Smart Power Management Solutions Simplify Portable Consumer Electronics

The need to incorporate a large number of functions into a single device highlights not only the requirement for increased integration to reduce the size but also the need for a programmable power management solution to support the needs of processors, system memory, and other external components (such as WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS) for a variety of applications. Today, many power management solutions operate optimally for application-specific processors and can make the design of individual systems easier. However, many OEMs developing multiple products for different geographic and population needs can benefit from a more flexible and highly integrated solution that can be reused across multiple platforms with different application processors.

The latest products (such as the IDTP95020 intelligent system power management solution) achieve such flexibility by using a unique architecture that includes an embedded microcontroller. The embedded microcontroller is used to manage all on-chip resources and supports a dynamically programmable system power regulation module and an on-chip power management mechanism, which makes the solution extremely flexible. In addition to programmable switch-mode DC-DC converters and low-voltage dropout (LDO) regulators, the IDTP95020 integrates battery charging management, white LED drivers, low-power stereo audio and voice codecs with mixer functionality, Class D amplifiers, and headphone drivers, phase-locked loops (PLLs) for on-chip and off-chip clock generators, and a touchscreen controller (see Figure 1). Each of these function blocks is fully programmable and can be controlled by the embedded microcontroller through predefined script sequences loaded into internal memory or external EEPROM. This allows the IDTP95020 to operate autonomously from the application processor, thus reducing the need to handle day-to-day transactions and real-time event monitoring. The IDTP95020 also allows the processor to control its function modules by writing to registers through one of two I2C interfaces.

This flexibility and programmability not only allows the IDT P95020 to meet the dynamic voltage tuning required by a variety of application processors but also enables designers to quickly modify the power management solution to meet the different peripheral requirements of their product portfolio. The ability to reuse the solution across multiple products not only significantly reduces the design resources required to complete these projects but also helps bring these products to market faster. In addition, reusable power management solutions help simplify procurement and inventory management.

IDTP95020 Intelligent Power Management Solution

System-Level Impact of Complex User Interfaces

Touchscreens have quickly moved from a luxury feature to a standard feature used in a variety of consumer products. With an intelligent power management solution like the IDTP9502 that integrates a touchscreen controller and white LED driver, designers are able to quickly and easily add this functionality without the use of multiple discrete components, which also helps reduce the burden on the application processor and lowers system power consumption. By shifting the need to monitor touch screens, buttons, and other user inputs from the application processor to an intelligent system power management solution, the application processor can focus its high-performance processing power on more value-added functions or spend more time in idle or full standby mode to reduce overall system power consumption. The IDTP95020 can also take over the control of white LED backlighting from the application processor requirements. With an integrated white LED driver and touchscreen controller and the use of a 12-bit ADC to monitor the performance of other analog system measurements, the IDTP95020 can wake up the display or control its brightness without the use of an application processor.

Integrated Codecs Simplify Audio Processing

In many portable applications, especially those based on discrete application processors and baseband processors, there will be multiple audio inputs and outputs to blend and tune. This makes a centralized audio mixer a new requirement, and in many architectures, it is the application processor that performs this function. However, since mixing is a CPU-intensive operation, this can place a heavy burden on the application processor resources and lead to excessive power consumption. Intelligent system power management solutions using embedded audio codecs offer a better approach. By taking over the mixing operations of the application processor, an integrated power management solution such as the IDTP95020 can reduce the processing burden on the application process so that these resources can be used for other functions or to put the processor into a low-power standby state to reduce system power consumption.

Development Environment

While a fully programmable, intelligent power management solution provides designers with great integration and flexibility, it also requires the creation of user-defined power sequencing and scripts to respond to various interrupts and events. To make sure that the creation of these sequences and scripts doesn't adversely affect time-to-market, any power management solution needs to be developed in a robust development environment. Once the designer has completed these script files, the tool can load them directly into the EEPROM on the evaluation board.

Making Power Management a Strategic Decision

In the past, power management has been one of the last considerations in the design of many portable consumer applications. While this approach has always served designers well, the choice of power management solution has become more important due to the increasing complexity of portable consumer electronics devices and the need to incorporate features while maximizing battery life. The advancement of intelligent system power management solutions (such as the IDTP95020) now has the accessibility for designers to make strategic decisions to suit a more flexible, highly integrated solution that can be used across multiple product platforms and multiple generations of products. This decision can reduce the design resources required to develop multiple products and shorten time-to-market while also helping to optimize system performance and power consumption.