I have a wireless RF project I am working on that is pretty low power. My problem is trying to find something that that is effecient at these low powers (everything runs at 3.3V). Currently I use LDOs to get my voltage, but that is wasteful if I go with a big battery. I thought about going with a switcher, but I can't seem to find one with good effeciency down in the 1mA draw range.
My only thought was to switch to solar, and use a switcher (letting the solar override the detriment of the deficiencies of the switcher at low current). Makes for a more complicated design that I am still fleshing out, but I am out of ideas.
Currently my board draws around 1mA during idle time (minutes at a time), and ramps up to about 20mA when transmitting (which happens every 10 minutes for an extremely brief period).
Any words of wisdom?