Evaluation of coupled inductor Voltage Regulators

Usually for a CPU Voltage Regulator (VR), there are several different coupled inductor VR setups to improve the CPU VR performance. For example, there are three different coupled inductor VR setups for a 6 phase CPU VR: 3*2 phase coupled inductor VR, 2*3 phase coupled inductor VR and 1*6 phase coupled inductor VR. Based on one industrial CPU VR demo board, the different coupled inductor VR setups are evaluated by means of the analysis and the experiments. Advantages and drawbacks of all the setups are shown. The suggested coupled inductor VR setup is given finally.