A 200-MHz Integrated Buck Converter With Resonant Gate Drivers for an RF Power Amplifier

Author

Bathily, Malal ; Allard, Bruno ; Hasbani, Frédéric

Author_Institution

INSA Lyon, Univ. of Lyon, Lyon, France

Volume

27

Issue

2

fYear

2012

Firstpage

610

Lastpage

613

Abstract

High switching frequency dc-dc converters are present in many applications where wide regulation bandwidth and high efficiency are needed. A resonant gate driver is presented for improvement of efficiency at light-to-medium load conditions. Gate power losses that are a main contributor to total losses are reduced thanks to energy recovery. A testchip designed in 0.25- BiCMOS shows as much as a 30% decrease in power losses compared to a conventional driver at 200-MHz switching frequency. The proposed resonant gate driver is fully integrated with its inductor unlike earlier works. The limitation in the reduction of gate losses is detailed and confirmed experimentally.

Keywords

BiCMOS analogue integrated circuits; DC-DC power convertors; driver circuits; power amplifiers; BiCMOS; RF power amplifier; energy recovery; frequency 200 MHz; gate power loss; high switching frequency DC-DC converters; integrated buck converter; light-to-medium load conditions; resonant gate drivers; size 0.25 mum; BiCMOS integrated circuits; Driver circuits; Inductors; Logic gates; Switched-mode power supply; Switching frequency; Transistors; Buck converter; dc–dc converter; energy recycling; resonant gate driver; switched-mode power supply (SMPS);

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Power Electronics, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0885-8993

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TPEL.2011.2119380

Filename

5720320