Shunt Regulators

A shunt regulator provides a path from the supply voltage towards the ground through a variable resistance. Shunt regulators are simpler than series regulators and sometimes only consist of a voltage-reference diode and are used in very low-powered circuits where the amount of wasted current is too small to be of any concern. Shunt regulators are very common in voltage reference circuits. Several simple DC power supplies regulate the voltage by using a shunt regulator.

Types of Shunt Regulators

There are many different kinds of shunt regulators and at Future Electronics we stock many of the most common types categorized by accuracy, reference voltage, packaging type and operating temperature range. The parametric filters on our website can help refine your search results depending on the required specifications.

The most common size for reference voltage is 1.24 V. We also carry shunt regulators with reference voltage as high as 36 V.

Applications for Shunt Regulators:

There are several applications for shunt regulators including:

• Low Output Voltage Switching Power Supplies
• Current Source and Sink Circuits
• Error Amplifiers
• Adjustable Voltage or Current Linear and Switching Power Supplies
• Voltage Monitoring
• Analog and Digital Circuits Requiring Precision References
• Precision current limiters