Supermicro X9DRL-EF Motherboard
Voltage Regulator
Contents
The Supermicro X9DRL-EF has a voltage regulator circuit for each CPU, each with five phases for the CPU main voltage (Vcc a.k.a. Vcore) and one for the CPU VSA (a.k.a. system agent) voltage. Therefore, it uses a “5+1” configuration.
Each voltage regulator is controlled by a PX3897EDQG-R2-SM1380-A integrated circuit, which uses a digital design. Each phase is driven by a TDA21215 integrated circuit, which incorporates the three required transistors (“driver,” “low side,” and “high side”).
Figure 8: One of the voltage regulator circuits
The Supermicro X9DRL-EF uses SMD tantalum capacitors (also known as high-conductive polymerized capacitors or simply hi-c) on its voltage regulator circuits, and solid capacitors on the remainder of the motherboard.
Figure 9: Capacitors used on the voltage regulator circuits
All coils on this motherboard are ferrite-core models, which can provide up to 20% improvement in efficiency.
If you want to learn more about the voltage regulator circuit, please read our tutorial on the subject.