An over current protection method suitable for Fixed ON-time PFM (Pulse Frequency Modulation) Control DC-DC converters is proposed. It is based on inductor bottom current limiting, realized by monitoring the synchronous rectifier current and extending the OFF-phase of the main switch until it decreases to a predetermined limit, and can properly limit the output current even in case of short circuit. A Fixed ON-time PFM DC-DC converter with the proposed over current protection was designed and fabricated in CMOS IC. Its current limiting operation was verified with simulations and measurements.

This paper proposes spread-spectrum clock modulation algorithms for EMI reduction in digitally-controlled DC-DC converters. In switching regulators using PWM, switching noise and harmonic noise concentrated in a narrow spectrum around the switching frequency can cause severe EMI. Spread-spectrum clock modulation can be used to minimize EMI. In conventional switching regulators using analog control it is very difficult to realize complex spread-spectrum clocking, however this paper shows that it is relatively easy to implement spread-spectrum EMI-reduction using digital control. The proposed algorithm was verified using a power converter simulator (SCAT).

This letter presents an analysis of characteristics of multiphase buck converters with coupled inductors. We derive equivalent inductances that provide both low per-phase steady-state ripple current and fast transient response. The characteristics of coupled-inductor circuits--low per-phase ripple current and fast response--were examined and verified by circuit simulation and experiments.

In this paper, the characteristics of a micro DC-DC converter for portable electronic equipments are described. In the converter, an inductor, switching devices and control integrated circuits (ICs) were integrated. The external size of the converter module was 3.0 mm 3.0 mm 1.0 mm. And the converter had a high efficiency of 83% at the input voltage of 7.2 V and the output voltage of 1.5 V. The miniaturization of the converter was achieved by developing a small inductor of the size of 3.0 mm 3.0 mm 0.525 mm. High efficiency was achieved by adopting 0.6 µm CMOS process for ICs and switching devices, using N channel MOSFET for a high side power switch, and controlling a dead time adaptively. The efficiency characteristics of the converter were analyzed experimentally and theoretically. And the losses of the converter were theoretically analyzed.

This paper presents the analysis of a new multi-oscillated current resonant type DC-DC converter. Current resonant converters have several remarkable features such as high efficiency, small size, low cost and low noise, and are frequently employed in many portable electronic systems such as personal computers, cellular phones and flat panel displays. The current resonant type converter generally employs pulse frequency modulation for constant voltage control in the output. For this reason, the magnetizing current through the converter not only causes a power loss under a light load, but also a loss during stand-by. Therefore, this type of converter has a problem in that the required smaller size cannot be achieved, because an auxiliary source is necessary for stand-by. In order to solve these problems, a new current resonant type power supply is proposed in which two driving methods are employed. In these driving methods, one MOSFET as a main switch is driven by an auxiliary winding of the transformer and another MOSFET as a main switch is driven by the driving IC with a low withstand voltage. Good agreement of the observed and simulated waveforms was confirmed. In addition, eight distinct states and four distinct operating modes, which compose of the sequence of states, were clarified by experimental and simulated analysis.

This paper studies two kinds of simple switched dynamical systems with piecewise constant characteristics. The first one is based on the single buck converter whose periodic/chaotic dynamics are analyzed precisely using the piecewise linear phase map. The second one is based on a paralleled system of the buck converters for lower voltages with higher current capabilities. Referring to the results of the single system, it is clarified that stable multi-phase synchronization is always possible by the proper use of the switching strategies and adjustment of the clock period. Presenting a simple test circuit, typical operations are confirmed experimentally.

For battery-powered electronic products, one way to extend battery life is to use a versatile step-up/step-down DC-DC converter. A new versatile step-up/step-down switched-capacitor-based converter structure is proposed, and its efficiency is analyzed. In the step-down case, the efficiency is the same as, or even better than the efficiency of linear regulators.

A power-efficient Dickson-based charge pump circuit is proposed and verified in this paper. Using a PMOS transfer switch in the new circuit solves the problem of the output voltage loss and its body control switch can suppress the parasitic bipolar action. Comparing this new one with the conventional circuit, the new circuit generates output voltage as high as 2.9 VDD while the conventional one only 2 VDD. For their efficiency values, the new circuit has better efficiency than the conventional one by as much as 14.5% with the area overhead of 12.2% using 3.5-µm and 40-V CMOS high-voltage process.

An entire dual-mode transceiver capable of both the conventional GFSK-modulated Bluetooth and the Medium-Rate π/4-DQPSK-modulated Bluetooth has been investigated and reported. The transmitter introduces a novel two-point-modulated polar-loop technique without the global feedback to realize reduced power consumption, small chip area and also high modulation accuracy. The receiver shares all the circuits for both operating modes except the demodulators and also features a newly-proposed cancellation technique of the carrier-frequency offset. The transceiver has been confirmed by system or circuit simulations to meet all the dual-mode Bluetooth specifications. The simulation results show that the transmitting power can be larger than 10 dBm while achieving the total power efficiency above 30% and also RMS DEVM of 0.050. It was also confirmed by simulation that the receiver is expected to attain the sensitivity of -85 dBm in both modes while satisfying the image-rejection and the blocker-suppression specifications. The proposed transceiver will provide a low-cost, low-power single-chip RF-IC solution for the next-generation Bluetooth communication.

This paper studies nonlinear dynamics of a simplified model of multiple-input parallel buck converters. The dynamic winner-take-all switching is used to achieve N-phase synchronization automatically, however, as parameters vary, the synchronization bifurcates to a variety of periodic/chaotic phenomena. In order to analyze system dynamics we adopt a simple piecewise constant modeling, extract essential parameters in a dimensionless circuit equation and derive a hybrid return map. We then investigate typical bifurcation phenomena relating to N-phase synchronization, hyperchaos, complicated superstable behavior and so on. Ripple characteristics are also investigated.

The digitally controlled dc-dc converter has the advantage of high reliability, high controllability and high flexibility. A new digital controller for the PWM and/or PFM controlled switching dc-dc converters is presented, which is versatile in general use such as the switching frequency from 20 kHz to 70 kHz, the hard-switching and soft-switching and so forth. As an example, we apply this controller to half-bridge type series resonant dc-dc converter with auxiliary switches, in which both PWM and PFM control modes are employed, and the output characteristics of the converter are discussed. As a result, the relationships among circuit parameters of the proposed digital controller, switching frequency of the dc-dc converter, oscillation frequency of the VCO as analog to digital signal converter are defined.

The proposed zero-current switching switched-capacitor (ZCS SC) DC-DC converter is an innovative bi-directional power flow control conversion scheme. A zero-current switching switched-capacitor step-up/step-down bi-directional converter is presented that can improve the current stress problem during bi-directional power flow control processing. It can provide a high voltage conversion ratio of n/ (n-mode/-mode) using four power MOSFET main switches, a set of switched-capacitors and a small resonant inductor. Simulation and experimental results are carried out to verify the concept and performance of the proposed quadruple-mode/quarter-mode bi-directional DC-DC converter.

It is often observed that the operation of the digitally controlled dc-dc power converter becomes unstable when the relatively large integral coefficient is used to extend the regulation range of the output voltage to handle variations in the input voltage and load. This paper presents a novel digital controller with static model reference for switching dc-dc power converters to improve the performance characteristics and discusses its design-oriented analysis in the steady-state characteristics. It is clarified theoretically and experimentally that using the static model reference, the wide regulation range of the output voltage to handle variations in the input voltage and load current can be achieved with the appropriate small integral coefficient in the digital P-I-D controller. Therefore, since the integral coefficient is selected to cover the maximum instantaneous variation value of the static reference model, the integral coefficient is small and the operation is always stable.

This paper describes a sub-1-V power-supply, which is useful for self-powered short-range wireless systems with ambient energy sources. A variable-stage DC-DC converter, which consists of multi-stage switched capacitor circuits and has intermittent operation with an external capacitor, makes it possible to extend the time for self-powered operation. We fabricated a variable-stage DC-DC converter and an intermittent operation circuit with a 0.8-µm CMOS/SOI process. We also applied the sub-1-V power-supply system to a self-powered short-range wireless system and verified its effectiveness.

This paper proposes a novel auto-reset forward DC-DC converter with inductor-switching technique to obtain the high performance by means of zero voltage switching and the fast transient response at steep load variations. The performance of the forward converter is strongly depending on the transformer reset-method. The Auto-reset method is used to recover the energy stored in leakage inductances of the transformer to the power supply and makes sure the zero voltage switching. Furthermore fast transient response is achieved by applying the inductor-switching technique, which keeps the output voltage constant in case of heavy burden load changes. The design of the proposed concept is verified by experiment of 12 V input and 1.8 V/12 A output.

This paper describes the effect of power line inductance and smoothing capacitance on a single-phase AC power supply system. Voltage fluctuations were calculated when the three main types of smoothing circuit (capacitor input, choke input, and power factor correction types) were used and the magnitude of power line inductance and smoothing capacitance were changed. First, we show the difference in voltage fluctuation in the case of constant resistance and negative resistance in a DC-DC converter. Second, we show the waveforms for which the power line inductance affects the voltage fluctuation of the AC power supply system. Finally, we propose the boundary condition for the power line inductance affecting the voltage fluctuation of the AC power supply system and estimate AC power supply system stability.

In this paper, a novel type of the step-up high frequency transformer linked full-bridge soft-switching phase-shift PWM DC-DC power converter with ZVS and ZCS bridge legs is proposed for small scale fuel cell power generation systems, automotive AC power supplies. A tapped inductor filter with a freewheeling diode is implemented in the proposed soft-switching DC-DC power converter to minimize the circulating current in the high-frequency step-up transformer primary side and high-frequency inverter stage. Using a tapped inductor filter with a freewheeling diode makes possible to reduce the circulating current without any active switches and theirs gate-drive circuits. The operating principle of the proposed DC-DC power converter with each operation mode during a half cycle of the steady state operation is explained. The optimum design of the tapped inductor turns ratio is described on the basis of the circuit simulation results. Developing 1 kW 100 kHz prototype with power MOSFETs and 36 V DC source verifies the practical effectiveness of the proposed soft-switching DC-DC power converter. The actual efficiency of the proposed DC-DC power converter is obtained 94% for the wide load and output voltage variation ranges.

A digitally controlled dc-dc power converter is useful to dc power supply systems for telecommunications and data communications systems that require high reliability and high performance. This paper presents a design criterion and output characteristics of 1 MHz high-speed digitally controlled dc-dc converter using a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) as an analog to digital signal converter in the digital control circuit. As a result, it is revealed theoretically and experimentally that the proposed 1 MHz high-speed digitally controlled dc-dc converter has excellent static and dynamic characteristics. The adjustability of output voltage is less than 10 mV and there is no steady-state error within the integral controlled regulation range. Also, the overshoot is suppressed enough within 0.1 V and the transient time is very short.

We propose a unique synchronous rectification method in the rectification circuit of a DC-DC converter. This paper describes a novel synchronous rectification circuit that uses a saturable current transformer. We explain operations of this circuit, and analyzed them in this work. In addition, we verified operations of this method applied in boost converter and demonstrated its effectiveness when two or more converters operate in parallel through simulations and experiments.

All power electronic circuits with state feedback controlled switching can be described as nonlinear time-varying dynamical systems. The occurrence of chaos--where the ripple waveforms become aperiodic--is common in such systems. It is shown here that this natural phenomenon may be effectively used in minimizing electromagnetic interference problems in power electronic circuits. This is because converters operating chaotically tend to spread the spectrum, thereby reducing the interference power at any target frequency. We also present the ways of calculating the average values of state variables and the power spectrum under chaotic operation.