New Industry Products

LTC Presents New LTC340 Buck Regulator

November 09, 2003 by Jeff Shepard

Linear Technology Corp. (LTC, Milpitas, CA) announced the LTC3408, a high-efficiency, 1.5MHz, synchronous buck regulator with an integrated bypass MOSFET that can deliver up to 600mA of continuous output current from a tiny eight-lead DFN package. The on-chip bypass MOSFET has an RDSON of only 0.08 Ohms, minimizing power loss in the bypass mode.

The LTC3408 uses a constant-frequency, current-mode architecture, which operates from an input-voltage range of 2.5V to 5V, making it suitable for single-cell, lithium-ion cellular applications. The output can be dynamically programmed from 0.3V to 3.5V to optimize the efficiency of CDMA and WCDMA power amplifiers, increasing battery life.

At output voltages above 3.6V, an internal bypass, p-channel MOSFET transistor connects VOUT directly to VBATTERY with a dropout of less than a 50mV (at 600mA), minimizing power loss through the inductor. Its 1.5MHz switching frequency allows utilization of tiny, low-cost capacitors and inductors less than 1mm in height. The combination of tiny externals and a 3mm x 3mm DFN package makes the LTC3408 optimal for space-constrained cellular phones.

The LTC3408 is available from stock in an eight-lead DFN package. Pricing starts at $2.15 each for 1,000-piece quantities.