Systems and methods for DC-to-DC converter control

• Main Authors: PANSERI LUIGI, STRATAKOS ANTHONY J, GARCEA GIOVANNI, BURSTEIN ANDREW, ROESSIG TREY A, JERGOVIC ILIJA, CHAKRABORTY SOMBUDDHA, XIONG YALI, BERONJA BILJANA, PIZZUTELLI ANDREA, BURMAS THEODORE V, CHOI PAUL H, MCJIMSEY MICHAEL D
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 09.12.2014
• Subjects: APPARATUS FOR CONVERSION BETWEEN AC AND AC, BETWEEN AC AND DC,OR BETWEEN DC AND DC, AND FOR USE WITH MAINS OR SIMILAR POWERSUPPLY SYSTEMS; CONTROL OR REGULATION THEREOF; CONVERSION OF DC OR AC INPUT POWER INTO SURGE OUTPUTPOWER; CONVERSION OR DISTRIBUTION OF ELECTRIC POWER; ELECTRICITY; GENERATION

A regulated, power supply system is described using multiphase DC-DC converters with dynamic fast-turnon, slow-turnoff phase shedding, early phase turn-on, and both load-voltage and drive-transistor feedback to pulsewidth modulators to provide fast response to load transients. In an embodiment, a system master can automatically determine whether all, or only some, slave phase units are fully populated. The programmable system includes fault detection with current and voltage sensing, telemetry capability, and automatic shutdown capability. In an embodiment, these are buck-type converters with or without coupled inductors, however some of the embodiments illustrated include boost configurations.