On Sun, Apr 10, 2016 at 8:54 PM, drlegendre . <drlegen...@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.
