Bay Linear, Inc 2478 Armstrong Street, Livermore, CA 94550 Tel: (925) 989-7144, Fax: (925) 940-9556 www.baylinear.com
LP2950/LP2951
APPLICATION H INT S
EXTERNAL CAPACITORS
The stability of the LP2950/LP2951 requires a 1.0µF or greater
capacitor between output and ground. Oscillation could occur
without this capacitor. Most types of tantalum or aluminum
electrolytic works fine here. For operations below -25°C solid
tantalum is recommended since many aluminum types have
electrolytes that freeze at about -30°C. The ESR of about 5Ω or
less and resonant frequency above 500kHz are the most important
parameters in the value of the capacitor. The capacitor value can
be in creas ed without lim it.
At lower values of output current, less output capacitance is
required for stability. For the currents below 10mA the value of
the capacitor can be reduced to 0.5µF and 0.15µF for 1mA. More
output capacitance is needed for the 8-pin version at voltages
below 5V since it runs the error amplifier at lower gain. At worst
case 5µF or greater must be used for the condition of 150mA load
at 1.23V output.
The LP2950, unlike other low dropout regulators will remain
stable in regulation with no load in addition to the internal voltage
divider. This feature is especially important in applications like
CMOS RAM keep-alive. When setting the output voltage of the
LP2951 version with external resistors, a minimum load of 1uA is
recommended.
If there is more than 10 inches of wire between the inp ut and the
AC filter capacitor or if a battery is used as the input then a 1µA
tantalum or aluminum electrolytic capacitor should be placed from
the input to the ground.
Instability can occur if there is stray capacitance to the LP2951
feedback terminal (pin 7). This could cause more problems when
usin g a higher va lue of ext ernal resis tors to set the ou tput voltage.
This problem can be fixed by adding a 100pF capacitor between
out put and feed back an d increa sing the ou tput capac itor to at least
3.3µF.
ERROR DETECTION COMPARATOR
OUTPUT
The Com parator produ ces a logic low output whenever t he
LP2951 output falls ou t of regulation by more than around 5%.
This is arou nd 60mV offs et divi ded by t he 1. 235 refer ence volt age.
This trip level remains 5% below normal regardless of the
programmed output voltage of the regulator. Figure 1 shows the
timing diagram depicting the ERROR signal and the regulator.
output voltage as the LP2951 input is ramped up and down. The
ERROR signal becomes low at around 1.3V input, and goes high
around 5V input (input voltage at which VOUT = 4.75 ). Since the
LP2951’s dropout voltage is load dependent, the input voltage trip
point (around 5V) will vary with the load current. The output
voltage trip point (app rox. 4.75V) does not vary with load
The error comparator has an open-collector output which requires
an external pull-up resistor. Depending on the system requirements
the res ist or may be r eturn ed t o 5V out put or ot her sup ply volt age i n
determining the value of this resistor, note that the output is rated to
sink 400µA, this value adds to battery drain in a low battery
condition. Suggested values range from 100K to 1MΩ. If the
output is unused this resistor is not required .
PROGRAMMING THE O UTPUT VOLTAGE OF
LP2951
The LP2951 may be pin-strapped for 5V using its internal voltage
divider by tying Pin 1 (output) to Pin 2 (sense) and Pin 7 (feedback)
to Pin 6 (5V Tap). Also it may be programmed for any output
voltage b etwe en it s 1.235V referen ce and its 30 V maximum rat ing .
As seen in Figure 2, an external pair of resistors is required.
Refer to the below equation for the programming of the output
voltage.
VOUT = VREF × ( 1 + R1/R2 )+ IFBR1
The VREF i s 1.235 and IFB is the feedback bias current, n o minally
-20 nA. The minimum recommended load current of 1µA fo rces an
upper limit of 1.2 MΩ on va lue of R2. If no load presented the IFB
prod uces an error of t ypica lly 2% i n VOUT which may be eliminated
at room temperature by trimming R1. To improve the accuracy
choose the value of R2 = 100k this reduces the error by 0.17% and
increases the resistor program current by 12µA. Since the LP2951
typically draws 60µA at no load with Pin 2 open-circuited this is a
small price to pay.
REDUCIN G OUTPUT NOISE
It may be an advanta g e to reduce the AC noise present at th e output.
One way is to reduce the regulator bandwidth by increasing the size
of the output capacitor. This is the only way that noise can be
reduced on the LP2950 but is relatively inefficient, as increasing the
capacitor from 1µF to 220 µF only decr eases t he n ois e from 4 30µV
to 160µVRMS. for a 100kHz bandwidth at 5V output.
Noise could also be reduced fourfold by a bypass capacitor across
R1, since it reduc es the high frequency gain from 4 to unity. Pick
CBYPASS ≅ 1 / 2πR1 × 200 Hz
or choose 0.01µF. When doing this, the output capacitor must be
increased to 3.3µF to maintain stability. These changes redu ce the
output noise from 4 30µV to 100µVRMS. for a 100kHz bandwidth at
5V output. With the bypass capacitor added, noise no longer scales
with output voltage so that improvements are more dramatic at
higher output voltages.
+
+
+
+
4.75V
OUTPUT
VOLTAGE
ERROR*
_______
INPUT
VOLTAGE 1.3V
5.0V
Figure 1. ERROR Output Timing
_______
* See Application Info.