Digital low drop-out regulator
AssigneeTaiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.
InventorsEric Soenen, Alan Roth
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A low drop-out regulator circuit includes a control circuit and a switching device. The control circuit has an output node. The switching device has a first terminal coupled with the output node of the control circuit. The switching device is configured to receive an input voltage at a second terminal of the switching device and provide an output voltage at a third terminal of the switching device. The control circuit is configured to provide a digital signal at the output node of the control circuit based on a feedback voltage of the output voltage at the third terminal of the switching device.
Claims21
A low drop-out regulator circuit comprising:
- a control circuit having an output node;
- and
- a switching device having a first terminal coupled with the output node of the control circuit,
- wherein
- the switching device is a transistor;
- the switching device is configured to receive an input voltage at a second terminal of the switching device and provide an output voltage at a third terminal of the switching device;
- and
- the control circuit comprises:
- a first comparator configured to generate a first-comparator output signal based on comparing a first predetermined reference voltage and a feedback voltage, the feedback voltage being a scaled representative of the output voltage at the third terminal of the switching device;
- and
- a flip flop configured to generate a digital signal at the output node of the control circuit based on the first-comparator output signal.
A method comprising:
- generating a digital signal based on a feedback voltage, comprising:
- generating one or more comparison signals by comparing the feedback voltage against one or more corresponding predetermined reference voltages;
- and
- generating, by a flip-flop, the digital signal based on the one or more comparison signals;
- applying the digital signal to a first terminal of a transistor to cause the transistor to turn on and off based on corresponding logical values of the digital signal;
- the transistor receiving an input voltage at a second terminal of the transistor and generating an output voltage at a third terminal of the transistor;
- and
- generating the feedback voltage based on the output voltage, the feedback voltage being a scaled representative of the output voltage.
A low drop-out regulator circuit comprising:
- a control circuit having an output node;
- and
- a transistor having a first terminal coupled with the output node,
- wherein
- the transistor is configured to receive an input voltage at a second terminal of the transistor and provide an output voltage at a third terminal of the transistor;
- and
- the control circuit includes
- a first comparator configured to receive a first predetermined reference voltage at a first terminal of the first comparator and a feedback voltage at a second terminal of the first comparator, the feedback voltage being a scaled representative of the output voltage;
- and
- a flip-flop configured to receive an output signal of the first comparator and generate a flip-flop output signal at the output node of the control circuit to control the transistor.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.