Multilevel Multistate Voltage Regulator

Description

The current invention includes a new set of voltage regulators to provide a regulated output voltage from an input voltage as well as some controlling methods and schemes for the new set of voltage regulators. The voltage regulator device includes a switched 10 capacitor circuit that takes an input voltage and is capable of providing different output voltage levels followed by a low pass filter to give a regulated output voltage. The switched capacitor circuit is configured to switch its output periodically between several different voltage levels allowing for smaller inductor sizes and smaller capacitor sizes. A method of phases interleaving is used, where the phases of different voltage levels are 15 interleaved allowing for increased effective switching frequency and reduced switching losses. A method for controlling the average voltage on the flying capacitors is provided. This method allows for regulation of output voltage by modulating the resistance of the switches using a duty cycle. A control unit is used to determine the operation region of the voltage regulator device and configure the switched capacitor circuit in each 20 operation region. The controller contains a state machine that determines the switches configuration in each phase of a complete switching cycle.AUC-106/PROV 3 In one aspect, the invention is a general structure of a voltage regulator device (DC-DC converter) that is capable of providing step-up, step-down or step-up/down conversions. The invention includes a controller for operating the voltage regulator device. The invention can be used for DC-DC power conversion both on-chip and off-chip, and used 5 to provide a regulated DC output voltage to power electronic circuits. In one embodiment, the invention is capable of providing three types of voltage conversion that include step-up, step down and step-up/down conversions.

Aspects

While normal switched capacitor voltage regulators (SCVRs) are easy integrable, they are suffering from charge sharing losses as well as fast degradation of efficiency when deviating from the target operation point. On the other hand, conventional buck converters suffer from large magnetic components that introduce challenges to integrate on chip. A voltage regulator device that has the advantages of both the SCVR and the buck converters has been proposed. Advantages: According to one embodiment, the voltage regulator features include smaller passive components, making it an integrable on-chip device that consumes less area off-chip. These aspects enable electronic devices with smaller size. In a further aspect of the invention, a high roughly-constant efficiency is provided over 20 the whole operation region with low output ripples with respect to other devices in the art. This aspect helps in saving the power consumption of the electronic device in different operation modes, such as sleep mode.

Patenting Status

Patent Granted

Status

Patented

Target Business

License Agreement

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