Temperature-aware Over Current Protection in Smartphone PMIC for System Performance Enhancement

With the ever-increasing capabilities of today's smartphones, the amount of heat dissipation associated with their use is increasing. Therefore, power management by PMICs is becoming more important than ever [1], [2]. Due to the load characteristics of smartphones, the average current is not that large, but substantial peak current is generated, and good performance can be achieved when this peak current is delivered well. However, the PMIC has an Over Current Protection (OCP) function that blocks currents flowing above a certain level. In order to improve performance, it is necessary to increase the current limit to supply more current, but this method can cause serious damage to the PMIC and load when malfunction occurs. It is also difficult due to the heat generation problem that occurs when continuous heavy load occurs. Therefore, this paper presents a technique capable of improving smartphone performance while minimizing heat generation. This new model supplies high current while solving the temperature problem by creating a New adaptive current limit model based on inductor temperature data [3]. Simulations and actual measurements demonstrated that the proposed method resulted in a 40mV improvement in the voltage drop without disrupting the normal protection operation.