AP2142/AP2152
0.5A DUAL CHANNEL CURRENT-LIMITED POWER
SWITCH
AP2142/AP2152 Rev. 5 13 of 17 FEBRUARY 2009
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Application Note
Power Supply Considerations
A 0.01-F to 0.1-F X7R or X5R ceramic bypass capacitor between IN and GND, close to the device, is
recommended. Placing a high-value electrolytic capacitor on the input and output pin(s) is recommended
when the output load is heavy. This precaution reduces power-supply transients that may cause ringing on
the input. Additionally, bypassing the output with a 0.01-F to 0.1-F ceramic capacitor improves the
immunity of the device to sh ort-c ircui t tran sients.
Over-current and Short Circuit Protection
An internal sensing FET is employed to check for over-current conditions. Unlike current-sense resistors,
sense FETs do not increase the series resistance of the current path. When an overcurrent condition is
detected, the device maintains a constant output current and reduces the output voltage accordingly.
Complete shutdown occurs only if the fault stays long enough to activate thermal limiting.
Three possible overload conditions can occur. In the first condition, the output has been shorted to
GND before the device is enabled or before VIN has been applied. The AP2142/AP2152 senses the short
circuit and immediately clamps output current to a certain safe level namely ILIMIT.
In the second condition, an output short or an overload occurs while the device is enabled. At the instance
the overload occurs, higher current may flow for a very short period of time before the current limit function
can react. After the current limit function has tripped (reached the over-current trip threshold), the device
switches into current limiting mode and the current is clamped at ILIMIT.
In the third condition, the load has been gradually increased beyond the recommended operating current.
The current is permitted to rise until the current-limit threshold (ITRIG) is reached or until the thermal limit of
the device is exceeded. The AP2142/AP2152 is capable of delivering current up to the current-limit threshold
without damaging the device. Once the threshold has been reached, the device switches into its current
limiting mode and is set at ILIMIT.
FLG Response
When an over-current or over-temperature shutdown condition is encountered, the FLG open-drain output
goes active low after a nominal 7-ms deglitch timeout. The FLG output remains low until both over-current
and over-temperature conditions are removed. Connecting a heavy capacitive load to the output of the
device can cause a momentary over-current condition, which does not trigger the FLG due to the 7-ms
deglitch timeout. The AP2142/AP2152 is designed to eliminate false over-current reporting without the need
of external components to remove unwanted pulses.
Power Dissipation and Junction Temperature
The low on-resistance of the internal MOSFET allows the small surface-mount packages to pass large
current. Using the maximum operating ambient temperature (TA) and RDS(ON), the power dissipation can be
calc ulated by:
PD = RDS(ON)× I2
Finally, calculate the junction temperature:
TJ = PD x RθJA + TA
Where:
TA= Ambient temperature °C
RθJA = Thermal resistance
PD = Total power dissipation