Multiple-voltage electronics systems often requirecomplex supply voltage tracking or sequencing, whichif not met, can result in system faults or even permanentfailures in the fi eld. The design diffi culties in meetingthese requirements are often compounded in distributedpowerarchitectures where point-of-load (POL) DC/DCconverters or linear regulators are scattered across PCboard space, sometimes on different board planes. Theproblem is that power supply circuitry is often the lastcircuitry to be designed into the board, and it must beshoehorned into whatever little board real estate is left.Often, a simple, drop-in, fl exible solution is needed tomeet these requirements.
Speed and accuracy don’t always go hand-in-handin DC/DC converter systems—that is, until now. TheLTC3811 is a dual output, fi xed frequency current modeDC/DC switching regulator controller designed for one oftoday’s most demanding power supply applications: highcurrent, low voltage processor core supplies.
Avalanche photo diode (APD) receiver modules arewidely used in fi ber optic communication systems. AnAPD module contains the APD and a signal conditioningamplifi er, but is not completely self contained. It stillrequires signifi cant support circuitry including a highvoltage, low noise power supply and a precision currentmonitor to indicate the signal strength. The challenge issqueezing this support circuitry into applications withlimited board space. The LT®3482 addresses this challengeby integrating a monolithic DC/DC step-up converter andan accurate current monitor. The LT3482 can supportup to a 90V APD bias voltage, and the current monitorprovides better than 10% accuracy over four decades ofdynamic range (250nA to 2.5mA).
One of the fi rst lessons in a basic electronics coursecovers the symbols for resistors, capacitors, inductors,voltage sources and current sources. Althougheach symbol represents a functional component of areal-world circuit, only some of the symbols have directphysical counterparts. For instance, the three discretepassive devices—resistors, capacitors, inductors—canbe picked off a shelf and placed on a real board muchas their symbolic analogs appear in a basic schematic.Likewise, while voltage sources have no direct 2-terminalanalog, a voltage source can be easily built with an offthe-shelf linear regulator.
Photomultipliers (PMT), avalanche photodiodes (APD),ultrasonic transducers, capacitance microphones, radiationdetectors and similar devices require high voltage,low current bias. Additionally, the high voltage must bepristinely free of noise; well under a millivolt is a commonrequirement with a few hundred microvolts sometimesnecessary. Normally, switching regulator confi gurationscannot achieve this performance level without employingspecial techniques. One aid to achieving low noise is thatload currents rarely exceed 5mA. This freedom permitsoutput fi ltering methods that are usually impractical
