Wide-bandwidth digital multi-phase controller

In this paper we present a new approach to wide-bandwidth digital control for interleaved multi-phase converters. The approach is based on the view of the multi-phase converter as a multi-level power D/A converter where the output voltage is sampled and the command is updated at the rate of Nf
s
where f
s
is the per-phase switching frequency and N is the number of phases. In contrast to alternative approaches where the bandwidth is limited to a fraction of f
s
we show that a bandwidth that scales with Nf
s
is achievable. A zero-error-bin approach, which is inherent to the digital controller implementation, is proposed to address the effects of phase-mismatches and sub-harmonic ripples on the stability of the wide-bandwidth controller. Simulation and experimental results are shown for a 16-phase synchronous buck converter operating at 1.56 MHz per-phase switching frequency.