I was hoping that since ATMEGAs read 3.3V as a "1", then radio modules would also read 3.0V as a "1". Is that not true?
A while ago I gave up on finding a voltage booster that is efficient. It seem like the only voltage regulator I could find that has uA overhead current were the MCP1702, which lower the voltage to 3.3V from a higher input voltage, "buck" type. The boost regulators I came across all had unacceptably high quiescent current consumption. So when the system is sleeping and consuming very low current, the regulator itself wastes a lot of power.
I haven't come across these PFM type voltage regulators. This one for example has a 30uA "operating current".
http://www.onsemi.com/PowerSolutions/product.do?id=NCP1402
Just curious if I'm reading the data sheets correctly. So if the ATMEGA and radio modules are in sleep mode 99% of the time, I can expect only about 30uA wasted overhead from these type of voltage regulators? That would be pretty good.
Buying from ebay is kind of annoying. They don't provide datasheets and sometimes the part number they provide doesn't match any relevant google results, or they don't provide part numbers. I also can't seem to find any DIP packaged PFM regulators for 3.3V. Most of them are SOT.
This digikey article on PFM regulators is really interesting: