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AssigneeInfineon Technologies Austria AG
InventorsAmir Babazadeh, Robert Carroll
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A voltage converter includes a power stage, a passive circuit, a synchronous rectification (SR) switch component, and a control circuit. The passive circuit couples the power stage to an output node of the voltage converter, and is switchably coupled to ground by the SR switch component. The SR switch component includes a plurality of SR switches, which are independently controllable. The control circuit determines which of the SR switches are to be activated/enabled, and only uses those SR switches in its variable switching of the voltage converter. The determination of which SR switches are to be activated/enabled is based upon an estimate of the output current for the voltage converter. By using more SR switches when the voltage converter is fully loaded, and fewer SR switches when it is lightly loaded, the power loss of the SR switch component is minimized and the voltage converter is more power efficient.
A voltage converter, comprising:
A multi-phase voltage converter operable to input power from an input power source and output power to an output node, the multi-phase voltage converter comprising:
A method, within a voltage converter, for controlling synchronous rectification (SR) switches, the voltage converter comprising a power stage having a high-side switch coupled to an input power source and a low side switch coupled to the high-side switch at a switching node, a passive circuit coupling the switching node to an output node of the power converter, and an SR switch stage configured to switchably couple the passive circuit to ground or another reference potential, wherein the SR switch stage comprises a plurality of SR switches connected to each other in parallel wherein the parallel SR switches are independently controllable, the method comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.