Austriamicrosystems has introduced the AS1310, an ultra low quiescent current hysteretic step-up DC-DC converter optimized for light loads (60mA) and the highest efficiency -- up to 92 %. With 1 µA the AS1310 step-up converter also features the industry's lowest quiescent current, operates over a wide 0.7 V to 3.6 V battery supply, and provides output voltages between 1.8 V and 3.3 V. Even at loads as light as 100 µA, efficiency still reaches 85%, significantly increasing battery life.
Since the supply voltage of many battery powered applications is moving from 3 V to 1.8 V, the AS1310 boost DC-DC converter was designed to be able to generate both; many competitive DC-DC converters are not able to do so. If the input voltage exceeds the output voltage the device goes into a feed-through mode and the input is directly connected to the output voltage. The features and performance of the AS1310 boost DC-DC converter make it very well suited for single- and dual-cell powered devices, including blood glucose meters, remote controls, hearing aids, wireless mouse or any light-load application. The AS1310 DC-DC converter is an especially good fit for applications in which a lot of time is spent in an idle mode and therefore draws only a small current.
To save power the AS1310 also features a shutdown mode in which it draws less than 100 nA. During shutdown, the battery is disconnected from the output. In addition, the AS1310 step-up DC-DC converter allows adjustable low battery detection. If the battery voltage decreases below the threshold defined by two external resistors, the output is pulled to logic low. This signal is used to indicate "low battery", so no separate supervisory ICs are needed.
The AS1310 boost DC-DC converter is available in a TDFN 8-pin 2x2 mm package and operates over a temperature range of -40°C to +85ºC with a wide power supply range of 0.7 to 3.6 V.
Available in volume now, the price for the AS1310 step-up DC-DC converter is $0.66 in 1000 piece quantities.
