Rad-hard buck controller integrates 5 V gate drive

Infineon Technologies has announced a radiation-hardened buck controller with integrated gate drive. The RIC70847 combines a 17.1 V buck controller with a 5 V half-bridge gate drive for point-of-load power rails in commercial space systems and digital processing payloads.

The device operates with an input voltage range of 4.75 V to 15 V and an output voltage range of 0.6 V to 5.25 V. It interfaces with logic-level transistors, including Infineon’s R8 power FET. The controller meets military temperature specifications ranging from -55 °C to 125 °C and provides a total ionizing dose rating of up to 100 krad, as well as single-event effects characterization of up to 81.9 MeV·cm²/mg linear energy transfer.

The integrated design incorporates load-line regulation and fixed-frequency peak current mode control. These features reduce transient response time and decrease required output capacitance. The integrated 5 V half-bridge gate driver handles high step-down voltage ratios while reducing external component count.

The integration of controller and gate drive functions reduces the part count compared to discrete implementations. This approach decreases potential failure points in radiation environments and simplifies board layout for distributed satellite power systems and FPGA or ASIC applications.

The RIC70847 is available with the RIC70847EVAL1 evaluation board. The board includes dynamic load step circuitry for transient testing and supports various output capacitor and inductor configurations.