July 21, 2015, Seoul – STMicroelectronics (ST), a global semiconductor company contributing to customers across various electronic applications, has unveiled the industry's first automotive high-side driver that meets the rigorous cold-cranking standards of the German automotive industry's LV124 test phase. This new driver is suitable for vehicles equipped with stop-start technology.

The minimum supply voltage of the new VND7050AJ12 and VND7140AJ12 is 3.2V, the highest in the industry, ensuring that essential equipment such as the instrument panel continues to operate even if the vehicle's battery voltage drops during engine cranking. These new ST products are small and reliable enough to be suitable replacements for electromechanical relays and related circuits, and are 40% smaller than similar competing products.

This new driver is part of ST's VIPower M0-7 family and features built-in multi-current sensing diagnostics to provide precise analog load current feedback. It also exceeds CISPR 25 standards with best-in-class EMI performance. Based on these capabilities, the number of external sensing and filtering components can be minimized.

Common features of ST’s VIPower M0-7 products include ultra-low quiescent current that minimizes battery consumption in idle mode, automatic restart protection that can be configured for dangerous situations, and Class A short-circuit robustness up to 1 million cycles. The wide range of VIPower M0-7 drivers offers various package and pin compatibility and low cost per channel, simplifying design standardization, scalability, and the management of various modules.

VND7050AJ12 and VND7140AJ12 are currently available as samples in 5mm x 4mm PowerSSO-12 packages, and major customers have begun incorporating them into their designs. Mass production is scheduled to begin this month, and the price of VND7140AJ12 starts at 98 cents for orders of 1,000 units.