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Digital power management is an enabling technology, so we would not do justice comparing it to analog solutions, which solve specific problems in a specific/fixed way and has no means of communicating. The question is not only "can digital do it better than analog" but "what are the possibilities and what the road map looks like" (Moore's law for digital). The quest is not analog vs. digital but which suits best a given application. In the Cost-Value-Performance (Figure 1) driver domain the analog will dominate the low side and the digital the high side, with the middle field transitioning from analog to digital [22].
On the Performance range, the spectrum will be subdivided in various flavors of digital, from low cost simple and robust state machine with on chip NVM, to sophisticated DSP based ones and analog (Figure 2).
Figure 1: Cost-Value-Performance: Dollars vs. volume
Figure 2: Digital flavors and analog continuum
he real customer is no longer only the design engineer, but all others who would benefit from this enabling technology: purchasing, test engineers, QA, manufacturing, warranty/repair (Figure 3). So the value proposition is expanding from strictly satisfying a technical/parts cost requirement to enabling energy savings, reducing life cycle cost (ownership + disposal) and you name it. "You name it" is the job of non technical folks who up to no long ago had no saying in the creation of a product.
And why not invite the marketing guys at the table and become part of your customer's value proposition. Power management functions at system level can be a significant differentiator. Make known the possibilities [17], like energy saving modes, reporting, remote monitoring, and testing [26].
Figure 3: Value Chain
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