HV746

The Supertex HV746 is a dual-channel monolithic high voltage high-speed pulse generator. It is designed for portable medical ultrasound applications. This high voltage and high-speed integrated circuit can also be used for other piezoelectric, capacitive or MEMS sensor in ultrasonic nondestructive detection and sonar ranger applications.

The HV746 consists of controller logic interface circuit, level translators, MOSFET gate drives and high current power Pchannel and N-channel MOSFETs as the output stage for each channel. A 2-bit mode control is provided that allows the maximum output current to be reduced for power saving.

The output stages of each channel are designed to provide peak output currents over ±3.6A for pulsing, when in mode 4, with up to ±75V swings. When in mode 1, all the output stages drop the peak current to ±800mA for low-voltage CW mode operation to save power consumption of the HV746. The P and N type of power FETs gate drivers are supplied by two fl oating 9.0VDC power supplies reference to VPP and VNN. This direct coupling topology of the gate drivers not only saves two high voltage capacitors per channel, but also makes the PCB layout easier.