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Linear Technology’s backup power controller

19 November 2014 News Power Electronics / Power Management

Linear Technology introduced the LTC3350, a supercapacitor charger and backup controller IC that includes all of the features necessary to provide a complete, standalone capacitor-based backup power solution.

Many applications require reliable, short-term uninterrupted power in the event of a mains power failure. Examples include data backup for solid state drives (SSDs) and non-volatile dual in-line memory modules (NVDIMMs), power fail alarms in medical and industrial applications, as well as a host of other ‘dying gasp’ power fail indicators.

The LTC3350 provides all PowerPath control, capacitor stack charging and balancing, and capacitor health monitoring to ensure that the backup system is capable of reliable operation. It features a wide 4,5 V to 35 V input voltage range and over 10 A of charge/backup current capability, as well as providing balancing and over-voltage protection for a series stack of one to four supercapacitors.

The IC’s synchronous step-down controller drives N-channel MOSFETs for constant current/voltage charging of the capacitor stack at up to 5 V per cell. In backup mode, the step-down converter runs in reverse as a synchronous step-up DC-DC to deliver power from the supercapacitor stack to the system supply to be backed up.

Integrated into the chip is an accurate, 14-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC) which continuously monitors input and output voltage and current. In addition, the internal measurement system monitors parameters associated with the backup capacitors themselves, including capacitor stack voltage, capacitance and stack ESR (equivalent series resistance) to ensure adequate energy storage and power delivery during backup.

All system parameters and fault status can be monitored via a two-wire I2C interface, and alarm levels can be set to alert the system to a sudden change in any of these measured parameters.



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