In addition, ADI has also expanded its offerings in the lower-current LDO arena with the introduction of the ADP3333 and ADP3334. These chips provide accuracy of 1.8 percent and ultra low dropout voltage, featuring output currents of 300 and 500 milliamps respectively. The devices also include a safety current limit, thermal overload protection and a shutdown feature. In shutdown mode, the ground current is reduced to less than 1 microamp. Applications for these chips include PCMCIA cards, power sources for embedded DSP-and microcontroller-based systems, personal digital assistants, and networking systems.
The ADP3338 and ADP3339 have extended ADI’s anyCAP LDO family to currents beyond 1 amp, offering the same user conveniences at higher output, all in space-saving SOT-223 packages. A key feature that sets these ICs apart from the competition is no compromise in the dropout specification at higher load currents. The ADP3338 and ADP3339 provide dropout voltage of 190 mV typical at 1 amp and 230 mV typical at 1.5 amp, respectively. Many competing LDOs feature from several hundred mV to more than 1 V dropout at full load current, thus removing them from the true “low dropout” category. The ADP3338 has unparalleled accuracy of 1.4 percent, while the ADP3339 boasts accuracy of 1.5 percent over line, load and temperature, making them the highest-precision 1 amp and 1.5 amp LDOs in the industry. Other benefits include pin-to-pin and functional replacement of legacy LDOs, low ground current, plus current and thermal limiting.
