Advanced Power Management Technology Prolongs Li-Ion Battery Life while Simplifying System Implementation & Reducing Associated Costs

With portable electronics rapidly evolving and additional functionality being incorporated, there is increasing strain being placed on the battery reserves of these devices. Engineers look to deliver elevated levels of performance from the portable equipment that they are developing, while keeping within the confines of compact form factors and, in addition, having to cope with cost and time to market pressures. Nowhere are these pressures more acute than in the smartphone business. 

Consumers hunger from greater connectivity means that even simple parts of the smartphone ecosystem must now have low cost embedded intelligence. The progression of silicon technology is driving incorporation of this elevated degree of intelligence - it is thereby finding its way into a broad array of microcontrollers units, connectivity chips and application processor ICs. However, the supply voltages have sharply decreased, while single cell battery voltages have increased with wider adoption of newer Li-Ion technologies. Furthermore, the deep-sub-micron processes on which these ICs are based mean that they are blighted with higher quiescent leakage currents.

Power demands being placed upon the USB interconnects, through which power is delivered, are continuing to rise. Updates to USB standards are leading to greater intelligence within power management blocks (so that new charging modes can be utilized). This means that power management blocks can actually be a major contributor to the system’s overall energy consumption. New approaches therefore need to be taken with regard to power system architecture and system partitioning. Through these it will be possible to achieve substantial reductions in parasitic power loss for bias and supervisory systems, while also markedly lowering quiescent power consumption and enabling shorter charging times to be benefitted from.

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