Circuits and methods for controlling efficiency of a charge-pump regulation system at low-load current
AssigneeSamsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
InventorsPiyush Agarwal, Mukul Agarwal, Marthanda Gnanendra Rao, Subodh Prakash Taigor
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Abstract
The control circuit comprises an oscillator generating one or more clock pulse trains with variable clock periods, based on one or more load currents at the output end of the charge pump. The one or more clock pulse trains generated by the oscillator are trimmed based on output from a time-to-voltage converter and a comparator providing information on low load current. Power consumption by a dynamic comparator is reduced at low load current, wherein the dynamic comparator is triggered by the one or more clock pulse trains having variable clock periods.
Claims11
A charge pump control circuit, comprising:
- a time-to-voltage converter configured to receive a charge pump clock signal, wherein the charge pump clock signal comprises a load current information;
- a comparator circuit configured to compare one or more output voltages of the time-to-voltage converter to a reference voltage of the comparator circuit;
- an encoder configured to generate one or more oscillator control signals based on a status of output signals received from the comparator circuit;
- and
- an oscillator configured to tune one or more output clock signals based on the one or more oscillator control signals.
A method comprising:
- generating a tuned clock signal by tuning an output of an oscillator using a control circuit including a time-to-voltage converter, a comparator circuit, and an encoder;
- providing the tuned clock signal to a dynamic comparator included in a charge pump regulator;
- and
- controlling a sampling rate of the dynamic comparator based on a frequency of the tuned clock signal.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.