Touchstone Semiconductor has announced the TS3300 boost regulator. The TS3300 uses only 3.5µA of supply current and its efficiency performance is constant over a 100:1 span in output current. No other low power boost converter offers this level of performance, says the company.
The TS3300 is the industry’s first boost plus linear regulator that can operate from supply voltages as low as 0.6V up to 4.5V and can deliver at least 75mA of continuous output current. The TS3300 is ideally suited to be powered from a wide variety of power sources including single or multiple-cell alkaline or single Li-chemistry batteries. The boost regulator’s output voltage range can be user-set from 1.8V to 5.25V to power an entire range of low-power analog circuits, microcontrollers and low-energy Bluetooth radios simultaneously. While configured to produce a 3V output from a 1.2V input source, the TS3300’s efficiency performance is constant over a 100:1 span in output current – no other low-power boost converter offers this level of performance. For powering low-energy radios, its internal, low-dropout linear regulator can deliver up to 100mA output current while reducing boost-converter-generated output voltage ripple by 3x.
Drawing only 3.5µA no-load supply current, the TS3300 is ideal for ‘always on’ and other battery-powered or portable applications where extended battery run-time is a major system requirement. When used in systems where the primary power source is non-ideal or when the power source is weak, the TS3300 includes an anti-crush feature that prevents the boost converter’s input voltage from excessive voltage drops; this, in turn, prevents the power source’s voltage from degrading beyond usefulness.
Operating from very low power sources, such as photovoltaic cells to three alkaline cells, the TS3300 is ideal for handheld / portable applications such as wireless remote sensors, RFID tags, wireless microphones, solar cell post-regulator/chargers, post-regulators for energy harvesting, blood glucose meters and personal health-monitoring devices, says the company.
