A Transient-Improved Dynamic-Replica LDO Regulator with Bulk Modulation

Abstract

This paper presents a transient-improved dynamic-replica low-dropout (LDO) regulator. In the proposed LDO regulator, dynamic-replica and bulk modulation techniques are utilized to significantly improve regulation precision while maintaining good stability over a wide load capacitance range. Furthermore, differentiator-based spike coupling is used to improve the transient responses. A prototype of the proposed LDO is designed and fabricated in a standard 65-nm CMOS process. With 1.2V supply, it achieves 0.2V dropout voltage and supports a maximum of 50mA load current, while allowing for virtually any load capacitance value.