Analog Devices International Unlimited Company

Analog Devices Technology

Kareem Atout

Lawrence Howard Edelson

Noel Castro Tenorio

Circuitry and techniques described herein can use a clamp circuit to provide back-drive compensation in applications where a thermoelectric cooler (TEC) device is to be controlled. A back-drive compensation circuit can be used to inhibit or prevent a linear output stage of a TEC control circuit from being forced out of its intended operating range. The clamp circuit can be implemented using a variety of circuit topologies, such as including a comparator arrangement with hysteresis. In another approach, a linear amplifier topology can provide clamping behavior, such as by injecting or sinking a current at the output node or an intermediate node to inhibit or prevent the output node or intermediate node from being driven outside a specified voltage range by an external source.

TEC controller clamp circuit

In one example, there is disclosed a hybrid analog-digital point-of-load controller (ADPOL) for use in a power supply. The ADPOL is configured to respond to transient current loads. In the presence of moderate current transients, power is clocked by a digital power core, which may be programmatically configured to adjust pulse width in response to the transient. In the presence of larger current transients, control may be passed to an analog transient compensator, which includes high-speed circuitry selecting between a very high-duty-cycle clock and a very low-duty-cycle clock, which will drive the transient back to the digital control domain.

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Kanata, Canada

Kareem Atout