With the recent rapid growth of the mobile and Internet of Things (IoT) device markets, extending battery life and miniaturization—enabling devices to operate for longer periods with limited battery capacity—have emerged as key challenges in hardware design. As the amount and complexity of data that devices must process increase, we have entered an era where minute power efficiency improvements at the level of power management components determine the competitiveness of finished products.

Flexibility to withstand rapid changes in power demand, Serial AVP technology

Battery-powered mobile and IoT devices experience sudden load changes when communicating or processing data while in sleep mode. At this time, it is essential for system stability to maintain high voltage accuracy while handling rapid load transient responses.

However, conventional non-AVP control methods have struggled to effectively stabilize voltage fluctuations caused by rapid load changes while simultaneously achieving miniaturization. As an innovative alternative to this, Analog Devices (ADI)’s μModule regulator, which utilizes a high-precision serial Active Voltage Positioning (AVP) technique, is garnering attention.

AVP is a smart control technology that variably adjusts the power output voltage according to the load current magnitude. It maintains a high output voltage when the device uses low power (light load) and intentionally lowers the output voltage when using high power (medium or high load). By applying this technology, large overshoots or droops can be prevented by flexibly responding within a specified voltage range even if the load current suddenly increases or decreases.

In fact, ADI’s LTM4650-2 module test results showed that under 19A load step conditions, the conventional method exhibited a transient response of 136 mVp-p, but when the serial AVP method was applied, this was significantly improved to the level of 95–104 mVp-p, further enhancing system stability.

Lowering voltage under high load to catch 'leakage'

Another point where the true value of this AVP control technology is demonstrated is in extending battery life. Because AVP preemptively lowers the output voltage under high-load conditions where the device consumes a lot of power, it effectively reduces the overall power consumption of the load.

According to experiments conducted on the LTM4650-2 circuit, lowering the voltage from 1V to 0.945V under a full load of 25A reduces the load power from 25W to 23.6W. This results in a power saving of approximately 5.6% at full load (2.8W total at dual output), playing a crucial role in significantly extending usage time in mobile and IoT-powered systems that rely on limited battery capacity.

From All-Ceramic Implementation to Form Factor Innovation

Furthermore, since the power supply provides voltage margin to respond to rapid load changes, the **output capacitance capacity required by design can be reduced by up to 50%.

This provides a groundbreaking advantage for device miniaturization. This is because an 'all-ceramic' solution becomes possible, eliminating bulky and expensive conventional POSCAPs and instead configuring circuits solely with ceramic capacitors that are much smaller, cheaper, and highly reliable. As a result, manufacturers can minimize board area to secure internal device space and even reduce Bill of Materials (BOM) costs.

In conclusion, ADI's high-precision serial AVP control technology goes beyond simple circuit compensation. It is a core hardware innovation that not only provides excellent transient response improvements to ensure system stability but also suppresses unnecessary power consumption to extend battery life and reduce component footprint. If this technology is actively adopted in mobile and IoT devices, consumers will be able to experience next-generation smart devices that are smaller and lighter, and operate more reliably and for longer on a single charge.