Power supply with enhanced phase current sharing utilizing active droop control

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10498239-B2
Application number	US-201715688388-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 28, 2017
Priority date	Oct 28, 2013
Publication date	Dec 3, 2019
Grant date	Dec 3, 2019

Abstract

A system, power supplies, controller and method for enhanced phase current sharing are disclosed. For example, a power supply for enhanced phase current sharing is disclosed, which includes a plurality of power modules, a communication bus coupled to an input of each power module of the plurality power modules, and an output voltage node coupled to a first side of an inductor of each power module of the plurality of power modules, wherein each power module of the plurality of power modules includes a digital controller coupled to the input of the power module, and an RC circuit enabled to generate a feedback signal, coupled to a second side of the inductor and the output voltage node. In some implementations, the power supply is at least part of a power management integrated circuit (PMIC) or at least part of a power supply formed on a semiconductor IC, wafer, chip or die.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A power supply, comprising:
a plurality of power modules;
a communication bus coupled to an input of each power module of the plurality power modules;
an output voltage node coupled to a first side of an inductor of each power module of the plurality of power modules; and
a digital controller coupled to the input of one of the power modules, wherein the digital controller is configured to receive a feedback signal generated by a resistor-capacitor (RC) circuit, the RC circuit being coupled to a second side of the inductor and the output voltage node, and wherein the feedback signal is further generated by at least one printed circuit board (PCB) trace resistive component disposed between the inductor and the output voltage node,
wherein the digital controller is configured to implement active control of voltage droop at the output voltage node, the active control including an equation having a digital portion and an analog portion that is determined by resistance and capacitance values of components in the RC circuit.

2. The power supply of claim 1 , wherein the feedback signal is provided to a voltage sense input of the digital controller.

3. The power supply of claim 1 , wherein the feedback signal is associated with voltage droop at the output voltage node and is coupled to an input of the digital controller.

4. The power supply of claim 1 , wherein said each power module of the plurality of power modules includes a plurality of pulse width modulated (PWM) switches, and a phase node coupled to an output terminal of the plurality of PWM switches and the second side of the inductor.

5. The power supply of claim 3 , wherein the digital controller is enabled to receive the feedback signal associated with voltage droop, determine a command voltage value to compensate for command voltage mismatches associated with the voltage droop, and output a control signal associated with the command voltage value.

6. The power supply of claim 1 , wherein the digital controller is enabled to generate a control signal to align a load line of a first power module with a load line of a second power module.

7. The power supply of claim 1 , wherein a first power module of the plurality of power modules is a master module and a second power module of the plurality of power modules is a slave module.

8. The power supply of claim 1 , wherein the communication bus comprises a communication bus enabled to operate in accordance with an I2C communication protocol or SMBus communication protocol.

9. A method of operation of a power supply, comprising:
determining if the power supply is operating in a startup mode or a steady state mode;
if the power supply is operating in the startup mode, determining if a slope of a load line for a first power module of the power supply is substantially equal to a slope of a load line for a second power module of the power supply;
if the slope of the load line for the first power module is substantially equal to the slope of the load line for the second power module, generating a control voltage to align the load line of the second power module with the load line of the first power module; and
if the slope of the load line for the first power module is not substantially equal to the slope of the load line for the second power module, generating a droop resistance correction signal to align the load line of the second power module with the load line of the first power module, wherein the droop resistance correction signal comprises a digital droop resistance value that is adjusted by a fixed incremental droop resistance value.

10. The method of claim 9 , further comprising:
if the power supply is operating in the steady state mode, determining the slope of the load line for the first power module;
determining if a previous control voltage value or a previous droop resistance value was being utilized to align the load line of the second power module with the load line of the first power module;
if the previous control voltage was being utilized to align the load line of the second power module with the load line of the first power module, generating the droop resistance value utilizing the previous control voltage value; and
if the previous droop resistance value was being utilized to align the load line of the second power module with the load line of the first power module, generating the droop resistance value utilizing the previous droop resistance value.

11. A multiphase power supply, comprising:
a plurality of power modules, wherein each power module of the plurality of power modules includes:
a digital controller, wherein an input of the digital controller is coupled to a data communication line, and an output of the digital controller is coupled to a control input of at least one power transistor;
a resistive component coupled to an inductor of the power module and a common output voltage node of the multiphase power supply, wherein the resistive component comprises a printed circuit board (PCB) trace or component with a resistive value; and
a resistor-capacitor (RC) circuit coupled across the inductor and the resistive component,
wherein the digital controller is configured to implement active control of voltage droop at the common output voltage node, the active control including an equation having a digital portion and an analog portion that is determined by resistance and capacitance values of components in the RC circuit.

12. The multiphase power supply of claim 11 , wherein the RC circuit is further coupled to a voltage sensing input of the digital controller.

13. A system, comprising:
an electronic circuit; and
a multiple phase power supply coupled to the electronic circuit, wherein the multiple phase power supply comprises:
a plurality of power modules;
a communication bus coupled to an input of each power module of the plurality power modules;
an output voltage node coupled to a first side of an inductor of each power module of the plurality of power modules, wherein each power module of the plurality of power modules includes a digital controller coupled to the input of the power module, wherein the digital controller is configured to receive a feedback signal generated by a resistor-capacitor (RC) circuit, the RC circuit being coupled to a second side of the inductor and the output voltage node, and wherein the feedback signal is further generated by at least one printed circuit board (PCB) trace resistive component disposed between the inductor and the output voltage node, and wherein the digital controller is configured to implement active control of voltage droop at the output voltage node, the active control including an equation having a digital portion and an analog portion that is determined by resistance and capacitance values of components in the RC circuit.

14. The system of claim 13 , wherein the system comprises a terminal system, telecommunication system, data storage system, or data communication system.

15. The system of claim 13 , wherein the electronic circuit comprises at least one ASIC, FPGA, DSP, controller, or memory storage device.

16. A controller, comprising:
a voltage sense input enabled to receive an analog feedback signal associated with voltage droop of a power supply, wherein the analog feedback signal is generated by a resistor-capacitor (RC) circuit and by at least one printed circuit board (PCB) trace resistive component;
a current sense input enabled to receive a voltage signal associated with an output current of the power supply;
a control input enabled to receive a digital signal associated w

Assignees

• Intersil Americas LLC

Inventors

• Jiang Shuai
• Yin Jian
• Liang Zhixiang

Classifications

• H02J1/106

  for load balancing, symmetrisation, or sharing · CPC title

• H02M3/1584 Primary

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

• H02J2001/106

  Electricity · mapped topic