New Industry Products

Power Integrations Debuts 250W High Voltage Power Conversion IC Family

November 19, 2000 by Jeff Shepard

Power Integrations Inc. (Sunnyvale, CA) has announced the availability of a high-power monolithic off-line power supply switcher IC family, which they call TOPSwitch-GX. The new family, capable of delivering up to 250W, expands the company's TOPSwitch product line of power conversion ICs. The company claims that the topology of this new addition to the line cost-effectively integrates a high-voltage power MOSFET, PWM control, fault protection and other control circuitry onto a single CMOS chip.

The new TOPSwitch-GX family consists of 14 part types ranging in output power levels from 5W to 250W. In addition to all of the TOPSwitch features, this family of devices integrates many built-in and user-configurable features such as soft-start, frequency jittering, wider duty cycle, zero load regulation capability, very high light load efficiency and hysteretic thermal shutdown. All critical parameters such as current limit and frequency are, the company claims, trimmed to a high level of accuracy. In addition, the TOPSwitch-GX family offers user-configurable pins for line-sensing, externally setting the current limit and for selecting between two switching frequencies (130kHz and 65kHz). The line-sensing pin can be used to implement under-voltage detection, and it also provides feed-forward for lower output ripple and maximum duty cycle reduction at higher input voltages.

The new family incorporates the company's EcoSmart technology, addressing the need for environmentally-friendly power solutions. Power Integrations Inc. maintains that their EcoSmart technology reduces energy consumption, especially in stand-by and no-load conditions. The energy consumption reduction features in TOPSwitch-GX include remote on/off, automatic frequency reduction at light loads and a half-frequency option.

“The TOPSwitch-GX family represents a new level of technological achievement. It is the world's first full-featured, monolithic high voltage switching power IC capable of providing this level of power," stated Balu Balakrishnan, Power Integration's vice president of engineering and strategic marketing. “The features we've included now deliver design simplification, reduced parts count, smaller size and energy efficiency advantages to a whole new range of higher power applications."

Applications for the new devices include laptop adapters, cellular phone adapters, LCD monitors, personal computer, set-top boxes, printers, DVD players, uninterruptible power supplies, video games and internet appliances.

Pricing for the TOPSwitch-GX family in 5,000 piece quantities ranges from $1.34 each for the TOP242P, a 15W part housed in a plastic 8-pin DIP, to $2.91 each for the 250W TOP249Y housed in a TO-220, 6 leaded package. Sample quantities are available from stock with production quantities available.