Introduction:

Processing requirements for automotive ECUs has been on the rise. This has resulted in automotive microprocessors demanding more power while also going to smaller manufacturing nodes.

This trend presents a two-fold challenge for a power supply designer:

• Deliver a high power
• Deliver the higher power at a smaller allowed tolerance

Board space and budgets are constrained so the power supply designer needs to solve the above 2 challenges while staying below the space and cost budgets.

On top of this, there is a trend to meeting functional safety requirements for the system of which the power supply is a critical part of. This blog presents considerations a designer needs to take while designing such a power supply and how the PF53 core supply regulator from NXP Semiconductors offers a convenient solution.