National Semiconductor's distributors might be getting a few overtime dockets from their field application engineers following the semiconductor company's upgrade of its WEBENCH Power Designer tools. The enhancements was announced yesterday along with new products in the Simple Switcher controller and regulator ranges.
While the tools exist in the National environment, it is distributors who will be expected to make the running on getting this design resource out to customers. Essentially it is there to help engineers design the power supply on a board. As any fule kno, to quote the inimitable Nigel Molesworth, this is usually left to last with the concomitant problems of space and heat.
Mike White who is Product Line Vice President for the Performance Power Product Line (which looks like a tautologous title to me) wants National's distributors in the vanguard working with customers using the new tools. He has just completed a tour of European distributors to present the upgrade, and is clear this is a "distribution led sell."
He reckons 80 per cent of the business on these products will go through distributors. The network will be able to access an electronic version of an information package called the E-Pick Pak. He will expect distributors to use WEBENCH to aid customer design and in some cses become more heavily involved. White sees no reason why a distributor FAE could not do the design and e-mail it to a customer using these new tools.
The upgrades include videos, online courses, articles and the latest design technologies. Once they have been digested, engineers can compare and select the relevant products for their design. As MOSFETs will play an important role, National has selected transistors from Renesas, Toshiba, IR and Vishay to help designers.
Charts will enable design decisions based on a tranche of parameters including output-voltage ripple, efficiency, power dissipation and inductor-current ripple. As an engineer works through the design selecting components the tools will produce a bill of materials based on cost and vendor as well as efficiency and footprint.
White says there is no exclusivity - all distributors will be participating. Their first task may be to call on existing customers to shift from the third generation Simple Switcher products to the new, greener devices boasting lead free solder and halogen free moulds with the same characteristics.
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