Novel short-circuit protection technique for DC-DC buck converters

This study presents a novel short-circuit protection technique for DC-DC buck converters. The required short-circuit operating frequency is derived in order to avoid the effect of inherent propagation delay in the controller and power transistors. In this design, the short-circuit switching frequency is approximately 31% of the normal value. Simultaneously, the peak current limit is decreased to about 40% of the normal value to lower the power dissipation when a short-circuit event occurs. Once the fault condition is removed, the converters can automatically return to normal operation smoothly by clamping the soft-start signal using the feedback voltage of the output. A buck converter with the proposed technique has been successfully simulated and verified by a 0.6-μm CDMOS technology. The simulation results show that the power loss is only 17.1% of the constant current limit during the prolonged short-circuit situation, which significantly enhances the reliability of the chip. Furthermore, the converter is able to achieve smooth self-recovery as soon as the fault status is released.