Issue link: https://resources.mouser.com/i/1442844
8 Powering Up Your Design consumer electronics, it's largely about maximizing run time and battery life along with small packaging, but ultra-small might not be user-friendly. For wearables, priorities include low quiescent current, high efficiency, and super-compact form factors. For these reasons, a good PMIC begins with an array of buck, boost, and LDO converters matched to application needs. For more advanced situations and enhanced performance, designers benefit from PMICs that provide the DC rails and allow the designer to customize the PMIC's performance specifics to match the application priorities. These PMICs also are compatible with the design reality of inevitable and unavoidable decisions regarding trade-offs. Assessing and satisfying these conflicts is an inherent part of the designer's challenge. Applications Drive the Need for PMICs Every electronic product has a power supply and one or more DC rails. Although many applications have somewhat similar priorities, it's the ranking of these priorities and their relative weighting that differentiates them. No single PMIC solution will be optimal for all cases in terms of individual DC rail management and relationships, timing, and operational mandates between these rails. For example, Internet of Things (IoT) devices for sensing and actuation might be in a near-continuous power-up state, remotely located, and battery-operated or using some form of energy harvesting. Because the multiple IoT devices at a given facility (office, factory) are located remotely, long- term consistency in performance is critical. In contrast, for Figure 2: The Qorvo ACT81460 is a highly integrated, low-power multi-rail PMIC that requires no external active components for operation. (Source: Qorvo).