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Intersil’s New Buck-Boost Regulator Reinvents Efficiency

July 06, 2015 by Jennifer A. Diffley

Smooth buck-to-boost transitions plus efficiency up to 98% makes the new ISL9120 an industry leader.

Smooth buck-to-boost transitions plus efficiency up to 98% makes the new ISL9120 an industry leader.

Board space is at a premium in the world of wearables and mobile devices, and the unreliability and inefficiency of LDOs make them an impractical power solution. A buck-boost regulator eliminates memory resets or application shutdowns caused from large burst currents. Intersil's new ISL9120 buck-boost switching regulator eliminates memory resets and other failures by "addressing a wider Vin range and providing boost to avoid low voltage glitches that can cause a battery brownout when the Vin droops below the output voltage." Now everything from Wi-Fi to LCD modules can experience efficient power management. The ISL9120 solves the space issue as well: it comes in a 1.41mmx1.41mm package.

"Intersil's innovative adaptive PFM architecture addresses the most critical low power design requirements for wearables and other 4G/Wi-Fi-enabled portable products functioning as IoT connected nodes," said Andrew Cowell, senior vice president of Mobile Power Products at Intersil. "The new ISL9120 regulator's small size, industry leading efficiency, smooth transition between buck and boost modes and rapid transient response to a large load step is extremely attractive to customers."

By utilizing a quiescent current of 41uA, the new buck-boost regulator is ultra-low power, and it has full protection for under-voltage, short-circuit, and over-temperature issues. Most impressive, however, is that, at 98% reduced power drain and heat buildup, the ISL9120 is officially the highest-efficiency buck-boost regulator in the industry