imperix announces a new performance benchmark with the launch of the B-Box 4, taking position as the highest-performance Rapid Control Prototyping (RCP) system available for power electronics. Featuring a proprietary architecture optimised for low-latency operation, the controller delivers unrivaled control loop speeds and signal fidelity. It features high performance, leveraged from the easy-to-use Cockpit software, the device significantly accelerates experimental prototyping activities in both industrial and academic research environments.
As SiC and GaN semiconductors are pushing switching frequencies beyond 200 kHz, legacy RCP architectures—developed in the era of millisecond-scale automotive control and kilohertz-scale industrial drives—are facing inherent bottlenecks, creating a performance ceiling that has become a hard limit for innovation. The B-Box 4 shatters this barrier, offering a high temporal resolution and low round-trip latency, characteristics that are key for research with wide-bandgap converters. With the B-Box 4, maximum performance and ease of programming are no longer opposed objectives. The platform natively supports code generated from engineering software such as MATLAB/Simulink or PLECS, with performance figures that were previously achievable only through custom FPGA-based implementation.
“With the B-Box 4, we are enabling researchers to obtain the same results from the CPU in one minute as previously from the FPGA in one hour,” says Nicolas Cherix, Head of Engineering at imperix.
Unprecedented Technical Specifications
The key to the B-Box 4’s performance advantage lies in its I/O interfaces, which are fully dedicated to power electronics. In particular, the advanced analog frontend outperforms that of standard industrial targets by over one order of magnitude.
20Msps synchronous sampling: While competing platforms typically limit sampling rates to 1–2Msps, the B-Box 4 samples all analog inputs simultaneously at 20Msps. This captures the full high-frequency content of current ripple or medium-frequency waveforms, as opposed to conventional strategies that only retrieve one or two samples per PWM period. This significantly improves immunity to noise and perturbations, but also permits the direct visualisation of waveforms without extra instrumentation. Thanks to this oversampling, the B-Box 4 is not only a control system but also an agile monitoring and debugging tool, usable directly from the readily available measurements, at no extra cost.
250ps PWM resolution: The system offers a PWM resolution of 250 picoseconds. This ultra-fine granularity is critical for ultra-fast switching applications, especially for techniques that rely on phase-shift control, such as in medium-frequency converters.
Down to 2µs total cycle delay: From the sampling instant to the moment the PWM parameters are effectively updated, the B-Box 4 can execute the control loop of simple systems in under 2 microseconds, directly from the CPU. This makes automated code generation perfectly compatible with advanced performance requirements.
For engineers seeking performance beyond even this benchmark, programming the FPGA always remains possible—at no extra cost—by leveraging the embedded AMD UltraScale+ 7EV, which offers Kintex-grade programmable logic. The device is also the largest FPGA that can be programmed with the free Vivado edition.
A Complete Prototyping Ecosystem
The B-Box 4 is fully integrated into a comprehensive ecosystem of products designed to accelerate prototyping in power electronics. High-performance, factory-calibrated current and voltage sensors, alongside ready-to-use power modules, are available to quickly implement all sorts of laboratory prototypes. These products offer plug-and-play connectivity with the controller, while the most recent ones even support auto-configuration. For industrial applications, guaranteed code portability with the B-Board PRO enables a seamless transition to a smaller, cost-effective, and product-embeddable controller variant.
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