Wearable PMIC Evaluation Board
Rutronik is stocking an evaluation board for a power management IC (PMIC) for wearables.
The IC, Nordic Semiconductor’s nPM1304, has a 4 – 100mA linear battery charger with programmable termination voltage, and four power outputs via two 200mA dc-dc converters and two 50mA LDOs – the LDOs can also be set-up as 100mA load switches.
“nPM1304 is configurable via an I2C-compatible two-wire interface,” according to Rutronik. “This interface provides access to features including integrated hard reset functionality for one or two buttons, battery fuel gauge, system-level watchdog, power failure warning and recovery after a failed boot.” (Fuel gauging is via an external algorithm – more below)
The development kit, nPM1304-EK, has USB-C power and data connections, and allows configuration via an associated GUI-based desktop app.
All IC pads are accessible via male headers, and integrated LEDs and push buttons allow evaluation of the IC’s LED drivers and GPIOs.
A 20mAh battery is included, and JST battery connectors are provided for other batteries with or without NTC temperature sensors.
“For initial evaluation of the fuel gauging capabilities within the nPM1304, users may use one of the pre-profiled battery models included [in the desktop app],” according to Nordic. “The fuel gauge solution relies on a battery model for best state-of-charge accuracy. Profiling your battery and generating a battery model is a one-time effort, and the nPM1304 EK contains the programmable load circuitry required.”
The model uses voltage, current and temperature information from the power management IC, and is intended to run on Nordic’s wireless MCU ICs, but can run on others.
Find the nPM1304 evaluation kit on this Rutronik web page.
