Nordic Semiconductor has added one more power management IC (PMIC) to its product portfolio. The nPM6001™ is a dedicated PMIC with six independently-controlled power rails. It is designed to supervise and supply the power requirements of complex IoT hardware incorporating multiple power domains that each require separate voltage regulation. The PMIC can also be used to independently power down each power domain to conserve energy and extend the battery life of the IoT device.
The nPM6001 can be used to power Nordic’s nRF7002 ultra-low power, dual-band Wi-Fi 6 companion IC, and the nRF52 and nRF53 Series ultra-low power wireless Systems-on-Chip (SoCs) in systems with highly partitioned power architectures. Nordic’s nPM1100 PMIC can be used as a complementary device to the nPM6001 to add battery charging to nPM6001-powered applications. Alternatively, the nPM6001 can be used to increase the number of regulated power rails in nPM1100-powered applications from one to seven.
The nPM6001 features four highly-efficient step-down (buck) regulators that can deliver 500, 200, 150 and 150 mA respectively at selectable voltage outputs ranging from 0.7 to 3.3, 2.1, 2.7, or 3.0 V. In addition, two low dropout (LDO) regulators can supply up to 15 mA fixed at 1.8 V, and up to 30 mA selectable between 1.8 and 3.3 V respectively.
The PMIC also incorporates a watchdog timer (WDT) that can be set to time-out between 4 s and 776.7 days in 4 s increments. The WDT resets if not triggered before it times out. The WDT is also used to implement hibernate mode; in this mode, the whole PMIC system—except for a 2 kHz oscillator and a timer—is powered down. Power consumption in hibernate mode is 300 nA typical.