A new buck regulator series has been announced by Vicor that maximises power density and flexibility for high efficiency point of load DC-DC regulation.
The integration of a high performance Zero-Voltage Switching (ZVS) topology within the Cool-Power ZVS buck regulator PI33xx series increases point of load performance, providing a very good level of power efficiency up to 98 percent peak.
Devices in the series are highly integrated with control circuitry, power semiconductors and support components in a high density 10mm by 14mm by 2.56mm LGA System in Package (SiP). The buck regulators can convert input supplies ranging from 8V to 36V to output voltages from 1V to 16V and output current up to 10A for power delivery up to 120W.
Power delivery can be further increased by interleaving up to six of these buck regulators using single wire current sharing without the need of any additional components.
The use of a ZVS topology enables high-frequency operation that maximises efficiency by minimising the significant switching losses associated with conventional buck regulators that use hard-switching topologies.
The high switching frequency of the this series also reduces the size of the external filtering components, improving power density, while enabling fast dynamic response to line and load transients. The devices sustain high switching frequency all the way up to the rated input voltage without sacrificing efficiency and, with a 20ns minimum on-time, supports large step down conversions up to 36VIN.
The regulators require only an external inductor and minimal ceramic capacitors for input and output filtering to form a complete high performance regulator. No frequency compensation, parametric settings or incremental external components are required. A wide operating temperature range of -40°C to 125°C allows for use in almost any environment.
Vicor Corporation
