New Industry Products

Exar Offers USB 3.0 Ready Dual Channel Power Distribution Switch

December 05, 2012 by Jeff Shepard

Exar Corporation announced the XRP2524, a next-generation dual channel switch for USB VBUS power distribution applications. The XRP2524 delivers 1.0A of continuous load current on each channel across USB 3.0 interconnections and enables more efficient battery charging over USB for various classes of peripherals.

The XRP2524 independently manages all aspects of the VBUS power distribution for two channels and provides fault protection of the host power supply and attached peripherals for events such as over current, short circuit or over temperature. Dual low on-resistance switches allow compliance with USB voltage regulation requirements while insuring control over transients during turn-on and hot plugging events. The XRP2524 seamlessly interfaces with any USB controller through channel independent active-high enable logic and fault flag. For customers moving to USB 3.0 applications, the XRP2524 is pin compatible to Exar's SP2526.

"Systems equipped with USB 3.0 compliant ports provide not only faster data transfer speeds but also increased power to charge peripheral and portable devices," said Eric Pittana, Exar's Power Management Marketing director. "With the XRP2524, designers now have a simple and reliable solution to safely manage the extra power on two channels at once. This device also further extends our power distribution switch product family, which includes the recently released XRP2523 single channel solution."

The XRP2524 is a dual channel integrated high-side power distribution switch optimized for self or bus-powered USB applications. It is compliant with the latest USB 3.0 specification and is backward compatible with the USB 2.0 specification for a broad set of applications. The XRP2524 accepts an input voltage between 2.7V and 6.5V allowing for operations from industry standard 3.3V and 5V power rails. With a low quiescent current as well as a small package, the XRP2524 is well suited for battery powered applications. In addition, the power-switch rise and fall times are controlled to minimize current surges during turn on/off. The XRP2524 is provided with an enable pin as well as a blanked error flag to indicate various fault conditions. Built-in over current, reverse current and over temperature protections insure safe operations under abnormal operating conditions.

The XRP2524 is available now in volume quantities and comes standard in a RoHS compliant, Halogen Free 8-Pin NSOIC package. The 1,000-unit suggested retail is $0.75 each. Exar also offers an evaluation board for customers to quickly and easily test the features of the XRP2524. Additional information on the XRP2524 and Exar's power management productsis available online.