New Industry Products

ON Semi Introduces Integrated Overvoltage Protection Controller For Portable & Consumer Devices

March 18, 2008 by Jeff Shepard

ON Semiconductor has introduced the NCP361 – an integrated overvoltage protector dedicated to USB charging applications for portable and consumer devices, such as cell phones and MP3 players, set top boxes and computers.

The NCP361 uses an internal P-channel FET, which is said to make the need for an external device unnecessary and thus reduce the system cost and the Printed Circuit Board (PCB) area of the application board. If overvoltage from a wall adapter occurs, causing the input voltage to exceed the overvoltage threshold, the NCP361 instantaneously disconnects the output from the input to protect the downstream system for optimal protection. It is claimed that the NCP361 offers lower quiescent current than competitive ICs and very low current consumption at 20µA.

For added protection, the NCP361 features overcurrent protection at 750mA typical) It has a negative-going flag (FLAG) output which alerts the system that a fault has occurred. The enable pin allows this overvoltage protection (OVP) device to be forced to an off-state. It also offers protection of VBUS up to +20V, a more precise voltage threshold than discrete zener-based devices.

"Portable devices are especially vulnerable to electrostatic discharge due to their USB and other ports," said Marie Therese Capron, Director of ON Semiconductor’s low voltage power management business unit. "This creates a challenge for designers to provide extra protection to very sensitive components on crowded boards. ON Semiconductor’s solutions, including the NCP361, provide best-in-class integrated protection devices in tiny packages that are ideal for implementation in ever-shrinking portable handheld devices."

The NCP361 is offered in the lead-free 2.0 x 2.0mm uDFN-6 package. Pricing for the NCP361 is $0.40 USD per unit in quantities of 3,000.