The ISL72813SEH is claimed to be the industry’s first high current driver to integrate the decoder, level shifter and driver array in a single monolithic IC. The company claims that it allows satellite manufacturers to significantly increase system capacity and reduce solution size by up to 50%. It is also claimed to offer a higher density channel count by a factor of four, compared to the nearest competitor, while the integrated level shifter eliminates several peripheral components.

The driver leverages the company’s proprietary silicon on insulator process, which provides single-event latch-up (SEL) robustness in heavy ion environments. The driver’s integrated decoder interfaces directly to the GPIOs of FPGAs and CPUs in the satellite’s flight computer, to reduce pin count compared to competitive one-input to one-output driver arrays. Each of the 32-channels of common-emitter open-collector driver outputs can generate pulses of up to 42V and 600mA. The ISL72813SEH addresses latching relay and solenoid commanding for most satellite control functions, including redundancy management, mechanism drive enables, propulsion component relays and enables, battery management, and payload switch control. The low VCE saturation levels reduce the overhead voltage required to drive the load. According to the company, power efficiency and high integration reduces the amount of circuitry required on the bus, allowing customers to add functionality and processing power.

The driver is available now in a 44-lead ceramic lead-less chip carrier (CLCC) package. An evaluation board is also available.