World’s first 4-level buck converter for 1mm thick battery charger
pSemi has developed the world’s first multi-level buck regulator technology that could revolutionise mobile battery charger designs.
The capacitor-based multi-level technology is capable of high efficiency and fast battery charging in a low profile application less than 1mm high. The converter operates over a wide range input from 4.5V to 18V covering USB and wireless charging standards.
In general, 4-level buck mode is enabled for higher input voltages, and 3-level buck mode for mid-to-low input voltages. Additionally, the device can be operated in fixed ratio, capacitor divider mode with divider ratios 2 and 3 when the input voltage is a programmable power source (PPS).
Current delivery is up to 6A per device, with the option to parallel devices to achieve faster charging times, in all operation modes using a 1 mm height inductor. This allows the system to achieve equivalent power delivery and faster battery charge times regardless of the type of USB PD (Power Delivery), PPS, or Qi wireless charging.
pSemi, a subsidiary of Murata, will be showing the design at the 2025 Applied Power Electronics Conference (APEC) in the US next week.
The company has also announced the PE24111, 3.3Vin, two-stage regulator capable of supplying up to 20A, and the PE25213 divide by 2 and 3 capacitor divider.
The PE24111 expands pSemi’s portfolio of two-stage buck regulators that target applications requiring high efficiency in low-profile form-factor (<1.2mm) applications. The device consists of a two-phase interleaved charge pump followed by an interleaved buck regulator stage. This power system greatly reduces the dependency on inductance for high efficiency solutions in small-footprint and height-constrained form-factors.
The output voltage is selected with external feedback resistors or by an external DAC and can be adjusted between 0.35 and 0.85V. This makes the PE24111 suitable for step-down DC-DC converter solutions for low-profile point-of-load (POL) regulators, high-density, optical transceiver modules, core supplies, ASICs, and FGPAs.
The PE24111 can be connected in parallel with up to four devices with synchronization for higher power levels. This is an ultra-high efficiency charge pump that is configurable to divide down an input voltage by two or three and delivers up to 10A with peak efficiency up to 99%. The device uses pSemi’s patented adiabatic or lossless switching architecture to maximize efficiency and reduce solution size.
The PE25213 supports an input voltage range of 5.7V to 15V in divide-by-2 mode and 8.4V to 15V in divide-by-3 mode. It is primarily used as a front-end converter to convert a two- or three-cell battery input to a 1-1.5S output for downstream regulator to improve overall system efficiency and extend run time. The PE25213 also offers a unique auto-switch mode to change the divide-down ratio during operation to avoid a downstream under-voltage lockout (UVLO) event at heavy system loading during low battery condition.
The PE25213 comes in a 4.545 mm × 2.715 mm 47-pin WLCSP package. The pinout is specially designed to be fully compatible with Type III PCB design to reduce system cost. It targets 2 and 3S battery input systems such as laptop and 12V input systems such as datacenter and networking applications.
“We are proud to bring our latest power conversion technologies, including the world’s first 4-level buck converter for battery charging applications and the PE24111 and PE25213, to market and continue to raise the bar for what is possible in the industry,” said Steve Allen, vice president of power, pSemi. “Our new solutions help to solve our customers’ power challenges related to low-profile, high-energy density applications and we look forward to highlighting them during APEC 2025.”
The PE24111 and the PE25213 are available for sampling now
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