Digital Pulse-Width Modulation Integrated Circuit Controllers

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The analysis, design, and development of CMOS-based pulse-width modulation (PWM) integrated circuits (ICs) for power management applications is proposed. This activity represents a new paradigm for the hardware controllers used in a broad range of power management applications that include off-line power supplies, industrial and telecommunication dc-dc converters, and dc-dc converters applied in desktop and portable computing equipment, and in cellular telephone handsets. Over a period encompassing the last three decades, analog PWM controllers have dominated these applications. With the advent of digital CMOS technologies, and associated design tools, it is now very feasible to supplant the analog controllers with digital IC controllers that match the former's performance in all aspects - resolution, speed of response, die size, cost - and offer further advantages. Advantages will be realized in supporting very low power modes for battery-powered portable equipment, in efficiency enhancing strategies realized by on-line tuning of adjustable parameters, and cost savings realized by reduction of discrete component count. Specifically, compensation components traditionally used in analog solutions are made obsolete with digital control technology, and through use of embedded computational power to implement state and parameter estimation methodologies, the need for hardware sensing components is also reduced. The project encompasses the study of methodologies for achieving the goals stated here. Namely, the system and control architectures needed to achieve these objectives are to be addressed, in conjunction with design considerations at the silicon hardware level. The research will focus on examples, taken from a number of representative applications.