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AnalogicTech announces first low noise switching regulators

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CIOL Bureau
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SUNNYVALE, USA: Advanced Analogic Technologies Inc., a developer of power management semiconductors for mobile consumer electronic devices, announced the first in an extensive family of switching regulators designed for low-noise operation. Based on a patent-pending new architecture, the AAT2120 and AAT2158 synchronous step-down converters deliver significantly lower spectral noise and output ripple than competing switching regulators.

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These low-noise switching regulators represent the first of several generations of new switching regulator topologies now under development at AATI targeting high performance and high efficiency applications.

"Designers of noise-sensitive systems, such as mobile phones, media players or Bluetooth accessories, prefer to use higher efficiency switching regulators to maximize battery life, but often cannot because traditional switching regulators inject too much noise into the system." notes Bill Weiss, product line director for AnalogicTech.

"Instead they turn to low- noise, but lower efficiency linear regulators. Using a unique architecture which dramatically reduces spectral noise and output ripple, the AAT2120 and AAT2158 offer designers their first chance to take advantage of the power efficiency advantages of switching regulators in noise-sensitive communication, high speed interface and other applications."

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Lower injected noise and output ripple

At lower currents, the AAT2120 and AAT2158 switching regulators produce half the ringing amplitude of competing switching regulators. This characteristic translates directly into lower noise being injected into the system. In system tests, spurious energy injected by the switching regulators was reduced by 3 dB. At higher currents, the two new converters produce approximately 25% less output ripple. By reducing injected noise and output ripple, these two new devices can improve the dynamic range performance of RF systems when compared to RF systems powered by traditional switching regulators.

At the same time the AAT2120 and AAT2158 offer all the traditional power efficiency advantages of traditional switching regulators. Power efficiency for the AAT2120 and AAT2158 reach up to 96% and 95% respectively. Moreover, by operating at high switching frequencies, both devices minimize the size of external components.

The AAT2120 supplies up to 500 mA output current, while the AAT2158 delivers up to 1.5 A output for applications requiring higher levels of power. Both devices operate from an input range of 2.7 to 5.5 V and support output voltages as low as 0.6 V. For protection purposes, both step-down converters offer internal soft- start, over-temperature and current limit protection. The new converters also extend system run time by adding 100 percent duty cycle low-dropout operation.

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