Voltage Auto-Correction for Efficient Switching Regulators
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Summary
Problems
Voltage regulators face issues with improper turn-on and turn-off times of high-side and low-side switches leading to shoot-currents, overshoot, and undershoot, causing power loss and reducing the life expectancy of switching voltage regulators.
Innovation solutions
A control device with a comparator and spike detection circuit is used to compare switching voltage with a reference voltage, providing a disable signal and offset control to adjust the turn-off time of the low-side switch, and a dead-time control circuit with logic gates and delay elements to optimize the dead time between driver signals, minimizing power loss.
TRIZ Analysis
Specific contradictions:
General conflict description:
Principle concept:
If the turn-off time of the low-side switch is not precisely controlled, then systematic offset or delay occurs causing glitches at the switching node, but increasing the turn-off time control precision requires additional control circuits and complexity
Why choose this principle:
The patent implements a feedback mechanism where the switching node voltage is continuously monitored and fed back to the control circuit. The control circuit compares the actual switching node voltage with the expected voltage waveform and adjusts the low-side switch turn-off time accordingly, eliminating systematic offsets and delays through closed-loop control without requiring overly complex external circuitry.
Principle concept:
If the turn-off time of the low-side switch is not precisely controlled, then systematic offset or delay occurs causing glitches at the switching node, but increasing the turn-off time control precision requires additional control circuits and complexity
Why choose this principle:
The control circuit utilizes the existing switching node voltage signal itself as the feedback source for timing correction. By detecting voltage transitions at the switching node and using these same transitions to trigger and adjust the low-side switch timing, the system achieves self-correction of timing offsets without requiring separate reference signals or complex external timing circuits.
Application Domain
Data Source
AI summary:
A control device with a comparator and spike detection circuit is used to compare switching voltage with a reference voltage, providing a disable signal and offset control to adjust the turn-off time of the low-side switch, and a dead-time control circuit with logic gates and delay elements to optimize the dead time between driver signals, minimizing power loss.
Abstract
A method for controlling a load-current zero-crossing of a switching regulator having a high-side switch and a low-side switch includes detecting, by a spike detection circuit, a presence of a spike on an output voltage of the switching regulator, determining, by the spike detection circuit, in the event that a spike is present, whether the spike is a positive spike or a negative spike, and adjusting a turn-off timing of the low-side switch based on a determination result.