The LTC®3414 offers a compact and efficient voltage regulatorsolution for point of load conversion in electronicsystems that require low output voltages (down to 0.8V)from a 2.5V to 5V power bus. Internal power MOSFETswitches, with only 67mW on-resistance, allow theLTC3414 to deliver up to 4A of output current with efficiencyas high as 94%. The LTC3414 saves Space by operatingwith switching frequencies as high as 4MHz, enabling theuse of tiny inductors and capacitors.
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.
DC/DC 升壓IC：The FP6291 is a current mode boost DC-DC converter. Its PWM circuitry with built-in 0.25 Ω
power MOSFET make this regulator highly power efficient. The internal compensation network also
minimizes as much as 6 external component counts. The non-inverting input of error amplifier connects
to a 0.6V precision reference voltage and internal soft-start function can reduce the inrush current.
The FP6291 is available in the SOT23-6L package and provides Space-saving PCB for the application fields.
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 power appetite of large TFT-LCDs appears to beinsatiable. Power supplies must feed increasing numbersof transistors and improved display resolutions, and doso without taking much Space.
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
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).
Today’s computer, datacom, and telecom systems demandpower supplies that are effi cient, respond quicklyto load transients and accurately regulate the voltageat the load. For example, load current can be measuredby using the inductor DCR, thus eliminating the needfor a dedicated sense resistor. Inductor DCR sensingincreases effi ciency—especially at heavy load—whilereducing component cost and required board Space.The LTC®3856 single-output 2-phase synchronous buckcontroller improves the accuracy of inductor DCR sensingby compensating for changes in DCR due to temperature.
As environmental concerns over traditional lighting increaseand the price of LEDs decreases, high power LEDsare fast becoming a popular lighting solution for offl ineapplications. In order to meet the requirements of offl inelighting—such as high power factor, high effi ciency, isolationand TRIAC dimmer compatibility—prior LED driversused many external discrete components, resulting incumbersome solutions. The LT®3799 solves complexity,Space and performance problems by integrating all therequired functions for offl ine LED lighting.
Abstract: This article discusses future trends in the design of smartphones and other consumer products. The discussion focuses onthe importance of integration, which saves valuable PCB Space and drives down costs.
