We provide complete power solutions with a full lineup of power managementproducts. This brochure provides an overview of our high performance DC/DC switching regulatorcontrollers for applications including datacom, telecom, industrial, automotive, medical, avionicsand control systems. We make power design easier with our industry-leading field applicationengineering support; a broad selection of demonstration boards with schematics, layout filesand parts lists; SwitcherCAD® software for simulation, application notes and comprehensivetechnical documentation.
Abstract: This application note illustrates an intermediate 8V switching power supply for an automotive radio and infotainment system.The design withstands the complete automotive input voltage range (including cold crank and load dump conditions), assuring a stable8V supply for common subsystems such as a CD driver, LCDs, and a radio module in modern infotainment systems. To avoiddisturbance in the AM and FM bands, the switching power supply runs at a fixed frequency of 2MHz, enabling an ideal solution forradio systems.
Abstract: Field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are used in a wide variety of applications and end markets, including digital signalprocessing, medical imaging, and high-performance computing. This application note outlines the issues related to powering FPGAs.It also discusses Maxim's solutions for powering Altera® FPGAs.
Abstract: This article discusses the requirements and design considerations for automotive applications, including those for enginecontrol, infotainment, and body electronics. It also discusses several Maxim devices that are ideal for automotive applications.
The LT®1943 is a highly integrated, 4-output regulatordesigned to power large TFT LCD panels. The LT1943employs switching regulators—instead of linear regulators—to minimize power dissipation and accommodate awide input voltage range. The wide input range, 4.5V to22V, allows it to accept a variety of power sources,including the commonly used 5V, 12V and 19V AC adaptors.
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.
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.
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).
This collection of circuits was worked out between June1991 and July of 1994. Most were designed at customerrequest or are derivatives of such efforts. All representsubstantial effort and, as such, are disseminated here forwider study and (hopefully) use.1 The examples areroughly arranged in categories including power conversion,transducer signal conditioning, amplifiers and signalgenerators. As always, reader comment and questionsconcerning variants of the circuits shown may be addresseddirectly to the author.
