New Industry Products

Power Management IC for i.MX 8M Application Processor Family

April 15, 2020 by Paul Shepard

The PCA9450 from NXP Semiconductors is a single chip Power Management IC (PMIC) specifically designed to support the company’s i.MX 8M family processors in both 1-cell Li-ion and Li-polymer battery portable application and 5V adapter non-portable applications. It supports various memory types (DDR4/LPDDR4/DDR3L, etc.) via system UBOOT configuration, which does not require hardware change. Applications are expected to include:

  • IoT Devices
  • Tablet Computers
  • Electronic Point of Sale (ePOS)
  • Industrial applications

The device provides six high efficiency step-down regulators, five LDOs, one 400mA load switch, 2-channel level translator and 32.768kHz crystal oscillator driver. Three buck regulators support Dynamic Voltage Scaling (DVS) feature along with programmable ramping up and down time and those buck regulators support remote sense to compensate IR drop to load from buck regulator. This device is characterized across -40°C to 105°C ambient temperature range.

Six step-down regulators are designed to provide power for i.MX 8M application processor and DRAM memory. Two LDOs, LDO1 and LDO2, feature very low quiescent current to provide power for Secure Non-Volatile Storage (SNVS) since these LDOs are always ON when input voltage is valid.

PCA9450 integrates logic translator which is a 2-bit, dual supply translating transceiver with auto direction sensing. It enables bidirectional voltage level translation. It can be used as I2C level translator. 400mA load switch is to supply 3.3V power supply to SD card, which has internal discharge resistor.

PCA9450 has three versions: PCA9450A is companion PMIC for (i.MX 8M Mini), PCA9450B is companion PMIC for i.MX 8M Nano and PCA9450C is companion PMIC for i.MX 8M Plus.

The PCA9450 is offered in 56-pin HVQFN package, 7mm x 7mm, 0.4mm pitch.

Features and benefits

  • Six high-efficiency step-down regulators
    • Three 3A buck regulators with DVS feature and remote sense
      • PCA9450A – Three 3A buck regulators
      • PCA9450B – Two 3A buck regulators
      • PCA9450C – 6A dual-phase buck regulator and 3A buck regulator
    • One 3A buck regulator
    • Two 2A buck regulators
    • Five linear regulators
      • Two 10mA LDOs
      • One 150mA LDO
      • One 200mA LDO
      • One 300mA LDO
    • Support various memory types: DDR4/LPDDR4/DDR3L via system UBOOT configuration, no hardware change required
    • 400mA load switch with built-in active discharge resistor
    • 768kHz crystal oscillator driver and buffer output
    • Two channel logic level translator
    • Power control IO
      • Power ON/OFF control
      • Standby/run mode control
    • Fm+ 1MHz I2C-bus interface
    • ESD protection
      • Human Body Model (HBM): +/-2000V
      • Charged Device Model (CDM): +/-500V
    • 7mm x 7mm, 56-pin HVQFN with 0.4mm pitch