
Applications Information (Continued)
will be low. There will also be a logic high signal at the OVP
pin that can be used to fire an external SCR. To clear this
mode, refer to the
Resetting the LM2637 section.
Linear Section — There is no over-voltage protection in the
linear controllers.
Under-Voltage Latch-Off
At the completion of soft start, the controller starts to monitor
all three output voltages. If any of the voltages goes below
about 0.63V, the controller will latch off its corresponding
section, i.e., switching or linear. The mode can be cleared by
following the procedures described in the
Resetting the
LM2637 section.
Current Limit
Switching Section — Current limit can be realized by two
methods. One method is through sensing the V
DS of the
high-side FET. The other is through a separate sense resis-
tor. The first method is cheaper and more power efficient but
less accurate. The second method is more accurate but dis-
sipates additional power and is either more expensive or re-
quires special PCB layout consideration. A side benefit of the
second method is it enables implementation of a technique
called dynamic voltage positioning, which helps save the
number of output capacitors.
The LM2637 tells in which current limit mode it is supposed
to be by detecting the CS+ pin voltage. When CS+ voltage is
1.2V below V
CC voltage, sense resistor method is assumed.
Otherwise the V
DS method is chosen. The VDS method is
based on typical r
DS_ON of the high-side FET and load cur-
rent levels.
Method 1 — High-Side FET VDS Sensing
This method detects the high-side FET drain current by
sensing its drain-source voltage when it is on. See
Figure 4.
Since the r
DS_ON of a FET is a known value, current through
the FET can be known by measuring its V
DS. The relation-
ship between the three parameters is:
(2)
To implement the current limit function, an external resistor
R
IMAX is needed. The resistor should be connected between
the drain of the high-side FET and IMAX pin. A constant cur-
rent of around 180 A is forced to flow into the IMAX pin and
causes a fixed voltage drop across the R
IMAX resistor. This
voltage drop is then compared with the V
DS of the high-side
FET and if the latter is higher, over current is assumed. The
appropriate value of R
IMAX for a pre-determined current limit
level I
LIM can be determined by the following equation:
(3)
For example, suppose that the r
DS_ON of the FET is 20 m,
and the desired current limit is 20A, then R
IMAX should be
2.2 k
.
Notice however, that the r
DS_ON of the FET has a positive
temperature coefficient and it can increase by as much as
50% when heated up. Also the distribution of the r
DS_ON can
be fairly wide, a 1.25 to 1.5 ratio is not uncommon. Consult
the MOSFET vendor for further information on the distribu-
tion of r
DS_ON.
The designer should carefully choose the value of R
IMAX so
that even under the extreme case (largest r
DS_ON and high-
est temperature) the current limit will not trigger below the
preset value.
To provide the greatest protection over the high-side FET,
cycle-by-cycle protection is implemented. The sampling of
the V
DS starts as early as 250 ns after the FET is turned on.
Whenever an over-current condition is detected, the
high-side FET is immediately turned off and the low-side
FET turned on. This status remains for the rest of the cycle.
The same procedure applies to the next switching cycle. The
blanking time of 250 ns is to avoid the switching noise that
occurs whenever the FET is turned on.
The resistor between CS pin and the switching node
(source of the high-side FET) is important for minimizing the
noise and negative voltage present at the CS pin. A resis-
tance of 100
to 300 is recommended.
Method 2 — Current Sense Resistor
This method uses a sense resistor in series with the output
inductor to detect the load current.
SeeFigure 5. The voltage
across the sense resistor is proportional to load current. In
PCB etch resistor) or the sense resistor value is optimized
for dynamic voltage positioning (see the
Dynamic Position-
ing of Load Voltage section), it may be necessary to use two
signal level resistors, R
1 and R2 to appropriately set the de-
sired current limit.
DS100848-8
FIGURE 4. Current Limit via High-Side FET V
DS
Sensing
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