Hot-swap controllers provide circuit protection by limiting inrush current and fault isolation

Available now from RS Components, Linear Technology hot-swap controllers provide circuit protection by limiting inrush current as well as fault isolation. The devices allow electronic circuit boards and cards to be inserted into live system backplanes. They will sense, control and operate continuously as the boards are hot plugged in or pulled out. They can present board power monitoring via digital measurements of the current and voltage levels by integrated ADCs, accessible through I2C/SMBus interfaces. The devices utilise n-channel MOSFETs to control power flow, which allows a wide range of load currents and operating voltages.