The disclosure relates to power supply circuits and, more specifically, to techniques for managing current ripple in power supply circuits.
Circuits that are driven by direct current (DC) power supplies, such as light emitting diode (LED) driver circuits and other types of circuits, may include regulator circuitry for voltage regulation and/or current regulation. The supplied DC power may be subject to undesirable power supply ripple, e.g., current ripple or voltage ripple. The regulator circuitry, in addition to maintaining the current and/or voltage within a limited range, may also help reject, attenuate, or filter the power supply ripple.
In general, the disclosure describes regulator circuitry configured to manage power supply ripple using an adaptive loop gain that offers ripple rejection performance related to the ripple magnitude for a negative closed loop of the regulator circuitry. Similar to other regulator circuitry, the power supply regulator circuitry of this disclosure may include an error amplifier in the closed loop to keep output power at or near the desired power level. For example, the error amplifier may output a difference between the sensed output voltage. Vsense, and a reference voltage, Vref, and the closed loop may operate to minimize the error, e.g., the difference between Vsense and Vref.
In addition, the regulator circuitry of this disclosure includes the adaptive loop gain circuitry which removes a DC component of the sensed output and feeds the sensed output, including the output ripple, to peak detector circuitry to obtain a Vpeak signal. The Vpeak signal output from the peak detector circuitry is a continuous signal that tracks the wave peak. In some examples, the peak detector circuitry may also amplify the signal. The circuit arrangement multiplies the output of the error amplifier by the signal Vpeak. To avoid control signal with zero value during times that the peak-to-peak value of the sensed voltage, Vsense, may be close to zero, the circuit also adds the output of the error amplifier to the multiplied signal.
In one example, this disclosure describes a circuit comprising a peak detector circuit configured to receive a sensed signal, rectify the sensed signal and emit a continuous signal, Vpeak, wherein Vpeak is proportional to the peak of the rectified sensed signal; an error amplifier with a first input element, a second input element and an output element, wherein the first input terminal is configured to receive the sensed signal; and an output terminal configured to receive the output of the error amplifier added to the product of Vpeak multiplied by the output of the error amplifier.
In another example, this disclosure describes a method comprising receiving, by closed loop regulation circuitry, a sensed signal; rectifying, by an adaptive loop circuit of the closed loop regulation circuitry, the sensed signal; detecting the peak of the rectified sensed signal; emitting a continuous signal, Vpeak, wherein Vpeak is proportional to the peak of the rectified sensed signal; comparing, by an error amplifier of the adaptive loop circuit, the sensed signal to a reference voltage; multiplying, by the adaptive loop circuit, an output of the error amplifier by Vpeak, wherein the output of the error amplifier is a result of comparing the sensed signal to the reference voltage; adding, by the adaptive loop circuit, the output of the error amplifier to the product of Vpeak multiplied by the output of the error amplifier; using, by the closed loop regulation circuitry, the sum of the output of the error amplifier and the product of Vpeak multiplied by the output of the error amplifier to control a voltage ripple of the sensed signal.
In another example, this disclosure describes a device comprising a peak detector circuit configured to receive a sensed signal, rectify the sensed signal and emit a continuous signal, Vpeak, wherein Vpeak is proportional to the peak of the rectified sensed signal; an error amplifier with a first input element, a second input element and an output element, wherein the first input terminal is configured to receive the sensed signal; and an output terminal configured to receive the output of the error amplifier added to the product of Vpeak multiplied by the output of the amplifier.
The details of one or more examples of the disclosure are set forth in the accompanying drawings and the description below. Other features, objects, and advantages of the disclosure will be apparent from the description and drawings, and from the claims.
The disclosure describes regulator circuitry configured to manage power supply ripple using an adaptive loop gain that offers ripple rejection performance related to the ripple magnitude for a negative closed loop of the regulator circuitry. The regulator circuitry of this disclosure may apply electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) robustness to linear current regulators. Some applications for the circuitry of this disclosure may include driver circuits, including driver circuits for light emitting diodes, LEDs.
The regulator circuitry of this disclosure may include an error amplifier in the closed loop and adaptive loop gain circuitry. The adaptive loop gain circuit may remove a direct current (DC) component of the sensed output and feed the sensed output, including the output ripple, to peak detector circuitry to obtain a Vpeak signal. In some examples, the Vpeak signal output from the peak detector circuitry is a continuous signal that tracks the wave peak. The circuit arrangement multiplies the output of the error amplifier by the signal Vpeak resulting in improved power supply ripple rejection as the ripple amplitude increases.
Adaptive loop circuitry 125, in the example of
System 100 further includes error amplifier 108 connected to adaptive loop circuitry 125. In some examples, error amplifier 108 may be considered as a component of adaptive loop circuitry 125. Error amplifier 108 includes a non-inverting input connected to Vref 120. An inverting second input element for error amplifier 108 may connect to plant 102, and receive sensed signal, Vsense 128.
Adaptive loop circuitry 125 also includes an output terminal 132 configured to receive the output 134 of error amplifier 108. Output 134 is also added to the product of Vpeak 130 multiplied by output 134 of error amplifier 108. Output 132 connects to terminal P3 of plant 102.
In some examples, supply voltage Vs 104 connects to ground 124 and to diode string 103. The supply voltage may have a voltage ripple, modeled by Vripple 106, which connects between Vs 104 and diode string 103. In the example of system 100, diode string 103 includes three diodes, D1, D2 and D3 connected in series. In other examples, diode string 103 may include any number of diodes, and in some examples may include more than one string of series connected diodes, with each string connected in parallel (not shown in
Diode string 103 connects to terminal P1 of plant 102. Plant 102 may receive a current, e.g., Isense 126 from diode string 103. Terminal P2 of plant 102 connects to ground 124 through Rsense 122. Plant 102 may comprise a three-port block that acts as the channel of the regulator circuit of system 100. P1 is the input of the channel, P2 the output and P3 the control input. The negative loop of the regulator reduces the output ripple.
The sense voltage, Vsense 128 is the voltage across Rsense 122. Peak detector 110 also receives Vsense 128. In some examples, the reference voltage Vref 120 is subtracted from Vsense 128.
In operation, the circuitry in system 100 may limit the current ripple, e.g., from Vripple 106, delivered by the LED drivers derived from the variation of the supply line, Vs 104. The architecture forms a negative loop such that error amplifier 108 minimizes the error, and the LED current is set according to
where the value of Rsense 122 may be a resistor that is defined by the designer and based on the application for the circuit.
The arrangement of adaptive loop circuitry 125, implements an adaptive loop gain so that as the power supply rejection is improved, the circuitry of system 100 may further reduce the ripple of the load current, e.g., Isense 126. The presented architecture depicted in
Power supply rejection can be measured by the power supply rejection ratio (PSRR) under ac analysis. The inverse or reciprocal of PSRR may be represented in Equation 1:
The output from terminal P2, Vsense 128, which may include a ripple, is fed to peak detector 110, which outputs Vpeak 130. In some examples, peak detector 110 may include circuitry with a half wave rectifier. In some examples the DC component may be removed from Vsense 128, e.g., by subtracting Vref 120. As noted above, Vpeak 130 may be a continuous signal proportional to the peak of the rectified sensed signal, Vsense 128. Vpeak 130 contains no small signal information, thus may be regarded as a variable, K. Since the DC component for Vpeak 130 is proportional to the Vsensepeak which is the peak amplitude of Vsense, then the K variable is also proportional described in Equation 2.
The output 134 of error amplifier 108 is multiplied by 114 with the Vpeak 130, which may be written as A·(Vref−Vsense)·K. In order to avoid a control signal at terminal 132 with a zero value, e.g., in the example where Vsensepeak is close to zero, the output of the error amplifier 108 is also added at 116 to the multiplied signal from 114. The control signal Vcontrol 132 after small signal analysis is described in Equation 3.
where A is the gain of error amplifier 108. Vcontrol 132 may also be written as Equation 4.
The closed loop gain of the regulator may be represented in Equation 5.
Where Gp2p3 is defined as the small signal gain between P2 and P3 ports in open for the loop configuration. The reciprocal quantity of the PSRR,
for the closed loop system, is described in Equation 6 where Gp2p1 is the gain of P2 and P1 ports in open loop configuration.
The above description and equations show that the variable K is proportional to the ripple of Vsense 128. As the ripple in Vsense 128 increases the PSRR-1 is proportionally reduced and so the power supply rejection performance is improved.
For
In the example of
For
Adaptive loop circuitry 325, supply voltage 304, ripple 306, Rsense 322 and error amplifier 308 are examples of adaptive loop circuitry 125, supply voltage 104, ripple 106, Rsense 122 and error amplifier 108 described above in relation to
In some examples, the peak detector circuit, e.g., peak detector 310, receives a signal from 312 comprising the difference of reference voltage, Vref 320 subtracted from sensed signal, Vsense 328, e.g., from the output terminal P2 of plant 302. Output terminal 332 of adaptive loop circuitry 325 receives the output of error amplifier 308 added by 316 to the product of Vpeak 330 and multiplied by the output of error amplifier 308 at 314. The plant circuit, e.g., plant 302, includes input terminal P3 connected to output terminal 332 of adaptive loop circuitry 325.
System 300 may represent an example use case that may be analyzed for adaptive loop gain based ripple improvement architecture of this disclosure. Plant 302, as with the plant circuits of
The example of
As shown in
As described above in relation to
Adaptive loop circuit 325 of the closed loop regulation circuitry, may rectify the sensed signal. Vsense 328 (92). In system 300, peak detector 310 includes rectification circuitry, e.g., a diode, configured to rectify the received sensed signal. Peak detector 310 may also include circuitry configured to detect the peak of the rectified sensed signal. As described above in relation to
Error amplifier 308 of the adaptive loop circuit receives Vref 320 at the non-inverting input and Vsense 328 at the inverting input in the example of
As described above in relation to
The disclosure may also be understood by referring to the following clauses.
Clause 1: A circuit comprising a peak detector circuit configured to receive a sensed signal, rectify the sensed signal and emit a continuous signal, Vpeak, wherein Vpeak is proportional to the peak of the rectified sensed signal; an error amplifier with a first input element, a second input element and an output element, wherein the first input terminal is configured to receive the sensed signal; and an output terminal configured to receive the output of the error amplifier added to the product of Vpeak multiplied by the output of the error amplifier.
Clause 2: The circuit of clause 1, wherein the second input of the error amplifier is configured to receive a reference voltage.
Clause 3: The circuit of any of clauses 1 and 2, wherein the peak detector circuit is further configured to receive a signal comprising the difference of a reference voltage subtracted from the sensed signal.
Clause 4: The circuit of any of clauses 1 through 3, wherein the peak detector circuit is configured to amplify Vpeak.
Clause 5: The circuit of any of clauses 1 through 4, wherein the peak detector circuit comprises a diode and an RC filter.
Clause 6: The circuit of any of clauses 1 through 5 further comprising a sense resistor, wherein the sensed signal is a voltage across the sense resistor.
Clause 7: The circuit of any of clauses 1 through 6, further comprising a plant circuit, wherein the plant circuit comprises an output terminal configured to output the sensed signal, and wherein the plant circuit comprises an input terminal configured to connect to the output terminal of the adaptive loop circuitry.
Clause 8: The circuit of clause 7, wherein the circuit is configured to control a power supply ripple for a light emitting diode (LED) circuit.
Clause 9: The circuit of clause 8, wherein the input terminal for the plant circuit is a first input terminal, the plant circuit further comprising a second input terminal, and wherein the second input terminal is configured to connect to the LED circuit.
Clause 10: The circuit of any of clauses 7 through 9, wherein the plant circuit comprises an offload resistor.
Clause 11: A method comprising receiving, by closed loop regulation circuitry, a sensed signal; rectifying, by an adaptive loop circuit of the closed loop regulation circuitry, the sensed signal; detecting the peak of the rectified sensed signal; emitting a continuous signal, Vpeak, wherein Vpeak is proportional to the peak of the rectified sensed signal; comparing, by an error amplifier of the adaptive loop circuit, the sensed signal to a reference voltage; multiplying, by the adaptive loop circuit, an output of the error amplifier by Vpeak, wherein the output of the error amplifier is a result of comparing the sensed signal to the reference voltage; adding, by the adaptive loop circuit, the output of the error amplifier to the product of Vpeak multiplied by the output of the error amplifier; using, by the closed loop regulation circuitry, the sum of the output of the error amplifier and the product of Vpeak multiplied by the output of the error amplifier to control a voltage ripple of the sensed signal.
Clause 12: The method of clause 11, further comprising, subtracting the reference voltage from sensed signal before rectifying the sensed signal.
Clause 13: The method of any of clauses 11 and 12, further comprising amplifying Vpeak before emitting Vpeak.
Clause 14: The method of any of clauses 11 through 13, wherein the adaptive loop circuit comprises a diode and an RC filter.
Clause 15: The method of any of clauses 11 through 14, wherein the closed loop regulation circuitry comprises a sense resistor, and wherein the sensed signal is a voltage across the sense resistor.
Clause 16: The method of any of clauses 11 through 15, further comprising, controlling a power supply ripple for a light emitting diode (LED) circuit.
Clause 17: The method of clause 16, wherein the closed loop regulation circuitry further comprises a plant circuit, the method further comprising outputting, by the plant circuit the sensed signal; and receiving, by the plant circuit, the sum of the output of the error amplifier and the product of Vpeak multiplied by the output of the error amplifier from the adaptive loop circuit.
Clause 18: The method of clause 17, further comprising, receiving, by the plant circuit, an electrical current from the LED circuit.
Clause 19: The method of any of clauses 17 and 18, wherein the plant circuit comprises an offload resistor.
Clause 20: A device comprising a peak detector circuit configured to receive a sensed signal, rectify the sensed signal and emit a continuous signal, Vpeak, wherein Vpeak is proportional to the peak of the rectified sensed signal; an error amplifier with a first input element, a second input element and an output element, wherein the first input terminal is configured to receive the sensed signal; and an output terminal configured to receive the output of the error amplifier added to the product of Vpeak multiplied by the output of the amplifier.
Various examples of the disclosure have been described. These and other examples are within the scope of the following claims.