New Industry Products

0.315mm-high 28V Regulators target Smart Cards

August 31, 2015 by Jeff Shepard

Torex Semiconductor Ltd. has added a new package with a height of 0.315mm to theXC6216 series of 28V voltage regulators with a standby function. IC cards (smart cards) have become common in recent years, and are being used for official documents (licenses, passports, ID cards), access control (employee ID cards, student ID cards, secret area access), medical cards (health insurance cards, consultation tickets), payment cards (credit cards, debit cards, bank cards), and information security (Internet transactions, data access control). The number of such cards issued continues to increase dramatically in many different fields.

The ISO/IEC 7810 international standard specifies the dimensions and thickness (54.98mm x 85.60mm x 0.760mm) of IC cards (smart cards). Cards with a display function have recently started to appear, and cards equipped with a Li-ion battery are becoming common. It is expected that this will increase the demand for voltage regulators, battery charger ICs, and other power supply ICs.

Considering the thickness of the flexible circuit board (0.07mm) and reinforcement plate used in the card, there is an increasing need for thin packages of height 0.4mm or less to house the power ICs and external components that are incorporated inside the card. Because the battery in the card has a small capacity, low power consumption is desirable, and for non-contact charging, a power supply IC that can operate at a voltage of 18V or higher is required.

Based on this background, we added the new ultra-low profile (1.8 x 1.5 x 0.315 mm) USP-6B06 package to the existing XC6216 series, which features a high withstand voltage and low consumption. This new package is the thinnest-class in the industry and is suited for the power specifications of smart cards.

XC6216 series features include: Supply current of 5μA; Input voltage range, 2.0V to 28.0V(30V withstand voltage); Output voltage setting range: 2.0V to 12.0V (0.1V steps) with standard voltages of 2.0V, 2.2V, 3.0V, 3.3V, 4.0V, 4.2V, 4.4V, 5.0V, and 12.0V; Accuracy is ±2%; Maximum output current is 150mA; Standby current is 0.1μA or less; and the operating ambient temperature is -40 to +85 degrees C.