Very-low-drop voltage regulator with a fully complementary power process

A very-low-drop voltage regulator is presented that uses an isolated-collector power p-n-p transistor structure to achieve an input-output voltage drop of 0.4 V at 1 A. The device includes a circuit which prevents quiescent current peaks when the p-n-p is in saturation and a Zener-zap trimmed reference makes possible /spl plusmn/1% output voltage tolerance.