New Industry Products

TI Expands Current Shunt Monitor Portfolio

August 27, 2012 by Jeff Shepard

Texas Instruments Inc. (TI) has expanded its portfolio of current shunt monitors with four new devices. The integrated circuits (ICs) monitor power supply current, voltage and power values with what is described as best-in-class features that reduce board space and bill of materials (BOM), while delivering high accuracy. The INA3221, INA282, INA223, and LMP8480 current shunt monitors are optimized for a wide range of end-equipment, from smartphones, tablets, computers and servers, to power management devices, battery chargers, and industrial, telecommunications and test equipment.

Key features and benefits include:

INA3221: Triple-channel shunt and bus voltage monitor with I2C interface

-- said to be industry’s first triple-channel device with digital interface enables monitoring of three separate voltages, eliminating the need for discrete devices for each voltage rail.

-- 80µV maximum offset voltage and 0.5-percent gain error enable highly accurate current measurement and precision over-current detection for end equipment such as notebook and desktop PCs, base stations and servers.

INA282: Wide common-mode range, bidirectional, high-accuracy current shunt monitor

-- 70µV maximum offset voltage and low gain error enable the use of smaller shunt resistors to reduce power consumption, board space and BOM.

-- First device to combine wide common-mode range (-14 to +80V) and high common-mode rejection ratio (120 dB) with low offset voltage across multiple gain options. This feature combination increases accuracy in high-voltage applications, such as industrial system power units and telecom power systems.

INA223: Analog output current shunt, voltage and instantaneous power monitor

-- said to be the industry’s first analog multiple output current shunt device offers multiplexed current, voltage and instantaneous power values to reduce board space and BOM.

-- Programmable gain of 20, 128 and 300 allows operation over a wide dynamic current load without switching the sensing element, improving response time and accuracy in high precision products, such as such as battery-powered notebooks, mobile phones and tablets.

LMP8480: Precision high-side current sense amplifier with voltage output.

-- High common-mode voltage range of 4 to 76V and a high supply range of 4.5 to 76V reduce system cost by allowing the device to be powered from the same voltage node it is monitoring.

-- Input offset voltage of 265µV, 50-percent lower than the competition, increases sensing accuracy in high-precision applications, such as telecom, automotive and solar power monitoring.

Designers can develop a system management solution by combining an INA3221, INA222, INA223 or LMP8480 current shunt monitor with TI’s OMAP™ processors, Stellaris® ARM® Cortex™-M microcontrollers, LM75A or TMP75 temperature sensor, as well as a wide range of analog monitoring and control integrated analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and digital-to-analog converter (DAC) solutions, such as the AMC7812 or LMP92001.

The new current shunt monitors are available to sample and purchase now. Packaging and suggested retail pricing in 1,000-unit quantities are as follows:

-- INA3221, 4 x 4mm, 16-pin QFN: US$1.85

-- INA282, 4.9 x 6mm, 8-pin SOIC: US$1.25

-- INA223, 2.5 x 2.5mm, 10-pin SON: US$1.15

-- LMP8040, 4.9 x 3.0mm, 8-pin MSOP: US$1.10

More news and information regarding the latest developments in Smart Grid electronics can be found at Darnell’s SmartGridElectronics.Net.