Voltage regulator with inductor banks
AssigneeVolterra Semiconductor Corporation
InventorAaron M. Schultz
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A voltage regulator coupled to an unregulated DC input voltage source by an input terminal, and to a load by an output terminal is disclosed. The voltage regulator converts an input voltage at the input terminal to an output voltage at the output terminal. The voltage regulator includes one or more slaves, and each slave includes a switching circuit which serves as a power switch for alternately coupling and decoupling the input terminal to an intermediate node. The voltage regulator also includes a filter coupled to the slaves, the filter including one or more inductor banks each of which having a predetermined number of inductors.
Claims21
A method comprising:
- generating a control signal based on an output voltage at an output terminal;
- controlling a plurality of slaves to generate a plurality of outputs at a plurality of intermediate terminals, each slave of the plurality of slaves having an intermediate terminal from the plurality of intermediate terminals, including controlling, based on the control signal, a switching circuit for coupling the intermediate terminal to an input terminal;
- transmitting the plurality of outputs to respective inputs of a plurality of inductors, the plurality of inductors having a first inductor bank with two or more inductors that are phase-coupled to each other and a second inductor bank with two or more inductors that are phase-coupled to each other independently of the two or more inductors in the first inductor bank;
- and
- combining current outputs of the first inductor bank and the second inductor bank with the first inductor bank and the second inductor bank inductively decoupled.
A method comprising:
- generating a control signal based on an output voltage at an output terminal;
- controlling a plurality of slaves to generate a plurality of outputs at a plurality of intermediate terminals, each slave of the plurality of slaves having an intermediate terminal from the plurality of intermediate terminals, including controlling, based on the control signal, a switching circuit for coupling the intermediate terminal to an input terminal;
- transmitting the plurality of outputs to respective inputs of a plurality of inductors, the plurality of inductors having a first inductor bank with two or more inductors wound around a first core and a second inductor bank with two or more inductors wound around a second, different core;
- and
- transmitting outputs of the first inductor bank and the second inductor bank directly to the output terminal without passing through another inductor.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.