A Wide-range Reconfigurable Deadtime and Delay Element for Optimal-Power Conversion

Abstract

A reconfigurable dead-time circuit intended for optimum power-converters’ operation is presented. The circuit provides a programmable delay element to produce a wide range of dead-time delays for different power conversion’s applications with various loads and input voltages. The circuit utilises two tunable Schmitt triggers, two reconfigurable capacitive banks, and two adjustable-current sources. The post-layout simulation results show that the circuit can produce a wide range of dead-time delays, from 12.8 ns to 952.24 ns, between the control signals of the high and low sides of a power converter. The power consumption of the presented circuit ranges between 323.1 and 89.69 μW, pendant on the selected delay. The presented circuit is implemented in a 0.35-μm AMS CMOS technology where occupies an area of 150 μm×260 μm.