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How to get the most benefits out of WCSPs for portable electronics
Wafer chip-scale packages (WCSPs) are becoming more popular in portable electronics due to their smaller footprint, lighter weight, better electrical parameters and lower manufacturing costs. WCSPs...
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Drive a piezoelectric buzzer with a simple boost converter
A piezoelectric buzzer is a loudspeaker that uses the piezoelectric effect to generate sound. Its lightweight, simple construction and low price make it usable in many applications, such as home...
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What is a low noise inverting buck converter?
Do you need a negative voltage to power your data converter or amplifier? These types of systems usually require low noise to power such sensitive analog circuitry. While a linear regulator (LDO) is...
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FPGA power made simple: system architecture
Field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are used in applications ranging from medical devices, to wire communications, to aerospace and defense. FPGAs simplify the design process by providing a...
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How to design a simple two-phase current-sharing synchronous buck regulator...
I’m often asked, “Can you tie the outputs of two voltage-mode buck controllers together, and will the currents in each phase share evenly?” Many experienced designers know that it’s often easier to...
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FPGA power made simple: rail requirements
In the first installment of this series, I reviewed the system architecture choices for a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) power design and how to estimate the power requirements. Now that you have...
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How to ensure precision in automated processes
Precision in factory automation applications depends on many factors, such as accuracy, temperature drift, and noise. But there are two more key factors that you may have overlooked when initially...
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An introduction to the D-CAP+™ modulator and its real world performance
The D-CAP+™ control architecture is optimized for multiphase regulators. Like the standard D-CAP™ control scheme, the D-CAP+ architecture is also a constant on-time architecture, but it’s implemented...
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Improve the user experience with an LED ring
Products with good user experience can always receive positive feedback in the market. You can use audible, visual or tactile methods to improve the user experience for consumer electronics or smart...
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FPGA power made simple: sequencing
I hope you enjoyed the last blog on rail requirements. Now we move on to sequencing, another important topic in field-programmable gate array (FPGA) power design. While powering the FPGA on and off,...
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How to minimize undershoot when the pre-boost converter wakes up
The start-stop system in hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) helps reduce fuel consumption and emissions by stopping the engine during idling, but the battery voltage drops whenever the engine restarts. To...
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The D-CAP+™ Modulator: Evaluating the small-signal robustness
In a previous Power House blog post, I introduced TI’s D-CAP+ multiphase regulator control topology and covered the basics of its architecture, steady-state operation and transient performance versus a...
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“Peak current-mode control” in an LLC converter
In 1978, when Cecil Deisch worked on a push-pull converter, he faced a problem of how to balance the flux in the transformer and keep the core from walking away into saturation caused by slightly...
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Essential linear charger features
As electronic devices become smarter with more built-in features, they become more attractive but also more power-hungry, making rechargeable batteries an obvious economical choice. Charger...
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FPGA power made simple: design steps
Over the last three installments of this series, I have gone over some basic design considerations for creating a power supply for field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). Now that you have determined...
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Why a wide VIN DC/DC converter is a good fit for high-cell-count...
More and more drone applications require high-cell-count battery packs to support longer flying distances and flight times. For example, consider a 14-series lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery pack...
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ESD fundamentals, part 1: What is ESD protection?
If you’ve seen a lightning bolt or been unpleasantly shocked by a doorknob, you’ve been exposed to the phenomenon known as electrostatic discharge (ESD). ESD is the sudden flow of electricity between...
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How to use load switches and eFuses in your set-top box design
Sitting in front of a TV is easy. Changing the channel is easy. Recording four shows at once while watching one show on your TV and streaming another show to your tablet is excessive – but also easy!...
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How to design a simple constant current/constant voltage buck converter
IntroductionA DC-to-DC converter is typically implemented as a constant voltage (CV) regulator. The control loop will adjust the duty cycle in order to maintain a constant output voltage regardless of...
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Make a boost converter quieter
In order to minimize the power loss of a boost converter under light or no load conditions, designers usually use the Pulse Frequency Modulation (PFM) to lower the switching frequency and hence the...
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