10.3 Thermal Considerations

In normal operation the LM5060 dissipates very little power so that thermal design may not be very critical. The power dissipation is typically the 2 mA input current times the input voltage. If the application is driving a large capacitive load application, upon shutdown of the LM5060, the load capacitor may partially, or fully, discharge back through the LM5060 circuitry if no other loads consume the energy of the pre-charged load capacitor. One application example where energy is dissipated by the LM5060 is a motor drive application with a large capacitor load. When the LM5060 is turned off, the motor might also turn off such that total residual energy in the load capacitor is conducted through the OUT pin to ground. The power dissipated within the LM5060 is determined by the discharge current of 80 mA and the voltage on the load capacitor.