DC–DC Converter-Aware Power Management for Low-Power Embedded Systems

Power conversion efficiency characterization and optimization for smartphones

“…The power loss model of a PWM DC-DC converter is wellstudied in [8]. In general, the major sources of power loss in a DC-DC converter are conduction loss, switching loss in the power switches, and controller power loss, denoted by P conduction , P switching , and P controller , respectively.…”

“…Unlike the switching converter in which the MOSFET switches dominate the total power loss, the pass transistor in the LDO has negligible impact on its total power loss [8]. Therefore, the power loss due to internal resistance of the pass transistor is not accounted for in the model.…”

“…Power converters including switching-mode DC-DC converters exhibit different conversion efficiency as a function of the load current [8]. A module is often powered through a set of converters from a battery source as shown in Figure 3.…”

“…Modern DC-DC converters exhibit very high peak conversion efficiency, but their conversion efficiency can drop dramatically due to the operating conditions, i.e., their output current level [8]. In other words, a low overall conversion efficiency of DC-DC converters is mainly due to mismatch between the power converter characteristics and the load demands.…”

“…In particular, we use the DC-DC converter model from [8] and identify coefficients of the equivalent power converter models with the aid of the application profiling tool named Trepn™.…”