ON Semiconductor Introduces a New Integrated DC-DC Converter for Graphic and Core Processor Applications in Portable Electronics

“All the functionality integrated into the NCP6338 eliminates the need for additional power components that would normally be required, thereby reducing the overall bill-of-materials, conserving board space and simplifying the design process,” said Thibault Kassir, director of ON Semiconductor’s Interface and Power IC products. “The NCP6338 configures its output voltage for the actual load thereby optimizing efficiency to ensure battery power is not needlessly wasted. And, by meeting the latest load transient requirements for multi-core Application Processors this converter enables smartphones to match portable game consoles in performance and graphics quality.”



Features and Benefits

The NCP6338 has a programmable output voltage range from 0.6 volts (V) to 1.4 V in 6.25 millivolt (mV) increments while operating down to an input voltage of 2.3 V. It is optimized to supply power to advanced applications processors for portable devices, such as tablets and smartphones.. Using a unique modular output strength drive combined with automatic pulse-width modulation (PWM) and pulse-frequency modulation (PFM), the device can adapt its efficiency performance to the load profile and thus save battery life. Operating modes and output voltage can be set through an I²C serial interface while several combinations can be I/O pin selected for latency free control.



Operating at a 3 megahertz (MHz) switching frequency with a large possible selection of output L-C filters, the design engineer can achieve high regulation performance in a small area; for instance sustaining a 3 A load transient in a window of +/- 40 mV. This is made possible by output voltage differential sensing combined with the high performance core which regulates to within +/- 1% across the entire temperature, load and input voltage ranges.