Supply voltage supervisor (SVS, or supply voltage supervisory circuit) circuits are used to keep an eye out for undervoltage situations while providing power to embedded and electronic systems. The supervisory circuit will reset the controller if an under-voltage situation is found and maintain it in that state if the under-voltage condition lasts. Brown out reset is the name of this style of reset. Brown out reset protection is utilised in many modern microcontrollers to stop unpredictable behavior or damage brought on by fluctuating supply voltages.
Versatile Uses of Voltage Supervisors
Circuitry like MPUs, DRAM, and other devices are readily harmed by high voltages or will perform erroneously at low voltages. They may be specialist ICs, although they are frequently found on the same chip as a microcontroller. Features and functions that can be included with voltage supervisors are:
- Watchdog timer
- Window comparator circuit (window detector)
- Battery switch-over (UPS)
What Does a Voltage Supervisor Do?
When the monitored rail's voltage falls below or climbs over a defined threshold value, a voltage supervisor device asserts a signal to activate, disable, or reset another device. Voltage supervisors are used to safeguarding circuitry, including MPUs, DRAM, and other components that are susceptible to high voltage damage or that will perform improperly at low voltages. They may be specialist ICs, although they are frequently found on the same chip as a microcontroller.
Voltage Supervisor Design
By guaranteeing that the power rails are active only during reliable power supply, voltage supervisors boost the system's robustness and dependability. Functions including exact voltage monitoring, over-voltage protection, processor monitoring, power sequencing, battery backup, and reset latching are used to do this. The introduction to supply voltage supervisors in the training module's first section will be covered in this video.
We'll get things off with a succinct overview of supply voltage supervisors. We'll next go over some system-level design issues that may be resolved using supply voltage supervisors before concluding the presentation with advice on where to go for supporting materials and resources. The second segment, which was captured on a different video, will go into some of the case studies and applications of voltage supervisors.
