But perhaps even that is considered too much! Or perhaps it’s the regulator that is drawing more current – 50uA or more is pretty normal for an LDO. The ESP32 series, by comparison, can hibernate at 0.005mA / 50uA, 1/25th the current. That’s low but perhaps not low enough for your needs. OK cool – but what if you’re dealing with a chip or module that does not have ultra low sleep – say you want to use the cool new Pico W from Raspberry Pi – but the RP2040 chip’s sleep current is 0.2mA. Now it’s expected that any design can become a low power one. Then, with the proliferation of low cost and low-power-optimized WiFi and BLE chipsets plus low cost LiPo batteries, the demand for devices that can last for days or weeks on a rechargeable battery became a roar. Even if you did have a battery-powered project, those same LEDs or motors would be so high-power consuming that trying to optimize power wouldn’t be a great use of time: anyways the regulator and chip are just not designed to be low power and would need replacing, something that would add significant cost.įor many years, folks were basically ok with this arrangement! Chips did start having sleep modes, but it was not surprising that one would have to re-design or spend more just to get low power performance. When we first started on our embedded electronics journey, with boards like the Arduino, power management wasn’t a high priority: you’d plug something into DC or USB power and it would sit there blinking lights or moving servos. ![]() ![]() These are a great solution for when you need to turn a non-low-power system into something that sips power. This week’s EYE ON NPI ( video) is OK with you going back to sleep…shhh! Rest up, it’ll wake you up when it’s time to go…we’re reviewing the new ABLIC S-35710/20 Series Convenience Timer ICs.
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