65 nm CMOS switching discontinuous‐conduction mode buck converter with 330 ns start‐up time for light‐load power‐cycled applications

Abstract

Aggressive power cycling of DC–DC converters is becoming important in many applications ranging from sensor interfaces to wireless transceivers, where the system needs to be on for only short time intervals. In this study, a switching DC–DC converter in a discontinuous-conduction mode is proposed. The DC–DC converter is well-suited for light-load applications and features a very short start-up time of 330 ns. This short start-up time makes it suitable for aggressive power cycling, since it can turn on quickly to provide the required voltage for its load. The proposed control loop allows for the short and smooth start-up behaviour of the DC–DC converter to exhibit no overshoot in the transient output voltage. Experimental results in a 65 nm CMOS show that this DC–DC converter has an efficiency of 72–80.3% for input voltages ranging from 2.4 to 3.4 V and output voltages ranging from 1 to 1.2 V. This is achieved when connected to a light load of 100 Ω, and using relatively small inductor and capacitor values of 200 nH and 40 nF, respectively.