Press release - 27 March 2018 14:00

New DC/DC Converter Featuring the Industry’s Lowest Current Consumption---Original Nano Energy technology enables long-term operation for up to 10 years on a single coin battery

ROHM has recently announced the availability of a DC/DC converter with integrated MOSFET that achieves the lowest* current consumption in the industry, making it ideal for compact battery-driven devices in applications such as IoT, wearables, and portable equipment.
(* ROHM March 1, 2018 study)

In recent years, the number of battery-driven portable devices such as smartphones, wearables, and IoT has risen dramatically. This increases the demand for smaller components that can provide greater design flexibility along with the necessary space for integrating new features while also achieving lower power consumption to prolong battery life.

The BD70522GUL is an ultra-low current consumption converter designed to meet the needs of the IoT market to deliver 10-year operation on a single coin battery. Nano Energy technology, developed utilizing industry-leading analog expertise in circuit design, layout, and processes, has allowed ROHM to deliver an unprecedented current consumption of just 180nA (nano→10^-9). This makes it possible to increase battery drive time by 1.4x over conventional products when operating without a load (standby), contributing to longer battery life in electronic devices powered by coin-type batteries (i.e. CR2025). At the same time, power conversion efficiency greater than 90% is achieved over the industry’s widest range, from light to max. loads (10uA to 500mA).

Both the BD70522GUL and its evaluation board (BD70522GUL-EVK-101) will be available for purchase through online distributors.

The BD70522GUL
Availability: Now

The BD70522GUL-EVK-101
Availability: Now

Key Features

The newly developed BD70522GUL ultra-low current consumption buck power supply IC meets the growing demand in the IoT market to support 10-year battery life on a single coin-type battery by taking advantage of the following features.

1．Industry-low 180nA current consumption – achieved utilizing proprietary Nano Energy technology
Utilizing Nano Energy, an original technology created by leveraging original low-current analog technologies covering control circuitry, analog element layout optimized for the power supply IC, and 0.35um BiCDMOS power processes, made it possible to achieve a breakthrough current consumption of 180nA.
As a result, in the case of no-load (standby) operation battery life can be extended by 1.4x over conventional solutions. (ROHM study)

2．High efficiency over a wide range of load currents

In addition to the low-loss MOSFET, a Seamless Switching Mode Control (SSMC) function is built in that smoothly and automatically switches the load mode based on load current, allowing ROHM to develop a DC/DC converter capable of delivering a power conversion efficiency of more than 90% over the industry’s widest load range (10uA to 500mA) – while consuming less than 1uA.
This contributes longer battery life in a wide range of devices and applications.

Nano Energy Technology
Breakthrough ultra-low current consumption technology developed by combining ROHM’s vertically integrated production system with analog expertise covering circuit design, layout, and processes. This enables long-term driving using smaller batteries in portable devices, including wearables, smartphones, and IoT.

Target Applications

Wearables and portable devices

Compact battery-driven IoT (i.e. sensors nodes) and industrial equipment (e.g. alarms, electronic shelf labels)