USB-C buck-boost voltage regulator enables USB PD3.0 bidirectional voltage regulation

Intersil offers what it claims to be the industry’s first buck-boost voltage regulator for tablets, ultrabooks, power banks, and other mobile devices using the reversible USB Type-C connector. The ISL95338 bidirectional voltage regulator accepts input power from a wide range of DC power sources - AC/DC power adapters, USB power delivery (PD3.0) ports, travel adapters, power banks - and converts it to a regulated voltage up to 24V. The device can also convert a wide range of DC power sources to a regulated 20V at its power adapter input. The ISL95338 supports the USB-C ecosystem with buck-mode, boost-mode, and buck-boost mode, and is flexible enough to use in any USB-C power management application. The single-chip device replaces two voltage converters currently used for bidirectional buck and boost modes to reduce a BOM cost by 50%. It leverages the company’s patented R3 modulation technology to deliver acoustic noise-free operation, superior light-load efficiency and ultra-fast transient response. Their R3 extends battery life by combining the best features of fixed-frequency PWM and hysteretic PWM to maximize power efficiency. The device is also USB 3.1-compliant and provides serial communication through SMBus/I2C, allowing designers to program several input/output current and voltage slew rate settings to create a customized solution. “The new ISL95338 USB-C buck-boost voltage regulator allows our customers to implement new product designs with much smaller form factors, faster battery charging and remarkably longer battery life,” said Andrew Cowell, vice president of Intersil’s Battery and Optical Systems products. “Mobile computing customers count on Intersil’s battery charging and power management innovations to create their next generation, highly differentiated products.”