With the increasing demand of the wireless applications such as portable and battery-operated devices, which is requires more highly integrated power management solutions. Plus the increasing awareness of us for the energy conservation and environmental protection, the demand for low carbon products is also growing. PMIC is become more and more important and popular in electronic system.
Power Management Integrated Circuit (PMIC) integrated a variety of power rails and power management functions into a single chip for voltage conversion, voltage regulation, and power management. A single PMIC power a variety of loads and perform external power management by mapping different system requirements to the appropriate regulator output voltage. It also provide protection against over-voltage, under-voltage, over-current, thermal faults, and more. To meet the requirements for powering different functional circuits in complex systems, PMICs are the best solution.
Microchip Power Management IC
In circuit design, commonly used power devices are DC/DC and LDO.
DC/DC converter is a DC conversion device that converts a DC base power supply into other voltage types, used to monitor and stabilize the unregulated battery input voltage, including boost, buck, boost/buck, and inverting etc. circuit. Devices that achieve voltage stabilization through DC/DC converters are called voltage regulators, which are include Linear Voltage Regulators and Switching Regulators, and are used in electronic devices such as cameras, mobile phones, and wearable devices.
The circuit of Linear Voltage Regulators is simple, and the input and output are linear. By controlling the step-down of the element, if the voltage difference between the input and output is larger, the losses will be larger and the efficiency will be lower. Therefore, it is suitable for low-power power supplies.
The Switching Regulators converts the input voltage to the desired output voltage through a switching element (Mosfet). Compared with linear regulators, switching regulators are more efficient, generate less heat, and can achieve step-up/step-down/negative voltage conversion, but the design is difficult and noisy.
LM3881 PMIC of Texas Instruments
LDO - Low Dropout, is a type of DC linear regulator that adjusts the output voltage level when the voltage difference between the input and output is small. Compared to switching regulators, LDOs do not generate any ripple and can reduce input power supply noise. In addition, LDOs are known as an excellent solution for portable and wireless applications due to their low standby current consumption.
A current-limiting internal LDO structure
During the global chip shortage, the biggest gap of semiconductor industry is MCU and PMIC. As we know, MCU is one of the important chip as it is acting as the brain of the device. While the role of the PMIC is no less than that of the MCU. PMIC is the heart of power supply for electronic devices. Therefore, its performance directly affects the energy consumption, performance and reliability of the whole machine. PMICs can be found in almost all electronic devices, and are widely used in consumer electronics, communications, industrial control equipments, automotive and other fields. Selecting a high-quality PMIC is a pre-requisite to ensure the project progress smoothly.
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Check the list of Microchip PMIC