Datasheet
cui.com
date 11/07/2014 │ page 26 of 36CUI Inc │ SERIES: NQB-D │ DESCRIPTION: FULLY REGULATED ADVANCED BUS CONVERTERS
This product provides a PMBus digital interface that 
enables the user to congure many aspects of the device 
operation as well as to monitor the input and output 
voltages, output current and device temperature. The 
product can be used with any standard two-wire I2C or 
SMBus host device. In addition, the product is compatible 
with PMBus version 1.2 and includes an SALERT line to 
help mitigate bandwidth limitations related to continuous 
fault monitoring. The product supports 100 kHz and 400 
kHz bus clock frequency only. The PMBus signals, SCL, 
SDA and SALERT require passive pull-up resistors as 
stated in the SMBus Specication. Pull-up resistors are 
required to guarantee the rise time as follows:
Eq. 7 
where Rp is the pull-up resistor value and Cp is the bus 
load. The maximum allowed bus load is 400 pF. The pull-
up resistor should be tied to an external supply between 
2.7 to 5.5 V, which should be present prior to or during 
power-up. If the proper power supply is not available, 
voltage dividers may be applied. Note that in this case, the 
resistance in the equation above corresponds to parallel 
connection of the resistors forming the voltage divider.
It is recommended to always use PEC (Packet Error Check) 
when communicating via PMBus. For these products it is 
a requirement to use PEC when using Send Byte to the 
device, for example command “RESTORE_DEFAULT_ALL”.
Monitoring via PMBus 
PMBus Interface
A system controller (host device) can monitor a wide 
variety of parameters through the PMBus interface. The 
controller can monitor fault conditions by monitoring the 
SALERT pin, which will be asserted when any number 
of pre-congured fault or warning conditions occur. The 
system controller can also continuously monitor any 
number of power conversion parameters including but not 
limited to the following:
•  Input voltage
•  Output voltage
•  Output current
•  Internal junction temperature
•  Switching frequency (Monitors the set value not 
  actual frequency)
•  Duty cycle
usCR
pP
1≤=
τ
Software Tools for Design and Production
For these products CUI provides software for conguring 
and monitoring via the PMBus interface.
For more information please contact your local 
CUI sales representative.
PMBus Addressing
The following gure and table show recommended resistor 
values with min and max voltage range for hard-wiring 
PMBus addresses (series E12, 1% tolerance resistors 
suggested):
Schematic of connection of address resistors
.
0  10 
1  22 
2  33 
3  47 
4  68 
5  100 
6  150 
7  220 
R
SA0
/R
SA1
 [kΩ]SA0/SA1 Index
The SA0 and SA1 pins can be congured with a resistor to 
GND according to the following equation. 
PMBus Address = 8 x (SA0value) + (SA1 value)
If the calculated PMBus address is 0, 11 or 12, PMBus 
address 127 is assigned instead. From a system point of 
view, the user shall also be aware of further limitations of 
the addresses as stated in the PMBus Specication. It is 
not recommended to keep the SA0 and SA1 pins left open.
I
2
C/SMBus - Timing
Setup and hold times timing diagram
The setup time, tset, is the time data, SDA, must be stable 
before the rising edge of the clock signal, SCL. The hold 
time thold, is the time data, SDA, must be stable after 
the rising edge of the clock signal, SCL. If these times are 
violated incorrect data may be captured or meta-stability 
may occur and the bus communication may fail. When 
conguring the product, all standard SMBus protocols 
must be followed, including clock stretching. Additionally, 
a bus-free time delay between every SMBus transmission 
(between every stop & start condition) must occur. Refer 
to the SMBus specication, for SMBus electrical and timing
For more information, please visit the product page.










