A high-efficiency PWM DC-DC buck converter with a novel DCM control under light-load

This paper presents a high-efficiency PWM DC-DC buck converter with a novel discontinuous-conduction mode (DCM) control under light-load condition. It is designed by using TSMC 1.8/3.3 V 0.18 μm CMOS technology. The proposed PWM buck converter with DCM operation not only can reach high efficiency in heavy-load (over 95% at 100 mA loading), but also has great improvement in light-load efficiency (36.14% higher than the conventional PWM converter at 10 mA loading) without using any PFM techniques. The output accuracy and the output ripples are better than PFM converters under light-load, and as good as a normal PWM converter under heavy-load. The proposed PWM converter is designed at 1.8 V supply and IV output voltage, and the maximum output power is 500 mW.