Adaptive Current Source Drivers for Efficiency Optimization of High-Frequency Synchronous Buck Converters

In this paper, the concept of the adaptive current source drivers (CSDs) is proposed for the high-frequency synchronous buck converters. Compared to the previous CSD circuits, the adaptive CSD can achieve adjustable drive current and drive voltage according to different load condition. The benefit is that higher drive current and voltage lead to lower switching loss and conduction loss when the load current increases. Therefore, the adaptive CSD is able to realize optimal design to reduce the switching loss, the gate drive loss, and the conduction loss in a wide load range. It should be noted that the adaptive concept is suitable for both the continuous and discontinuous CSDs regardless the drive circuit topologies. Through investigating the CSD circuits, one simple method to achieve the adaptive drive current based on the adaptive voltage is proposed. A 12 V input, 1.3 V output, and 1-MHz synchronous buck converter with the continuous and discontinuous CSDs was built, respectively, to verify the advantages of the proposed adaptive concept and efficiency improvement.