ROHM’s New High Efficiency System Power Supply IC for Car Audio Applications

ROHM’s New High Efficiency System Power Supply IC for Car Audio Applications

Optimized configuration reduces power consumption by 65% over conventional solutions

To meet the expanding needs of the car audio market for multifunction power supplies, ROHM developed a system power supply IC that features the lowest power consumption in the industry. The BD49101AEFS-M leverages ROHM’s expertise in car audio power system design to achieve an optimized system based on a high-efficiency DC/DC converter. As a result, power consumption is reduced by 65%, from 13.3W with ROHM’s conventional products to an industry-leading 4.66W.

Suppressing heat generation makes it possible to adopt a surface mount package without requiring an external heat sink, simplifying thermal designs considerably while contributing to greater space savings. In addition, integrating all system power supplies required for car audio systems on a single chip – including for USB with a cable impedance function – contributes to a lighter design load.

In recent years, along with the continued computerization comes a greater need for reducing power consumption and improving fuel consumption in vehicles. However, at the same time the growing demand for power consumption to meet the expanding functionality of car infotainment systems (i.e USB and Bluetooth) is becoming of increased concern. And conventional car audio system power supply ICs, although are generally easy to design, often are centered around a linear regulator which suffers from poor efficiency, reducing the operating efficiency of the entire system. In response, ROHM’s DC/DC converter-based system power supply IC provides much greater efficiency, enabling support for the latest high-performance car audio systems.

Product Features

1. Industry-low operating power with minimal standby current

During Normal Operation
Typically, high-efficiency DC/DC converters require many external parts, leading to increased costs along with larger mounting area. In contrast, ROHM conducted a thorough review of the entire system and optimally combined a DC/DC converter and linear regulator in order to minimize the dual converter design and improve efficiency while reducing costs. As a result, power consumption of the entire system during operation is reduced to industry-low levels.

During Standby
In DC/DC converters, because efficiency drops when the load current deceases (i.e. during standby), the BD49101AEFS-M integrates a low-current linear regulator dedicated for continuously powering the MCU. During standby operation the IC switches from the DC/DC converter to the linear regulator, reducing quiescent current that flows when the engine is idle to 100uA (typ.).

2. Space-saving surface mount package

The optimized DC/DC converter-based configuration suppresses heat generation and makes it possible to offer the BD49101AEFS-M in a compact surface-mount package with small backside heatsink. This eliminates the need for thermal countermeasures and results in 14x less volume compared with conventional products.

3. Power supply for USB integrates a cable impedance compensation function