Enpirion switching regulator

A company called Enpirion(www.enpirion.com) is starting to sell a
regulator, the EN5330, that is a switching regulator on a chip with an
integrated inductor. It almost looks like you can get a switching
regulator with the ease of use of a linear regulator.

I was wondering if anyone knows anything more about this chip or has
tried it yet. I tried contacting them for information about samples,
but received no response.

db wrote:
> 
> A company called Enpirion(www.enpirion.com) is starting to sell a
> regulator, the EN5330, that is a switching regulator on a chip with an
> integrated inductor. It almost looks like you can get a switching
> regulator with the ease of use of a linear regulator.
> 
> I was wondering if anyone knows anything more about this chip or has
> tried it yet. I tried contacting them for information about samples,
> but received no response.

Same here, I sent and email over the weekend and have not received a
reply.  The article in Electronic Design indicated that the part was
still in the prototype stage and the form factor will be reduced
somewhat.  So any samples you get now will only be for electrical
testing assuming the ED article is correct.  Their web site is not very
clear about things.  I also called and they make it very hard to reach a
person.  You need to know an extension or a name to get to anyone, no
number to push to reach sales.  

The technology is pretty new and different.  They use an inductor built
on chip with a very high switching frequency 2-4 MHz.  This can work
very well assuming they can drive the switching FET gates fast enough. 
They don't make it clear if the FETs are on chip or separate.  In fact,
there is more info in the ED article than there is on their web site. 

If I don't hear from them this week, I will assume they are having some
problems, either technical or financial.  

-- 

Rick "rickman" Collins

rick.collins@XYarius.com
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removed.

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