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US 6,472,856 B2Granted
Bounded power supply voltage positioning
AssigneeSemtech Corporation
InventorsTerry J. Groom, Stuart Pullen
Life of this patent
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AssigneeSemtech Corporation
InventorsTerry J. Groom, Stuart Pullen
Estimating the term…
A voltage positioning technique allows a power supply controller to more fully exploit active voltage positioning as a way of maintaining supply voltage within the limits defined for an associated electrical load. The supply voltage is allowed to “droop” as a function of load current. Droop may be implemented in linear proportion to load current, or as a discrete droop function once load current exceeds a given threshold. In either case, the droop circuitry of the supply controller implements a bounding function that establishes an accurately known maximum droop voltage magnitude. This maximum droop voltage limit establishes a reliable lower limit for the supply voltage independent of increasing load current. This accurately set lower bound for the droop voltage enables the controller to more aggressively position the supply voltage at the lower voltage limit of the load, which minimizes voltage overshoot and load power consumption.
A bounded droop voltage circuit for use with a power supply providing a regulated output voltage signal to a load, said droop voltage circuit comprising:
A power supply circuit comprising:
A method o providing voltage droop in a regulated output voltage provided by a power supply while maintaining a lower bound on said regulated output voltage, the method comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.