| Dc/dc converters for military and aerospace Homeland security, airborne drones, and future warrior technologies increase the demand for proper device selection BY TOM TERLIZZI Aeroflex Microelectronic Solutions Plainview, NY http://www.aeroflex.com Over the last decade, several salient technology drivers have caused a transformation in the design and manufacture of dc/dc converters for the military and aerospace markets. This transformation has caused designers to evaluate several new selection criteria before making their technical and cost decisions. New military and aerospace programs, homeland security, airborne drones, and future warrior technologies are all vying for low-cost, lightweight, highly reliable electronic packages that must survive rugged environments on new platforms. Power trends One of these drivers is the trend for digital ICs to use lower and lower power supply voltages, partially due to device scaling in finer geometry CMOS devices from several microns to submicron features. Thus, CMOS devices with 3.3-, 2.8-, 1.8-, and sub-1.0 -V requirements are replacing 5-V bipolar technology. These low-voltage ICs demand high currents (>40 A) that in turn cause voltage drop, ripple voltage, and noise issues. In addition, analog circuits that used bipolar integrated circuits with ±15 V are now being replaced with CMOS and BiCMOS devices using ±5-V and lower circuits. The commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) movement has introduced the military and aerospace markets to commercial surface-mount (SMT) technology, plastic parts, planar magnetics, and chip-on-board (COB) architectures to dc/dc converter topology (see Fig. 1 ). FOR FULL ARTICLE AND FIGURE CLICK BELOW |
| dc_dc_converters_for_military_and_aerospace_-_electronic_products.pdf |
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