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Rad-Hard POL Converters Hitch a Ride on Low-Earth-Orbit Satellites

Aug. 7, 2025

STMicroelectronics’ space-rated point-of-load converters leverage SOI technology and automotive best practices to create robust, affordable devices to power LEO satellites.

Lee Goldberg

Related To:

Electronic Design

The LEOPOL1 point-of-load (POL) step-down converter for low-Earth-orbit (LEO) deployments meets the needs of equipment developers targeting the New Space market, delivering new services such as communication and earth observation.

Developed by STMicroelectronics, the converter delivers up to 7 A and accepts an input voltage up to 12 V at ground level. It has demonstrated 5 A at 6 V at radiation levels of 62 MeV.cm²/mg.

The device offers extended flexible features including out-of-phase current sharing, which permits multiplying the current to the load with multiple LEOPOL1 converters working in parallel. It also supports synchronization, allowing for easy sequencing to power-up equipment with multiple voltage rails.

The LEOPOL1 is radiation hardened by design to withstand the hazards encountered in LEO altitudes. It leverages ST’s space-proven BCD6-SOI (silicon-on-insulator) technology and the company’s experience with automotive best practices, including statistical process control. Key hardness parameters include 50-krad(Si) total ionizing dose (TID) and 3.10¹¹ proton/cm² total non-ionizing dose (TNID). Single-event effects (SEE) performance is characterized up to 62 MeV.cm²/mg.

The POL converter is part of ST’s LEO series of power, analog, and logic ICs that meet the company’s proprietary specification developed specifically for LEO applications. This covers performance parameters as well as manufacturing controls and qualification; they’re delivered with a Certificate of Conformance (CoC).

The portfolio also includes popular logic gates and buffers; an LVDS transceiver; 8-channel, 12-bit ADC; and a low-dropout regulator (LDO). The LEOPOL1 is in production now, available in 31-piece tubes, 250-piece tape-and-reel, and 7-piece tape sticks for samples.

About the Author

Lee Goldberg | Contributing Editor

Lee Goldberg is a self-identified “Recovering Engineer,” Maker/Hacker, Green-Tech Maven, Aviator, Gadfly, and Geek Dad. He spent the first 18 years of his career helping design microprocessors, embedded systems, renewable energy applications, and the occasional interplanetary spacecraft. After trading his ‘scope and soldering iron for a keyboard and a second career as a tech journalist, he’s spent the next two decades at several print and online engineering publications.

Lee’s current focus is power electronics, especially the technologies involved with energy efficiency, energy management, and renewable energy. This dovetails with his coverage of sustainable technologies and various environmental and social issues within the engineering community that he began in 1996. Lee also covers 3D printers, open-source hardware, and other Maker/Hacker technologies.

Lee holds a BSEE in Electrical Engineering from Thomas Edison College, and participated in a colloquium on technology, society, and the environment at Goddard College’s Institute for Social Ecology. His book, “Green Electronics/Green Bottom Line - A Commonsense Guide To Environmentally Responsible Engineering and Management,” was published by Newnes Press.

Lee, his wife Catherine, and his daughter Anwyn currently reside in the outskirts of Princeton N.J., where they masquerade as a typical suburban family.

Lee also writes the regular PowerBites series.