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Fairchild CCM PFC controller minimizes power losses, cuts 54 external components

fairchildfan69821San Jose, Calif. — Fairchild Semiconductor has developed a CCM PFC controller aimed at helping power-electronic design teams push efficiency towards 100 percent to meet ENERGY STAR regulations and to reduce their carbon footprint. The FAN6982, aimed at 300-W to 2-kW power-supply designs, delivers high system efficiency, high power factor and low total harmonic distortion (THD) to minimize power losses in multi-stage power supplies. Through its high level of integration, the CCM PFC controller eliminates 54 external components.

Power factor is an important measure of power quality and shows how efficiently energy is drawn from an AC source, said Fairchild. With all PFC controllers striving to reach the ideal power factor (PF) of 1, the CCM PFC controller reaches near unity with 0.999 of PF at full load. With this, utility companies do not have to supply as much power to electronic applications, and AC harmonic currents resulting from today’s complex loads can be virtually eliminated, thereby allowing for a more efficient power distribution system, said the power semi maker.

The FAN6982 maintains high system efficiency at light load conditions to meet 20 percent load system efficiency requirements of ENERGY STAR regulations and Climate Savers Computing Initiatives. It achieves this by reducing both capacitive switching losses and the voltage conversion ratio, which results in less conduction losses in the boost switch.

The controller features built-in brown-out protection (eliminates 12 components), adjustable PFC output (eliminates17 components), RDY pin for power-on-sequence (eliminates15 components), 30-V operating voltage capability (eliminates 10 components), and PFC soft-start (eliminates 4 components), reducing the bill of materials (BOM) by 54 components.

Since many AC-sourced electronic applications have a microphone, amplifier or loudspeaker, which need an accurate reproduction of sound, this controller offers exceptionally low THD (4.6 percent at full load), which reduces these harmonics and meets class D requirements of IEC 1000-3-2, said Fairchild. This is achieved through its switching-charge technology that senses input current and voltage directly, helping to improve PF and THD.

Availability: Samples are available now. Delivery is eight weeks after receipt of order (ARO).
Pricing: $0.69 in quantities of 1,000.
Resources: Datasheet.

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