Giving visitors a glimpse into what’s coming next, Maxim Integrated Products showed off its single-chip mobile Power SoC power management solution at the Mobile World Congress this week.
Although the folks at the Maxim booth wouldn’t let EP record a demo and would only let us take a few photos, Chris Williard, senior member of the technical staff for the Product Definer – Handheld Power Business Unit, walked us through some of the main features. They are:
– Switch-mode battery charger
– Fuel gauging
– Keypad backlight
– RGB
– LED flash
– Audio codec
– Class D speaker amp
– Touchscreen controller and microcontroller
Williard said the microcontroller packaged together inside helps offload the application processing, and is processor agnostic so it can be easily integrated with other chips.
There’s proprietary packaging, and all the silicon and passive components are integrated.
“Our customers can take the entire package, drop it on the board, and then they’re done,” he said. “That’s their whole power supply.”
Mass production into mobile phones is expected within a year, Williard said.
On the other side of the booth, Bakul Damle, director of business management for the Battery, Display and Industrial Power Business Unit, was talking about energy harvesting.
Maxim is sampling an ultra thin battery, Thinergy, that runs on vibrations, solar, and other kinds of readily-available energy sources, to power additional capabilities without adding more IC bulk.
Among its varied uses, Damle used smart card enhancements as an example. For instance, if companies required a level of security beyond name recognition provided when the RF signal reaches a data-entry system, companies may also want to require a fingerprint ID. Users could swipe their finger on the card, and Maxim’s new battery would provide the additional power to process that additional data.
The battery could be formally announced in few months, Damle said.
Maxim also announced an extension of its TacTouch family. You can read about it http://www.maxim-ic.com/view_press_release.cfm/release_id/1809
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