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Deadtime Control
Low Side Gate Driver (LSG)
Integrated Pulldown MOSFET
L(H) +
VO
1 *
VO
VI
s 0.6
(6)
Thermal Shutdown
Overcurrent Protection
TPS54350-EP
SGLS308 – OCTOBER 2005
As the PWM ramp voltage exceeds the error amplifier output voltage, the PWM comparator resets the latch, thus
turning off the high-side FET and turning on the low-side FET. The low-side driver remains on until the next
oscillator pulse discharges the PWM ramp.
During transient conditions, the error amplifier output can be below the PWM ramp valley voltage or above the
PWM peak voltage. If the error amplifier is high, the PWM latch is never reset and the high-side FET remains on
until the oscillator pulse signals the control logic to turn the high-side FET off and the internal low-side FET and
driver on. The device operates at its maximum duty cycle until the output voltage rises to the regulation set point,
setting VSENSE to approximately the same voltage as the internal voltage reference. If the error amplifier output
is low, the PWM latch is continually reset and the high-side FET does not turn on. The internal low-side FET and
low side driver remain on until the VSENSE voltage decreases to a range that allows the PWM comparator to
change states. The TPS54350 is capable of sinking current through the external low side FET until the output
voltage reaches the regulation set point.
The minimum on time is designed to be 180 ns. During the internal slow-start interval, the internal reference
ramps from 0 V to 0.891 V. During the initial slow-start interval, the internal reference voltage is small resulting in
a couple of skipped pulses because the minimum on time causes the actual output voltage to be slightly greater
than the preset output voltage until the internal reference ramps up.
Adaptive dead time control prevents shoot through current from flowing in the integrated high-side MOSFET and
the external low-side MOSFET during the switching transitions by actively controlling the turn on times of the
drivers. The high-side driver does not turn on until the voltage at the gate of the low-side MOSFET is below 1 V.
The low-side driver does not turn on until the voltage at the gate of the high-side MOSFET is below 1 V.
LSG is the output of the low-side gate driver. The 100-mA MOSFET driver is capable of providing gate drive for
most popular MOSFETs suitable for this application. Use the SWIFT Designer Software Tool to find the most
appropriate MOSFET for the application. Connect the LSG pin directly to the gate of the low-side MOSFET. Do
not use a gate resistor as the resulting turn-on time may be too slow.
The TPS54350 has a diode-MOSFET pair from PH to PGND. The integrated MOSFET is designed for light-load
continuous-conduction mode operation when only an external Schottky diode is used. The combination of
devices keeps the inductor current continuous under conditions where the load current drops below the inductor's
critical current. Care should be taken in the selection of inductor in applications using only a low-side Schottky
diode. Since the inductor ripple current flows through the integrated low-side MOSFET at light loads, the
inductance value should be selected to limit the peak current to less than 0.3 A during the high-side FET turn off
time. The minimum value of inductance is calculated using Equation 6:
The device uses the thermal shutdown to turn off the MOSFET drivers and controller if the junction temperature
exceeds 165
°C. The device is restarted automatically when the junction temperature decreases to 7°C below the
thermal shutdown trip point and starts up under control of the slow-start circuit.
Overcurrent protection is implemented by sensing the drain-to-source voltage across the high-side MOSFET and
compared to a voltage level which represents the overcurrent threshold limit. If the drain-to-source voltage
exceeds the overcurrent threshold limit for more than 100 ns, the ENA pin is pulled low, the high-side MOSFET
is disabled, and the internal digital slow-start is reset to 0 V. ENA is held low for approximately the time that is
calculated by the following equation:
12