Power Management IC is imminent future of the four major market trends analysis

As smart phones, tablet PCs and other portable devices large number of applications , power management techniques are more and more attention, but it also brings new challenges. It is understood that many types of power management IC products , including LDO, DC-DC, Driver and PMU and so on. In recent years, along with mobile phones and other devices to enhance the power management requirements , a number of discrete power management chip, such as LDO, DC-DC , etc. , have been integrated into the Power Management Unit (PMU) in .

Power Management IC will erupt in many fields

Topology Research Institute research manager Yongjian noted that in 2013 China 's IC market will be the biggest highlight of the high-performance low -power processors , wireless communications, power management, and high-speed mass storage chip. According to market research agency IHSiSuppli expected power management IC market in 2013 will reach 32.2 billion U.S. dollars , an increase of 7.6%. The next three years , the market will maintain moderate growth in 2016 revenue is expected to reach $ 38.7 billion . Including consumer electronics, network communications, mobile Internet field are currently the most important market , automotive electronics, new energy field have begun to gradually force .

In the recent global resources organized IICChina2013 on many local Chinese Fabless to have released their own power management IC products. With the gradual expansion panel applications , including Richtek , Zhixin and other Taiwan-based panel manufacturers have increased market layout , creating the northern continent set to launch a product for display panel PMU 9101A, you can achieve the " three screens " one solutions. BYD brought IGBT, current sensors and other products. According to reports, BYD's AC-DC products in Samsung, Nokia , Huawei and other widely used cell phone chargers , the current monthly shipments were 15 million or so. BYD Company Limited assistant general manager Wei Yong said that 2013 is the electric car the first year of full force , with the outbreak of BYD electric cars this year , the turnover of the relevant power management IC has a very big improvement impetus.

Yu- Tai Technology is focused on the introduction of smart meters is applied to the input buck chip ETA2821 and 2841 , the sector is currently basically MPS, TI manufacturers in Europe and America to do so . Gan Ge said that the device has the advantage of small size , high efficiency , voltage can reach 42V, operating voltage range is very wide. 42V voltage value makes this range of products ideally suited for industrial grade electronic applications . In addition to smart meters, you can also use the LED driver , car charger and other fields.

Charging current upgrade quickly , two amps products into the mainstream

According to the author from the IIC show to see several products , you can see the current power management chip is showing several major technology trends. As the mobile terminal 's screen bigger and bigger, more and more powerful , which means increasing demands on the battery , the battery life to be longer , power consumption and heat to as low as possible .

How to achieve the above requirements ?

Over the past 500 mA charge current was not enough , and now the phone has appeared 1 Amp charging current , while the Tablet PC has emerged to 2 Amps trends. Yu- Tai Technology unveiled the industry 's first charging current of 3 amperes switching charging chip ETA6003. This product features intelligent dynamic path management capabilities , in addition to smart devices connected to the charger after full load of work , but also give the device connected to the charger when the battery is exhausted in the case of normal operation.

Yu-tai , general manager Gan Ge said, because now tablet PCs , smart phones charging time is relatively long, while the USB recently charging current is relatively small , and now hundreds of thousands mAh battery . With this switch , the switch compared with the conventional linear savings of at least 50% of the charging time , but also greatly reduce the overall heat and power .

"In addition to excellent resistance 50mOhm path management can extend the battery life and efficient switch -type charging device during charging to avoid temperature rises summary , and let the device users get a good experience ." Gan Ge also said that if the current output greater , peripheral devices can be smaller , PCB volume will be smaller .

Processor " nuclear war " Promoting Intelligent Power Management Requirements

Mobile terminal multi-core power management also put forward new requirements.

In 2012 Cortex-A9 became standard after the high-end mobile phone chip , Cortex-A15 architecture naturally become the 2013 high-end phones essential goods. Affected by this, based on Cortex-A15 processor , battery-powered applications are starting to be a lot of launch .

Recently Texas Instruments (TI) based on Cortex-A9 and Cortex-A15 processor, battery-powered applications , introduced the industry's first single-chip front-end power management unit TPS65090. TI said the product of a highly integrated switching PowerPath 4A charger, 3 5ADC-DC buck converter, seven load switch , two normally open LDO and a 10-channel analog to digital converter (ADC). Compared with the use of discrete IC can be dropped 60 percent board space . According to TI , TPS65090 can maximize power efficiency, compared with discrete solutions , electronic products can extend the battery life by 20%.

With the increasing use of mobile terminals multicore processors , increasingly high demand for energy , ETASolutions multi-core platform for the development of intelligent power management chip ETA1459, through smart regulation , which allows the system to meet the full load application environment , while the output voltage can be dynamically adjusted to save energy .

" Unlike previous DC-DC difference is that , ETA1459 can communicate with these cores , so that you can implement intelligent , such as watching movies finished, power chip will reduce the power load , If you look at movies, play games will put the power adjust up, which can achieve smart regulation . " Gan Ge representation .

PMU integrated and discrete devices will exist for a long

In addition to charging current increases, the " multi-core " of the rising demand , the integrated semiconductor products is a major trend in the development of the power management chip is no exception. Among them, the most obvious example is the PMU products. A PMU may integrates multiple LDO and DC-DC and other products, can achieve a variety of power management management, integration trend is most obvious examples.

With mobile terminals more integrated master chip , designers tend to choose a variety of functions integrated chipset plus master MPU, to help simplify the design . But that does not mean that no future development after discretes it.

"Many Clients Why PMU? Because there is a lot of functions are not single device , if each discrete devices can implement these functions , it is possible to compete with the PMU ." Gan Ge believes that integration does not solve all problem , a PMU often only for certain types of applications , or even a product, from a certain point of view somewhat similar ASSP ( application specific standard products ) , not as good as its extended application of discrete solutions, and discrete solution can be chosen based on the most suitable for power management chip that can achieve the highest energy efficiency , as discrete and integrated their own advantages , therefore , integrated and discrete solutions will always persist .

Furthermore , PMU drawback is its high cost, poor flexibility . For many customers, once with a PMU , it will tie up with this client , because there is no second choice. "In fact, discrete devices is not bad, if manufacturers can do to lower costs , greater flexibility , customers will be more willing to choose discrete devices , because there Secondsources, also in the bargaining advantage ." Wei Yong believes that for so many years to power Management AC-DC or AC-DC topology structure and no change in the nature , integrating it a lot of time through the process , or DIESIZE increases to accomplish such a single-chip does not necessarily have an advantage in terms of cost .

Fabless wafer manufacturing capacity to grasp an advantage

From a global power management IC market share point of view, European companies still have greater technical and market advantages, but Taiwan and mainland manufacturers are catching up .