Toshiba Announces New Bipolar Power Transistors
Toshiba Corp. (Japan) announced the availability of a new family of bipolar power transistors that are based on the company's third-generation, high-efficiency, mesh emitter transistor (Hi-MET III) design, which exhibit a lower saturation voltage between collector and emitter, as well as a higher gain characteristic, compared to traditional bipolar transistors. Applications for the transistor family in portable electronics include load switches for power management, LCD backlighting inverters, dc/dc converters, charging circuits for built-in rechargeable batteries and series regulators.
The low saturation voltage minimizes transistor losses in a circuit, while the high current gain enables the transistors to be driven using a small base current. The transistors are rated from -50V to 50V, -3A to 4A, and consume up to 1W. Gain is between 140 and 1,000. The devices are available in single- and dual-channel NPN or PNP configurations. The transistors are available in three-pin TSM packages measuring 2.8mm x 2.9mm x 0.7mm, a six-pin VS-6 that measures 2.8mm x 2.9mm x 0.7mm, and the three-pin PW-MINI that measures 4.6mm x 2.5mm x 1.6mm.
