New Industry Products

TI Unveils Wide-Input, Step-Down Controllers

April 17, 2003 by Jeff Shepard

Expanding its widely adopted TPS40K™ series of power-efficient DC/DC controllers, Texas Instruments (TI) today announced two families of synchronous step-down, voltage-mode, DC/DC controllers with the capability of stepping down input voltage ranges from 8 V to 40 V and 10 V to 55 V. The two families of controllers provide added flexibility, power efficiency and ease of use for designers of high-density, 12 V, 24 V and higher bus power supplies for networking, telecom, wireless base stations and computer server applications.

TI's new TPS4005x and TPS4006x lines of buck DC/DC controllers offer various user programmable functions and features to enhance flexibility of design, including closed-loop soft-start, undervoltage lockouts (UVLO), operating frequency, voltage feed-forward and high-side current limit. Programmable, fixed operating frequencies of up to 1 MHz are available with source and source/sink current options.

Available now, the devices supply output voltages down to 0.7 V with a precision reference of better than one percent. The TPS4005x family steps down input voltages ranging from 8 V to 40 V, and drives external N-channel high-side and synchronous rectifier MOSFET output transistors, providing flexibility and efficiency for power supply design. The TPS4006x family can handle input voltages ranging from 10 V to 55 V by driving an external P-channel MOSFET on the high side, while driving an external N-channel MOSFET for the synchronous switch. In addition, the devices’ gate drive logic incorporates anti-cross conduction circuitry to prevent simultaneous high-side and synchronous rectification.

TI's TPS4005x and TPS4006x DC/DC controllers, which come in a 16-pin thin-shrink small-outline package (TSSOP) PowerPad™ package with thermal protection, are available now from TI and its authorized distributors. Evaluation modules and reference designs will be available in the second quarter. Pricing is $1.19 each in quantities of 10,000.