Power management from battery to antenna: Nordic’s intelligent PMIC for low-power wireless SoCs

In another interview from ipXchange at CES 2024, Guy chats with Finn from Nordic Semiconductor about the nPM1300 PMIC, Nordic’s latest solution that ensures the power-saving innovations of its wireless SoCs do not go to waste; though optimised for Nordic’s devices, you can also use the nPM1300 with other SoCs too. 

As Finn explains, the worst thing you can do when designing-in a low-power wireless SoC is putting a bad power management circuit in front of it – it will undermine the whole ‘low-power’ aspect of the design. 

The nPM1300 offers designers an easy-to-use, code-less graphical programming interface for configuring the chip to suit their needs, and in addition to typical PMIC functionality, the nPM1300 includes an algorithm-driven battery fuel gauge that requires less power and provides more flexibility than traditional coulomb counters. This also results in vastly improved accuracy for predicted battery lifetime in non-standard conditions. For end products used in cold or tropical weather, for example, this is extremely useful. 

In addition to faster-acting protections against power loss or brown outs, and much more, this PMIC has GPIOs for 5-V logic, meaning that 3.3-V low-power SoCs can interface with 5-V peripherals using minimal additional circuitry; the nPM1300 handles all that for you, replacing multiple discrete components in existing designs. 

Learn more about this exciting solution and its evaluation board by following the link to the board page below, where you can apply to evaluate the technology for use in a commercial project. 

Keep designing!