Shown here are the benefits of Murata’s unique 2-stage power architecture. On the left is a classic single stage buck solution. With a 12V input and 1V output the operating duty cycle is very low and the switching inductor needs to be very large to compensate. On the right is the Murata 2-stage solution which includes a Charge Pump front end which steps the input down from 12V to 4V so that the buck can operate much more efficiently. The Charge Pump acts as a virtually lossless DC transformer. This design allows the output inductor to be much smaller. The added benefit is that the Charge Pump minimizes the input ripple and EMI with fewer filter capacitors.