System on chip design for multiple output switching regulators

Nowadays electronics designs implies more and more elaborated solutions for power supplying circuits due to the increasing demands of designers: multiple voltages output, low EMI, increased thermal efficiency, etc. For current designs, multiple voltages output usually means multiple PWM controllers, enlarged PCB area and a complicated custom design of the power circuitry. The proposed SOC design implements a power management structure for multiple voltages output in a single chip, optimized for minimum PCB area and maximum configurability. A design example will show that the use of this design reduces PCB area with 80% for the power circuitry, increasing EMI and thermal performance and also allowing the re-use of the design for different production versions. The paper relies on previous work of authors in SOC and SMPS fields (design of a PWM SOC controller) and it brings a major contribution in implementing multiple outputs reconfigurable SMPS controllers by using common SOC programmable structures. The experimental results (for both SOC and non-SOC designs) underline the main advantages of the proposed solution and allows an objective evaluation of performances