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The high side MOSFET ontime determines the duty and output voltage overshoot, but increases the time it takes
cycle of the circuit, and is defined in Equation 1. the output voltage feedback loop to respond to changes in
t ON,HS V load. Therefore, a minimum capacitance must be considered,
D+ ^ OUT (eq. 1) in order to meet the ripple voltage and voltage overshoot
t ON,HS ) t OFF,HS V IN
requirements of the converter, while maintaining a feedback
If the duty cycle, D, is equal to 1 then the high side loop that can respond quickly enough to load changes.
MOSFET is on 100% of the time and the output voltage Capacitors also have a parasitic series resistance, known
equals the input voltage. A duty cycle of 0.1 means that the as the equivalent series resistance (ESR). The ESR impacts
high side MOSFET is on 10% of the time, producing an the output voltage ripple and the overall efficiency of the
output voltage that is approximately 10% of the input voltage. converter. Because of this, designers are moving to low ESR
designs. Surface mount ceramic capacitors are becoming
Buck Converter Power Loss prevalent in systems that require high performance in a
The buck converter power losses are influenced by small form factor. The use of multiple capacitors in parallel
multiple factors, including the power MOSFETs, output allows designers to achieve the necessary capacitance for
stage, controller / driver, feedback loop, and layout of the the system while greatly reducing the equivalent ESR.
converter itself. The duty cycle is less than 0.5 for most buck
converter designs, with a standard duty cycle of 0.1 to 0.2 in Basic LC Design
the computing and server market. Design platforms are When designing the buck converter output stage, it is
moving to higher switching frequencies, providing the recommended to begin with the inductor. The minimum
ability to reduce converter size and form factors. At the same inductance is calculated based on the target ripple current and
time, converters must deliver greater performance and have other application circuit specifications. Once the inductor has
higher efficiency. The output stage performance greatly been selected, the minimum capacitance can be determined.
impacts the overall performance of the buck converter. For Calculating Minimum Inductance
this reason, it is important to optimize the inductor and Lets begin with the basic inductor current / voltage
capacitor selection for the specific application. The rest of relationship, seen in Equation 2.
this application note focuses on the output stage design. dI L
VL + L @ (eq. 2)
The LC Output Stage dt
The output stage of the synchronous buck converter is Inductor current ripple is defined as the peaktopeak
comprised of an inductor and capacitor. The output stage change in current during the converter on time. For the
stores and delivers energy to the load, and smoothes out the synchronous buck converter, the change in inductor current
switch node voltage to produce a constant output voltage. during the high side MOSFET ontime is equal to the
Inductor selection directly influences the amount of change during the high side MOSFET offtime. In other
current ripple seen on the inductor current, as well as the words, the inductor current increase is equal to the inductor
current capability of the buck converter itself. Inductors current decrease (refer to Figure 2).
vary from manufacturer to manufacturer in both material DI L()) + DI L(*) (eq. 3)
and value, and typically have a tolerance of 20%. For this reason, the inductor current ripple can simply be
Inductors have an inherent DC resistance (known as the defined as DIL and units are Amperes. The dIL/dt term
DCR) that impacts the performance of the output stage. during the converter on time can be written as:
Minimizing the DCR improves the overall performance of
the converter. For applications that require a high load dI L DI L
+ (eq. 4)
current, it is recommended to select an inductor with a low dt t ON,HS
DCR. The DCR is smaller for lower inductor values, but Combining Equation 2 and Equation 4 and solving for the
there is a tradeoff between inductance and ripple current; inductance yields Equation 5.
the lower the inductance, the higher the ripple current V L(ON) @ t ON,HS
through the inductor. A minimum inductance must be met in L MIN + (eq. 5)
DI L
order to meet the ripple current requirements of the specific
application circuit. In order to solve for inductance in terms of the application
The output capacitance directly affects the output voltage circuit parameters, some additional terms must be defined first.
During the converter on time, the high side MOSFET is
of the converter, the response time of the output feedback
conducting and the low side MOSFET is off. Using
loop, and the amount of output voltage overshoot that occurs
Kirkhoffs voltage law, VL(ON) is defined as
during changes in load current. A ripple voltage exists on the
DC output as the current through the inductor and capacitor V L(ON) + V IN * V HS * V OUT (eq. 6)
increases and decreases. Increasing the capacitance reduces
where VHS is the voltage drop across the high side MOSFET
the amount of ripple voltage present. However, there is a
and is defined as:
tradeoff between capacitance and the output response.
Increasing the capacitance reduces the output voltage ripple V HS + R DS(on)HS @ D @ I OUT,MAX (eq. 7)
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The duty cycle is defined as the ratio of high side As can be seen, there is a tradeoff between inductance and
MOSFET on time to the switching period of the converter. ripple current. Lower target ripple current equates to higher
In other words, minimum inductance. To optimize the output filter
t ON,HS performance it is recommended to target 20% 40%
D+ + t ON,HS @ f SW (eq. 8) inductor ripple current, which translates to an LIR of 0.2 0.4.
T SW
Calculating Maximum ESR and Minimum Capacitance
And Equation 5 becomes:
Capacitance is required to maintain a regulated output
V IN * VHS * VOUT @ D voltage while the high side MOSFET is off, and is necessary
L MIN + (eq. 9)
to minimize the amount of ripple present on the output
DI L @ f SW
voltage. The output voltage ripple, DVPP, can be expressed
The ripple current can also be expressed in terms of the
as a peaktopeak voltage or in terms of the Capacitor
inductor current ripple ratio, or LIR.
Voltage Ratio, or CVR.
DI L + LIR @ I OUT,MAX (eq. 10)
DV PP + CVR @ V OUT (eq. 22)
Substituting Equation 10 into Equation 9, the minimum
A CVR of 0.05, for example, equates to an output ripple
inductance, LMIN, becomes:
voltage that is 5% of the DC output voltage.
V IN * VHS * VOUT @ D ESR and capacitance influence the response time of the
L MIN + (eq. 11)
output feedback loop. The larger the output capacitance
LIR @ I OUT,MAX @ f SW
value and ESR, the longer it takes for the output to respond
Equation 3 can be used to calculate the duty cycle, D using
to changes in load. ESR also influences the output voltage
DIL(+) and DIL() as defined in Equation 12 and 13 below.
ripple. The maximum ESR can be calculated using the
V L_ON,HS specified maximum voltage ripple, DVPP, and the maximum
DI L()) + @ t ON,HS (eq. 12)
L load current, as shown in Equation 23.
V L_OFF,HS DV PP CVR @ V OUT
DI L(*) + @ t OFF,HS (eq. 13) ESR MAX + + (eq. 23)
L I OUT,MAX I OUT,MAX
where VL(ON) is defined in Equation 6 and VL(OFF) is: Therefore, in order to have an output voltage ripple below
V L(OFF) + V OUT ) V LS (eq. 14) the specified maximum, the ESR of the output capacitance
must be less than the value calculated using Equation 23.
The high side MOSFET tON and tOFF can also be written
When the high side MOSFET is on, current through the
in terms of duty cycle.
inductor and capacitor is increasing, and the output voltage
t ON,HS + D (eq. 15) increases. When the high side MOSFET is off, current
f SW
through the inductor and capacitor are decreasing, and the
t OFF,HS + 1 * D (eq. 16) output voltage decreases. In order to achieve a constant
f SW
output voltage, the amount of capacitor current increase
Setting DIL(+) equal to DIL() and substituting Equations must be equal to the amount of capacitor current decrease.
14, 15 and 16, the duty cycle becomes: Therefore, the steady state current through the capacitor is
V OUT ) V LS 0 A (Figure 3).
D+ (eq. 17)
V IN * V HS ) V LS
where VLS the voltage drop across the low side MOSFET
when it is conducting, and is defined as:
V LS + R DS(on)LS @ (1 * D) @ I OUT,MAX (eq. 18)
L MIN+ V IN * V HS * V OUT
LIR @ I OUT,MAX @ f SW
@ V OUT ) V LS
V IN * V HS ) V LS
(eq. 19)
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The current through the capacitor is defined as: Both Equations 31 and 34 must be taken into
DV C consideration when selecting the output capacitance. There
IC + C @ (eq. 24)
Dt is a tradeoff between the output voltage transient response
and can be rewritten as: and output voltage ripple. These two must be balanced for
Dt @ I C + C @ DV C + DQ C (eq. 25) the needs of the specific application.
The area under the curve (shown in red in Figure 3) is the LC Design Example
capacitor charge, DQC, and is defined as: This section walks through a design example applying the
DQ C + 1 @ DI C @ Dt (eq. 26) equations defined in the previous section. Table 1 lists the
2 target application requirements for this example that must be
where Dt + 1
2
@ t ON ) 1 @ t OFF
2 (eq. 27) met by the converter design.
+ @
1 D ) 12 @ 1f* D Table 1. DESIGN EXAMPLE CIRCUIT REQUIREMENTS
2 f SW SW Parameter Symbol Target
+ 1
2 @ f SW Input Voltage VIN 12 V
DI Output Voltage VOUT 1.2 V
and DI C + L (eq. 28)
2 Switching Frequency fSW 700 kHz
Therefore, Equation 26 can be rewritten as:
2
DQ C + 1 @
DI L
2
@
1
2 @ f SW
+
DI L
8 @ f SW
(eq. 29)
Inductor Current Ripple Ratio
Capacitor Voltage Ripple Ratio
LIR
CVR
0.3
0.04
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A good rule of thumb when selecting capacitance is to Table 4 lists the output filter parameters tested in the
choose an out capacitor value that is at least 20% higher than openloop configurations. All waveforms were measured at
the minimum calculated capacitance, to account for a load current of 25 A.
capacitor tolerance.
Table 4. LC VALUES FOR OPENLOOP EXPERIMENTS
LC Experiments Test LValue (mH) LDCR (mW) CValue (mH)
The buck converter output filter design affects the output
1 0.30 1 1600
current ripple, output voltage ripple, output voltage
overshoot, and the transient response of the feedback loop. 2 0.82 0.9 3200
Component selection also impacts the efficiency of the
converter. Openloop and closed loop experiments were
carried out to examine the effect of capacitance and
inductance on the converters performance.
Three inductors were selected for the experiments in order
to examine the impact of inductance value and DCR on
circuit performance. Two inductors with equivalent DCR
but different inductance were selected to examine the impact
of inductance value on circuit performance. They differed in
core size and inductance, but were made from the same
material and by the same manufacturer. A third inductor was
selected to examine the impact of the DCR on circuit
performance. It was selected from the same manufacturer,
but differed in core material.
Table 2. INDUCTORS USED IN EXPERIMENTS
L (uH) DCR ISAT (A) Core Size (mm) Figure 4. Ripple Current for 0.3 mH Inductor
0.30 1.0 35 10 x 10
Figure 4 shows the ripple current for the 0.30 mH /
0.82 0.9 35 13 x 13 1600 mF output filter. As can be seen, the measured output
0.30 0.29 32.5 9.6 x 6.4 ripple current was 6 A.
Drive Voltage VDRIVE 5V Figure 5 shows the ripple current for the 0.82 mH /
Load Current ILOAD 0 25 A
3200 mF output filter. At a 25 A load, the measured ripple
current was 2.5 A. According to the parameters specified in
LIR Maximum DIL 0.3
Table 3, the ripple current could not exceed 30% of the
CVR Maximum DVPP 0.04 maximum load current (7 A). For both cases, this
requirement was met. As can be seen from the experiment,
using a higher inductance value reduced the measured ripple
current.
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Inductance and DCR both affect the converters designing for the specific application criteria that it will be
efficiency. Figure 10 shows the efficiency results of four operating in.
different inductors. At light load, the efficiency correlates to From the experiment results, it was found that the inductor
inductance value; the higher the inductance, the higher the value played a significant role in the output ripple current,
lightload efficiency. As the load current increases, the DCR as well as in the converters efficiency performance. The
begins to dominate. At heavy loads, the efficiency correlates 0.82 mH inductor ripple current was a third of the 0.3 mH
to the DCR value; the 0.29 mW DCR produced the highest inductor ripple current. Similarly, the output voltage ripple
efficiency, and the 1.56 mW DCR produced the lowest improved with a higher output capacitance.
efficiency. The efficiency of the converter was greatly impacted by
the DCR of the inductor. Holding the output capacitance and
output inductance constant, the 0.29 mW DCR provided
1.7% higher efficiency at maximum load compared with the
1 mW DCR.
There is a tradeoff between inductance and saturation
current for inductors. Therefore, to meet or exceed a ripple
current requirement, the inductance must be greater than the
minimum calculated inductance, and the saturation current
of the inductor must be greater than the peak current of the
converter at maximum load.
Capacitance also plays a significant role in the
performance of the synchronous buck converter. Output
capacitance directly influences the amount of voltage ripple
and voltage overshoot seen on the output. Experiments
showed that the capacitance had minimal effect on the
Figure 10. Effect of Inductance on Efficiency efficiency performance.
As can be seen from the experiment, the efficiency was References
most impacted by the output inductor selection. Both the 1. BuckConverter Design Demystified. Article
inductor value and DCR significantly affected the efficiency from Power Electronics Technology. June 2006.
of the converter. www.powerelectronics.com.
Conclusion 2. Understanding the Output Current Capability of
The output stage of the synchronous buck converter plays DCDC Buck Converters. Application note #
a significant role in the performance of the converter. In AND8117/D. ON Semiconductor.
order to meet the target ripple current, output ripple voltage, 3. Basic Calculation of a Buck Converters Power
and output voltage overshoot, a minimum inductance and Stage. Application note # SLVA477A. Texas
capacitance must be exceeded. Additional factors must also Instruments.
be considered when selecting an inductor and capacitor for 4. Selecting Inductors for Buck Converters.
a specific application. The output stage can be optimized by Application note # AN1197. National
Semiconductor. Sanjaya Maniktala
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