Integrated ZVS POL synchronous buck converter for portable applications

This paper proposes an integrated, high switching frequency, zero-voltage-switching quasi-square-wave (ZVS-QSW) point of load (POL) buck converter for portable applications. The design and analysis of a fully integrated synchronous buck dc-dc converter with integrated inductor is presented. The converter has been optimized to convert 5V input voltage to 1.2V at 3A maximum load current at a 5MHz switching frequency. An adaptive dead-time control technique is used for both high-side and low-side switches. The fully integrated converter does not require any off-chip extra elements to achieve the soft switching technique. This design is the first reported for an integrated POL ZVS Synchronous Buck Converter. The converter has been simulated using an HSPICE-based simulation tool and results show about 5% system efficiency gain over an integrated hard switched synchronous buck converter at full load.