IDT Innovates

Author:
Reported by Cliff Keys, Editor-in-Chief, Power Systems Design

Date
09/18/2010

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Making design-in simple:

I had the pleasure of talking with Casey Springer, Senior Product Marketing Engineer who is based at the company's HQ in San Jose, California. IDT celebrates its 30 year anniversary in the provision of mixed signal semiconductor solutions and has design, manufacturing and sales facilities throughout the world. Casey talked about IDT's newest, highly integrated total power management IC with built-in CPU making it deal for portable consumer applications. Integrated Device Technology, Inc. is a leading provider of essential mixed signal semiconductor solutions that enrich the digital media experience. What I found initially encouraging was that the company reinvests over $140M year in R&D, a reassuring investment that has resulted in over 900 patents to be founded.

IDT announced a highly integrated microcontroller-based Intelligent System Power Management Solution targeted for portable consumer products, such as Smartphones, portable navigation devices, mobile Internet devices and eBooks. The company has channeled its engineering talent to integrate the vitally-important power management function building on its considerable silicon heritage to add value to its core technologies. The trend in portable devices is for continuous growth in for example, Smartphone, portable navigation, portable gaming, MID and eBook, with many more about to launch into this potentially lucrative market. Common expectations and requirements are:

  • More connectivity and functionality (Bluetooth, GPS, WiFi, Mobile TV …)
  • Emphasis on audio quality with new classes of mobile phones, such as Multimedia and Music phones and MP3, stereo capability in numerous systems
  • Emphasis on user interface with touch screen now a common and well accepted feature
  • Rapid product lifecycles: Currently 9-18 months prime market life with just 3-6 months development cycle
But in this crowded market it is important for IDT not only to meet these requirements and consumer expectations but to exceed them and to differentiate by adding more features such as:
  • Better audio fidelity, loudness, high-efficiency audio amp
  • More integration
  • Longer battery life
  • Smaller form factor
  • Modular platform approach
IDT has researched the market and observed that current audio and power regulation (PMIC) solutions lack the flexibility, programmability and intelligence to address all of these challenges. The result of the company's creative engineering has resulted in its latest product launch into this tough market with the introduction of the P95020 Embedded Mixed-Signal Controller.

The unique architecture of the IDT P95020 features a best-in-class high-fidelity audio subsystem, clock generation, resistive touch controller, backlight LED driver, Li+/Polymer battery charger, multi-channel DC-to-DC converters and a high resolution analog-to-digital converter (ADC).

By embedding a microcontroller, the IDT P95020 offers full programmability and flexibility into designs using leading multimedia application processors. All of the functional blocks can be accessed via I2C and programmable regulators, satisfying the dynamic voltage adjustment required by application processors. Casey explained further, "The IDT P95020's innovative architecture, with an embedded CPU, can manage all on-chip resources and also offload general housekeeping and I/O processing tasks from the application processor. This unique feature, along with programmable system power regulation blocks and an on-chip power management scheme, results in higher system performance and longer battery life. Building around the IDT digital heritage combined with leadership in high-performance silicon timing, PC audio codec excellence and integration of newly developed high-performance mixed-signal mega blocks, the IDT P95020 is the first in a series of next-generation Intelligent System Power Management solutions being developed by IDT as part of its mixed-signal SoC growth strategy." The IDT P95020 is the latest generation of cost-effective, customizable Power Management Integrated Circuits (PMIC) that provide optimum performance, functionality, programmability and flexibility to the system designer of portable consumer applications. Its subsystems consist of multiple switch-mode DC-to-DC converters and low-dropout (LDO) regulators, battery charge management, white LED drivers, low-power stereo audio and voice codecs with a mixer function, Class-D amplifier and headphone driver, a PLL for on-chip and off-chip clock generation, and a touch-screen controller. The embedded CPU utilizes on-board system management resources, such as instrumentation SAR 12-bit ADC and a real-time clock to provide optimum flexibility while reducing overall system power dissipation. The IDT P95020 PMIC is the first of its kind to integrate all the system power regulation and management functions along with human interface subsystems, such as audio and touch user interfaces.

To help customers design their next-generation devices using the IDT P95020, IDT provides evaluation kits, pre-defined sample scripts and the IDT GUI-based scripting tool.

The IDT P95020 is currently sampling to qualified customers and is available in a 10mm x 10mm, 132-pin QFN package and a 7mm x 7mm WCSP package. The IDT P95020 is priced at $3.72 for 10,000 units. Additional information about IDT is accessible at www.IDT.com Follow IDT on Twitter and Facebook

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