The ADM1170 is a hot swap controller that safely enables a printed circuit board to be removed and inserted to a live backplane. This is achieved using an external N-channel power MOSFET with a current control loop that monitors the load current through a sense resistor. An internal charge pump is used to enhance the gate of the N-channel FET. When an overcurrent condition is detected, the gate voltage of the FET is reduced to limit the current flowing through the sense resistor. The ADM1170 operates with a supply voltage ranging from 2.7 V to 16.5 V. By using independent SENSE pins from VCC, the ADM1170 allows for the hot swap of supplies ranging down to 1.6 V. During an overcurrent condition, the TIMER pin capacitor determines the amount of time the FET remains at a current limiting mode of operation until it is shut down. The ON (ON-CLR) pin is the enable input for the device and can be used to monitor the input supply voltage. The ADM1170 also features soft start to provide the user with a capacitor programmable ramping reference to the internal current sense comparator. This provides a linearly increasing current limit at startup at a rate set by CSS. This helps to reduce and limit large inrush currents.