Microchip | MIC5305-1.8YML-TR

Micrel Inc., is a leading manufacturer of IC solutions for the worldwide analog, Ethernet and high bandwidth markets. The Company's products include high performance analog, power, advanced mixed-signal and radio frequency semiconductors; high speed communication, clock management, Ethernet switch and physical layer transceiver integrated circuits. These products address a wide range of rapidly growing end markets including cellular handsets, portable and enterprise computing, enterprise and home networking, wide area and metropolitan area networks and industrial equipment.

Linear regulators are Step-Down regulators only. There are 2 types of regulators, Shunt and series-pass regulators.

For IC linear voltage regulators, the regulator type determines the configuration of the pass device as well as the dropout voltage. Standard voltage regulators use an NPN Darlington configuration and have a dropout voltage between 1.5V and 2.2 V. Low dropout (LDO) regulators differ from standard regulators in that the pass device consists of a single PNP transistor.

Linear regulators provide significant advantages over switching regulators in simplicity, cost, and output noise. The only difference between a 'normal' linear regulator and a LDO one is that, the LDO type can have a lower constant voltage-drop across the series-pass element.