Linear Technology Corporation introduces the LTC4282, an energy monitoring Hot Swap controller with dual Mosfet drive to enable 100A and higher current board designs. The LTC4282 ensures safe board insertion and removal from live 2.9V to 33V backplanes by controlling external N-channel Mosfets to gently power up capacitors, avoiding sparks, connector damage and system glitches. High current hot-pluggable boards utilize parallel Mosfets to reduce voltage drop, but all of these Mosfets require large safe operating area (SOA) to ride through overcurrent faults.
By controlling two matching current limited paths, the LTC4282 halves each path's SOA requirements, reducing Mosfet costs in high current applications (>50A). Further cost savings are afforded with a staged start configuration employing a low SOA Mosfet in one path and low RDS(ON) Mosfets in the other path. The LTC4282 provides a rugged, compact solution for hot plugging and monitoring, especially in high power circuit boards in servers, network routers and switches, and enterprise data storage systems.
