A Digital LDO Employing A Switched-Capacitor Resistance
- 技術優勢
- It uses a switched-capacitor resistor instead of an array of switches, which allows it to implement a voltage divider between its resistance and the effective resistance of the load to regulate the load voltage precisely, even under low supply voltages.
- 技術應用
- It is a digital low dropout (LDO) linear regulator, which regulates the voltage of a digital supply, regardless of load current or input voltage changes. It can operate any digital circuit, including processors, digital basebands in wireless modems.
- 詳細技術說明
- Researchers at UC San Diego have invented a novel digital low dropout (LDO) linear regulator, which regulates the voltage of a digital supply, regardless of load current or input voltage changes. Unlike analog LDOs, digital LDOs are more amenable to deeply scaled CMOS technologies, and can operate more easily at low supply voltages. Compared to existing DLDOs, the proposed concept does NOT use an array of switches (which could be linearly or binary weighted) to form a digitally-controllable resistance, but instead uses a switched-capacitor resistor. In this way, the resistance of the LDO output is not set by how many switches are on, which requires a complex control network, but instead, based on the switching frequency of the circuit. This makes for a simple, non-linear, hysteretic control loop that responds to load or input variations within a single clock cycle - the fastest possible response time of a DLDO. In addition, precise frequency control, in this case set via an implicit relaxation oscillator, enables far better regulation accuracy than prior-art DLDOs.
- *Abstract
-
A low-dropout or LDO regulator is a DC linear voltage regulator that can regulate the output voltage even when the supply voltage is very close to the output voltage. The advantages of a low dropout voltage regulator over other DC to DC regulators include the absence of switching noise (as no switching takes place), smaller device size (as neither large inductors nor transformers are needed), and greater design simplicity (usually consists of a reference, an amplifier, and a pass element).
- *Principal Investigation
-
Name: Patrick Mercier
Department:
Name: Loai Galal Salem
Department:
- 其他
-
State Of Development
Working prototype chip fabricated and measured.
Intellectual Property Info
A provisional patent has been submitted and the technology is available for licensing.
Related Materials
Tech ID/UC Case
29200/2018-220-0
Related Cases
2018-220-0
- 國家/地區
- 美國
