Intersil Corporation introduced the ISL21400 Digitally Programmable Tempco Voltage Reference as part of the newly formed pinPOINT family of precision analog products. This product allows users to digitally set the temperature slope and DC voltage of its output to accurately compensate for temperature drifts elsewhere in the system.
The performance of most analog circuits changes with temperature. Historically, much more expensive components have been required to minimize the impact of such temperature drift in higher performance systems. With the ISL21400, an engineer can now very simply generate a compensation voltage that can effectively cancel out the native drift of his system in the analog domain, allowing the use of lower cost components.
The other common approach to dealing with analog temperature drift is to cancel it out in the digital domain using a microprocessor. In this case, depending on the magnitude of the temperature drift problem, designers are sometimes forced to use higher resolution A/D converters than they would otherwise require. Intersil’s ISL21400 allows the problem of temperature drift to be addressed cost-effectively in the analog domain without losing the simplicity of digital programming.
The ISL21400 offers a 1.2 V reference with an absolute accuracy of +2% and gives the user 8-bit control of slope and output voltage level plus three different gain settings that are applied at the output buffer of the device. All settings are stored in on-chip EEPROM memory avoiding the need for reprogramming the part each time the system is powered down.
Packaged in a cost effective SO-8 form-factor and drawing just 250 uA of current over the industrial temperature range, the part is suitable for a broad range of different applications where precision over temperature is important – primarily in the industrial and communications markets.
Pricing and Availability
The ISL21400 is available now in an 8-MSOP package and is priced at $1.25 in 1,000-unit quantities.
