Sample market analysis report on DC/DC converters

Some sample pages from technology and market analysis report on DC-DC Converters made in the year -2006

Market trends

  Power supply IC market is experiencing one of it's best times. The market can be estimated to be growing at a rate of greater than 25% in 2006. The main driver is switching type DC-DC converters. The vendors releasing new products at the highest rates compared to previous years. The demand for high efficient, power saving, low form-factor and converters - which can handle sudden current loads, are the major factors influencing this market. Few regions in the world are also enforcing laws to keep the power efficiency above 80%. The applications such as portable media players, mobile phones, or any such battery-operated instruments/equipments are demanding high efficient power supply ICs. Even the power line operated equipments including TVs, PCs are also wanted save few watts to reduce the load on utility companies particularly during no-use mode (sleep mode).
To quote an example, each TV is redesigned to save 1 watt of power while it's in active and sleeps mode. In a country like India, which has around 100 million TVs, it will account to Tens of Megawatts of power save. So, market is no way ready to compromise at all when it comes to power saving. The size is also very much a criteria for hand-held gadget mainly cell-phones.
The vendors have wide portfolio of power supply ICs to offer, keeping all the requirement of system designers. The only problem is selecting a wrong part; study all the vendor's parts before selecting.

 

Technology trends

Switching versus Linear:

Switching regulators are far efficient than Low Dropout Voltage regulators (LDO) and don't produce heat. However switching regulators are noise generators and also compulsorily need some passive components around the chip to filter out the ripple. So the applications sensitive to noise and need just few milli-Amps of current can still go for LDO. If that slight noise is insignificant and power saving is crucial switching regulators are inevitable.

Input voltage:
The power source is mostly either utility power or battery. When it comes to utility power, one can step it down to any required voltage and the variation depends very much on the utility companies, in power starved regions of the world, the percentage change in rated voltage can be as worst as you can imagine. To design for the worst conditions better add higher i/p range.
When it comes to battery source, there is no point in selecting a DC/DC converter with wide input voltage; you can specifically choose the DC/DC converter matching your battery voltage and chemistry. The most popular battery source now is Lithium Ion.

In telecom and automotive, the input voltage range is different because both use 12V lead acid batteries. In telecom four 12V batteries are stacked serially for a 48V source. In automotive the 12V is common power bus but some auto manufacturers are using higher voltage bus of 48V.

In this year there are fewer products released for wide and higher input voltage. The MAX5090 from Maxim can take I/P range of 6.5 to 76V and deliver fixed voltage of 3.3V and 5.0V at 2 Amps current rating. National's LM5009 can work up to 100V and deliver a variable voltage in the range of 2.5 to 85V but only at 150 mA current rating.
Linear's LT3493 and LT3481, Rohm's BD9778F and TI's TPS5430 are few more high input capable DC-DC converters released in year 2006 but the maximum input voltage they can handle is 34 to 36 V.

The most common input voltage range for battery powered hand-held portables is 2.7V to 5.5 V. There are at least 15 new DC/DC converters released in the market in the year 2006 which can handle the above said input voltage range. This is the input voltage exactly required for Lithium Ion batteries in today's mobile phones and media players. All the leading DC/DC converter vendors have released new products in this voltage range. The differentiators among them are the output voltage and current, efficiency, switching frequency and package.

If your systems run on AA and AAA sized Alkaline, NiMh and NiCd, you got to select the DC/DC converter with input voltage range less than 2.7 V. There are six new products released in 2006 to take on input voltage range of 1.8V to 5.5 V. LTC3499/B from Linear provides protection against polarity reversal, most common in AA and AAA type battery usage.

Say, your product got to work from single cell AA or AAA size battery. Check out Analogic Tech's AAT1265, which can work from lowest input voltage of 0.8 V.

 

Output voltage:

Along with standard 5V and 3.3 V required for powering today's electronic systems, there are new low voltage requirements to run devices in sleep mode. Today, the lowest voltage required is 0.6V. There is also need for multiple output voltages.

The DC-DC Converters with higher I/P voltage rating will hardly outputs any voltage below 1.2V. However the converters made to operate with battery sources such as Lithium Ion can gives the lowest voltage down to 0.6V. Most of the new releases in this category will deliver you 0.6V. There are still few with minimum voltage capable of 1.2 V only.

Nearly 90% of the buck regulators released in 2006 are variable type. Some of this have I2C interface (AAT1142 from Analogic and TPS62350 from TI) to control the output voltage. Some of the buck regulators also integrate LDO to provide multiple voltages.

There only a few boost type switching-regulator ICs released in 2006. All of them are addressed to some specific applications. (check in the product table below)

If the power source is single or dual AA size cells than there are few boost converter type regulators to drive 3V and 5V circuits.

You can also find two buck/boost type regulators for wide output voltage requirement.

The requirement of both positive and negative rail power supply is also addressed through MAXIM's MAX8614.

Current Rating:

As the operating voltages dropping and features on handheld gadgets rising the current is proportionally rising. The vendor are integrating low on resistance MOSFETS to reduce power loss and rising the current rating. The package size is also slimmed and trimmed.
One should never go for LDOs for higher current rating except in case of no-noise applications.
If you scan the table given far below for current rating, the range is from 100mA to 7 Amps. If you require anything below 2 to 3 Amps, you have this wide choice to select from.
Design Engineers got to decide what is his current requirement and select the device, which offers best efficiency in your current requirement.

Efficiency:
Anything below 80% is simply not acceptable at all. You have wide choice in the range of 90 to 95%. The devices exceeding 95% are not common and may not satisfy all your requirements.
The average efficiency is 90% in the 2006 list. The highest is 98%. Beware there are few products with efficiencies below 90% too.

Switching Frequency:
The higher the frequency, higher is the efficiency but the DC-DC converter switching frequency may come in the way of your system's frequency and cause some interference and noise.
Most of the 2006 releases are in Mega Hertz range. The highest is 4 MHz.
You can also choose synchronous and phase lockable buck converters if your design demands same frequency of operation.

Package:
The most common packages are TFN, QFN and SOP. The average form-factor falls below 3x3mm.

Applications:
More than 70% of the new products released are for cell phones, PDAs, Media Players or any such handheld battery operated equipments. If your product is of above type, we strongly suggest to change old DC/DC converter IC with these new devices. The other applications targeted are Automotive and Telecom.

 

List o DC/DC Converters vendors and their ranking (based on innovation)

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Here we ranked suppliers by the count of their new product releases rather than revenue or market share, please note this will only tells you the levels of their research and focus on this product segment.

List of new DC-DC Converters released in year 2006 (only upto Oct 06)