The LP876242-Q1 power management integrated circuit (PMIC) family is extremely flexible and scalable, providing configurability at the device and system level. At the device level, a single PMIC provides four separate step down converters (BUCK regulators). These BUCK regulators have been tested to conform with the radar specification and are switched at 8.8 MHz switching frequency. The LP876242-Q1 evaluation module (EVM) is both an evaluation and development tool. With the EVM both device level and system level configurability are available through an easy to use graphical user interface (GUI) tool.

Only a power supply and the EVM are required to evaluate and test the LP876242-Q1 default configuration under load conditions. To start evaluating the LP876242-Q1 follow the following steps.

1. Connect power to the EVM.
2. Connect the EVM to the host PC through the USB. In the event that the power is provided by the USB cable, apply the appropriate jumper connection to connect +VBUS and VCCA see Table 3-5.
3. Launch the GUI and evaluate.

Terminal J7, labeled VCCA in Figure 2-1, can accept wire gauges up to 14 AWG. The voltage supplied must be within the input range of the device, 2.8 V to 5.5 V. The power supply providing the input to VCCA is required to supply 135 % of the output power. Once power has been supplied to VCCA, the GPIO4 / ENABLE jumper can be used to power on the output rails. The default ON Request for the device is the ENABLE pin which is a level sensitive input. Please refer to LP876242-Q1 data sheet for more details.

Figure 2-1 shows the top side of the LP876242Q1EVM.

Texas Instruments provides a GUI tool to enable, configure, and evaluate the various features of the LP876242-Q1 with the EVM. Please refer to the GUI User's Guide SLVUBT8 for a more detailed description of this tool.

The GUI runs on most PC platforms and requires an available USB port. The EVM USB connector is type-C and a type-A to type-C cable is provided with the EVM to connect to the host computer. The EVM enumerates as two COM ports and one additional port for the device firmware updates. The GUI uses ACCtrl COM port which can be found from the device manager of the operating system. The COM port can be changed from the GUI from Options—Device Settings menu.

A tool for estimating the efficiency of LP876242-Q1 device is also available called PMIC Efficiency Estimator Tool. The tool can be accessed here.

The following sections describe the various interfaces for measuring and controlling the configuration. Note: the configurations are in coordination with the settings of the PMIC. It is important to understand that both the EVM configuration and the settings of the PMIC must match. The communication interface can be easily changed using the jumpers on J18 and J24. Please refer to the GUI User's Guide SLVUBT8 on how to update the PMIC communication protocol.