system power supply. When the system is working normally, the external power supply charges it. After the external power supply is cut off, it provides system power supply so that the system can save important parameters.

3 System power supply debugging

3.1 Debugging content and steps

A relatively large embedded system hardware circuit should be welded and debugged in modules to avoid being unable to check when encountering problems. Since each circuit module in the system needs to be connected to the input power, if the power input is improper, the output result will be incorrect or even burn the integrated circuit, so the system power module should be installed and debugged first. The successful debugging of the system power circuit module is the key to the successful debugging of the entire hardware circuit.

After soldering the components according to the circuit diagram, carefully check whether the components are soldered incorrectly, whether there is a cold soldering or welding slag short circuit on the circuit board, and then power on and debug after checking. The output power of the DC regulated power supply generator is connected to the input port (POW1) of the system power module, and the input power Vin is adjusted to +6 V. The 1.8 V, 3.3 V, and 5 V output ports of the system power supply are checked with an oscilloscope, and there is no voltage output. After powering off and rechecking the circuit, it was found that the electrolytic capacitor C6 had been burned black because the positive and negative polarities of C6 were reversed. After replacing the new capacitor and soldering it correctly, power on and debug, the 1.8 V and 5 V voltage output terminals are normal, while the voltage of the 3.3 V voltage output terminal is less than 3 V. After checking the data sheet of the voltage regulator chip LM2576, adjust the input power Vin, and detect the voltage values ​​of the three sets of system power supplies at the same time. When the three sets of power outputs are correct, the value of the input voltage Vin is about 6.7 V. Since the load current of this control system is about 3 A, a load resistor with a load current of 3 A is added to the circuit to test the stability of the system power supply. After debugging, the capacitors, inductors and other components heat up normally and the output voltage value is correct. So far, the system power module has been successfully debugged.

Next, we gradually installed and debugged other module circuits. Each time a module was installed, it was powered on for testing, mainly to test whether the system power supply voltage and the input voltage and output results of the module were correct. After the entire system hardware circuit was installed and powered on for debugging, it was found that the system power supply was unstable, that is, the DC regulated input power supply often lost power, causing the system power supply to work abnormally. Since there were many system circuits, it was difficult to check, and the problem had not been solved. After multiple power-on tests and debugging, it was found that a voltage (boost) converter in the circuit was smoking-the chip was burnt. After carefully checking the data sheet of the chip, it was found that the chip model was wrong and the positive and negative feedback voltage pins were connected in reverse. After removing the chip, the system power supply worked normally.

3.2 Analysis of debugging results

The system power debugging and the installation and debugging process of the entire system hardware circuit are analyzed. Combined with the problems encountered during the installation and debugging process, the following conclusions are drawn:

① If you are not sure when powering on, you can consider using an adjustable regulated power supply with a current limiting function, slowly increase the voltage value of the regulated power supply, and detect the input current (voltage) and output voltage until the output voltage meets the requirements.

② When debugging a relatively large system circuit, you should first install and debug the system power supply, and then gradually install and debug other modules after successful debugging. Each time a module is installed, power it on and test it, and then debug another module after ensuring that it is correct.

③ The substrates of chip resistors and capacitors are mostly made of ceramic materials that are easily broken by collision. However, chip integrated circuits have a large number of pins, narrow spacing, and low hardness, which can easily cause pin solder short circuits, cold solder joints and other faults. Therefore, you should master the techniques of temperature control, preheating, and light touch during disassembly and welding.

④ Before debugging the power module, you must carefully check whether the components are installed correctly, and use a voltmeter to detect whether there are cold soldering or welding slag short circuits in the circuit to ensure the correctness of the circuit and avoid burning out the components.

4 Conclusion

Embedded system hardware design and debugging are the basis for successful embedded system design, and the design and debugging of the power supply circuit in the hardware circuit is the key to successful system hardware debugging. Starting from practical applications, this paper analyzes and discusses the design and debugging methods of embedded system power supply in welding machine control system based on some problems encountered in the design and debugging process of embedded system power supply.