sd_power_dcdc_mode_set(NRF_POWER_DCDC_ENABLE) no effect on power consumption

[Allen]

Hello,

I am working on a wearable device and need the lowest power consumption possible. The project configuration is:

• S132 7.2.0
• SDK 17.0.2

The board is powered with a bench power supply which displayed current to mA resolution. I am not seeing any difference in power consumption when the DC/DC regulator is enabled. In previous projects there was a significant difference when this feature was enabled. It does not matter if it is before or after enabling the soft device/BLE.

[Jørgen Holmefjord]

Hi,

• What voltage level is the board powered by? The DCDC regulator will affect the current consumption less if the supply voltage is closer to the minimum supply voltage of 1.7 V.
• What is the measured current consumption? The DCDC regulator will be automatically controlled by the chip, depending on the current draw. It will only be enabled when the current draw is high enough for the DCDC regulator to be more efficient than LDO.
• I assume that the board is populated with the required components for the DCDC regulator?

Best regards,
Jørgen

[Allen]

Hello,

• The input voltage is 4V battery to a 3.3V LDO
• The current according to my power supply is 8mA@4V or 32mW
• The board is using the Rigado BMD-350 nRF52832 SoC. According to the datasheet the module includes the inductors for the DC/DC converter

Is there anything besides the inductors required to support the DC-DC converter?