Power management system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9570908-B2
Application number	US-201213369705-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 9, 2012
Priority date	Feb 9, 2012
Publication date	Feb 14, 2017
Grant date	Feb 14, 2017

Abstract

An apparatus is disclosed, which includes a system that includes loads, linear regulators, switches and a controller. The linear regulators supply power to the loads, and the controller is adapted to use the switches to selectively couple power sources to the linear regulators to regulate a collective power dissipation of linear regulators.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An apparatus comprising:
a system comprising a plurality of loads, a plurality of linear regulators, a controller, an adjustable DC power source and a plurality of switches, wherein:
the adjustable DC power source is one of a plurality of DC power sources;
the linear regulators receive a plurality of DC voltages, each DC voltage being provided by one of the DC power sources and the number of the DC power sources being less than the number of linear regulators;
the linear regulators are adapted to supply power to the plurality of loads;
the switches couple the DC voltages to the linear regulators according to one of a plurality of switch configurations; and
the controller is adapted to control both the DC output voltage provided by the adjustable DC power source and select the switch coupling configuration from the plurality of switch coupling configurations to regulate a collective power dissipation of the linear regulators.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the controller comprises a processor core.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the controller is adapted to select the DC output voltage provided by the adjustable DC power source and select the switch coupling configuration that minimizes the collective power dissipation of the linear regulators.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein at least one of the switch coupling configurations is associated with coupling a battery to at least one of the linear regulators.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein at least one of the switch coupling configurations is further associated with coupling a DC-to-DC switching converter to at least one other linear regulator of the linear regulators.

6. A method comprising:
using a plurality of linear regulators to supply power to a plurality of loads;
providing DC voltages for the plurality of linear regulators, wherein the number of DC voltages is less than the number of linear regulators;
regulating a collective power dissipation of the linear regulators, wherein the regulation of the collective power dissipation comprises selectively coupling the DC voltages to the linear regulators and controlling a DC power source providing one of the DC voltages to adjust the DC voltage provided by the DC power source.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the regulating comprises using a controller to operate the switches to regulate the collective power dissipation.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the using the controller comprises selecting a switch coupling configuration to couple the DC voltages and the linear regulators together from a plurality of configurations to regulate the collective power dissipation.

9. The method of claim 6 , wherein the selectively coupling comprises coupling the linear regulators to a battery voltage and to another voltage provided by a converter in response to the battery voltage.

10. The method of claim 6 , wherein the selectively coupling comprises selectively coupling the linear regulators to a DC-to-DC switching converter.

11. An apparatus comprising:
an integrated circuit comprising a plurality of loads, a plurality of linear regulators, a controller an adjustable DC power source and a plurality of switches, wherein:
the adjustable DC power source is one of a plurality of DC power sources;
the linear regulators receive a plurality of DC voltages, each DC voltage being provided by one of the DC power sources and the number of the DC power sources being less than the number of linear regulators;
the linear regulators supply power to the plurality of loads;

the switches couple the DC voltages to the linear regulators according to one of a plurality of switch coupling configurations; and
the controller is adapted to control both the DC output voltage provided by the adjustable DC power source and select the switch coupling configuration from the plurality of switch coupling configurations to regulate a collective power dissipation of the linear regulators.

12. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein the controller comprises a processor.

13. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein the controller selects the switch coupling configuration and controls the DC output voltage provided by the adjustable DC power source to minimize the collective power dissipation.

14. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein at least one of the switch coupling configurations comprises a configuration in which multiple linear regulators of the plurality of linear regulators are coupled to the same power source.

15. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein at least one of the switch coupling configurations comprises a configuration in which a battery voltage is coupled to at least one of the linear regulators.

16. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein at least one of the switch coupling configurations comprises a configuration in which a DC-to-DC switching converter is coupled to at least one of the linear regulators.

17. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein one of the loads comprises one or more memory components associated with a first supply voltage and another one of the loads comprises one or more digital components associated with a second supply voltage having a magnitude less than a magnitude of the first supply voltage.

18. The method of claim 6 , wherein the regulating comprises regulating the collective power dissipation based at least in part on actual power dissipation measurements or predicted maximum power dissipations.

Assignees

• Fernald Kenneth W
• Silicon Lab Inc

Inventors

• Fernald Kenneth W

Classifications

• H02J1/14 Primary

  Balancing load and power generation in DC networks · CPC title

• Y10T307/406

  Cross-Sectional Technologies · mapped topic