A 25 MHz Fast Transient Adaptive-On/Off-Time Controlled Three-Level Buck Converter

Abstract

This work presents a 25 MHz adaptive on/off-time-controlled three-level buck converter with a fast reference tracking speed and high light load efficiency. The self-balancing scheme of the flying capacitor voltage is revised and extended for a broad conversion ratio range from 0.17 to 0.833. To reduce the error of the self-balancing scheme when applied to a high frequency three-level buck converter with an on-chip flying capacitor, a real-time calibration loop on the flying capacitor voltage is introduced, effectively reducing the balancing error from 340 mV to 20 mV. A turning-point output voltage prediction for the three-level buck converter is presented to achieve near-optimal reference tracking with a fast tracking speed and negligible output voltage undershoot or overshoot. The up- and down-tracking takes 81 ns and 72 ns, respectively, for a 1-V step with an inductor of 47 nH and an output capacitor of 47 nF. The three-level converter achieves a precise discontinuous conduction mode (DCM) operation with an adaptive switching frequency at light load by means of a feedback loop-based method. An approximately 28.2% increment in efficiency is achieved with a load of 10 mA. The three-level buck converter has a peak efficiency of 92.8% and an over 85% efficiency in most of the operation regions.