Step-down converter helps backplane-based equipment designers

Maximising power efficiency and minimising power consumption to meet emerging green energy standards is becoming increasingly important in more and more industrial applications where it traditionally wasn’t even considered before. By capitalising on AnalogicTech’s proprietary ModularBCD process technology, minimising quiescent current consumption and using a synchronous design, the AAT1160 delivers significant power savings to tightly packed rack-mounted, backplane-based systems such as telecommunications switches, cellular base stations and server farms.

The AAT1160 current-mode, step-down DC/DC converter operates across a wide 4V to 13.2V input voltage range. It supplies a load current up to 3A with a fixed or adjustable output voltage which can be regulated to as low as 0.6V.

The device supports efficiency levels up to 96%. Leveraging AnalogicTech’s extensive expertise in portable applications, the AAT1160 also consumes an industry-leading low 150 microamps no-load quiescent current. The AAT1160 maintains high efficiency over the entire load range. The user can select to operate the device in a forced Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) mode and synchronize the switching to an external signal to control switching noise. The high 800kHz switching frequency also minimises total solution size by allowing the use of small external components.

A soft start function limits input surge current and eliminates output voltage overshoot when the device is turned on. The AAT1160 also features short-circuit and over-temperature protection.

The AAT1160’s excellent performance and low power consumption is also a product of AnalogicTech’s Modular BCD process technology. Compared to linear-IC legacy fabs and generic digital CMOS foundries, ModularBCD provides more cost-effective, modular fabrication of analogue, power and mixed-signal ICs by monolithically integrating fully-isolated CMOS at multiple voltages, complementary bipolar transistors, and robust power devices. This process avoids complex and expensive techniques such as epitaxy and high-temperature diffusion. Devices manufactured in ModularBCD offer higher efficiency, smaller size and higher levels of integration than those fabricated in many other processes. They also offer designers better ability to manage power and extend battery life in a wide range of mobile consumer electronics products such as cell phones, portable media players, tablet and laptop computers and digital cameras.

Qualified across the -40 C to +85 C temperature range, the AAT1160 is available in a Pb-free, 16-pin 3 mm X 4 mm TDFN package.