In all electronic equipment and products, there is no lack of power management IC. With the rapid development of digital high-speed IC technology and chip manufacturing technology, the role of high-performance power supply IC "auxiliary array" is becoming more and more important. The ever-changing application of electronic products and the rise of environmental protection, green and energy-saving demands also put forward higher requirements for power IC, which gives birth to the demand of a new generation of power management IC with high integration, high performance and high energy efficiency, which has become the eternal mission of power management IC manufacturers.
power IC needs "up position"
according to iSuppli, the market of power management IC is expected to reach 38.7 billion US dollars in 2016. Consumer electronics, network communication and mobile Internet are the main application markets, and automotive electronics and new energy are also gradually developing. Under the effect of application drive and technological progress, the technical requirements for power IC are also increasing. Moreover, with the continuous innovation of applications, the market of power IC also presents diversified demand and application differentiation, and the market demand of more high-performance power IC is also deepening and expanding, so as to better serve system innovation and performance improvement.
on the one hand, with the continuous upgrading of semiconductor technology, the chips and components on PCB have higher functions, faster operation speed and smaller size, which drives the power management IC to provide lower and more accurate nuclear power voltage, larger power supply current, more strict voltage feedback accuracy and higher efficiency performance. On the other hand, the application field of power management IC continues to expand and deepen, achieving better control functions, more intelligent control loops, faster dynamic response characteristics, and more simplified peripheral layout design are "indispensable". If the power management IC wants to be able to take it, it needs to face these problems.
Mark Davidson, marketing director of Altera's power business unit, said that in order to help customers solve these challenges and simplify design, digital, modular and intelligent power IC are inevitable.
Taking FPGA customers as an example, power management has increasingly become a strategic competitive advantage, especially in the fields of communication, computing and industrial applications, he said. With the continuous development of FPGA and SOC, designers add a large number of mixed signal functions in the next generation embedded system, and achieve the system level performance that can not be achieved before. How to power the FPGA with more and more functions, higher performance and more advanced technology is really a very challenging problem. For example, the FPGA with 14nm technology will have higher performance, and correspondingly higher performance power supply will be needed to match it. Moreover, the 14 nm FPGA has more stringent requirements on power supply and higher precision of power supply. If the voltage range exceeds the requirements of the specification, FPGA may fail or even burn out.
Deep analysis of three trends of power management IC
Three trends of power management IC
this also means that designers must find the best combination point between strict FPGA power rail requirements, system power consumption and cooling budget constraints, building robust and reliable systems, meeting budget requirements, completing their projects on time, and fully meeting the functional and performance requirements of their circuit boards and systems.
digital power supply stimulates vitality
In order to cope with this market trend, the major power management IC manufacturers are lining up their forces, and digital power supply has become their "trick". With the great advantages of flexibility, rapid response, high integration and highly controllable, digital power supply has shown a strong development momentum.
According to the report of IMS research of IHS, the global digital power market revenue is expected to increase to $12.4 billion in 2017, and the digital power IC market will reach $2.6 billion. The digital power supply market is dominated by the application of servers and communication equipment, while expanding to other application fields, or like a prairie fire.
Pol converters generally provide voltage for low voltage, high current digital loads (such as FPGA, microprocessor, DSP and other digital circuits with extremely high dynamic characteristics). It is more and more difficult to keep the voltage at about 1V and to meet the load transient requirement of nearly 200A / NS by using pure analog control technology. Some digital controllers can provide functions that are difficult to implement in similar analog ICs, such as nonlinear control. In fact, almost all pol digital controllers contain different control techniques designed to improve transient response. These special control algorithms constitute the threshold for traditional analog power companies to enter digital power development. If the power supply uses digital core to realize the control loop, it can meet the extremely harsh transient requirements, achieve extremely low ripple voltage, and achieve extremely high precision voltage regulation in the range of output voltage. At the same time, it can support pmbus communication interface and realize remote and accurate monitoring of current, voltage and temperature.
digital power supply has injected new vitality into the field of power supply design, and also put forward higher requirements for power management IC manufacturers. It is understood that, on the one hand, power management IC manufacturers should not only provide a series of integrated design solutions, but also provide a full range of high, medium and low-end products; secondly, they also need a full set of digital power development tools, including hardware and graphical interface (GUI); finally, they can create complete solutions by obtaining relevant peripheral components such as power train. On the other hand, if the digital power IC manufacturers "fight alone" again, it is obvious that they have "insufficient strength"
