New Industry Products

Buck Controller designed to Manage High POL Currents

April 30, 2014 by Jeff Shepard

Diodes Incorporated has developed a single-phase synchronous buck pwm controller series to meet the rigors of high-current desktop PC applications. Producing a continuous current of 25A, the AP3585 devices help simplify the design of distributed power architectures serving memory arrays and graphics processing units. Offered in the compact and thermally efficient SO-8 and SO-8EP packages, the AP3585 series provides single feedback loop voltage-mode control, and operates from a supply of between 4.5V to 13.2V, delivering a high-quality output from as low as 0.6V up to 80% Vin.

The integration of a 10MHz error amplifier with a 6V/µs slew means the buck controllers exhibit a high converter bandwidth and a fast transient response. The devices’ fixed oscillator frequency of either 200kHz or 300kHz, ensures an optimal level of integration, helping to reduce the size and cost of power supplies. With its built-in 12V+12V bootstrapped MOSFET driver and companion bootstrap diode, the AP3585 is able to achieve greater than 90% efficient power conversion while simplifying circuit design and minimizing the external part count.

To reflect the buck controllers’ high current operation, its fault protection features are comprehensive and comprise: lossless programmable over-current protection, under and over voltage protection, soft-start and thermal shutdown circuits. The AP3585 buck controllers are priced at $0.25USD each in 5k quantities.