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I² average current mode control for switching converters

Conference Paper · March 2013

DOI: 10.1109/APEC.2013.6520214

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 I2 Average Current Mode Control
for Switching Converters
Yingyi Yan, Fred C. Lee, Paolo Mattavelli, Pei-Hsin Liu
Center for Power Electronics Systems
The Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, VA 24061 USA
Email: yingyi@vt.edu

Abstract ²The constant frequency average current mode LED driver [7], battery charger [8], Power factor
control is a widely used control scheme for the converters correction(PFC) [9] and other applications [10].
requiring precise current control, but its transient response is Average current mode control improves the current
relatively slow, while the switching loss and driving loss accuracy but it has two major limitations. First, the
significantly diminish the light load efficiency. To solve these transient response of average current mode control is
issues, the I2 control average current mode is proposed. By usually slower than that of other current mode controls, e.g.
combining the fast direct current feedback and integral peak current mode control. During the step change of vc,
feedback, the I2 control achieves both wide bandwidth and inductor current iL needs several switching cycle to track
accurate current control. As a particular embodiment of this the reference vc. Second, just like other constant frequency
concept, by adopting constant on-time modulation, constant PWM control, the light load efficiency of average current
on-time I2 control needs no artificial ramp, and has fast mode controlled converters dramatically drops due to the
dynamic response. Moreover, due to the decrease of switching loss and driving loss.
switching frequency, constant on-time I2 control improves the The goal of this paper is to propose a new
efficiency in discontinuous-conduction-mode. The concept of
architecture of current mode control, i.e. I2 current mode
control, to solve the issues of peak current mode control
I2 control can be extended to other modulations. Small signal
and average current mode control. This rest of this paper is
model using describing function based equivalent circuit
organized as follows. Section II reviews the peak current
model is proposed. The model is accurate up to 1/2 switching
mode control and conventional average current mode
frequency. Based on model, the design guidelines are
control. The limitations of them are identified. Several
discussed. The proposed control is verified with simulation
existing methods of improving average current mode are
and hardware measurement results. review and the pros and cons of them are discussed. In
I. INTRODUCTION section III, the I2 average current mode control is proposed.
The small signal equivalent circuit model and design
Generally, current mode controls simplify the guidelines of the proposed I2 average current mode control
feedback design and improve dynamic performance [1][2]. are presented in section IV. The section V shows the
Thus, current mode control schemes have been widely simulation and experimental verifications in both time
used in commercial controllers of switching converters. domain and frequency domain to demonstrate the
Peak current mode control is one of the most effectiveness of the proposed control. The section VI is the
commonly used current mode control schemes. The direct summary of the paper.
current feedback without low pass filter enables a wide
bandwidth current control. However, without integration, II. REVIEW OF PEAK CURRENT MODE CONTROL
peak current mode control can not accurately control AND AVERAGE CURRENT MODE CONTROL
inductor current. Besides, for the converter operating in Figure 1 shows a peak current mode (PCM) controlled
wide range of input/output voltage, the excessive external Buck converter. As the direct current feedback does not
ramp diminishes the bandwidth of current control and provide high feedback gain at low frequencies, peak
further limits the outer loop bandwidth. The discussion on current mode control can not accurately regulate the
small signal analysis is presented in section II of this paper. inductor current [11]. Figure 2 shows the current loop gain
To achieve accurate current control, average current and control-to-iL transfer function of peak current mode
mode control is widely used in power converters. Many control. It is shown that current loop gain at low
commercial IC adopt average current mode control for frequencies is only round 0dB even without external ramp.
different applications, including multiphase Voltage To damp the double pole peaking at half of switching
Regulator (VR) [3][4], Point-of-Load converter [5][6], frequency, external ramp is added to the current loop. It
further reduces the current loop gain to below 0dB. As a

978-1-4673-4355-8/13/$31.00 ©2013 IEEE 229

result, control-to-iL transfer function is obviously bended pole actually diminishes stability margin of current loop
at low frequency. It means that inductor current does not and impairs dynamic response. Based on this knowledge,
exactly follow the current command vc. This phenomenon [17] suggests a proportional-integral compensation for the
is called ³ripple offset´ in DC sense. current loop. The capacitor Cp in Figure 4 can be eliminated,
Another limitation of peak current mode control is as shown in Figure 5. Reference [17] provided a small signal
the over-compensation issue. For the converter operating model and a design guideline for average current mode
in wide range of input/output voltage, to guarantee the control with proportional-integral compensation. Referring
stability of current loop at all the operating points, the to [17], the zero of Rz and Cz should be well below 1/2 fsw.
external ramp compensation has to be designed based on Following this design, the ripple slopes at vcom, i.e. snc and
the worst case. As a result, the double pole is over damped sfc, are the amplified version of current slopes sn and sf.
for the case operating at smaller duty cycle. Figure 3 shows Similar to peak current mode control, for a certain
an example of a Buck converter with 0.8>D>0.2. operating point, external ramp se should be designed to
Guaranteeing 45° phase margin for all the operating points damp the quality factor Q of double poles at 1/2 fsw to a
and keeping the quality factor of double pole at half of desirable value, for example, Q§1.
switching frequency no larger than 1, the outer loop T2
bandwidth is limited to (1/10)Âfsw.

Figure 1. Peak current mode controlled Buck converter

Figure 3. Overcompensation limits the control bandwidth of PCM

However, it is difficult to get perfect design of se
because the slopes snc and sfc vary for several reasons. First,
for most of the applications using ACM operate with wide
duty cycle range, e.g. battery charger and Power-Factor-
Correction applications. Different input and output voltage
combinations vary the current slope in a wide range.
Second, the inductor and current sensing components have
the tolerance between 80%-150% due to the manufacture
tolerance and temperature variation. Third, the limited
bandwidth of practical operation amplifier can cause slope
distortion at vcom. This distortion leads to a higher quality
factor Q or even sub-harmonic instability. Figure 6 shows
the impact of the bandwidth of operation amplifier on the
control-to-iL transfer function. In the simulation, the
Figure 2. Current loop gain and control-to-iL transfer function of Peak switching frequency is 300kHz. As the operating duty
current mode controlled Buck converter cycle is 0.13, if the current slope is perfectly amplified by
Average current mode control is an effective control an ideal operation amplifier, the double pole at half of
method to provide accurate current control. Figure 4 shows switching frequency does not have peaking effect.
an average current mode (ACM) controlled Buck However, a practical operation amplifier with 10MHz
converter. The compensator is an integrator with one low bandwidth distorts the ripple slope and result in the
frequency zero and a high frequency pole. It is well known peaking effect. If the bandwidth is as low as 3.5MHz, the
that average current mode control may have sub-harmonic current loop becomes unstable. To stabilize the current
instability, like any other constant frequency current mode loop and suppress the peaking effect, certain external ramp
controls. Reference [22] proved that the high frequency se has to be applied to PWM comparator. As a result,

230
 control-to-iL transfer function exhibits much more phase
delay at frequencies above 1/10 of switching frequency.

Figure 7. Current command step response of average current mode

control
Figure 4. Average current mode controlled Buck converter with Type II In order to improve the dynamic response, some
current compensator literatures proposed various method in [12][13][14].
Reference [12] used hysteretic current mode control to
achieve average current control, by controlling both the
peak current and valley current. As the direct current
feedback is never overwhelmed by external ramp, current
control bandwidth is high [13][16] and also enable a high
bandwidth voltage loop. However, hysteretic current mode
control can only control average current in continuous-
conduction-mode (CCM), but does not work in
discontinuous-conduction-mode (DCM). Besides, the
switching frequency in CCM of this control is dependent
on the actual value of the inductance. It brings difficulty in
Figure 5. ACM controlled Buck converter with proportional-integral current filter design and synchronization. In order to make the
compensator
switching frequency independent on inductor, [13]
In practice, the analog controller ICs are usually
improved this control scheme by adding a frequency
designed to compatible a wide selection range of inductor
regulation loop to change the width of hysteretic band, but
and current sensing gain. Considering these limitations, for
average current is still not controlled in DCM although it
simplicity of the controller, most of the commercial
adds this complexity. Reference [14] modified
average current mode control ICs apply a fixed large
conventional average current mode control structure to get
artificial ramp to guarantee the stability of the converter
better transient response. The current compensator is
under all the operating condition, different inductance and
bypassed by a nonlinear loop during step transient of
current sensing gain value. As a penalty, the dynamic
current command. However, the control circuit becomes
performance suffers from over compensation. Figure 7
more complicated, and the light load efficiency issue is
shows the slow current command step response of an
still unsolved due to the constant frequency operation.
average current mode controlled Buck converter.
III. PROPOSED I2 AVERAGE CURRENT MODE
CONTROL
To improve the transient response and light load
efficiency of ACM, I2 current mode control is proposed in
this paper. The general representation of I2 control is
illustrated in Figure 8. It consists of two current loops and a
voltage loop. Inductor current is fed back twice: one is a
fast direct feedback without low pass filter and the other is
slow integral feedback. The integrator integrates the error
between control signal vc and inductor current iL and the
output of the integrator is compared with the direct
feedback current signal to generate the PWM signal.
Voltage loop is the outer loop for voltage regulation. As
the current information is used twice in control loop,
following the name V2 control [18] [21], the proposed
control is named as I2 control. In general, this concept is
applicable to constant frequency modulations and variable
frequency modulations.
Figure 6. The impact of bandwidth of operation amplifier on ACM controlled
Buck converter

231
 Figure 8. Concept of proposed I2 average current mode control Figure 10. Steady state operation and Transient Response of I2 control in
CCM

Figure 9. Proposed Constant On-time I2 average current mode control

As a particular embodiment of this concept, constant
on-time I2 average current mode control shows the
additional advantage on light load efficiency improvement.
2
Figure 9 shows a constant on-time I controlled Buck
converter. Small signal equivalent circuit model and
design guideline are presented in section IV. Figure 11. Steady state operation of I2 control in DCM
In the particular embodiment using constant on-time
modulation, at the beginning of the switching cycle, the IV. SMALL SIGNAL MODEL AND DESIGN
top switch turns on for a fix on-time. After the on-time, the GUIDELINE
inductor current ramps down. The next cycle is triggered Inductor current direct feedback loop does not have a
by the intersection of inductor current and signal vci, which low pass filter, so all the sideband frequency components
integrates the error between average current command vc (fsw-fm, fsw+fm, etc.) are fed back to the modulator. The
and sensed inductor current. The integration provides an function of the integral current feedback is to eliminate the
offset between vc and vci to eliminate low frequency low frequency control error, so it is a low bandwidth
control error. The integration loop is low bandwidth so feedback. As a result, sideband frequency components in
that the high frequency components are strongly attenuated. this loop are so weak that they are negligible. Also, since
During transient, the fast change of vc pass to vci as the Cin the output voltage go through the power stage low pass
voltage does not have abrupt change. The proposed control filter and compensator low pass filter, the outer loop can
can achieve fast and accurate current control, without be easily modeled transfer function of the compensator.
external ramp required. In CCM, the switching frequency Figure 12 shows the waveforms of the current loop under
of I2 control is independent on the inductor value. Figure 10 sine perturbation. It is clear that only the inductor current
shows the simulation waveform of current command vc proportional feedback contains lots of high frequency
step transient response in CCM. components while vc and vci are dominant by modulation
When average current is below half of the inductor frequency component. According to the analysis above, it
current ripple, the circuit operates in discontinuous- is reasonable to consider all the sideband frequency
conduction-mode (DCM). In DCM, the synchronized feedback effect in direct current feedback loop, but only
rectifier is turned off when inductor current reverses to consider fundamental frequency in integral current
minimize efficiency loss due to reverse current flow and feedback and voltage loop. Figure 13 illustrates the
gate charge switching. At low load currents, vci will drop frequency components of significance in small signal
below the zero current level. Both switches will remain off modeling process.
with the output capacitor supplying the load current until
the vci rises above the zero current level to initiate another
cycle. In this mode, frequency is proportional to load
current at light loads. Figure 11 shows the steady state
waveforms of I2 current mode control in DCM.

232
 Zp ( Re || RL )Co (2)
To eliminate the low frequency control error, the goal
of current compensator is to boost low frequency gain
below Ȧp. Designing the cross over frequency of
integration loop Tii(s) above Ȧp and well below 1/2 fsw,
control-to-iL transfer function is (3). With both current
loop closed, inductor current is well control from DC to Ȧ1
which is beyond 1/2 fsw. Figure 15 shows the effect of
integral feedback loop on the control-to-iL transfer
function.
Figure 12. The key waveforms in current loop under sine perturbation
iL ( s ) 1 1
vc ( s ) Ri 1  s /(Q1Z1 )  s 2 / Z1 2
(3)
For a Buck converter, the control to output transfer
function is:
vo ( s ) RL RCo Co s  1 1
vc ( s ) Ri RL Co s  1 1  s /(Q1Z1 )  s 2 / Z1 2
(4)

Figure 13. The frequency components of significance in modeling process

Inductor current direct feedback loop is a highly

nonlinear entity. Three-terminal switch equivalent circuit
model [19] based on the result of describing function Figure 14. Small signal equivalent circuit model of I2 controlled Buck
converter
derivation accurately predicts the small signal properties of
this nonlinear entity up to 1/2 fsw. Substituting the closed The current compensator only deals with the low
current loop and the PWM switch by the three-terminal frequency information so that the Operation Amplifier
equivalent circuit model, the equivalent circuit model of I2 does not need a high product gain-bandwidth. Figure 16
control is shown in Figure 14. The model is applicable to shows the comparison of control-to-iL transfer functions of
both variable frequency modulations and constant I2 average current mode control, implementing the current
compensator by different operation amplifier. The curve of
frequency modulations 䫭䇃ʽ᳾ᡒࠄᓩ⫼⑤DŽ. Solving
ideal operation amplifier overlaps with the curve of a low-
the equivalent circuit, iL(s)/vci(s) is:
end 1MHz gain-bandwidth operation amplifier. The
iL ( s ) 1 Re 1  RLCo s 1 compensator can be implemented by low-bandwidth
vci ( s) Ri Re  RL 1  ( Re || RL )Co s s s2 operation amplifier to save the cost and improve light load
1  efficiency without performance sacrifice. This is another
Q1Z1 Z12 advantage of I2 control over the conventional average
where Re Ls , S , 2 (1) current mode control.
Z Q1
Ton / 2 1 Ton S V. CONCEPT EXTENSIONS
As shown in Figure 15, the high frequency vci to iL gain The proposed concept can be extended to other
is determined by Ri. The high frequency double pole is modulations, including variable frequency constant off-
beyond 1/2 fsw , while the quality factor is always positive. time I2 control, as well as constant frequency trailing-edge-
The direct feedback loop is inherently stable for all modulated peak current I2 control and leading-edge-
operating point, so no ramp is needed. modulated valley current I2 control. Figure 17 shows the
There are a low frequency pole and a low frequency system diagram of trailing-edge-modulated peak current I2
zero in transfer function iL(s)/vci(s). The pole is always at a control.
higher frequency than the zero. Beyond the pole, the gain Compared with constant on-time modulation, constant
of iL(s)/vci(s) is purely determined by current sensing gain frequency peak current I2 control is easier to achieve
Ri. The position of the pole is: synchronization and multi-phase interleaving.

233
 Figure 17. Constant frequency trailing-edge-modulated peak current I2
control

VI. SIMULATION AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

compares the control-to-iL transfer function
Figure 18
based on the proposed small signal model with SIMPLIS
simulation results. The model is accurate up to 1/2
switching frequency. In the simulations, switching
frequency fsw Ĭ300kHz, Vin=12V, Vo=1.2V, Ls=300nH,
Co=4.48mF, RL=0.1ȍ and current sensing gain Ri=10mȍ.

Figure 15. The design of integral current loop T ii

Figure 18. Control-to-iL transfer function of I2 control in continuous-

conduction-mode
Experiment is done on a Buck converter prototype. In
the experiment, switching frequency fsw Ĭ 400kHz,
Vin=12V, Vo=1.2V, Ls=2.2nH, Co=47ȝF, RL=0.3ȍ and
current sensing gain Ri=0.28ȍ. Figure 19 shows the
waveforms of current controller in steady state. Figure 20
shows the current command step transient response. It is
Figure 16. The control to iL transfer functions using ideal amplifier and
clear that current loop response is very fast. The average
limited bandwidth amplifier inductor current follows the step change of current
command vc in one switching cycle. Figure 21 and Figure 22
shows the comparison of control-to-iL transfer function

234
and control-to-output transfer function. The equivalent compensator only handle the low frequency information,
circuit model predicts the measurement result up to half of the compensator can be implemented by low gain-
switching frequency. bandwidth operation amplifier to save the cost without
performance sacrifice. The switching frequency is
determined by fixed on-time and is not a function of
inductance value. The concept of I2 control can be
extended to other modulations. Small signal equivalent
circuit model is proposed, which is accurate up to 1/2
switching frequency. Based on model, the design
guidelines are discussed. The proposed control is verified
with simulation and hardware measurement results.

Figure 19. The waveforms of current controller in steady state of

proposed I2 control

Figure 21. Comparison of control-to-iL transfer function of I2 control

Figure 20. The current command step transient response of proposed I 2

control

VII. SUMMARY
The constant frequency average current mode control
is a widely used control scheme for the converters
requiring precise current control, but its transient response
is relatively slow, while the switching loss and driving loss
significantly diminish the light load efficiency. To resolve
these issues, in this paper, the I2 control average current
mode is proposed. By combining the fast direct current
feedback and integral feedback, the I2 control achieves
both high bandwidth and accurate current control. As a
particular embodiment of this concept, by adopting
constant on-time modulation, constant on-time I2 control
needs no artificial ramp, and has fast dynamic response.
Moreover, due to the decrease of switching frequency,
constant on-time I2 control improves the efficiency in
discontinuous-conduction-mode. As the current Figure 22. Comparison of control-to-vo transfer function of I2 control

235
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