News & Events
Intersil Releases Two New Advanced High-Frequency Synchronous-Buck MOSFET Driver ICs Packed with Protection Features and Cost Savings
-- New drivers offer industry’s first pre-enable over-voltage protection feature high thermal efficiency and bill-of-materials cost savings
MILPITAS, CA, March 30, 2004 Intersil Corporation (NASDAQ: ISIL), a world leader in the design and manufacture of high performance analog solutions, today announced two new synchronous-buck MOSFET driver ICs designed for high-current multiphase power solutions used in a wide range of datacom, telecom, point-of-load (POL) and computing applications where the highest performance-to-price ratio is required. The Endura ISL6612 and ISL6613 driver ICs offer fast 2-MHz switching with up to 3-A drive current for synchronous-buck configured N-channel MOSFETs. In addition, the ISL6612 and ISL6613 integrate a wide array of protection features into an 8-lead SOIC, 8-lead exposed-pad SOIC (EPSOIC) and a tiny 10-pad 3 X 3 mm dual flat no-lead (DFN) package.
The ISL6612 and ISL6613 offer very high performance and cost savings with a near-chip-scale 3 X 3 mm DFN package option, said Cindy Drapcho, Vice President of Intersils Power Products. Our pre-enable over-voltage protection is the industrys first over-voltage protection function that protects against over-voltage events, such as upper FET shorts, before the IC is really up and running. This protection feature prevents the load voltage from rising to dangerous levels that can potentially cause catastrophic damage. Our ISL6612/13 can save very expensive microprocessors from burning up in real-world scenarios where there is a short between upper FET leads.
Combined with an Intersil ISL65XX family multi-phase buck PWM controller and N-channel MOSFETs, these advanced drivers provide a complete high-current voltage regulator solution, packed with protection features and cost savings, said Steve Rivet, Senior Marketing Manager for Intersils Desktop and Server Power Products. To make it easier for our customers to cut and paste their multiphase voltage regulator designs, we have made these new FET drivers drop-in upgrades for our already very popular HIP6601B and HIP6603B devices.
The ISL6612 drives the upper MOSFETs gate to 12 V, while the lower MOSFETs gate can be independently driven over a range from 5 V to 12 V. The ISL6613 drives both upper and lower MOSFET gates over a range of 5 V to 12 V. This drive-voltage flexibility provides optimization of applications involving trade-offs between gate charge and conduction losses.
These drivers feature a three-state PWM input, which, working together with Intersils multi-phase PWM controllers, prevents a negative transient on the output voltage when the output is shut down. This feature eliminates the Schottky diode that is used in some systems for protecting the load from reversed output voltage events, further reducing the bill-of-materials cost versus competitors drivers.
Both the ISL6612 and ISL6613 include many important protection features. Advanced adaptive zero shoot-through protection is integrated to prevent both the upper and lower MOSFETs from conducting simultaneously and to minimize the dead time. This significantly improves dc/dc converter efficiency.
The pre-enable over-voltage protection function becomes operational before the FET driver VCC exceeds its turn-on (rising) threshold. Upon dc/dc converter power-up, and at a very low voltage the ISL6612 and ISL6613 look for over-voltage events, such as upper MOSFET shorts. When such an event is detected, the PHASE node is connected to the gate of the low-side MOSFET, limiting the output voltage of the converter to the gate-to-source threshold voltage of the low-side MOSFET. For complete protection the lower MOSFET gate threshold should be below the maximum voltage rating of the load.
An over-temperature protection feature prevents failures resulting from excessive power dissipation by shutting off the outputs when its junction temperature exceeds 150 degrees C (typically). The driver resets once its junction temperature returns to 108 degrees C (typically).
The ISL6612/13 also have a 36-V bootstrap pin rating that enables the MOSFET drivers to withstand switching node spikes, typically found in switch-mode dc/dc converters.
ISL6612 and ISL6613 Technical Summary
- Drive two N-channel MOSFETs for higher performance and lower cost
- Pin-to-pin compatible upgrade from HIP6601B and HIP6603B SOIC family
- Adjustable gate drive voltage (5V to 12V) for optimal efficiency
- Bootstrap capacitor over-charging prevention
- Adaptive shoot-through protection reduces power loss and ensures reliability
- 3-A current sink capability for solid control
- High-frequency switching to 2 MHz reduces component size and cost
- Three-state PWM input prevents output shutdown transient, eliminates protection Schottky diode
- Three-state PWM input hysteresis for applications with power sequencing requirements
- 36-V internal bootstrap Schottky diode saves space, complexity and cost
- Pre-point-of-regulation over-voltage protection
- VCC under-voltage protection
- Over-temperature protection (OTP) with 42 degree C hysteresis (150 C on and 108 C off)
- Auto-zero of RDS(ON) conduction offset effect
- 3 X 3 mm, 10-pad, DFN package for enhanced thermal performance and space savings
- 8-lead SOIC and thermally enhanced 8-lead EPSOIC package options
- Lead-free versions available
The ISL6612 and ISL6613 is available now in choice of packages. The suggested resale price is for 100- to 999-unit quantities. ICs are available on tape and reel and in lead-free versions.
| Package | ISL6612 | ISL6613 |
| 8-lead SOIC | ISL6612CB $1.40 | ISL6613CB $1.40 |
| 8-lead EPSOIC | ISL6612ECB $1.45 | ISL6613ECB $1.45 |
| 10-pad DFN | ISL6612CR 1.45 | ISL6613CR $1.45 |
Intersil Corporation is a leader in the design and manufacture of high performance analog semiconductors. The company’s products address three of the industry’s fastest growing markets - flat panel displays, optical storage (CD and DVD recordable) and power management. Intersil products include power management devices for battery management, hot-swap and hot-plug controllers, linear regulators, supervisory ICs, switching DC-DC regulators and power MOSFET drivers; optical storage laser diode drivers; DSL line drivers; video and high performance operational amplifiers; data converters; interface ICs; analog switches and multiplexers; crosspoint switches; voice-over-IP devices; and ICs for military, space and rad-hard applications. For more information about Intersil or to find out how to become a member of our winning team, visit the company’s web site and career page at: www.intersil.com.
This release may include "forward looking statements" that are subject to risks and uncertainties. For information identifying economic, political, climatic, currency, regulatory, technological, competitive and some other important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward looking statements, see Intersil’s Safe Harbor Forward Looking Statement disclaimer found at http://www.qdigrp.com, as well as Intersil’s SEC filings as updated from time to time, found at http://www.sec.gov. Intersil and Endura are trademarks of Intersil Americas Inc.All other trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.
