Many of today’s wireless ICs have embedded DC/DC converters instead of LDO regulators to reduce the power consumption of the ICs. Mainstream inductor-based DC/DC converters require an inductor that is bulky and expensive but produce a continuous conversion ratio. Whereas, capacitor-based DC/DC converters offer a compact, low cost module with high efficiency in a limited input and output voltage range, since they are based on a discrete conversion ratio. Conventionally this problem is solved by connecting multiple switched-capacitor units in series, but this incurs an efficiency penalty.
Toshiba’s unified switched-capacitor topology is said to feature three capacitors and a multiple switch control architecture that achieves multiple conversion ratios. It also supports auto-configured step-up and step-down power conversions, and can provide two channels of regulated output voltages.
Toshiba will continue to research this technology toward providing lower-cost and thinner wireless device modules, and plans to use the switched-capacitor in a low-power wireless IC slated to be released in 2019.
