Safe Operating Area - Limits of The Safe Operating Area

Limits of The Safe Operating Area

Where both current and voltage are plotted on logarithmic scales, the borders of the SOA are straight lines:

  1. IC = ICmax — current limit
  2. VCE = VCEmax — voltage limit
  3. IC VCE = Pmax — dissipation limit, thermal breakdown
  4. IC VCEα = const — this is the limit given by the second breakdown (bipolar junction transistors only)

SOA specifications are useful to the design engineer working on power circuits such as amplifiers and power supplies as they allow quick assessment of the limits of device performance, the design of appropriate protection circuitry, or selection of a more capable device. SOA curves are also important in the design of foldback circuits.

Read more about this topic:  Safe Operating Area

Famous quotes containing the words limits of the, limits of, limits, safe, operating and/or area:

    “An art whose limits depend on a moving image, mass audience, and industrial production is bound to differ from an art whose limits depend on language, a limited audience, and individual creation. In short, the filmed novel, in spite of certain resemblances, will inevitably become a different artistic entity from the novel on which it is based.”
    —George Bluestone, U.S. educator, critic. “The Limits of the Novel and the Limits of the Film,” Novels Into Film, Johns Hopkins Press (1957)

    “You must confine yourself within the modest limits of order.”
    —William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    “It is of the essence of imaginative culture that it transcends the limits both of the naturally possible and of the morally acceptable.”
    —Northrop Frye (b. 1912)

    “And such the trust that still were mine,
    Though stormy winds swept o’er the brine,
    Or though the tempest’s fiery breath
    Roused me from sleep to wreck and death.
    In ocean cave, still safe with Thee
    The germ of immortality!
    And calm and peaceful shall I sleep,
    Rocked in the cradle of the deep.”
    —Emma Hart Willard (1787–1870)

    “Go on then in doing with your pen what in other times was done with the sword; shew that reformation is more practicable by operating on the mind than on the body of man.”
    —Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

    “Now for civil service reform. Legislation must be prepared and executive rules and maxims. We must limit and narrow the area of patronage. We must diminish the evils of office-seeking. We must stop interference of federal officers with elections. We must be relieved of congressional dictation as to appointments.”
    —Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)