When a circuit board is inserted into a live backplane, the large bypass capacitors on the board can draw huge inrush currents from the backplane power bus as they charge. The inrush current, on the order of 10A to 100A, can destroy the board’s bypass capacitors, metal traces or connector pins. The inrush current can also cause a glitch on the backplane power bus, which could force all of the other boards in the system to reset. In addition, the system data bus can be disrupted when the board’s data pins make or break contact. The LTC®1421 can turn on two positive and one negative board supply voltages at a programmable rate, allowing a board to be safely inserted in, or removed from, a live backplane. The device provides internal charge pumps for Figure 1. LTC1421 Typical Application driving the gates of external N-channel pass transistors, board connection sensing, flexible supply voltage monitoring, power on reset output, short-circuit protection and soft or hard reset via software control. Typical Application Figure 1 shows a typical application using the LTC1421. The LTC1421 works best with a staggered, 3-level connector. Ground makes connection first to discharge any static build-up. VCC, VDD and VEE make connection second and the data bus and all other pins last. The connection sense pins CON1 and CON2 are located on opposite ends of the connector to allow the board to be rocked back and forth during insertion.