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OUTPUT CAPACITOR SELECTION
INPUT CAPACITOR SELECTION
CHECKING LOOP STABILITY
SLVS678 – JUNE 2008 ...................................................................................................................................................................................................... www.ti.com
The advanced fast-response voltage mode control scheme of the TPS6260x allows the use of tiny ceramic
capacitors. Ceramic capacitors with low ESR values have the lowest output voltage ripple and are
recommended. The output capacitor requires either an X7R or X5R dielectric. Y5V and Z5U dielectric capacitors,
aside from their wide variation in capacitance over temperature, become resistive at high frequencies.
At nominal load current, the device operates in PWM mode and the overall output voltage ripple is the sum of the
voltage step caused by the output capacitor ESL and the ripple current flowing through the output capacitor
impedance.
At light loads, the device operates in power-save mode and the output voltage ripple is independent of the output
capacitor value. The output voltage ripple is set by the internal comparator thresholds and propagation delays.
The typical output voltage ripple is 1.5% of the nominal output voltage VO.
Because of the nature of the buck converter having a pulsating input current, a low ESR input capacitor is
required to prevent large voltage transients that can cause misbehavior of the device or interferences with other
circuits in the system. For most applications, a 2.2-
F capacitor is sufficient.
Take care when using only ceramic input capacitors. When a ceramic capacitor is used at the input and the
power is being supplied through long wires, such as from a wall adapter, a load step at the output can induce
ringing at the VIN pin. This ringing can couple to the output and be mistaken as loop instability or could even
damage the part. Additional "bulk" capacitance (electrolytic or tantalum) should in this circumstance be placed
between CI and the power source lead to reduce ringing than can occur between the inductance of the power
source leads and CI.
The first step of circuit and stability evaluation is to look from a steady-state perspective at the following signals:
Switching node, SW
Inductor current, I
L
Output ripple voltage, V
O(AC)
These are the basic signals that need to be measured when evaluating a switching converter. When the
switching waveform shows large duty cycle jitter or the output voltage or inductor current shows oscillations, the
regulation loop may be unstable. This is often a result of board layout and/or L-C combination.
As a next step in the evaluation of the regulation loop, the load transient response is tested. The time between
the application of the load transient and the turn on of the P-channel MOSFET, the output capacitor must supply
all of the current required by the load. VO immediately shifts by an amount equal to ΔI(LOAD) x ESR, where ESR
is the effective series resistance of CO. ΔI(LOAD) begins to charge or discharge CO generating a feedback error
signal used by the regulator to return VO to its steady-state value. The results are most easily interpreted when
the device operates in PWM mode.
During this recovery time, VO can be monitored for settling time, overshoot or ringing that helps judge the
converter’s stability. Without any ringing, the loop has usually more than 45° of phase margin.
Because the damping factor of the circuitry is directly related to several resistive parameters (e.g., MOSFET
rDS(on)) that are temperature dependant, the loop stability analysis has to be done over the input voltage range,
load current range, and temperature range.
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