TY - GEN
T1 - Improving the light-load efficiency of VRMs using parallel inductors
AU - Collins, Christina
AU - Duffy, Maeve
PY - 2010
Y1 - 2010
N2 - With increasing emphasis on energy and efficiency, a major concern for Voltage Regulator Modules (VRMs) is their operation during light-loads. VRMs are usually optimized at one load level, which is in the 50 - 100% range. Therefore operating at load levels significantly lower than this produces inefficient operation, resulting in reduced battery life (in laptops) or increased electricity costs. This work proposes switching off one or more parallel inductors according to the load level, thus eliminating associated inductor core loss and significantly reducing connected MOSFET losses. Using this technique it is shown that an improvement of up to 17% in efficiency is achieved at 10% of full-load for a typical VRM solution.
AB - With increasing emphasis on energy and efficiency, a major concern for Voltage Regulator Modules (VRMs) is their operation during light-loads. VRMs are usually optimized at one load level, which is in the 50 - 100% range. Therefore operating at load levels significantly lower than this produces inefficient operation, resulting in reduced battery life (in laptops) or increased electricity costs. This work proposes switching off one or more parallel inductors according to the load level, thus eliminating associated inductor core loss and significantly reducing connected MOSFET losses. Using this technique it is shown that an improvement of up to 17% in efficiency is achieved at 10% of full-load for a typical VRM solution.
KW - DC-DC power conversion
KW - Inductor losses
KW - MOSFET losses
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/78650106688
U2 - 10.1109/ECCE.2010.5618378
DO - 10.1109/ECCE.2010.5618378
M3 - Conference Publication
AN - SCOPUS:78650106688
SN - 9781424452866
T3 - 2010 IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition, ECCE 2010 - Proceedings
SP - 3038
EP - 3043
BT - 2010 IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition, ECCE 2010 - Proceedings
T2 - 2010 2nd IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition, ECCE 2010
Y2 - 12 September 2010 through 16 September 2010
ER -