{"id":218,"date":"2011-04-06T22:05:40","date_gmt":"2011-04-06T14:05:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocketscream.com\/blog\/?p=218"},"modified":"2013-07-06T12:52:30","modified_gmt":"2013-07-06T04:52:30","slug":"mini-ultra-8-mhz-current-consumption-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocketscream.com\/blog\/2011\/04\/06\/mini-ultra-8-mhz-current-consumption-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Mini Ultra 8 MHz – Current Consumption (Part 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

At first, we thought of putting the current consumption measurement process of Mini Ultra MHz in one post. However, the post seems to be too long to be fitted into one post. So, here is the 1st<\/sup> part of\u00a0the current measurement process.<\/p>\n

One of the most challenging task of designing a very low power board is selecting proper and suitable components. At the initial point of design process, we must set a target of current consumption that we wanted to achieve on the design. On the Mini Ultra 8 MHz, we have set a reasonable target of below 5 \u00b5A during sleep mode. We know the ATmega328P is capable of going down all the way to 0.1\u00a0\u00b5A during power down mode. A room of 4.9\u00a0\u00b5A seems to be a quite large number. We wanted the Mini Ultra to run at 3.3 V at 8 MHz as more and more integrated circuits, modules, and devices are running at 3.3 V or even lower (1.8 V). But,\u00a0this requires a proper voltage regulation on the board which will contribute to the overall board quiescent current. This explain why we have a working room of \u00a04.9\u00a0\u00b5A in our design. Choosing a suitable voltage regulator is very important in the design. Some of the voltage regulator requirements that we were looking for:<\/p>\n