The main board receives +12VDC from the power board, from which it then needs to provide both 3.3V and 5V rails for various purposes. The on-board components typically run off 3.3V, while the front ports (including USB) require 5V to operate.
The current design brings power into a pair of RT8258 buck regulator circuits, from which both rails are generated.
The proposed change is to do the following:
Redesign the power input path using some suggestions from Infineon AN80994, such that both the +12VDC and GND inputs pass through various components before going to the buck regulators or ground plane, to improve power quality and hopefully reduce the impact of transients.
Replace the current buck regulator setup with one based around the TI TPS54294 dual converter, which has performed quite well in testing and should make it easier to use a single input filter path
Clean up the output path, removing unnecessary components (the ferrite beads currently there are likely unnecessary, for example)
The motivation behind these changes is similar to the motivation behind #56, #60, and #65, which is to generally improve the power subsystem in the device. Actual cost is unlikely to change much, and there may be a slight reduction in component count.
The main board receives +12VDC from the power board, from which it then needs to provide both 3.3V and 5V rails for various purposes. The on-board components typically run off 3.3V, while the front ports (including USB) require 5V to operate.
The current design brings power into a pair of RT8258 buck regulator circuits, from which both rails are generated.
The proposed change is to do the following:
The motivation behind these changes is similar to the motivation behind #56, #60, and #65, which is to generally improve the power subsystem in the device. Actual cost is unlikely to change much, and there may be a slight reduction in component count.