Designers of portable battery-powered devices, such as personal digital assistants (PDA), smartphones and other Bluetooth-enabled equipment, can increase operating time by integrating new low-power, DC/DC step-down converters announced today from Texas Instruments (TI). Designed to provide up to 95 percent power conversion efficiency, the family of synchronous converters offers designers a wide input voltage range from 2.7V to 10V, output current of up to 800mA, and a low 12ưA of quiescent current for longer stand-by time - perfect for electronic devices that use one- to two-cell lithium-ion (Li-Ion) or two- to six-cell nickel metal hydride (NiMH), nickel cadium (NiCd) or Alkaline batteries. (See:power.ti.com/sc02296.) The TPS6205x family of low-power step-down converters with integrated field effect transistors (FETs), allows portable application designers to reduce both board space and system cost. The converters also can generate output voltages ranging from 0.7V to 6V, which makes the TPS6205x series well suited to operate with TI's OMAPTM application processors, microprocessors and digital signal processors (DSPs) that have low core voltage requirements. "As the level of functionality increases with each new generation of portable electronics that roll out to consumers, designers require innovative power management technology to help achieve longer battery life in addition to functionality," said Patrick Heyer, product marketing manager, TI's portable power management group. "With today's announcement, TI makes it easier for designers to include DC/DC converters in their portable designs that are the industry's best combination of extended input voltage range, high output current, high efficiency and low quiescent current." The TPS6205x family of converters typically operates at 850 kHz and can be synchronized to external clock frequencies from 600 kHz to 1.2 MHz. In shutdown mode, the current consumption is reduced to less than 2ưA. The TPS6205x devices are available today in volume from TI and its authorized distributors. The device comes in a 10-pin micro-small outline package (MSOP). Suggested resale pricing in quantities of 1,000 is $1.74. Evaluation modules of the TPS6205x are scheduled to be available in first quarter of 2003.

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