Low power standby requirements are typically associatedwith Battery-powered systems. Automotive systems,for example, commonly require power supplies tomaintain output voltage regulation even under no-loadconditions—while drawing minimal quiescent current topreserve Battery life. Rising energy costs, however, haveextended the need for low current standby operation toline-powered systems, such as small plugged-in appliancesfor home and business.
Automobile electronic systems place high demands ontoday’s DC/DC converters. They must be able to preciselyregulate an output voltage in the face of wide temperatureand input voltage ranges—including load dump transientsin excess of 60V and cold crank voltage drops to 4V. Theconverter must also be able to minimize Battery drain inalways-on systems by maintaining high effi ciency over abroad load current range. Similar demands are made bymany 48V nonisolated telecom applications, 40V FireWireperipherals and Battery-powered applications with autoplug adaptors. The LT3437’s best in classperformancemeets all of these requirements in a small thermallyenhanced 3mm × 3mm DFN package.
Battery powered applications that have a signifi cantamount of time in standby mode, require electrical circuitsto operate with a low quiescent current to preserve Batterylife. The LTC3835 synchronous step-down controlleris an excellent solution with its ultralow quiescent current(80μA). Other features make it uniquely qualifi ed tosatisfy the needs of automotive applications. A wide 4Vto 36V input voltage range protects the supply againsthigh input voltage transients and is compatible with lowvoltage cold crank conditions. The constant frequencycurrent-mode architecture with high-side inductor current
A number of conventional solutions have been available forthe design of a DC/DC converter where the output voltageis within the input voltage range—a common scenarioin Li-Ion Battery-powered applications—but none werevery attractive until now. Conventional topologies, suchas SEPIC or boost followed by buck, have numerousdisadvantages, including low effi ciency, complex magnetics,polarity inversion and/or circuit complexity/cost. TheLTC®3785 buck-boost controller yields a simple, effi cient,low parts-count, single-converter solution that is easyto implement, thus avoiding the drawbacks associatedwith traditional solutions.
As the performance of many handheld devices approachesthat of laptop computers, design complexity also increases.Chief among them is thermal management—how doyou meet increasing performance demands while keepinga compact and small product cool in the user’s hand?For instance, as Battery capacities inevitably increase,charge currents will also increase to maintain or improvetheir charge times. Traditional linear regulator-based Batterychargers will not be able to meet the charge currentand effi ciency demands necessary to allow a product torun cool. What is needed is a switching-based chargerthat takes just about the same amount of space as a linearsolution—but without the heat.
The LTC®3562 quad output step-down regulator is designedfor multicore handheld microprocessor applications thatoperate from a single Li-Ion Battery. Its four monolithic, higheffi ciency buck regulators support Intel’s mobile CPU P-Stateand C-State energy saving operating modes. The outputvoltages are independently controllable via I2C, and eachoutput can be independently started and shut down. Designerscan choose from power saving pulse-skipping mode orBurst Mode® operation, or select low noise LDO mode. Thespace-saving LTC3562 is available in a 3mm × 3mm QFNpackage and requires few external components.
Handheld designers often grapple with ways to de-bounceand control the on/off pushbutton of portable devices.Traditional de-bounce designs use discrete logic, fl ipflops, resistors and capacitors. Other designs includean onboard microprocessor and discrete comparatorswhich continuously consume Battery power. For highvoltage multicell Battery applications, a high voltageLDO is needed to drive the low voltage devices. All thisextra circuitry not only increases required board spaceand design complexity, but also drains the Battery whenthe handheld device is turned off. Linear Technology addressesthis pushbutton interface challenge with a pairof tiny pushbutton controllers.
Piezoelectric motors are used in digital cameras for autofocus,zooming and optical image stabilization. Theyare relatively small, lightweight and effi cient, but theyalso require a complicated driving scheme. Traditionally,this challenge has been met with the use ofseparatecircuits, including a step-up converter and an oversizedgeneric full-bridge drive IC. The resulting high componentcount and large board space are especially problematicin the design of cameras for ever shrinking cell phones.The LT®3572 solves these problems by combining astep-up regulator and a dual full-bridge driver in a 4mm× 4mm QFN package. Figure 1 shows a typical LT3572Piezo motor drive circuit. A step-up converter is usedto generate 30V from a low voltage power source suchas a Li-Ion Battery or any input power source within thepart’s wide input voltage range of 2.7V to 10V. The highoutput voltage of the step-up converter, adjustable upto 40V, is available for the drivers at the VOUT pin. Thedrivers operate in a full-bridge fashion, where the OUTAand OUTB pins are the same polarity as the PWMA andPWMB pins, respectively, and the OUTA and OUTB pinsare inverted from PWMA and PWMB, respectively. Thestep-up converter and both Piezo drivers have their ownshutdown control. Figure 2 shows a typical layout
Alkaline batteries are convenient because they’re easy tofi nd and relatively inexpensive, making them the powersource of choice for portable instruments and devicesused for outdoor recreation. Their long shelf life alsomakes them an excellent choice for emergency equipmentthat may see infrequent use but must be ready to go on amoment’s notice. It is important that the DC/DC convertersin portable devices operate over the widest possibleBattery voltage range to extend Battery run time, and thussave the user from frequent Battery replacement.
Industrial remote monitoring systems and keep-alivecircuits spend most of their time in standby mode. Manyof these systems also depend on Battery power, so powersupply effi ciency in standby state is very important tomaximize Battery life. The LT®8410/-1 high effi ciencyboost converter is ideal for these systems, requiringonly 8.5μA of quiescent current in standby mode. Thedevice integrates high value (12.4M/0.4M) output feedbackresistors, signifi cantly reducing input current whenthe output is in regulation with no load. Other featuresinclude an integrated 40V switch and Schottky diode,output disconnect with current limit, built in soft-start,overvoltage protection and a wide input range, all in atiny 8-pin 2mm × 2mm DFN package.
