ALPHA Semiconductor, Inc. introduced the AS433 (2.5 Volts) and AS434 (1.24 Volts) Ultra Precision Adjustable Shunt Voltage Regulator in a small SOT-23 surface mount package. The AS433 and AS434 are the only adjustable Shunt Voltage Regulators of this type with reference voltage of 2.5 Volts and 1.24 Volts tolerance as low as 0.2% including many additional advantages.

The AS433 and AS434 Shunt Regulators offer superior performance over other Shunt Regulators in the market. The Alpha Semiconductors advantages are: a) Ultra Precision Tolerance down to 0.2% compared to industry 1%, b) Wider Output Voltage up to 37 Volts for AS433 and 26 Volts for the AS434, c) Output Current of 150mA for the AS433 and 100mA for the AS434, d) Extended Temperature Range of 105 degree Celsius, e) Offered in SOT-23 and many other type of packages. All these features are standard with no additional cost.

The Alpha Semiconductor, Inc previous Shunt regulators such as AS431, AS1431, and AS432 were offered with all the significant performance to about 30% lower than the market price. These devices, AS433 and AS434 are designed for the tight performance applications.

The AS433/AS434 with its superior performance and small SOT-23 package opens the door to markets and applications that need shunt regulators with 2.5 Volts and 1.24 Volts reference. When the size and low power are key factors to the design applications such as battery powered equipment the AS433/AS434 is ideal. These devices provides tighter specifications for new 2.5, 2.8, 3.0, 3.3 and 5 Volts power supply designs, which were not possible by shunt regulators in the market. Due to the tight tolerance they can replace a high cost Voltage References in the market such as LM4040/LM4041.

The AS433/AS434 offered in selection tolerance of 0.2%, 0.3% and 0.4% helps virtually eliminate the need for trimming in the power supply manufacturing assembly line and contributes a big cost savings in labor and design.

There are four things going for these products, if Alpha is able to take advantage of them (and sometimes smaller operations can't get that momentum going in the market that they should be able to.) The first is price, the second packaging, the third is the increased output range and the fourth is the tolerance. Of these four they can maintain the lead in only two for a while so they need to work fast in taking their share of the market.

There is no doubt that other manufacturers are able to put their shunt regulators in the SOT-23 package; their priority for doing so probably changed with the introduction of these products. There is no doubt that other manufacturers could control their production to get the 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4% tolerances and they have probably not done so because they would then hurt their own markets for the more expensive products that they would like to continue to sell, thank you. That priority may now change as well if Alpha do the damage they should in the marketplace. If the other manufacturers ignore the change in the market they may just shoot themselves in their respective feet -- and they have done it before.

There is also no doubt that the major manufacturers could match price if they wanted to, but this is not the time to do that if you want to avoid shareholder problems at the end of the year. But I think the increased output range may also be Alpha's alone for a while, and I assume they know of applications to take advantage of the new voltages. And I am sure they are correct when they say that a number of OEM manufacturers of power supplies could save production line costs by eliminating trimming because of the higher tolerance parts.

The parts are available in SOT-23, TO-92, SOT-89, SOT-25, and SO-8. All are in production and offer a temperature range of -40ý C to +105ýC as standard. The price of the parts, in SOT-23, is $0.20 for 50-k piece lots.