ISSCC 2017 / SESSION 10 / DC-DC CONVERTERS / 10.

10.4 A Hybrid Inductor-Based Flying-Capacitor-Assisted Figure 10.4.4 left shows the current sensor proposed in this paper. Since it is
Step-Up/Step-Down DC-DC Converter with 96.56% essential to get the whole waveform of the inductor current during the period in
ACMC, as it controls the average inductor current, the conventional methods to
Efficiency sense the inductor current are not suited due to their limitations, such as well-
matched FETs, additional Op-Amp, power loss, and complicated circuitry [6]. The
Yong-Min Ju, Se-Un Shin, Yeunhee Huh, Sang-Hui Park, Jun-Suk Bang, proposed lossless current sensor itself can sense the whole inductor current with
Ki-Duk Kim, Sung-Won Choi, Ji-Hun Lee, Gyu-Hyeong Cho a simple structure. It has high accuracy as well as high speed, and the variation
on the node Vs tracking Δ iL×RDCR passes through the gate of M3 (during φon) to
KAIST, Daejeon, Korea the sensed output Vi_sen with a gain of (C1+C2)/C2 by its negative feedback loop.
The dynamic gate controller (DGC) that controls the gate of the switches, S1 and
The number of mobile device users increases every year. Each mobile device is S4, is shown in Fig. 10.4.4 bottom-right, which is improved from [7] by using a
usually equipped with a Li-ion battery having voltage that varies from a minimum simple logic and eliminating the stacked transistor. When the flying capacitor CB
of 2.7V to a maximum of 4.2V. Therefore, as the battery voltage decreases with is charged to VBAT, DGC turns off S1 if the Vx1 node voltage rises to VBAT+Vout when
time, a DC-DC converter is required for a regulated supply lower or higher than S3 is ON and turns off S4 if the Vx2 node voltage falls to -VBAT when S2 is ON.
the battery voltage. A simple buck converter is not suited for this case, since step-
up conversion is not available [1]. Instead, a noninverting buck-boost converter The converter was fabricated in a 0.18μm BCD process with a chip area of
can be a solution over the entire range of the battery voltage [1–4]. Many research 1.36×4.17mm2. The output voltage is regulated to 3.4V for the input voltage range
studies related to buck-boost converters operated on Li-ion batteries set the target from 2.7V to 4.2V with a maximum load current of 2A. In Fig. 10.4.5 left, the
output voltage at around 3.4V [3,4]. Since Li-ion batteries have a wide plateau measured waveforms show the steady-state operation for the different battery
from 3.6V to 3.8V and a small energy storage below the plateau, DC-DC converters voltages. It is shown that the converter is operating in step-down mode when VBAT
are generally operated on step-down mode at most of the battery voltage range, is 4.2V and step-up mode when VBAT is 2.7V. When VBAT is close to Vout, the switch,
as shown in Fig. 10.4.1 top. Notwithstanding, step-up conversion is also required S1, is almost always ON since the voltage difference between VBAT and Vout is small.
for extracting the energy below the plateau even if it is a small amount in the As shown in Fig. 10.4.5 bottom-left, the converter operates in either step-down
battery. Therefore, in DC-DC converters, it is critical to maintain high efficiency mode with a large duty cycle or pulse-skipping operation. The load transient
over the whole range of the battery voltage when it operates on both step-down responses are shown in Fig. 10.4.5 right for both step-down and step-up modes.
and step-up modes to prolong the battery usage effectively. However, if the As shown in the measured efficiency graph of Fig. 10.4.6 top-left, a maximum
conventional buck-boost topology of Fig. 10.4.1 bottom-left is used for step-up efficiency of 96.56% is obtained at VBAT=3.5V with ILOAD=1A and a minimum
and step-down purposes, there are always two switches (S1 and S3) conducting efficiency of 86.07% is obtained at VBAT=2.7V with ILOAD=2A. In Fig. 10.4.6 top-
in the main current path through the inductor. Thus, the switches become large right, the peak efficiencies are plotted for several cases, including both this work
in size to minimize the conduction loss. As the switching loss also increases when and other state-of-the-art works for the different input voltage levels. By virtue of
the switch size is larger, the efficiency of this structure is usually lower than that the highly efficient FCBB converter, the overall efficiency is maintained above 86%
of the simple buck (or boost) converter [1]. In this respect, this paper proposes throughout the whole range of the battery voltage. The die micrograph is shown
a topology named a flying-capacitor buck-boost (FCBB) converter suitable for in Fig. 10.4.7.
such an application by obtaining both step-up and step-down operations with
high efficiency throughout the whole range of the battery voltage. References:
[1] C. Zheng and D. Ma, "A 10MHz 92.1%-Efficiency Green-Mode Automatic
Figure 10.4.1 bottom-right shows the proposed FCBB topology consisting of four Reconfigurable Switching Converter with Adaptively Compensated Single-Bound
switches, S1–S4, and one flying capacitor CB. Figure 10.4.2 illustrates the principle Hysteresis Control," ISSCC, pp. 204-205, Feb. 2010.
of operation for the two modes of the FCBB converter. In step-down mode, only [2] P. Malcovati, et al., "A 0.18μm CMOS 91%-Efficiency 0.1-To-2A Scalable Buck-
the two switches, S1 and S2, are used, while both S3 and S4 are kept OFF all the Boost DC-DC Converter for LED Drivers," ISSCC, pp. 280-282, Feb. 2012.
way. The operation of this mode is the same as that of a simple buck converter [3] S. Rao, et al., "A 1.2A Buck-Boost LED Driver with 13% Efficiency
and self-evident. In step-up mode, the three switches, S1, S3, and S4, are used, Improvement Using Error-Averaged SenseFET-Based Current Sensing," ISSCC,
while S2 is in OFF-state, as shown in Fig. 10.4.2 bottom. The flying capacitor, CB, pp. 238-240, Feb. 2011.
is charged up to the battery voltage VBAT when the switches, S1 and S4, are ON [4] X.-E. Hong, et al., "98.1%-Efficiency Hysteretic-Current-Mode Non-Inverting
while S3 is OFF during φ2. Since Vout is larger than VBAT during φ2, the inductor Buck–Boost DC–DC Converter with Smooth Mode Transition," IEEE Trans. Power
current decreases while discharging to the load. When the switch, S3, is ON, the Electron., vol. PP, no. 99, pp. 1-1, 2016.
flying capacitor behaves like a voltage source with a high capacitance of 10μF to [5] P. Favrat, P. Deval and M. J. Declercq, "A High-Efficiency CMOS Voltage
build up the inductor current during φ1. The conversion ratio of this step-up mode Doubler," IEEE JSSC, vol. 33, no. 3, pp. 410-416, March 1998.
is the same as that of a simple boost converter, which is 1/(1-D). Combining the [6] V. Michal, "Absolute Value, 1% Linear and Lossless Current-Sensing Circuit
two modes, both step-down and step-up modes are obtained in the FCBB for the Step-Down DC-DC Converters with Integrated Power Stage," IEEE JSSC,
converter. Thereby, the main advantage is that only one switch exists in the main vol. 49, no. 5, pp. 1256-1270, May 2014.
current path for the FCBB converter, whereas two switches exist in series for the [7] M. D. Ker, et al., "Overview and Design of Mixed-Voltage I/O Buffers with Low-
conventional buck-boost converter. In addition, the two switches, S3 and S4, of Voltage Thin-Oxide CMOS Transistors," IEEE TCAS-I: Regular Papers, vol. 53, no.
the FCBB converter can be even smaller in size, since step-up mode is only used 9, pp. 1934-1945, Sept. 2006.
when there is a small amount of energy remaining in the battery. Consequently,
the FCBB converter has lower power loss than that of the conventional buck-boost
converter with a smaller chip size.

In Fig. 10.4.3, the overall structure of the FCBB converter including the controller
is presented. The body-switching (BS) technique [5] is used for the switches, S1
and S4. In the control stage, average current-mode control (ACMC) is adopted.
The integrator output VC1 is compared with a dual-ramp modulator to make two
PWM waves for the step-down and step-up modes, respectively. By these waves,
control logic decides the operation mode with the help of the dead-time controller.

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 ISSCC 2017 / February 7, 2017 / 9:45 AM

Figure 10.4.1: Proposed topology and the battery curves. Figure 10.4.2: Operating principle of the FCBB converter.
10

Figure 10.4.3: The overall structure of the FCBB converter. Figure 10.4.4: Schematics of the current sensor and DGC.

Figure 10.4.5: Measurement waveforms. Figure 10.4.6: Efficiency graph and Comparison Table.

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DIGEST OF TECHNICAL PAPERS • 185
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Figure 10.4.7: Die micrograph.

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• 2017 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference 978-1-5090-3758-2/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE