10 Apr
2016
10 Apr
'16
10:02 p.m.
On Sun, Apr 10, 2016 at 8:54 PM, drlegendre . <drlegendre at gmail.com> wrote:
I've often wondered why the back-current diode
isn't incorporated into the
die of all common linear regs. Is it that costly, or simply impractical due
to die space or other considerations?
Because it would introduce additional voltage drop, and thus
additional power dissipation.
In fact, I believe that some of the more modern regs
do employ it.. just
not the old-standby like LM317, 7805/7905, and so on.
Some of the more modern regulators may be protected to some degree
against votlage supplied to their output terminal, but it's almost
certainly not being done by a diode in series internally.