Design and implementation of an automatic measurement system for DC-DC converter efficiency on a motherboard

In this paper, we design and implement an automatic measurement system for measuring the power efficiency of DC-DC converters on a motherboard. By incorporating a software module to measure the efficiency with the assistance of a LabVIEW software module, we propose a design for our virtual instrument (VI) with a front panel as a friendly user interface to control the efficiency measurement system, rather than the manually operated designs which not only require more manpower but are also time-consuming. Our design also improves the accuracy by utilizing automatic measurement. By using our software module, our system increases the loading of the DC-DC converter with a smaller error to measure and record both the input voltage/current, and it the output voltage/current and automatically performs a valid functional analysis. Our software cooperates with hardware instruments by means of a GPIB (General Purpose Interface Bus) interface. The output loading can be controlled exactly for each second due to the transient limitation of a DC-DC converter.