New-Tech Europe Magazine | H2 2023

can be connected to a load switch to enable the ship mode feature. The external push-button will exit the ship mode and enter the wireless sensor node into normal operation. An Improved Solution for Deep Sleep and Ship Mode MAX16163/MAX16164 are Analog Devices’ nanopower controllers with on/off controllers and programmable sleep time. The devices integrate a power switch to gate an output, which provides up to 200 mA load current. The MAX16162/MAX16163 can replace the conventional load switch, RTC, and battery freshness ICs to save the BOM count and to reduce costs. The wireless sensor node unit is connected to the battery via MAX16162/MAX16163. The sleep time can be programmed by the microcontroller or can be set using an external resistor from PB/ SLP to the ground or using the I2C command from the microcontroller. The external push-button is used to exit the device’s ship mode. Solution Performance Comparison The performance comparison of both schemes is dependent on the duty cycle of the IoT application. In an application with a small duty cycle, the sleep current is a measure of how efficient the system is when the IoT device is running, and the shutdown current is a measure of ship mode power consumption. To demonstrate the mode of the solution, we have chosen the industry’s smallest quiescent current RTC MAX31342, battery freshness seal MAX16150, and tiny load switch TPS22916. The RTC is programmed using I2C communication that sets the sleep time of the IoT application, and when the timer expires, the interrupt

Figure 3: An integrated solution using the MAX16163. Credit: Analog Devices

signal pulls down the PBIN pin of the MAX16150, which sets the OUT high and turns on the load switch. During the sleep time, only TPS22916, MAX31342, and MAX16150 consume power system power.

In the experiment, we evaluate the lifetime of two state-of-the-art under fixed duty cycles, comparing their performance of the conventional solution and improved solution using the MAX16163.

SleepModeCurrent (nA)(Typ)

Shutdown Current(nA)(Typ)

FunctionalBlock PartNumber

RTC

MAX31342

150

6

Load Switch TPS22916

10

10

Battery Freshness

MAX16150

10

10

Total System Current (Typ)

170

26

Table 1: Current Consumption by Different Blocks of Conventional Solution Credit: Analog Devices

Figure 4: A schematic diagram for a discrete solution. Credit: Analog Devices

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