As technology constantly evolves and silicon geometry shrinks, different supply requirements for powering these processors
emerge. Typically the core is powered with a lower voltage than
the I/Os. The I/Os are generally at a higher voltage to maintain
a compatible interface with other system devices. Also, as clock
speeds of 600 MHz are reached, these processors become more power hungry. Thus, an efficient power management scheme
becomes critical.
This application note, in conjunction with the technical note EE-170, (available from Analog Devices, Inc.), provides a guide
that can be used as a reference design for powering those
processors. EE-170 provides the detailed equations and
derivations for the power needs of the processors. This
application note discusses the voltage regulators/switchers that are suitable for those processors running at 600 MHz. The TigerSHARC? processor requires three different supply voltages, the core voltage of 1.2 V, the internal DRAM voltage at 1.6 V, and the I/O voltage of 2.5 V. These three voltages are
discussed in details in the following sections.