In automotive PMIC applications, who is the strongest?

The automotive PMIC chip market is entering a period of rapid growth.

PMIC is the abbreviation of Power management IC, which is a power management integrated circuit . Its main function is to provide stable and efficient power management functions for electronic devices . In electronic equipment systems, PMIC chips are responsible for the conversion, distribution, detection and other power management of electric energy, and are the power supply heart of all electronic devices. Its performance has a direct impact on the energy consumption, performance and reliability of the entire machine. If PMIC fails, it will directly affect the operation of electronic equipment and even cause damage to the equipment itself. Therefore, the role of PMIC is no less than that of MCU . It is the most widely used chip. PMIC exists in almost all electronic devices.

01. Automotive Application Scenarios of PMIC

From the perspective of application areas, driven by electrification and automation, the automotive field has become the fastest growing field of the entire PMIC, with a compound annual growth rate of 9%. Yole predicts that electric vehicles will account for 30% of the automotive market by 2026 , and power management chips will further accelerate their growth driven by electric vehicles. In addition, Yole also predicts that by 2026, all passenger cars and 80% of small commercial vehicles will be equipped with at least Level 1 ADAS , which will greatly increase the demand for multi-channel power management chips.

Automotive-grade PMICs are an opportunity for domestic PMIC manufacturers. Innovative new electronic devices are fundamentally changing every aspect of cars and other vehicles, including the driving experience. Applications such as wireless connectivity, telematics, motor control , and safety features are growing, and they all require power management to operate efficiently and reliably. The growing popularity of hybrid and electric vehicles has further promoted the development of the power semiconductor market. In hybrid and electric vehicles, there are many different supply voltages with different output voltages, output currents , efficiency levels, and thermal ratings.

Many of the applications shown in the figure for electric or hybrid vehicles require varying degrees of voltage regulation. Most loads in these applications utilize 12V or 24V supply voltages, but some traction motor applications require higher voltages. All of these applications require efficient step-down, step-up, or step-down to obtain many different stable voltages throughout the vehicle. Therefore, automotive power management chips (PMICs) are widely used in automotive scenarios such as smart cockpits , autonomous driving , body electronics, instrumentation and entertainment systems, lighting systems, and BMS.

02. Automotive PMIC Application Requirements

Take the PMIC in the front camera as an example. The front camera is an important component of the advanced driver assistance system (ADAS), especially in view of the current new car crash test requirements to make automatic emergency braking and front collision avoidance as standard features of the car. The automotive PMIC needs to meet four major requirements before it can be successfully applied.

First, small size solutions. Camera modules with higher resolution and higher frame rates are also a trend. While camera performance is improving, the size of the camera module itself is also shrinking, with a typical size of 18mm x 18mm. In addition, the visual processor in the camera has a dedicated hardware accelerator called a visual processing accelerator . These processors may have artificial intelligence ( AI ) capabilities and come with a dedicated matrix multiplication accelerator to help with deep learning . Given this large amount of processing, the PMIC must be able to meet the current requirements of the processor without increasing the solution size.

Second, functional safety. Functional safety is particularly important because automatic emergency braking and adaptive cruise control involve front cameras. Front camera systems typically have automotive safety integrity level (ASIL) B requirements. This means that the processor's PMIC power supply must be able to meet ASIL B requirements to help achieve overall system-level functional safety requirements.

Third, low cost. It is expected that by 2028, the sales volume of front camera systems will exceed 70 million units, which is a common ADAS application in vehicles. Due to the large number of front cameras used in passenger cars and light commercial vehicles, it is crucial to reduce the cost of camera systems.

Fourth, thermal performance. Since the front camera is located on the vehicle windshield, it is exposed to high temperatures under normal operating conditions. Heat can cause thermal noise and lead to poor image quality. To adapt to various working conditions, thermal performance optimization of the system is critical. Good thermal performance of the PMIC helps keep the circuit board at a low temperature.

03. Automotive PMIC Solutions

SiRuiPu——Highly integrated automotive-grade PMIC chip TPU 25401

Typical application diagram of TPU25401. TPU25401 is released by Si Ruipu, which is designed to power the main control SoC ( system on chip ) in the intelligent cockpit, ADAS and other systems of automobiles. It includes 5 buck converters (BUCK) and 5 linear regulators ( LDO ), with a total current output capacity of more than 22A. The output voltage can be dynamically adjusted from 0.6V to 3.7V, with an adjustment step of 10mV.

The internal nonlinear control has a very fast dynamic load response speed, which is particularly suitable for core digital main chips such as SoC. The flexible configuration characteristics of SiRuiPu TPU25401 solve the disadvantage that traditional PMIC can only adapt to a single platform SoC. According to feedback from SoC partners and related Tier1, TPU25401 can easily adapt to different platform SoCs in the automotive market.

Taking CoreDrive’s smart cockpit SoC X9M platform as an example, only one TPU25401 is needed to meet all the power requirements of the system.

Silicon Labs - Ultra-small PMIC automotive camera solution SA47302

Silergy SA47302 is a power management solution developed based on automotive cameras. It has a wide input voltage of 4.0V to 16V (ABS 18V). It consists of a main DCDC Buck regulator, two secondary DCDC Buck regulators and a high PSRR low noise secondary LDO for powering the sensor , ensuring the stability and reliability of the power system.

The power-on timing of SA47302 is controlled by the SEQ pin high/low voltage level, supporting 2 power sequences of the buck converter and the power-on timing of the LDO. When VIN (PVIN1) is powered on and VIN is above the VIN UVLO_H threshold, the Gate Drive LDO (VCC) of the main Buck converter is turned on, and then the SEQ voltage level detection begins. When all channels complete the soft start and all channel outputs are stable, nReset is pulled high. When VIN is less than the VIN UVLO_F threshold, all outputs except VCC are powered off simultaneously. VCC is continuously turned on to maintain all gate drivers and internal logic normally until VIN drops below 3.6V, thereby protecting the circuit safely and stably.

Howe-Car Camera PMICORX1210

ORX1210 adopts QFN4x4mm2 package , has a wide input voltage range of 4.0V to 18V, and consists of a medium-voltage DCDC Buck regulator, two low-voltage DCDC Buck regulators and a high PSRR low-noise LDO. Among them, the LDO is optimized for the camera's sensitive frequency range (100K~1MHz), which can better suppress the impact of power supply noise on image quality. Flexible power-on timing control ensures stable operation of the system. Supports spread spectrum function to improve the EMI performance of the system. High power efficiency and good heat dissipation performance support the system to work normally at higher ambient temperatures. As the first domestic camera power management chip that supports functional safety ASIL B, it integrates richer functional safety mechanisms, and functional safety meets ASIL B level requirements. At present, this PMIC has accepted samples and will be mass-produced in Q4 2023.

Core Island Technology——Car Camera PMIC SCT61240Q

Xinzhou Technology currently has more than 10 automotive-grade power chip products on the market: LDO, buck converter, boost/boost/flyback controller , MOS tube driver, power protection device, integrated PMIC products, etc. It provides a full range of power solutions for various automotive applications such as smart cockpit/ADAS domain applications, vehicle power domain, body domain, etc. This includes the vehicle camera PMIC SCT61240Q.

Due to the rich variety of image sensors , their power architecture and timing requirements are also quite diverse. In order to shorten the design time of engineers and speed up the product development cycle, PMIC should not only reduce peripheral components and simplify the design, but also provide flexible and adjustable output voltage and timing settings. Potential voltage drop problems of coaxial cables need to be protected in time to avoid signal integrity problems.

In general, high integration, flexible control, and stable and reliable protection functions have become the core performance. SCT61240Q has a wide voltage input range of 4-19V, including one medium voltage DC/DC Buck, two low voltage DC/DC Bucks, and one high PSRR low noise LDO. It can provide a complete power rail for the vehicle camera. Regardless of the design, a single chip can cover the power supply requirements and optimize system flexibility.