A Capacitorless Multi-Voltage Domain Low Dropout Regulator with 400 mA Load Current for Embedded System Application

A capacitorless multi-voltage domain analog low dropout (LDO) regulator is presented in this paper. The low dropout regulator is designed with a 1.5 V supply voltage and tends to regulate four voltage domains between 0.8 V and 1.4 V based on user's input selection. At a heavy load, the LDO consumes only 52.88 µA of quiescent current while preserving a current efficiency of 99.98%. The proposed LDO has been designed on a 0.18-µm CMOS process with an area of 0.149 mm² and supply current capacities up to 400 mA. The line and load regulation of the proposed regulator is 1.85 mV/V and 0.0003 mV/mA for lower output voltage and 3.53 mV/V and 0.079 mV/mA at higher output voltage respectively. During the standby mode, the LDO only consumes 174.5 µW which is relatively low. The LDO is suitable for use in embedded system applications because no external component is needed for powering it up.