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US 9,853,447 B2Granted
Active droop current sharing among power supply units
AssigneeDell Products L.P.
InventorsTsai-Fu Hung, Shih-Chieh Wang, Yi-Chiao Hsu, Chung-Fu Lai
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Active droop current sharing among power supply units may regulate output currents of power supply units supplying shared current to a common load. The regulation may employ a combination of droop control and active current control. The shared current may be regulated such that each power supply unit provides a substantially equal share of the total current supplied. A current difference between two power supplies may be regulated to be within a desired maximum threshold for current difference.
Claims20
A method for active droop current sharing, the method comprising:
- responsive to switching a load to a first power supply and to switching the load to a second power supply, activating droop control of a first current supplied by the first power supply and a second current supplied by the second power supply;
- detecting that the first current is stable within a tolerance over a time period and that the second current is stable within the tolerance over the time period;
- and
- responsive to detecting that the first current and the second current are stable and that a current difference between the first current and the second current is greater than a first maximum threshold, regulating the first current and the second current using active current control to reduce the current difference to correspond to the first maximum threshold.
1 more element
A power supply unit comprising:
- a first direct current (DC) power converter supplying a first current at an output voltage;
- a first mixer to generate an active current control feedback signal associated with active current control of the first current;
- a second mixer to generate a droop control feedback signal associated with droop control of the first current;
- and
- a master/slave determination unit to:
- when the first current is greater than a second current supplied by a second DC power converter, generate an external current sharing signal indicative of the first current;
- and
- when the first current is less than the second current, receive an external current sharing signal indicative of the second current,
- wherein the power supply unit is to:
- activate the droop control of the first current in response to switching a load to the power supply unit,
- detect that the first current is stable within a tolerance over a time period, and
- in response to detecting that the first current is stable, regulate the first current using the active current control to reduce a current difference between the first current and the second current to correspond to a first maximum threshold.
9 more elements
A power supply unit, comprising:
- a first direct current (DC) power converter supplying a first current to a load at a first output voltage;
- and
- a processor having access to a memory storing instructions executable by the processor to:
- activate droop control of the first current in response to switching a load to the power supply unit;
- generate an active current control feedback signal associated with active current control of the first current;
- generate a droop control feedback signal associated with droop control of the first current;
- when the first current is greater than a second current supplied by a second DC power converter, generate an external current sharing signal indicative of the first current;
- when the first current is less than the second current, receive an external current sharing signal indicative of the second current;
- detect that the first current is stable within a tolerance over a time period;
- and
- in response to detecting that the first current is stable, regulate the first current using the active current control to reduce a current difference between the first current and the second current to correspond to a maximum threshold.
8 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.