Professional Documents
Culture Documents
| Calibration
Relating measurements to the physical phenomenon
Can dramatically increase manufacturing costs
| Nonlinearity
Measurements may not be proportional to physical phenomenon
Correction may be required
Feedback can be used to keep operating point in the linear region
| Sampling
Aliasing
Missed events
| Noise
Analog signal conditioning
Digital filtering
Introduces latency
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Power Supply Design – Models
Considering wall power and batteries as the primary power sources, an embedded system could be
powered in any one of the following models:
Wall powered
Wall powered with battery backup
Primarily battery backed up
Fully battery powered
These devices operate fully on power supply available from wall power. They typically consume
more power and work in tandem with systems that consumes a lot of power, that they are redundant
when the underlying system could not be powered on. Many of the devices in use fall under this
category including medical devices, industrial systems etc.
These classes of devices are very similar to above case but will have a limited power backup using
batteries. This backup is useful to properly shutdown the system and to store the system
configuration and acquired values safely till full power is back.
The most common example of these devices is mobile phones. They are designed to work primarily
with battery power supply. Whenever needed the system can be charged back. It incorporates a full-
fledged battery charging and managing circuitry.
These devices are designed to work only from battery supply that does not have a charging
mechanism. These batteries have to be externally charged or non-rechargeable batteries used.
Apart from these, there are many power sources being used in embedded systems including photo-
voltaic – solar power, etc. With the upcoming wearable computing becoming a trend, the power
supplies include generating from unconventional sources like audio jack of smart phone,
human/mechanical movements or even body heat etc.
The DC power input from the wall socket is used to power the system. If the wall power is absent,
the battery powers the system. The Power path controller is used to route the power from preferable
source. The power conditioning circuit finally supplies to the load at the required voltage and current.
Battery monitoring and charger circuit is necessary for managing the battery.
In the upcoming sections, we will discuss about the major components involved in power supply
design.
The voltage supplied by the wall power should be more enough to satisfy the input voltage
requirement of the power conditioning circuit usually comprising of linear or SMPS regulators. Also
if the power supply system incorporates battery charging, then the voltage requirement of the battery
charger should be taken into account.
Current consumption of the system should be carefully estimated before selecting the wall adapter.
The efficiency of the regulators in the power conditioning circuitry should also be taken into account.
The wall adapter with current rating more than the estimated amount should be chosen for proper
working to allow unexpected surges. And quality of the COTS power supply is important as many
low power supplies inject a large amount of noise as well as not able to provide voltage levels across
rated current ratings.
Battery
Batteries are devices that store electrical energy in form of chemical energy and reconvert to DC
current at the time of usage. The primary design consideration in using a battery in embedded design
is its Capacity. The capacity of a battery is defined by the amount of electric charge it can supply at
the rated voltage and temperature, generally measured as Ampere/Hour. For example, a 1000mA/h
Lithium-Ion battery can deliver 1A current over a period of 1 hour without any drop below 3.6V, at
room temperature.
While the capacity defines the amount of charge the battery stores, it does not defines how fast this
stored charge can be used. For this, Charging rate or the C-rate is used as the important measure of
the charge and discharge current of a battery. A charge rate of 1C implies that the battery can be
discharged at the rated current in 1 hour while a 2C implies that the capacity can be utilized in even
30 minutes. So a 1000mA/h battery if rated at 1C, can deliver 1A in 1 hour, at 2C can deliver 2A in
30 min and at 0.5C can only deliver 500mA over 2 hours.
Another factor in battery selection is the self discharge rate. The batteries loose a certain amount of
charge even without being used. So charge interval requirements of the application should be
considered for the design.
Batteries are available in different chemistries which are suitable for difference operating conditions.
The most commonly used chemistries are as follows,
Lithium-Ion
One of the most used technologies, Li-ion is used where high-energy density and lightweight is of
prime importance. The technology is fragile and a protection circuit is required to assure safety.
The nominal cell voltage is 3.6V with nominal load current at 1C. No periodic discharge is needed,
hence it requires less maintenance. Self-discharge is less than half that of NiCd and NiMH. It is more
costly than the other battery technologies. Applications include notebook computers and cellular
phones.
Nickel Cadmium
NiCd is used where long life, high discharge rate and economical price are important. Has relatively
high self-discharge hence they require recharge after storage. The nominal cell voltage is 1.25V. Best
result is obtained at load current at 1C. Many standard NiCd batteries allow peak current discharge to
20C. Main applications are two-way radios, biomedical equipment, professional video cameras and
power tools. The NiCd contains toxic metals and is environmentally unfriendly.
NiMh has a higher energy density compared to the NiCd at the expense of reduced cycle life. It
contains no toxic metals. The nominal cell voltage is 1.25V. Best result is obtained at load current at
0.5C. 30 – 40 percent higher capacity over a standard NiCd. About 20 percent more expensive than
NiCd. Applications include mobile phones and laptop computers.
Lead acid
Lead acid batteries are most economical for larger power applications where weight is of little
concern. Nominal cell voltage available is 2V per cell. Best result is obtained at load current at 0.2C.
The lead acid battery is the preferred choice for hospital equipment, wheelchairs, emergency lighting
and inverter/UPS systems.
Suitable battery backup voltage corresponding to the regulator requirement can be selected by
connecting the batteries in series. For example, if the power conditioning regulator requires at least
6V to provide fixed 5V, then 5 NiCd/NiMh (5*1.25V) or 2 Li-ion (2*3.7V) or 3-cell (3*2V) Lead
acid battery can be connected in series.
For a detailed analysis of battery technologies, kindly refer to the Ivan Cowie blog on batteries.
The charge current should be carefully selected. While a higher charge current may charge the
battery faster, it will add to input supply requirement if the main load is operating as well. Slower
charge current will need more time that might not suitable for practical purposes. Once again it is a
complex math of usage, battery chemistry, BoM costing etc.
An embedded system consists of many different peripherals that can operate from a wide range of
power supply. So to power the entire system, multiple DC-DC voltage converters are used. Apart
from stepping down the power supply, the regulators also minimizes the power supply noise and
provides protection for the embedded system from any possible damages due to fluctuating input
voltages/Electro static discharges.
Linear regulators
Linear regulators use at least one active component like transistor and require a higher input voltage
than the output. Typically they accept the load current at the higher DC input voltage, reduces the
voltage and delivers the current to the load at reduced voltage. They are very popular due to its small
size, less noise and cheaper. They provide clean output voltage with low noise. But since they
dissipate the extra power as heat, they generate a lot of heat which must be dissipated using bulky
heat sink. And with conversion to this unusable heat, they have low efficiency when compared to
switching regulators.
Switching regulators
Unlike the linear regulators, the switching regulator can step up, step down or invert the input
voltage. They work by transferring energy in discrete packets from the input voltage source to the
output. This is carried out with the help of an electrical switches usually MOSFET. In order to
transfer the energy from input to the output they use inductors or capacitors. They deliver the power
to the system upon requirement and hence they waste less power. So they are very much efficient
than linear regulators and can typically have 85% efficiency. Since their efficiency is less dependent
on input voltage, they can power useful loads from higher voltage sources. Switch-mode regulators
are used in devices like portable phones, video game platforms, robots, digital cameras, and
computers.
The drawback is that, they operate in high switching frequency which leads to more noise than linear
regulators. Also they require more components which lead to more cost, more space and more
complex circuit too.
Embien Technologies has rich experience in designing various embedded system. Kindly contact us
for your requirements of system design or for solving any issues in your design.