In the not-too-distant past, the market for space-grade components was to a large extent limited to a relatively small group of prime contractors in the main regions of the world. In a market dominated by government or military organisations, satellites were generally fully customised, which resulted in long design cycles and minimal cost pressure, as end-customers were quite risk-averse.
Today, with a drastic reduction in the launch costs and an increased focus on missions in Low Earth Orbit, which are enabling a whole new class of space-based applications, that's a different story. “There is a very rapidly evolving market, which is not a 3-to-5-year design cycle, but a sub-1-year design cycle with a lot more competitive cost pressure and more rapidly evolving system requirements,” Kurt Eckles explains.
Kurt Eckles, Marketing Lead in TI’s HIREL/Space Power product line with over three decades of experience within the TI organisation, is excited about the new chapter in the history of collaboration between the American giants and the Danish specialists.
Basically, what this new collaboration offers satellite designers is an alternative pathway between fully custom and fully modular.
“Fully custom takes too long. If you have to develop everything and it takes 20 weeks for delivery of a new transformer or a magnetic system, that affects the cycle time. Fully modular, where you're buying an off-the-shelf module that you have no control over, can be equally problematic,” Kurt Eckles explains, as he goes on to give some examples of fully modular solutions:
“Historically, many of those modules were designed for higher levels of radiation, or they were too large or much heavier mass type products, so they don’t necessarily fit the new space market requirements. By having an option in between with off-the-shelf products with the option of customizing as needed, which is what we are offering, it gives engineers another option.”
The collaboration between TI and Flux provides the best of two worlds: The speed of a stock supply and flexibility to optimise their solution.
To be specific, TI is launching a catalogue of PWM controllers designed with high radiation performance that are fully integrated with the magnetic transformers supplied by Flux, reducing risks and time-consuming iterations considerably throughout the design process.
At the centre of this is Flux’s release of off-the-shelf catalogue transformers tailored for TI’s TPS7H5020/5021-SEP/-SP and TPS7H5030/31-SEP/-SP PWM controller families. They provide a flexible controller platform for teams that want both design freedom and mission scalability.
Historically, one of the many challenges in the space industry has been the cost of launch. As the prices are going down, which is helping to drive the industry, the focus on minimising mass and board area remains. “If you can consolidate multiple cards because you optimise the board area, that’s really where you save a lot of mass. Our collaboration enables a smaller design, which allows you to optimise for your system requirements within a very short timeframe. So, by doing that, you have the potential to consolidate multiple boards to a single board, and by doing that, you greatly reduce your mass and improve your competitiveness,” Eckles explains.
In addition to the PWM controllers and transformers, Flux and TI have released a series of reference kits. These kits are designed to match the widely used 28V bus power and support the most commonly used topologies, voltage rails, and power levels. The goal behind the reference kits is to shorten the path from concept to validated hardware.
Examples of the reference kits include:
Once again, it is about providing engineers with a solid framework on the basis of which they are free to optimise according to their needs. “By building the reference kit, we simulate the whole circuit before we build the chip, and after that, we validate it at a system-level because that is ultimately what our customers are likely to be using in their systems. By giving that, we give confidence in the solution. It doesn’t mean that they need to follow the design specifically, as it’s just one of the possible ways that they could implement the circuit,” Eckles explains.
In other words, these reference kits provide engineers with a shortcut in the design phase to help address some of the implementation risks as they provide the basic building blocks, manufactured to minimise mass, board area, and costs, whilst meeting the standard input voltage, output voltages, and power requirements.
Through years of experience working with the likes of ESA, TI was convinced that Flux had the required technical capability to engage in a strategic collaboration. “Technically, Flux had the expertise and awareness of what is required in space. Additionally, they have experienced some of the bruises and bumps that you get along the way, learning from their mistakes, which makes them a more experienced company,” Eckles explains.
Lars Gregersen, COO of Defence and Space at Flux, agrees: “Flux has developed its business from pioneering to structure by establishing MIL-STD-981 Generic Documentation for Custom Magnetics and authoring the ESA specification ESCC3201/013 “Custom Magnetics (coils and transformers) type FT” based on 25 years of successful flight heritage at the time.”
Eckles stresses that it is not exclusively the technical aspect of the collaboration that makes Flux and TI an ideal match: “We thought that Flux had a very progressive view of the market, and they are open to new business models. Instead of always focusing on a custom product line, they were open to the idea of a catalogue part and providing readily available stock.” A perfect fit for TI, who themselves use their available inventory as a differentiator in the market.
This combination of strategic and technical alignment is essential in making this ambitious collaboration between TI and Flux an ideal match.
Talking about the future of this collaboration, Eckles clearly sees potential for further development as the space market is seeing significant expansion. For years, TI has been building small-quantity reference designs and evaluation modules, or EVM’s. The focus of these EVM’s is to help an engineer get familiar with the parts delivered by TI.
The concept of these EVMs is similar to the reference kits but with a few noticeable exceptions: “We have a number of designs where we don’t necessarily make them orderable but are more focused on providing the design files,” Eckles explains and elaborates: “We hope to expand the partnership into this area. Many of our evaluation modules are about understanding how the chip works, but as we start to do these system-level reference designs, it’s about proving a topology rather than building a basic building block.”
There is no question that the prospects for this solid collaboration are looking bright. These are just the first steps, and we are looking forward to seeing what the future brings.