Multiphase power supply and phase control

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10044255-B2
Application number	US-201615335715-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 27, 2016
Priority date	Oct 27, 2016
Publication date	Aug 7, 2018
Grant date	Aug 7, 2018

Abstract

A multi-phase power supply circuit includes at least a first phase and a second phase (such as semi-resonant DC-DC power converter circuits), each of which output current to power a load. The first phase includes a first inductor device through which first current is delivered to the load. The second phase includes a second inductor device through which second current is delivered to the load. A current monitor circuit of the multi-phase power supply circuit is operable to monitor current through the second inductor device. Control circuitry of the multi-phase power supply circuit is operable to adjust timing of activating a control switch in the second phase to an ON state based on the monitored current. Timing of the phases is adjusted to achieve a common switching and zero current switching amongst the phases.

First claim

We claim:

1. A multi-phase power supply circuit comprising:
a first phase, the first phase including a first inductor device through which first current is delivered to a load;
a second phase, the second phase including a second inductor device through which second current is delivered to the load;
a monitor circuit operable to monitor a magnitude of the second current conveyed through the second inductor device to the load; and
control circuitry operable to produce an adjustment to a timing of activating respective control switch circuitry in the second phase to an ON state based on the monitored second current, the adjustment to the timing of activating the control switch circuitry in the second phase resulting in zero current switching in the second phase.

2. The multi-phase power supply circuit as in claim 1 , wherein the control circuitry is further operable to adjust the timing of activating the respective control switch circuitry in the second phase to synchronize the second current with respect to the first current to power the load.

3. The multi-phase power supply circuit as in claim 1 , wherein the adjustment is further operable to delay or advance timing of an edge of a control signal controlling activation of the respective control switch circuitry to achieve the zero current switching in the second phase.

4. The multi-phase power supply circuit as in claim 3 , wherein the second inductor device is a tapped inductor device; and
wherein the control circuitry is operable to adjust the timing of the edge of the control signal to achieve zero current switching in the second phase.

5. The multi-phase power supply circuit as in claim 4 , wherein the monitor circuit is operable to monitor a tapped node of the second inductor device to monitor the second current and produce the adjustment to the timing of activating respective control switch circuitry in the second phase.

6. The multi-phase power supply circuit as in claim 1 , wherein the control circuitry is further operable to, via the adjustment, adjust multiple edges of a control signal controlling activation of the respective control switch circuitry switch.

7. The multi-phase power supply circuit as in claim 1 , wherein the second inductor device is a tapped inductor;
wherein the monitor circuit is operable to monitor a tapped node of the second inductor device to monitor the second current, the apparatus further comprising:
a switch device operable to selectively couple the tapped node to a reference voltage.

8. The multi-phase power supply circuit as in claim 7 , wherein the switch device is synchronous switch circuitry in the second phase; and
wherein the monitor circuit is further operable to monitor a magnitude of a voltage of the tapped node to determine timing of peak current passing through the synchronous switch circuitry when the synchronous switch circuitry of the second phase is activated.

9. The multi-phase power supply circuit as in claim 7 , wherein the switch device is synchronous switch circuitry in the second phase; and
wherein the monitor circuit is further operable to monitor a magnitude of voltage of the tapped node to determine timing of zero current passing through the synchronous switch circuitry when the synchronous switch circuitry of the second phase is activated.

10. The multi-phase power supply circuit as in claim 1 , wherein the adjustment to the timing of activating the control switch circuitry in the second phase to the ON state results in reactivation of the control switch circuitry at an end of a control cycle when current through synchronous switch circuitry in the second phase is zero.

11. The multi-phase power supply circuit as in claim 1 , wherein the first phase and the second phase operate at different resonant frequencies, the adjustment to timing of activating the control switch circuitry modifying a duration of activating the control switch circuitry in the second phase and offsetting a period of controlling the second phase with respect to a period of controlling the first phase to achieve the zero current switching in the second phase.

12. The multi-phase power supply circuit as in claim 1 , wherein the adjustment to the timing is operable to reactivate the respective control switch circuitry in the second phase at a subsequent time in which substantially zero current passes through respective synchronous switch circuitry of the second phase to the load.

13. The multi-phase power supply circuit as in claim 1 , wherein the adjustment to the timing of activating the respective control switch circuitry in the second phase accounts for circuit component variations between the first phase and the second phase.

14. The multi-phase power supply circuit as in claim 1 , wherein the monitor circuit is further operable to:
produce a timing adjustment value based on the monitored second current, the timing adjustment value being a timing value in which to modify the timing of activating the respective control switch circuitry in the second phase in a subsequent control cycle; and
store the adjustment value for later retrieval.

15. The multi-phase power supply circuit as in claim 1 , wherein the respective control circuitry is further operable to:
produce period information associated with controlling activation of the first phase; and
utilize the period information of the first phase to control the timing of activating the respective control switch circuitry in the second phase.

16. The multi-phase power supply circuit as in claim 1 , wherein the controller circuitry is further operable to:
sum an ON time of the first phase and OFF time over multiple cycles to produce a period value; and
divide the period value by a number of phases in the multi-phase power supply to produce phase start times; and
use the phase start times to activate each of the phases in the multi-phase power supply at different times in a control cycle.

17. The multi-phase power supply circuit as in claim 1 , wherein the controller circuitry is operable to produce a period value based on an average period of cycling each of the multiple phases in the multi-phase power supply, the controller circuitry further operable to synchronize the multiple phases by dividing the average period value by the number of phases in the multi-phase power supply to produce phase start times, and using the phase start times to activate each of the multiple phases at different times in a control cycle.

18. The multi-phase power supply circuit as in claim 1 , wherein the control circuitry sets a switching period of controlling the second phase to be equal to a switching period of controlling activation of the first phase.

19. The multi-phase power supply as in claim 18 , wherein the adjustment produced by the control circuitry modifies a duration of activating the control switch circuitry to the ON state in the second phase to achieve a condition of zero current flowing though the second inductor device at an end of the switching period of controlling the second phase.

20. The multi-phase power supply circuit as in claim 19 , wherein the first phase and the second phase operate at different resonant frequencies.

21. The multi-phase power supply circuit as in claim 1 , wherein the adjustment to timing of activating the control switch circuitry operable to modify a duration of activating the control switch circuitry to the ON state to achieve the zero current switching in the second phase.

22. The multi-phase power supply circ

Assignees

• Infineon Technologies Austria Ag

Inventors

• Sreenivas Venkat
• Babazadeh Amir

Classifications

• H02M1/084 Primary

  using a control circuit common to several phases of a multi-phase system · CPC title

• H02M3/1584 Primary

  with a plurality of power processing stages connected in parallel · CPC title

• H02M1/14

  Arrangements for reducing ripples from DC input or output · CPC title

• H02M1/083

  for the ignition at the zero crossing of the voltage or the current · CPC title

• H02M3/156

  with automatic control of output voltage or current, e.g. switching regulators · CPC title