New Industry Products

Philips Semiconductors Introduces the Flip Chip DC/DC Converter IC

March 12, 2000 by Jeff Shepard

Philips Semiconductors (Sunnyvale, CA), an affiliate of Royal Philips Electronics, recently announced a chip-scale package version, Flip Chip, of the TEA1207 low-cost dc/dc converter (IC). This device is designed to address the growing demand for smaller case sizes with the smart mobile consumer product market for applications such as mobile and cordless telephones, PDAs, and palm-top computers where low-voltage, low-power CMOS logic is used to minimize battery drain.

According to Philips, the TEA1207 features a digital control circuit that uses output-voltage level as its control input, ensuring optimum power efficiency over the complete operating range of the dc/dc converter. While most other dc/dc converter ICs currently on the market achieve high efficiency over a very narrow range of output currents, the TEA1207 is claimed to maintain a conversion efficiency greater than 90 percent and enables down-conversion to voltages as low as 1.25V for output currents between a few milliamps and 0.5A.

This device operates at a switching frequency in the range of 220kHz and 330kHz, which enables the use of very small inductors and capacitors. The TEA1207 can also be used in an up-conversion mode to generate output voltages in the range of 2.8V to 5.5V, from input voltages greater than 1.8V.

The TEA1207 is priced at $0.97 each in 100,000-unit quantities, and is currently available in volume production.