ABSTRACT
Over the past few years, the DC/DC switching converter technology has undergone tremendous changes. The required supply voltage for many integrated circuits and their associated electronic systems decreases from the historic 5V standard to lower than 1.5V. At the same time, the load current levels have simultaneously risen to levels that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. Some electronic systems are now requiring 2.5V at 60A, 1.8V at 60A or 1V at 100A from the power supply. In the near future, supply voltages
for some microprocessors will decrease to 0.5V and currents up to 400A are expected. A normal dynamic requirement for a DC/DC switching converter is to provide a peak output voltage in response to a load transient of 75A100A-75A at a slew rate of 100A/μs with only 60mV of deviation. At the same time, the converter should recover to within ±1.5% of its output voltage in less than 4μs. These dynamic requirements are making it very difficult to deliver high current, low voltage power from a centralized power supply. Designers are now increasingly turning to distributed power supply architectures to provide lower voltages at high currents from a DC/DC converter to power today’s complex electronics loads.
