Powering Automotive Cockpit Electronics
The growth of automotive cockpit electronics has exploded over the past decade. Previously, self-contained systems such as steering, braking, traction, and other safety devices, along with entertainment equipment and navigation aids, have evolved into integrated infotainment systems, increasingly overlaid with advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). The latter in particular have become the latest consumer “must-have” and a point of differentiation that’s helping car salesmen ratchet the buyer up the price ladder. And the evolution doesn’t stop here; these systems are the first stepping-stones toward driverless cars.
What differentiates these much more sophisticated systems is the processing power they employ. For example, smart forward looking cameras use DSPs to analyze their images, while infotainment head units and instrument cluster displays feature GPUs, SOCs and FPGAs to implement specific functions.
All of these processors, logic devices, memory and interface circuits demand point-of-load (POL) power at ever-lower voltages and higher currents. Figure 1 shows an electronic control unit’s typical power tree. The car battery commonly specifies a full operation range from 9V to 18V, with short transients that can exceed 40V and dip below 5V DC. The varying load needs of entry level to luxury cars require flexible solutions provided by secondary rail POL buck regulators that can deliver higher current power supply regulation at lower voltages.
There are many different ways to implement a buck regulator. In order to determine which solution delivers the performance and features needed for a given requirement, it is important for system designers to understand the architectural choices that lie behind the various IC designs. This article examines the asynchronous buck versus synchronous buck configuration. It also reviews the tradeoffs between the N-channel or P-channel transistors used for the switches in a synchronous buck configuration. A family of fully optimized 3A, 4A and 5A sync buck regulators is highlighted, and their wettable flank thin quad flat no-lead (WFQFN) package is examined.
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Application note & Design Guide |
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Please see the document for details |
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English Chinese Chinese and English Japanese |
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2017/07/10 |
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534 KB |
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