Balancing temperatures of power stages of a multi-phase switching converter

A multi-phase switching converter comprising:

• a plurality of power stages together generating a regulated supply voltage on a power rail;
• and
• a phase controller to control the operation of each of said plurality of power stages to cause generation of said regulated supply voltage,
• wherein a first power stage of said plurality of power stages comprises:
• a high-side switch and a low-side switch to respectively drive an inductor in a first interval and a second interval periodically based on a control signal received from a phase controller of said multi-phase switching converter, wherein an actual magnitude flowing through said inductor is determined by ON durations of said high-side switch and said low-side switch as set by said control signal;
• a temperature sensor to generate a temperature signal indicative of the temperature of said power stage,
• wherein said temperature has a positive correlation with said actual magnitude,
• wherein said temperature signal is coupled to be indicated on a common path which indicates to said phase controller a first temperature derived from all of the temperature signals provided by said plurality of power stages;
• a comparator to generate a comparison result of a comparison of magnitudes of said temperature signal with said first temperature,
• a current-sense block to provide information representing a first magnitude of current flowing through said inductor to said phase controller,
• wherein said phase controller determines said ON durations based on said first magnitude,
• wherein, if said comparison result indicates that said magnitudes are unequal, said current sense block reports said first magnitude to be in variance with said actual magnitude, thereby causing said phase controller to cause said temperature to tend towards said first temperature.