Effects of Quantization on Digital Buck Converter Switch Mode Power Supply

Abstract

The development of power supplies has evolved from using linear or series regulator to switch mode power supplies (SMPS). Nowadays, SMPS have employed the use of digital controllers such as microcontrollers and digital signal processors (DSP’s) to provide compensation, housekeeping, fan control, communication, etc. The main advantages of using a digital controller are: insensitivity to environment and component tolerances, repeatability, predictability, flexibility and size reduction of power supply units (PSUs). These are very much appealing to the designer’s viewpoint; however, these come with disadvantages such as limitation in bandwidth due to sampling rate, peripheral’s speed and high prototyping cost. In this paper, we observe one of the existing problems revolving around the use of digital controllers in SMPS, i.e. quantization.