Compact High-Efficiency Charge Pumps

Aug. 21, 2000
The SP6800 family of charge-pump voltage inverters lets designers implement voltage inversion in very little board-space and at ultra-high efficiency levels. These devices provide an easy way to accept a positive input voltage and output the...

The SP6800 family of charge-pump voltage inverters lets designers implement voltage inversion in very little board-space and at ultra-high efficiency levels. These devices provide an easy way to accept a positive input voltage and output the inverted voltage. They're particularly well suited for biasing small LCDs in battery-powered electronics, with supply currents as low as 40 µA. They only need three low-cost ceramic capacitors to store and invert the voltage, instead of the bulky coils or expensive tantalum capacitors other ICs require. Their input voltage ranges from 1.15 to 5.3 V. Their output equals -VIN. No-load efficiency is 99%, and the normal operating load efficiency is 96%.

The family includes the SP6828, SP6829, SP6830, SP6831, and SP6832. The SP6830 and SP6831 feature a low-power shutdown pin, with only 100 nA of standby current. The SP6832 operates up to 500 kHz, with small 0.1-µF capacitors. The small capacitors, combined with the SOT-23 packaging, greatly minimize the board space needed to implement this function. The SP6828EK, SP6829EK, and SP6832EK come in SOT-23-5 packages. The SP6830EK and SP6831EK come in SOT-23-6 packages.

All of the inverters are now available. The SP6830EK starts at $0.46 each in 10,000-unit quantities.

Sipex Corp., 22 Linnell Circle, Billerica, MA 01821; (978) 671-5302; fax (978) 670-9001; www.sipex.com.

About the Author

Roger Allan

Roger Allan is an electronics journalism veteran, and served as Electronic Design's Executive Editor for 15 of those years. He has covered just about every technology beat from semiconductors, components, packaging and power devices, to communications, test and measurement, automotive electronics, robotics, medical electronics, military electronics, robotics, and industrial electronics. His specialties include MEMS and nanoelectronics technologies. He is a contributor to the McGraw Hill Annual Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. He is also a Life Senior Member of the IEEE and holds a BSEE from New York University's School of Engineering and Science. Roger has worked for major electronics magazines besides Electronic Design, including the IEEE Spectrum, Electronics, EDN, Electronic Products, and the British New Scientist. He also has working experience in the electronics industry as a design engineer in filters, power supplies and control systems.

After his retirement from Electronic Design Magazine, He has been extensively contributing articles for Penton’s Electronic Design, Power Electronics Technology, Energy Efficiency and Technology (EE&T) and Microwaves RF Magazine, covering all of the aforementioned electronics segments as well as energy efficiency, harvesting and related technologies. He has also contributed articles to other electronics technology magazines worldwide.

He is a “jack of all trades and a master in leading-edge technologies” like MEMS, nanolectronics, autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence, military electronics, biometrics, implantable medical devices, and energy harvesting and related technologies.

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