A current-mode buck DC-DC controller with adaptive on-time control

A current-mode buck DC-DC controller based on adaptive on-time (AOT) control is presented. The on-time is obtained by the techniques of input feedforward and output feedback, and the adaptive control is achieved by a sample-hold and time-ahead circuit. The AOT current-mode control scheme not only obtains excellent transient response speed, but also achieves the independence of loop stability on output capacitor ESR. In addition, the AOT current-mode control does not have subharmonic oscillation phenomenon seen in fixed frequency peak current-mode control, so there is no need of the slope compensation circuit. The auto-skip pulse frequency modulation (PFM) mode improves the conversion efficiency of light load effectively. The controller has been fabricated with UMC 0.6-μm BCD process successfully and the detailed experimental results are shown.