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This paper presents a single-stage tri-path buck converter with reduced inductor current and self-balanced flying capacitor voltage. The proposed converter introduces capacitor paths to reduce the average inductor current and inductor current ripple, hence decreasing the conduction loss. Operating with two states per conversion cycle, it exhibits a relatively low voltage conversion ratio of ${D}$ /(1 $+\,\,2{D}$). Besides, it realizes a self-balanced flying capacitor voltage in the charge redistribution phase. Similar to the conventional buck converter, the proposed converter in continuous-current mode only has two complex poles. Therefore, we design a Type-III compensator to obtain a good transient response. Moreover, the circuit does not require extra supplies for gate drivers due to the reutilization of the flying capacitor voltages, eliminating additional circuit and power overheads. The proposed converter, validated in a 65-nm standard CMOS technology, regulates a 0.7 V – 1 V output voltage from a 3.3 V – 4 V input voltage, delivering a maximum output power of 270 mW. The peak efficiency is 84%, with a switching frequency up to 5 MHz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with nonlinear control of a single-phase half-bridge interleaved buck shunt active power filter (HBIB-SAPF) with a nonlinear load. The control objective for the system is twofold: performing power factor correction by compensating for harmonics and reactive current consumed by the nonlinear load from one hand and tightly regulating the HBIB converter DC capacitor voltage. Both objectives are accomplished using a two-loop nonlinear controller. The inner loop acts on the switching devices so that the active filter current tracks its reference with the aim of ensuring a unity power factor. This loop is tackled using backstepping technique and Lyapunov approach. The outer loop is responsible for regulating the DC capacitor voltage to its desired value, using a PI controller with a pre-filter. The stability analysis of the closed-loop system is formally performed by using the averaging theory. The validity of the designed nonlinear controller is checked by simulations in Matlab/SimpowerSystem showing its robustness and accuracy under various operating conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The series-paralleling technique of dc-dc converters is utilized in various domains of electrical engineering for improved power conversion. Previous studies have proposed and classified the control schemes for the series-paralleled converters. However, they have several restrictions and lack diversity. The purpose of this paper is to propose passivity-based control (PBC) for the diverse output series-parallel connection of dc-dc converters. It is proved that the output series-paralleled converters regulated by PBC are asymptotically stable. The output series-paralleled converters are numerically simulated to confirm the asymptotic stability. PBC is shown to maintain the stability of the output series-paralleled converters with diverse circuit topologies, parameters, and steady-states. The result of this paper theoretically supports the numerical and experimental considerations in the previous studies and justifies the further extension of the series-parallel connection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a sliding mode dynamic output feedback controller design for Markovian jump systems under a communication network. For the inaccessible states and uncertain parts of Markovian jump systems, a novel integral-type sliding mode output feedback controller combined with system states and dynamic controller states is proposed. An event-triggered mechanism is introduced to reduce network bandwidth and resources requirements. The augmented dynamic system and complete control framework are presented together. The reachability of the novel integral-type sliding mode is proved. Then, based on delay-dependent Lyapunov functions, free-weighting matrices, and a singular value decomposition approach, a less conservative sufficient condition is proposed to ensure exponential stability with a weighted $\mathcal {L}_{2}$ - $\mathcal{ L}_{\infty}$ disturbance performance. Finally, a numerical and a DC-DC switched boost converter circuit simulations that verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed controller are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, hybrid dynamical systems theory is applied to the analysis and control of switched converters with Pulse-Width Modulated (PWM) inputs. The system is described by a state-space model with continuous flows and discrete jumps, without averaged equations. The modulation effects are captured in full without using time-dependent signals, by enlarging the state vector to include the PWM waveform generation process. Furthermore, the sample-and-hold mechanism associated with the sampling frequency is also taken into account with this approach. A control law is proposed based on a Lyapunov function candidate. Furthermore, convergence sets and the steady state jitter, inherent to PWM-based controllers, are analyzed estimating limit sets for the augmented state. Consequently, output chattering can be bounded. By using hybrid dynamical system theory, the control designer gains a deeper understanding of the effect of modulation in the closed-loop dynamics, avoiding the problems associated with the use averaged models. Experimental results validate the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the power consumption of data centers keeps increasing, a 48-V rack power distribution system replaces the conventional 12-V power bus to reduce the power delivery IR losses. Meanwhile, the 48 V needs conversion into 1 V or lower at the point-of-load for microprocessors. A 48V-to-12V DC-DC converter can serve as a first stage between the huge gap of 48V-to-1V, in a two-stage voltage regulator module (VRM). Thus, this paper presents a 3-phase resonant switched-capacitor (3Φ-ReSC) converter as the first stage of the VRM. Different from the reported solutions, 3-phase resonant operation reduces the current stress across each small-size GaN switch, and thus improves the power conversion efficiency. In addition, we also present the theoretical analysis and design procedures for the 3Φ-ReSC converter. We demonstrated the proposed 3Φ-ReSC converter with a 98% peak power efficiency at an output current of about 1 A, with a maximum output current of 10 A. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growth of IoT applications requires DC-DC converters to have small printed circuit board (PCB) areas and high efficiency over a wide load range. A multi-mode operation of DC-DC converters, therefore, is often necessary to achieve this high efficiency over a wide load range. This paper introduces a tri-mode DC-DC buck converter for IoT applications. The tri-mode operation with PWM, PFM, and multiple-sawtooth PWM (MSPWM) modes helps to retain the high efficiency over the wide load range. The MSPWM mode also enhances a noise margin of the converter, ensuring a regular switching operation at an ultra-light load condition. With a load current prediction scheme, the proposed tri-mode converter requires neither additional load current sensor nor multiple mode controllers. In addition, a soft-start operation is employed to prevent an in-rush current. The proposed tri-mode buck converter has been fabricated through a 0.18- $\mu \text{m}$ CMOS process with a chip area of 0.97 mm $\times0.88$ mm. A load-dependent seamless mode transition is realized, and a maximum converter efficiency of 91% has been measured with a 7.4-MHz switching frequency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a piecewise quadratic slope compensation technique for eliminating subharmonic oscillations in dc-dc switching converters is studied. With this technique, a self-generated signal is used in the compensation scheme resulting in a naturally full duty cycle stability domain. The expression of the piecewise quadratic compensating signal within a switching cycle is derived. It is obtained that the steady-state value of the amplitude of this signal is the same as in the conventional linear slope compensation scheme that guarantees stability for all values of the duty cycle. However, in the piecewise quadratic scheme this is achieved without exact knowledge of the inductance value nor sensing the input and the output voltages. The stability of the converter under the considered compensation scheme is also guaranteed for all values of the duty cycle with voltage loop open. A boost converter under peak current mode control is used to validate the theoretical results both by numerical simulations and by experiments. Simulation results are analyzed and compared to the performances of the state-of-art techniques with voltage loop closed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the start-up response of a digitally controlled dc-dc boost converter with a constant power load is studied. A mathematical expression of the system response during start-up is derived using a nonlinear averaged model. The time-domain response of the system during start-up when the converter is operating under current limitation mode is derived by analytically integrating the mathematical equations describing the dynamic behavior. Numerical simulations from a detailed switched model validate the theoretical results and a good agreement is obtained. A boost converter prototype is built to validate the theoretical finding and the numerical simulations. It is observed that even when the analysis and the simulation predict zero inrush current, the experimental circuit still exhibits an unsuitable initial current peak and an unacceptable transient response during start-up. This phenomenon is mainly attributed to the presence of an unavoidable delay due to the computation time required by the digital control platform. The resulting inrush current is more pronounced in the presence of nonlinear load such as a CPL and saturable inductor. Some solutions are proposed to mitigate the inrush current problems. Simulations results taking into account the delay and experimental measurements demonstrate the validity of the proposed solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an inductor-less switched capacitor based energy harvester, which can simultaneously harvest from 2 energy sources (Solar + Piezo). The proposed harvester employs maximum power point tracking algorithm, by changing the conversion ratios of the charge pumps for piezo and solar sources, and output voltage control by varying the switching frequency. The proposed MPPT algorithm can match the input impedance of two sources simultaneously. Implemented in 65nm CMOS, the proposed harvester can generate a fixed output between 1.8 and 2.5 V output while delivering 35 $\mu \text{W}$ to 70 $\mu \text{W}$ power with a peak power conversion efficiency of 74.6%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is essential to retain improved efficiency in a dc–dc converter over a wide load current range to extend the battery-life in portable devices. This requires a multi-mode controller, consisting of pulse-width-modulation (PWM) and pulse-frequency-modulation (PFM) schemes. However, existing approaches attempt to integrate structurally different controllers; thus it is difficult to achieve a seamless controller transition. While a digital platform offers controller configurations, it remains difficult to identify a suitable digital PWM/PFM technique and decide on its sampling mechanism to achieve stable behavior. This paper proposes a unified digital PWM/PFM scheme which shares a common digital PWM (DPWM) block and has the provisions for online controller configuration and automatic (switching) frequency adaptation. The proposed scheme retains improved efficiency over a wide operating range and inherently achieves seamless controller transitions. Further, a unified discrete-time framework is proposed for the analysis and design of the proposed multi-mode controller. Buck and boost converter prototypes are tested and the proposed controller is implemented using a field-programmable-gate-array device. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The series-capacitor boost converter (SCBC) requires a duty cycle ($D) \ge0.5$ control, otherwise has issues of power switch overstress and inductor currents imbalance. Then, we cannot use the SCBC in wide conversion ratio (CR) applications that require CR < 4. Meanwhile, the $D \ge0.5$ control does not allow $D$ to increase smoothly from 0 during start-up, causing severe inrush inductor currents. As a solution, we propose two control schemes on the capacitor-cross-connected (CCC) boost converter, which is the symmetric version of the SCBC. With the proposed hard-charging control, the CCC converter allows $D < 0.5$ without overstress or imbalance issues, thus extending the CR range and facilitating a soft start-up. In addition, we propose a soft-charging control that enhances the efficiency for 3< CR < 4. We study the output impedance and CR expressions under these two types of controls. Finally, we propose a compact centrosymmetric floorplan that reduces the switching nodes’ ringing, verifying the proposed schemes with a 2.8-to-8.4-V input / 24-V output prototype converter. It exhibits a soft start-up with the proposed control. Under an 8-V input voltage and 1.5-A output current, the peak efficiency of the proposed hard-charging and soft-charging control is 94.7% and 96.3%, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The almost sure finite-time sliding mode control issue is investigated for Markov jump systems. The switching asynchronism between the constructed controller and considered systems is studied. The influence of time-varying delays and disturbances on systems is fully considered, and the sliding mode controller design within a finite time interval is extended to the probability framework. First, the finite time interval is divided into the reaching and the sliding motion phases, and the almost sure finite-time boundedness is analyzed in both phases. Second, the sliding mode controller gain is determined by the provided linear matrix inequality-based criteria. Finally, a numerical example and DC-DC buck converter circuit example verify the effectiveness and less conservativeness of our method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High step-up conversion is an indispensable feature for the power processing of low voltage renewable sources in grid-connected systems. Motivated by this necessity, this paper presents a study on non-isolated dc-dc converters based on the conventional Boost converter that can provide such feature with high efficiency. By the topological variation and gain cell concepts, it is demonstrated that these converters can be treated as a unique generalized converter, called Boost Converter with Gain Cell (BCGC). The operating principle, the key waveforms and the components stresses of the BGCG are analyzed for the continuous-conduction mode, independently of the employed gain cell. A methodology to create the gain cells is developed from the combination of coupled inductors and voltage multiplier techniques. In order to verify the realized analysis, a 150 W prototype concerning to the proposed generalized converter and able to operate with several different gain cells is developed for the comparison between theoretical and experimental static gain results. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Design details and analysis of the properties of a hysteresis switching controller for the Ćuk converter are provided in this paper. The design is based on a switching control law which minimizes a common Lyapunov function derivative for the converter's continuous modes of operation. These continuous modes of operation are both marginally stable which causes some particularities in the design procedure. The design also meets the specifications in terms of the converter's duty ratio and the frequency limitations. The proposed hysteresis controller performance is analyzed with respect to the operating modes of the converter and illustrated with a number of representative and relevant simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper the stability and sensitivity function of three basic dc-dc converter with the consideration of circuit parasitics has been analyzed for analog and digital controller implementation. The steady state and small-signal analysis has been used to derive the mathematical expressions for uniformly sampled voltage-mode controlled converters. The effect of digital controller using the ratio of sampling to carrier frequency has been analyzed. The sampling frequency limits the voltage gain in the stepped manner and also affects the stability of the digitally controlled converter. The sensitivity function has been defined for voltage gain with respect to various system parameters. The maximum affected regions on duty ratio scale with corresponding parasitic variable have been discussed. The detailed stability analysis has been carried out for digitally implemented three basic dc-dc converters, i.e., buck, boost, and buck-boost circuits. The analytical results are verified with the simulations performed in PSCAD/EMTDC. An FPGA controller is considered as digital controller for the dc-dc converter and verification of the results through experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a design procedure of high-frequency loosely inductive coupled wireless power transfer (LIC-WPT) system based on class-E^2 dc-dc converter, taking into account the power loss reduction of inverter, coupling part, and rectifier simultaneously. Analytical expressions including the dc-to-dc efficiency of the WPT system are derived and the efficiency deterioration mechanism is explained by the circuit model. Through the analytical expressions, the design procedure for satisfying both the class-E switching conditions and power loss reductions at the coupling part is proposed from the circuit-theory viewpoint. The class-E^2 WPT system designed by the proposed design procedure achieves high dc-to-dc efficiency at low coupling coefficient, in particular, compared with those designed by the previous design strategies. The validity and effectiveness of the proposed design procedure were confirmed by PSpice simulations and circuit experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A maximum-power-point-tracking DC-DC boost converter to harvest energy from sub-\muW power sources is presented. For available input-power levels below 1 \muW, voltage boosting is achieved by operating all circuits in the sub-threshold region, and by switching the DC-DC converter at tens of Hz, thereby reducing switching losses. The paper further explores the possibility of energizing the DC-DC inductor for an optimum duration, such that switching and resistive losses are minimized. The sub-\muW energy harvesting circuit uses an area of 0.2 mm^2 on a standard 180 nm CMOS process, and utilizes an auxiliary voltage source for start-up. The designed and fabricated system is more than 50% efficient when the available power is greater than 2 \muW. The circuit can harvest energy whenever the available power is more than 0.3 \muW. Efficiency at 0.3 \muW is 25%, at 0.5 \muW is 37% and at 1 \muW is 48%. The complete IC consumes 50 nA for internal operations and the input voltage can be as low as 70 mV. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Energy harvesting is an emerging technology for powering wireless sensor nodes, enabling battery-free operation of these devices. In an energy harvesting sensor, a power management circuit is required to regulate the variable harvested voltage to provide a constant supply rail for the sensor circuits. The power management circuit needs to be compact, efficient, and robust to the variations of the input voltage and load current. A closed-form power expression and custom control algorithm for regulation of a switched-capacitor DC-DC converter with optimal conversion efficiency are proposed in this paper. The proposed regulation algorithm automatically adjusts both the voltage gain and switching frequency of a switched-capacitor DC-DC converter based on its input voltage and load current, increasing the power efficiency across a wide input voltage range. The design and simulation of a fully integrated circuit based on the proposed power managing approach is presented. This power management circuit has been simulated in a 0.25 \mum standard CMOS process and simulation results confirm that with an input voltage ranging from 0.5 V to 2.5 V, the converter can generate a regulated 1.2 V output rail and deliver a maximum load current of 100 \muA. The power conversion efficiency is higher than 74% across a wide range of the input voltage with a maximum efficiency of 83%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Power management of mobile digital systems-on-chip necessitates large voltage regulation performances. DC/DC converters used to supply digital cores are facing stringent constraints with respect to load transients, reference tracking and accuracy. The fast transient response offered by sliding-mode control is well suited to DC/DC converters with fast varying load. Fixed switching-frequency is also mandatory for EMI and noise related issues. Fixed-switching frequency sliding-mode control has been experimented as a multi-loop system. There is a necessity to investigate the stability when multi-loops interact and the parameter set for each loop is quite large. The paper details a methodology for the stability analysis of a frequency-controlled sliding-mode DC/DC converter. The proposed stability analysis takes the possible cross-interactions into account and can be used to optimise the DC/DC controller without the limitations of a non-interaction criterion. As a verification a DC/DC converter is implemented in CMOS 130 nm. Experimental results agree with the analysis main recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A soft-switching bidirectional dc-dc converter using a lossless active snubber is proposed in this paper. In the proposed converter, zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) of main switches is achieved by utilizing an active snubber which consists of auxiliary switches, diodes, an inductor, and a capacitor. Although conduction losses associated with additional components increase, switching losses are significantly reduced due to the ZVS operation of main switches. Therefore, total efficiency is improved. Moreover, there is no reverse-recovery problem of the intrinsic body diodes of the switches. To verify the ZVS of the main switches and efficiency improvement of the proposed bidirectional dc-dc converter, theoretical analysis and experimental results from a 200 W prototype are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a systematic sizing methodology for switched-capacitor DC/DC converters aimed at maximizing the converter efficiency under the die area constraint. To do so, we propose first an analytical solution of the optimum switching frequency to maximize the converter efficiency. When the parasitic capacitances are low, this solution leads to an identical contribution of the switches and transfer capacitors to the converter output impedance. As the parasitic capacitances increase, the optimum switching frequency decreases. Secondly, optimum capacitor and switch sizes for maximum efficiency are provided. We show that the overdrive voltage strongly impacts the optimum switch width through the modification of their conductance. To support the sizing methodology, a model of the efficiency of switched-capacitor DC/DC converters is developed. It is validated against simulation and measurement results in 65 nm and 0.13 \mu\ m CMOS, respectively. The proposed sizing methodology shows how the converter efficiency can be traded-off for die area reduction and what is the impact of parasitic capacitances on the converter sizing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital control of switching power converters is an area which has seen increased attention in recent years. However, quantization in the feedback loop from the analog-to-digital (A/D) converter and the digital pulse width modulator (DPWM) may cause limit cycle oscillations to manifest, which are generally seen as being undesirable. This paper presents an analysis of the limit cycle behavior found in a multiple-sampled digitally controlled buck converter. The limit cycles which may arise in the system are characterized and conditions to prevent these oscillations from occurring are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The trend in next-generation switched-mode power supplies will lead to modular, scalable solutions which deliver power efficiently over a wide range of operation. This paper details a new approach to introduce more advanced control features like phase-alignment and frequency synchronization into such scalable solutions. While these methods have been incorporated into multi-phase converters in the past, they all require the distribution of information among the individual converters. In distributed solutions, dedicated communication signals have been used to share this information. An advantage of the proposed method is that it does not require such communication signals between the individual power supplies and is therefore fully scalable and cost effective. Perturbances generated by the switching actions of the individual converters on the common input/output voltage are used by each converter to harvest information about the switching actions of its counterparts. An algorithm is proposed to align the individual phases and synchronize the switching frequencies based on this information. This allows a reduction of input/output capacitor ripple currents, similar to techniques used in multi-phase designs. Experimental results for an FPGA prototype implementation are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three types of bifurcations (instabilities) in the DC-DC converter under valley current mode control (VCMC) are analyzed, which is an extension of a recent paper on the peak current mode control (PCMC). The three bifurcations are border-collision, period-doubling, and saddle-node bifurcations. The corresponding critical (instability) conditions are derived. The derived conditions divide the parameter space into different operating modes. Contrary to the general belief that the critical conditions for VCMC and PCMC are symmetric with respect to the duty cycle D=1/2, most critical conditions are actually asymmetric. The dynamics symmetry is converter, bifurcation, loading, and parameter dependent, verified by bifurcation diagrams and time-domain simulations. The VCMC boost converter has rich dynamics and it is extensively analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a high switching frequency CMOS DC-DC converter employing phase shedding/segmentation and resonant gate drivers to improve light load efficiency. A novel output inductor network with positively coupled inductors between segments and negatively coupled inductors between phases is adopted in two-phase four-segment interleaved topology to improve effective inductance and reduce inductor current ripple. To limit the contribution of the gate driver to the total converter loss under light and medium loads, a new combined high-side and low-side resonant type gate driver with partially shared inductor is presented. The DC-DC converter is implemented in 0.18~\mum six-metal CMOS technology with 5 V power devices and occupies a total area of 2.55 mm \times 3.0 mm. It converts 4 V input to 1 to 3 V output with peak 1.78 A current under 100 MHz switching frequency. The measured peak efficiency is 77.4% at 5.95 W output power and the tracking mode bandwidth can reach up to 8 MHz. With resonant gate drivers, 5% efficiency improvement can be reached at 1 V output. Furthermore, the converter is able to maintain peak efficiency as the output current varies from 0.1 A to 1.86 A. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Conventionally, inductor current is sensed and quantized before it can be used by digitally controlled DC-DC converters. These are intuitively done by using two separated functional blocks—an analog current sensor and an ADC. A few research works have investigated other ways of obtaining the inductor current information in the digital domain. This paper proposes an on-chip digital inductor current sensor that combines both the inductor current-sensing and quantization into a single functional block. In this way, the redundancies found in the conventional approach can be reduced and optimizations can be made to save chip area and power consumption. An 8-bit digital inductor current sensor has been designed and fabricated with a UMC 0.13~\mum CMOS process. The measurement results show that the digital sensor can provide digital inductor current information with a conversion time of 225 ns. This can be used by a buck converter with a switching frequency up to 4 MHz. The digital sensor has linear and monotonic input-output transfer curve properties with an LSB of 6.79 mA. It consumes current of 700~\muA at 1.2 V supply voltage. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article presents a compact power management solution for a pipeline analog-to-digital converter (ADC), employing only a switching-mode power converter. By directly powering the ADC using a boost DC-DC converter, the power delivery network (PDN) exhibits an overall-high power efficiency. The proposed foreground ADC calibration calibrates the ripple error induced from the power converter, which obviates the need for well-regulated supply and reference voltage offered by low-efficiency linear low-dropout regulators (LDOs). A chip integrates the boost DC-DC converter and the pipelined ADC with an external power inductor. The prototype, implemented in 65-nm CMOS, occupies 2.34-mm2 of total active area (9.4% - ADC, 2.6% - power controller and switches, and 88% - output capacitance). In the measurement, the boost converter, switching at 31.25MHz, converts a 0.5V input to 1.2V and delivers 22.8mW of power to the pipeline ADC. The boost DC-DC converter supplies all voltage domains, including analog/digital power supply and reference. The resulting overall system power efficiency is 78.6%. Sampled at 500MS/s, the ADC achieves a signal-to-noise and distortion ratio (SNDR) of 34.7/39.9dB without/with the ripple calibration for an input frequency of 177MHz, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents guidelines for designing the power supply blocks of RF oscillators. To preserve their spectral purity, the requirements on the noise and ripple of the supply voltage are firstly evaluated based on the oscillator supply pushing factor and the oscillator Figure-of-Merit (FOM). Those specifications are then employed to design and estimate the power efficiency of an analog low-dropout regulator (LDO) and a switched-capacitor DC-DC converter. As a proof of concept, a 2:1 or 3:2 switched-capacitor DC-DC converter is implemented and directly connected to our previously published 4.9 – 5.5 GHz LC oscillator. The converter provides a 1V supply voltage with a noise ≤ 0.9nV/ $\sqrt {Hz}$ at 1MHz and does not affect the inherent phase noise of the oscillator. The ripple amplitude of the converter is 30mV while its effect is suppressed by the spur reduction block embedded in the oscillator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A two-stage hybrid power management unit (PMU) is presented with a highly-efficient novel ON-OFF LDO as the second stage and uses a switched-capacitor dc-dc divider as the first stage. The design targets IoT applications that operate across a wide range of load from sub-microwatt to 100’s of microwatts. The first stage provides a step-down using selectable sizing of its switches to improve efficiency to >95% across the target range of load current. The output voltage that is divided from the first stage is then regulated using the proposed ON-OFF LDO with a dropout voltage of < 30mV. The hybrid architecture regulates a 1.3V input to 0.4V and achieves a power efficiency of >80% for load ranges 1μ - 240μA. The design is fabricated in 28-nm CMOS technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a novel low-harmonics low-noise modulation scheme for switched-mode dc–dc converters. The proposed scheme is a hybrid of a randomized modulation scheme, namely, the randomized wrapped-around pulse position modulation scheme (RWAPPM), and a noise-shaper. The RWAPPM mitigates the switching-frequency harmonics in the input current, whereas the noise-shaper mitigates the low-frequency noise therein. We derive an analytical expression for the input current spectrum of the hybrid scheme. We benchmark the hybrid scheme against the conventional pulse width modulation scheme (PWM) and the RWAPPM without the noise-shaper. At 0.5 duty cycle, 3.3-V input voltage, 100-kHz average switching frequency, and with the second-order noise-shaper, the peak spectral power in the input current spectrum of the hybrid scheme is 18.1 dB lower than the PWM. Other randomized and spread-spectrum modulation schemes, in general, have undesirably higher input noise current than that of the PWM. However, the input noise current of the proposed hybrid scheme, obtained at ~73-mA rms (integrated over a 200-kHz bandwidth without an input filter), is comparable with that of the PWM, and is lower by ~16-mA rms compared with that of the RWAPPM without the noise-shaper. We also benchmark the hybrid scheme against other well known randomized and spread-spectrum modulation schemes. We further propose a novel pulse generator structure that embodies the hybrid scheme. We realize a dc–dc converter employing the pulse generator, and measure the converter to verify the derived expression and the characteristics of the hybrid scheme. We also measure the output voltage spectrum, the transient-response, and the operating range of the converter. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) circuit for a 0.7-W photovoltaic (PV) system is proposed. The circuit employs a modified hill-climbing algorithm based on a 3-points comparison instead of the traditional 2-points comparison. The adopted algorithm simplifies the detection of the Maximum Power Point (MPP) and enables the implementation of a periodic sleep-mode to reduce the overall power consumption without compromising effective tracking of irradiance variations. Moreover, to achieve high MPP tracking efficiency, a low-power linear analog multiplier is implemented to accurately compute the instantaneous power of the PV source from its sensed voltage and current levels. This power-metering function is realized in the analog domain to eliminate the need for data converters and to minimize the MPPT circuit's power consumption. A complete design of the proposed circuit is implemented in 0.18- \mu\textm BiCMOS process in less than 1.55 mm 2 and consumes less than 25 \mu\textW with the digital core running at 500 kHz and a measured peak MPP tracking efficiency of 99.7%. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An energy-efficient fast array multiplier is proposed and designed. The multiplier operates in a left-to-right mode enabling a full overlap between reduction of partial products in carry-save form and the final addition producing the product. The design is based on the left-to-right carry-free (LRCF) multiplier. It differs from the LRCF multiplier in a much smaller on-the-fly conversion circuit of $O(n)$ size and the use of radix-4 full adders in the conversion. The new converter produces the most-significant half of the product during the reduction process. It eliminates the most-significant part of the final adder. The least-significant half of the product is obtained with a carry-ripple adder during the reduction. Thus conversion of the carry-save form of accumulated partial products to the conventional product does not add any delay to the total time of the multiplier. Several right-to-left, left-to-right multipliers and tree multipliers are designed for 16, 24, 32, and 56 bits, and radices 2 and 4, synthesized in 90 nm technology and compared, demonstrating the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed design with respect to area, delay, power, and energy. We considered both truncated and full-precision multipliers. The proposed multiplier has lower delay, area, power, and energy than other considered types of array multipliers. Its advantages grow with the increase in precision. As expected, it is slower than a tree multiplier but it has smaller area, power, and energy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A self-sustainable sensing platform powered entirely by small-scale benthic microbial fuel cells (MFCs) for oceanic sensing applications is presented. An ultra-low power chip featuring an ARM Cortex-M0 processor, 3 kB of SRAM, and power management unit (PMU) is designed to consume 11 nW in sleep mode for perpetual sensing operation. The PMU includes a switched-capacitor DC/DC converter designed for efficient energy harvesting and step-down conversion for a wide range of input and output power. A small-scale MFC with 21.3 cm^2 anode surface area was connected to the PMU to charge a thin-film battery of 1 mAh capacity. A 49.3-hour long-term experiment with 8-min sleep interval and 1-s wake-up time demonstrated the sustainability of system-on-mud concept. During sleep mode operation, the system charges the 4 V battery at 380 nA from the micro-MFC generating 5.4 \muW of power, which allows up to 20 mA of active mode current with net energy neutrality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A high efficiency 3.3 V-to-1 V switched-capacitor (SC) step-down DC-DC converter with load-dependent frequency control (LFC) and deep-green mode (DGM) operation is proposed for system-on-a-chip (SoC) application. According to output loading current, the LFC technique can immediately and dynamically adjust the switching frequency through the use of pseudo-clock generator (PCG) and lead-lag detector (LLD) circuit to obtain high power conversion efficiency and small output voltage ripple over a wide loading current range. Therefore, adequate loading current supplying function and output voltage regulation can be guaranteed. Moreover, the DGM operation, similar to pulse skipping mode, can mask the switching clock to reduce power loss at ultra-light loads for further improving power efficiency. The test chip fabricated in 55 nm CMOS process demonstrates that the proposed fast transient converter can deliver wide load range from 10 mA to 250 mA with two small flying capacitors (CF1, CF2 =0.1\ \muF) and one output capacitor (COUT =1\ \muF). The peak conversion efficiency is 89% compared to the ideal value of 91% (3* VOUT/VIN). In other words, the peak normalized efficiency is equal to 98%. The overall normalized efficiency is always kept higher than 90% while the output voltage ripple is guaranteed smaller than 30 mV. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The recent development in computer science that the power demand and required time of code execution can be accurately predicted is paving a path that may lead to a new paradigm shift in power supply design. Specifically, while the design of power supplies now normally assumes that load current changes at random times and with unknown magnitudes (within a range), future computer loads may communicate with power supplies to provide information that facilitates power management. Such information would include the exact times of occurrence of load transients and their magnitudes. Following this trend of development where the power supply is “informed” by the load, we propose to use an auxiliary circuit that generates a slowly rising current prior to the occurrence of the actual transient. The slowly rising current can cause the power supply to shift its operation point to a new level slowly without exhibiting output voltage fluctuation. The actual load exhibits very fast current transient, but the combination of actual load and auxiliary circuit behaves as a slowly changing load which can be dealt with by an ordinary power supply capable of handling slowly changing load current. Thus, this method essentially buffers the power supply from large and fast transients. Our proposed approach involves the necessary algorithm for controlling the auxiliary circuit in accordance with the information provided by the microprocessor. The design of the auxiliary circuit is explained and experimental results for a 1.5 V load with 15 A step current are provided for verification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A time-invariant multi-frequency modeling technique is proposed for pulse-width-modulated (PWM) dc-dc converters. The proposed methodology distinguishes between different types of modulation carrier signals (e.g., sawtooth and isosceles triangle carriers). A straightforward systematic procedure is proposed to automatically convert the conventional state-space time-variant model to the proposed time-invariant model. Hence, high-order time-invariant models can be easily developed for system design and stability analysis purposes. Closed-loop time-domain and open-loop frequency-domain responses extracted from a laboratory-scale Cuk converter have verified the proposed methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A new gate drive circuit to reduce the power loss and switching noise of single-inductor-multiple-output regulators is presented. Efficiency degradation and switching noise induced by the cross-talk of the voltages and currents within the power stage and buffer are analyzed. A shoot-through-current (STC) controlled buffer with four-transistor (4T) inverters is presented, and the 4T inverter enables internal STC control and generates two outputs with dead-time. To further isolate the cross-talk, two separate high voltage selectors (HVS) with the proposed buffer are used to power the buffer and the power P-MOSFET body, respectively. Simulation results show that the peak and average currents of the proposed buffer are smaller and much less sensitive to the buffer size than those of the traditional inverter based buffer. Two single-inductor-dual-output boost converters with and without the proposed techniques have been fabricated in a 0.35-\mum CMOS process. Experimental results show that the maximum efficiency is increased from 87.8% to 91.6% with the proposed technique. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Based on a general critical condition of subharmonic oscillation in terms of the loop gain, many closed-form critical conditions for various control schemes in terms of converter parameters are derived. Some previously known critical conditions become special cases in the generalized framework. Given an arbitrary control scheme, a systematic procedure is proposed to derive the critical condition for that control scheme. Different control schemes share similar forms of critical conditions. For example, both V^2 control and proportional voltage mode control have the same form of critical condition. A peculiar phenomenon in average current mode control where subharmonic oscillation occurs in a window value of pole can be explained by the derived critical condition. A ripple amplitude index to predict subharmonic oscillation proposed in the past research has limited application and is shown invalid for a converter with a large pole comparable to the switching frequency. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A triple-mode step-up/step-down switched-capacitor DC-DC converter is proposed, and it can work with a wide input voltage range. There are three operational modes in the proposed converter: triple-step-up, double-step-up, and step-down modes. A built-in clock generator was designed to generate a constant switching frequency, independent of the input voltage. The proposed circuit was implemented by a 0.35-\mum CMOS mixed-signal 2P4M 3.3/5 V polycide process with a die area of 1.56\times 1.47\ mm^2. The output voltage is fixed at 3.3 V, while the input voltage range is 1.8–5 V. The maximal load current for a 1.8-V input voltage is 10 mA, while it increases to 30 mA when the input voltage is larger than 3 V. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Conventional digital signal processor (DSP) based digital controllers are not specifically optimized for multi-rail DC-DC converter applications. A new application-specific instruction-set processor (ASIP) that overcomes the shortcomings of existing controllers has thus been designed, implemented, and evaluated. The proposed dual multiply-accumulate (MAC) architecture has been implemented using a field programmable gate array and verified in a closed-loop power converter system. The benefits of the proposed ASIP are illustrated through a comparison with a conventional single MAC processor architecture. Experimental results demonstrate improved output voltage transient response compared with existing DSP-based controllers when controlling multiple DC-DC converters. In the case of multiple converters that have a non-integer switching frequency ratio more significant improvements in transient response are obtained due to the processor's interrupt controller. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]