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Power Management ICs

Authors:
Geoffrey Hunter
Geoffrey Hunter
Published On:
Jan 14, 2026
Last Updated:
Jan 14, 2026

Power management ICs (PMICs) are integrated circuits that are used to manage power in a circuit. They are commonly used to manage power on small devices which contain rechargeable battery power. They may contain power regulation circuitry such as linear regulators or buck/boost converters.

Examples

Nordic Semiconductor nPM1100

The nPM1100 by Nordic Semiconductor is a PMIC which can manage power for a device that contains a Li-ion battery which is rechargeable via USB. It is aimed to work in low-power devices (1-50 uA average current) with a MCU from the nRF range (but can just as easily work with any other downstream device).

An internal block diagram of the Nordic Semiconductor nPM1100 power management IC.1

It can charge the battery from USB with a configurable charge current from 20 mA to 400 mA, and supply up to 150 mA to the downstream devices. It contains a buck converter which is efficient down to 1 uA loads (it can automatically switch between PWM and hysteretic operation modes). Typical quiescent current is 800 uA.1

There are three known errata for revision 2 of the nPM1100 IC:2

  • Inserting USB causes VSYS voltage to undershoot in some cases.
  • Battery charging gets stuck if battery pack over discharge protection is active when USB is connected.
  • Battery charging gets stuck in some cases if battery pack contains a PCM (Protection Circuit Module) which adds an additional diode voltage drop when over discharge protection is active.

Links:

Footnotes

  1. Nordic Semiconductor (2025, Feb 5). nPM1100 Product Specification v1.5 [datasheet]. Retrieved 2026-01-14, from https://docs-be.nordicsemi.com/bundle/ps_npm1100/page/nPM1100_PS_v1.5.pdf. ↩ ↩2

  2. Nordic Semiconductor (2023, May 24). nPM1100 Revision 2 Errata v1.3. Retrieved 2026-01-14, from https://docs.nordicsemi.com/bundle/errata_nPM1100_Rev2/page/ERR/nPM1100/Rev2/latest/err_100.html. ↩