IR's New Family of Highly Integrated SupIRBuck® Point-Of-Load Voltage Regulators Delivers Even Greater Efficiency and Functionality

Oct 14, 2010 | Market News

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — International Rectifier, IR® (NYSE: IRF), a world leader in power management technology, today announced the expansion of its SupIRBuck® family of integrated point-of-load (POL) voltage regulators. The new devices, tailored for energy-efficient high performance server, storage, telecom and netcom applications offer even greater efficiency and functionality over previous generation devices for energy saving and easy on-board implementation.

The IR3837M, IR3838M and IR3839M SupIRBuck voltage regulators and trackers integrate a high performance controller with latest generation IR MOSFETs in a slim 5 x 6 mm PQFN package, and deliver 14 A, 10 A and 6 A output current respectively to achieve more than 96 percent peak efficiency. Offering increased functionality over previous generation devices, new features include single rail input voltage of 4.5 V to 16 V, external reference for margining purposes, internal digital soft-start, and external synchronization to reduce noise and EMI in multi-rails systems. Additionally, the new devices are configurable for DDR memory tracking or sequencing, and offer Power Good output for under-voltage and over-voltage detection with tracking capability to eliminate the numerous external components typically required to implement these functions with alternative solutions. A +/- 1 percent accurate 0.6 V reference in 0-125°C temperature range is also offered for very precise regulation as well as 5 V external bias option to improve light load efficiency.

The new devices eliminate the need for traditional dual stage POL conversion and save energy, size and cost by operating directly from 12 Vin. While optimized for 12 V input voltage, superior efficiencies are also achieved in applications with 9.6 V, 5 V or 3.3 V input voltages. As a result of programmable switching frequencies up to 1.5 MHz and small footprint, the new voltage regulators shrink size and cost, in addition to achieving higher power density. Moreover, the common footprint of the devices provides design flexibility and allows cut-and-paste layout for fast time-to-market.

"As part of IR's continued commitment to meeting customer requirements and their ever- changing POL design challenges, this new family of SupIRBuck devices provides even greater functionality while simultaneously shrinking board space and dramatically improving overall system efficiency for power hungry space-constrained server, storage and netcom applications," said Cecilia Contenti, IR's POL product marketing manager, Enterprise Power Business Unit.

Additional SupIRBuck features include programmable hiccup current limit, enhanced pre-bias start up, thermal protection, enable pin with voltage monitoring capability, and -40°C to 125°C operating junction temperature (Tj).

Datasheets and application notes are available via the part number links found above. The IRDC3837, IRDC3838 and IRCD3839 SupIRBuck reference designs featuring the new devices are also available using the links above.

A user friendly, interactive, web-based tool is available at http://mypower.irf.com/SupIRBuck and enables the rapid selection and simulation of selected SupIRBuck products. Based on a designer's given input and output parameters, the SupIRBuck online tool selects suitable devices for a given application. Once basic requirements are entered, the tool allows the user to capture schematics, create a reference design along with associated Bill of Materials (BOM), view waveforms, and perform complex thermal and application analysis quickly and easily to dramatically accelerate development time.

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