Linear Tech Adds New Line of Power Management Chips to Optimize Portable Power
Linear Technology Corp. announced the introduction of a new line of power management chips that combines high performance power functions in compact formats for use in a wide range of portable electronic products. The new product line is said to provide designers with simple, compact and reliable power management integrated circuits (PMICs) that combine the key power functions for products including media players, digital cameras, smart phones, personal navigation devices, PDAs, satellite radios, point-of-sale terminals, portable medical equipment and a host of other lithium battery-powered devices.
Linear Technology’s new PMIC product family is intended to ease the design process for portable electronic products, while maintaining the high level of performance and power efficiency demanded by today’s system designers. The new product family is said to deliver a new class of PMICs that enables designers to mix and match key power management attributes for optimal product efficiency, size and performance.
Linear’s new LTC35XX PMIC family was developed in response to the growing need for power management solutions for portable electronic products that are powered from a range of sources including ac wall adapters, USB ports, lithium-ion/polymer batteries and automotive power ports. The combination of thermal constraints, battery runtime requirements, and increasing device power demands presents a growing challenge for today’s system designers. With this new PMIC family, Linear Technology intends to provide designers with a palette of power management functions, allowing the selection of the most appropriate power management solution for the target application.
The first device in Linear’s new PMIC family, the LTC3555 USB Power Manager and Triple Step-Down dc-dc converter, is now available, with other devices in the family now sampling and planned for production release over the next several months. The device incorporates a range of power management functions including a switching PowerPath™ manager, a stand-alone battery charger, three monolithic buck regulators and always-on LDO, controlled via an I²C interface, housed in a tiny 4mm x 5mm package. The device’s switching PowerPath control feature seamlessly manages power flow between an ac-dc wall adapter, USB port, lithium-ion/polymer battery and system load, while maximizing power available from the USB and providing up to 1.2A to the system from the wall adapter. The chip’s "instant-on" feature ensures system power, even with a dead or missing battery.
