ON Semiconductor claims First Integrated Bi-Directional OVP for Portable Electronics and OCP for External Accessories

This fully integrated solution simplifies and streamlines design in portable electronics by eliminating the need for external components that have – until now – been necessary to protect vulnerable portable devices against electrical surge damage from wall adapters and accessories, unsuitable after-market AC-DC adapters, and problems caused by inverting polarity in some USB cables.

The new NCP370 significantly improves the front end protection of the portable devices by providing positive protection up to +28 volts (V) and negative protection down to -28 V. Utilizing an innovative architecture, this single device also provides OCP for the external accessories - which are connected on the bottom connector – and supplied via a lithium-ion battery.

Integrated low on resistance (Ron) N-channel MOSFETs effectively support the direct high charge current up to 1.3 amperes (A) requested by the portable electronics industry’s latest lithium battery charge levels. The NCP370 is one of ON Semiconductor’s new OVP generation products. It is available with several overvoltage thresholds to address the maximum rating of the downstream applications. Additionally, the device offers a second “reverse” mode, enabling the regulation of the reverse current coming from a portable device’s battery to supply the external accessories such as an FM transceiver, audio functions or flash capabilities universally connected on the bottom connector of the portable devices.

The device is designed to internally limit current up to 1.6 A - a value that can be externally decreased by a pull down resistor - thus eliminating the need for an external OCP device in the application, reducing production costs and lessening the required PCB area in the final portable application. The standby current of the device, which is lower than 1 micro-ampere (µA), avoids any battery discharge when the wall adapter is unplugged or when the phone is off, and so increases battery life and limits recharge iterations.

The NCP370 is a key addition to the portfolio of ON Semiconductor products targeted at the four primary subsystems typically found in portable applications. This device specifically addresses the challenging requirements within the interconnect subsystem. ON Semiconductor also offers solutions for the display and lighting, power management, and audio/video subsystems for handheld portable devices.