National Semiconductor’s New Integrated Converters Feature Greater Than 90 Percent Efficiency Over a Wide Load Range

National Semiconductor's New Integrated Converters Feature Greater Than 90 Percent Efficiency Over a Wide Load Range

Worldwide power management technology leader National Semiconductor Corporation (NYSE:NSM) today introduced two new high-performance converters that increase efficiency and extend battery life in high-current applications. The LM2716 buck-boost and LM2717 buck-buck converters each feature greater than 90 percent efficiency over a wide load range for extended battery life in embedded computer systems, set-top boxes, portable Internet access devices, general point-of-load architectures, and monitors and televisions, including TFT/LCD flat-panel displays.

High-Performance Buck-boost and Buck-buck Converters Increase Efficiency and Extend Battery Life in High-Current Applications

Both converters are well-suited for applications where multiple high-current, low-voltage power supplies are needed to power system loads, including field programmable gate-arrays (FPGAs), digital signal processors (DSPs) and digital application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs).

The converters offer added flexibility, with one fixed output and one adjustable output voltage in a single, integrated chip. External soft-start for each converter limits input surge current at start-up.

“The use of distributed power architectures with adjustable output voltages has become increasingly popular for powering digital ASICs and DSPs,” said Yoon Paek, marketing director for National Semiconductor’s Portable Power Products Group. “National’s new buck-boost and buck-buck converters provide exceptionally flexible and high-performance solutions for these point-of-load architectures.”